A Husband To Remember. Lisa JacksonЧитать онлайн книгу.
beating crazily, her smile wide and happy as the love of her life slipped this smooth ring over her finger. Because it didn’t happen!
“I don’t remem—”
“You will,” he told her, his gaze steady as he stared down at her.
She shook her head, mesmerized as she scrutinized the ring. Her head began to throb again. “I should remember this, Trent,” she said, her frustration mounting. “A wedding. No matter how simple. It’s not something anyone forgets.”
“Give it time.”
Give it time. Don’t rush things. It will all come back to you. But when? She felt as if she were going crazy and her patience snapped. “I’m sick of giving it time! Damn it, Trent, I want to remember. And not bits and pieces. I want the rest of my life back, and I want it back now!”
“I’d give it to you if I could.” Plowing his hands through his hair in frustration, he spied her wallet. “Here.” He tossed it into her hands. “Maybe this will help.”
“Maybe,” she said, though she didn’t believe it for a minute. Sending up a silent prayer, she opened the fat leather case and sifted through her credit cards and pieces of ID. Nothing seemed to pierce through the armor of her past, and she was about to give up in futility when she saw the first picture.
“Dad,” she whispered, her heart turning over as she recognized a photograph of a distinguished-looking man with a steel-gray mustache and jowly chin. For a second she remembered him in a velvet red suit and long white beard, tiny glasses perched on the end of his nose, as he dressed up as Santa Claus each year for his company party.... The memory faded and she tried vainly to call it up again.
“Hey...take it easy.” Suddenly Trent sat on the edge of the bed, his warm hand on her forehead. “It’ll come.”
If only she could believe it. “So everyone says. Everyone who can remember who they are.”
“It’s been less than a week since you woke from the coma.”
His harsh features seemed incredibly kind, and she felt hot tears fill her throat. She fought the urge to break down and cry because she couldn’t trust him—even his kindness might be an act. There were other pictures in her wallet, some old and faded, none that she recognized, until she saw the family portrait, taken years ago, before her parents had split up. Her father still had black hair back then; her mother, a thin woman with a thrusting jaw, was a blonde. Her older sisters—why couldn’t she remember their names?—looked about fourteen and twelve, and Nikki was no more than eight, her teeth much too large for her mouth.
“Janet,” Trent said, pointing to the oldest girl with the dark hair. “Carole.” The middle sister with braces. “Your mom’s name is Eloise. She and your dad—”
“Were divorced. I know,” she said, saddened that she couldn’t recall her mother’s voice or smile, couldn’t even remember a fight with her sisters. Had they shared a room? Had they ever been close? Why, even staring at pictures of her family, did she feel so incredibly alone? If only she could sew together the patchwork of her life, bring back those odd-shaped pieces of her memory.
“Look, why don’t you try calling your dad?” Trent suggested, though his eyes still held a wary spark. “He’s still in Seattle and you always have been pretty close to him. Maybe hearing his voice will help.” He snapped up the address book, opened it to the C’s and scanned the page. “It’s still early in Seattle, so you might catch him at home.”
He picked up the receiver and started dialing before she could protest.
“Have you talked with him?” she asked.
“No.”
“You didn’t call and tell him about the accident?”
“I figured he’d take the news better from you. I’ve never met him. As far as I know, he doesn’t even know we’re married, and since your life wasn’t in danger, I didn’t see a reason to worry him.”
“And my mother—”
He held up a hand. “¿La telefonista? Quiero llamar Seattle en los Estados Unidos. Comuníqueme, por favor, con el número de Ted Carrothers...” He rattled off her father’s number in Spanish, answered a few more questions, then, frowning slightly, handed her the receiver.
Nikki’s heart was thudding, her fingers sweaty around the phone. “Come on, Dad,” she whispered as the phone began to ring on the continent far away. She was about to give up when a groggy male voice answered.
“Carrothers here.”
“Dad?” Nikki said, her voice husky. Tears pressed hot behind her eyelids, and relief flooded through her. She felt like she might break down and sob.
“Hey, Nik, I wondered if I’d hear from you.”
“Oh, Dad.” She couldn’t keep her voice from cracking.
“Is something wrong, honey?”
“No, no, I’m fine,” she assured him, shooting Trent a grateful glance. “But I did have an accident....” She told him everything she could remember or had been told of her trip, leaving out her amnesia so that her father wouldn’t worry. As she talked, bringing up the fact that Trent McKenzie had been the man who had rescued her, she let her gaze follow Trent, who, whether to give her some privacy or to get some air, left her and walked onto the veranda. The wind had kicked up, lifting his dark hair from his face and billowing his jacket away from his lean body.
“Nikki! You could have been killed!” her father exclaimed, all sounds of sleep gone from his voice.
“But I wasn’t.”
“Thank God. I knew going to Salvaje was a bad idea. I tried to warn you not to go.”
“You did?”
“Don’t you remember? I thought that was why you hadn’t called, because you were still angry with me for trying to talk you out of the trip.”
Now wasn’t the time to mention her loss of memory. “Well, things worked out. And I got married to Trent.”
“You what?” He swore under his breath. “But I’ve never heard you mention him. Nikki, is this some kind of joke? You could give me a heart attack—”
“It’s no joke, Dad. I’m really married.” At least, that’s what everyone tells me. She heard his swift intake of breath. “It...it was a quick decision,” she said, giving him the same spotty information she’d gleaned from Trent.
“To a guy named Trent McKenzie. A man I’ve never even heard of?” Here it comes—the lecture, she thought. “Holy Mary! I can’t believe it. What about Dave?”
“Dave?” A lock clicked open her mind.
“Dave Neumann. You know, the man you’ve been dating for about three years. I know you two had a spat and that you said it was over, but hell, Nikki, that was barely six months ago. Now you’ve gone and eloped with this...this stranger?” Anger, disapproval and astonishment radiated over the phone. “I know you’ve always been impulsive, but I gotta tell you, this takes the cake!”
“You’ll meet him as soon as we get home,” Nikki assured her father, though her stomach was tying itself into painful little knots.
“I’d damned well better. You know, Nikki, for the first eighteen years of your life I got you out of scrape after scrape—either with the law or school or your friends or whatever—but ever since you turned into an adult, you’ve been on this independence kick and nothing I tell you seems to sink in. I warned you not to go to Salvaje, didn’t I? I knew that it would be trouble. Maybe if you’d told me you were going on your honeymoon, or at the very least confided that you’d found a man you were going to marry, things would have turned out differently and you wouldn’t have ended up in some run-down, two-bit hospital!”
She