Chapter Seventeen

GRAY storm clouds accompanied Jonah’s arrival in Punta Cana, nearly obscuring the hint of color on the horizon. This time of year, morning rain showers were common, and they suited Jonah’s mood just fine.

He walked through the fenced yard toward the front door of the clapboard house. Several chickens pecked at the ground, having finished their breakfast but wanting more.

For nearly two years, he’d helped Lorene care for the birds and retrieved the eggs from their ramshackle coop. A simple chore he’d enjoyed.

He pushed the memory from his mind and knocked on the front door. The sound of footsteps on a wooden floor preceded the creak of the door as it opened.

“Jonah?” Lorene looked the same, with her smooth brown skin, kind eyes, and salt-and-pepper hair that trailed over her shoulders in dreads. “You look terrible. Come in, come in.”

He forced a smile, then followed her inside. “Sorry to bother you,” he said.

“You’re never a bother.” She waved him to the plump beige couch in the living room. “Sit. I’ll make some tea.”

“Thank you.” He glanced around the small home. Neat and clean as always, it looked exactly as it had the last time he’d visited. Which was the same as it had been the day she’d taken him in ten years before. He allowed himself to sink into the cushions, and the next thing he knew, he was startled awake by the sound of china clinking on the stone coffee table.

“You can sleep,” she said.

He shook his head. He didn’t want to dream. He didn’t want to remember anything more.

She handed him a steaming cup, and he took it greedily, inhaling the sweet and familiar aroma. “Hibiscus,” he said.

“Your favorite. I added a little honey, just the way you like it.”

“Thank you.” He blew to cool the liquid. Steam rose in tendrils, and he didn’t have to drink it for the tea to do its work. The aroma alone relived the tension in his body, calmed his mind. He took a few sips and smiled at the touch of sweetness.

“Better now?” Lorene eyed him cautiously, the lines of her forehead deepening with obvious concern. He hated that look.

“Yes.”

“Liar.” She smiled and sipped her own tea.

Her smile was the first thing he remembered. She’d found him on the beach, sunburned, his mouth full of sand. He must have fallen off the boat when it sank in the storm.

“Could be.” He smiled in spite of himself, then sipped again.

“I was worried about you,” she said and took a seat on the couch facing him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call. The week was….”

“I figured as much.”

He took another, longer sip.

“You’ve remembered your past.” She waited. She was infinitely patient. She could have asked him if he remembered who he was, but she didn’t. She’d always told him it didn’t matter who he thought he was. He was always himself. He was pretty sure he didn’t like the person he’d been.

He nodded and watched the vapor rise from the mug, snake its way upward, and disappear. “I think so.”

“You think so?”

“I don’t remember everything. Just enough.”

“You’re scared.” Lorene could always read his thoughts. At first it had bothered him, but he’d gotten used to it in the years he’d lived in her attic apartment. And he’d realized he was at least as good at reading others as she was.

He thought of Adam, back at the resort. Jonah had been an asshole to leave him alone after they’d made love. But he didn’t want Adam to see him lose it. Besides, when Adam realized he wasn’t really Jonah, he’d be a hell of a lot angrier. “I’m a shit.”

She laughed, her myriad wrinkles shifting and changing in the dim light. “Drink your tea.”

“You really don’t care what I’ve done?” He loved that about her, how she lived in the present. Maybe that was why he’d never lost touch with her. Why he called her every week. Every week except this past week.

“I know you, Jonah,” she said. “That’s enough.”

“But—”

“Did you kill anyone?” Her smile belied her words.

“No. At least I don’t think so. I haven’t remembered everything yet.”

“There. You see?” She leaned back and crossed her arms.

“Everything is so simple to you.”

“You going to tell me what happened to bring the memories back?” she asked.

“Why do you think—?”

“You don’t suddenly remember things from ten years ago without a reason. Something happened. I can see it in your face.”

He pressed his lips together to strangle a sigh. “I met someone,” he said after a long silence. “A man.”

“And?”

“I really care about him.” More than that, probably, but he wasn’t going there. Not now.

“Good. And why isn’t he here?”

“What?”

“Did you expect I’d care that you’d fallen for a man?”

His turn to laugh. “No.” They’d never spoken of it, but he was sure she knew he was gay. He knew she didn’t care, and that was good enough.

“So why isn’t he here?”

Because he’d despise me. Because he’d hate me for what my company is doing to his family. Because who’d believe such a cockamamie story about having amnesia?

“Well?” She tapped her foot and tilted her head to one side.

“I… I don’t know.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. He really didn’t know what to do about Adam. “We’ve only known each other about a week.” Hardly enough time to really know someone. Instalove wasn’t a word in his lexicon.

“I knew my husband a day before I decided to marry him.” She said this triumphantly, unapologetically. She did everything like that, and he admired her for it. She was strong but always kind.

“I’m not like you.”

“You’re full of it, you know.”

This time he didn’t repress the sigh. He savored it. It felt good not to keep things bottled up, even if he’d only let a tiny piece of the bullshit go.

“What will you do?”

“Has anyone ever told you that you ask a shit-ton of questions?” he growled.

“You should mind your manners around an old woman,” she chastised. “Besides, you didn’t come here because you wanted me to agree with everything you say. Did you now?”

He dry-scrubbed his face and started to laugh. Really laugh. He tried to stop, but he couldn’t. The entire thing was so fucking ridiculous, how could he not laugh? He couldn’t even start to tell her the entire truth without cracking up. What would he say? “I’m worth more than the GDP of a small country”? It was so cliché it was utterly absurd. Or maybe “I didn’t care about anything but making money”? Or was it that he hadn’t cared for anyone but himself?

Suddenly it didn’t seem funny anymore. Too many questions and too few answers.

Jonah rubbed his eyes only to find them wet with tears. He couldn’t remember ever crying, and in the span of the past twenty-four hours, he’d cried more than once.

He thought of Adam. Of what Adam would think of him. That he was the bully who threatened Adam’s family. The bully who was using Adam’s brother against him. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t had anything to do with wanting to buy Adam’s company; it was still his company doing this. The same sort of crap he’d dished out for years when he’d run it himself. When he’d been Jackson Roth. One of the richest men in the world.

Oh God.

He couldn’t call Adam. But he could make things right.

Lorene stood and squeezed his shoulder. “You’ll figure it out. I know you will.”

“You haven’t asked me who I am,” he said, his voice cracking.

“I’ve known you for ten years now, Jonah. I don’t need to know who you were. When you’re ready, if you need to, you’ll tell me.”

“Thank you.” He wiped the rest of his tears and marveled at how he didn’t care that she’d seen him cry when before he’d hidden his tears from her.

“You aren’t alone.” She opened her arms, and he didn’t hesitate. He leaned in, allowing her to wrap him in her warmth and unconditional love. He wondered if he’d felt this way with his own mother when he’d been a child. He hoped he had.

“I don’t want to remember,” he said as he rested his head on her shoulder. “I don’t want to lose myself.”

SUNLIGHT streamed in the window, waking Jonah from a deep sleep. It took a moment for him to remember where he was: Lorene’s house. He wished he could stay here forever.

“Sleep well?” Lorene smiled down at him.

“Yes.” He sat up. Without the tie, his hair fell into his eyes. He ran a hand through it to comb it back, then retrieved the errant elastic from the couch and secured a ponytail.

“You can stay as long as you like,” she said.

A very tempting offer. But he’d already remembered too much to go back to that safe haven. The memories were now a flood, and if he didn’t face his past, he’d drown.

He got to his feet and kissed her cheek. “I don’t deserve you. But thanks.”

She shook her head but didn’t challenge him.

“May I use your phone?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll pay you back for the cost.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I’ll pay you back.” For everything.

“No need.” She handed him her cell phone and left him alone.

His hand shook as he contemplated the phone. You can do this. He took a deep breath and dialed the number from memory.

The line stuttered, then rang. He’d almost hoped the number had been disconnected. But that would make things so much more complicated.

Simple. It’s simple. Just tell him the truth.

“Hello?”

Jonah parted his lips to speak, but the words seemed frozen somewhere between his brain and his mouth.

“Hello?”

Say something, dammit!

“This is a private number. If you think this is funny, think again. I’ll make sure this number’s traced and—”

“Phil?”

For a moment there was silence on the other end. Silence that stretched like the future, unknown, before him. Then…

“Jackie? Is that you?”