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“Careful, Mac.” The warning in Nick’s voice held a promise; I could tell Paige’s brother sensed it too.

“I’ll let you off with a warning.” But Nick was already starting the truck.

“I’m not finished—” We drove off like that, leaving him standing there.

The truck remained quiet for a while.

“That was interesting,” I said, capitalizing on dead air, working to refuel the weakened energy in the truck.

“He’s an interesting kid,” Nick confirmed.

“It’s only fair that he doesn’t like me,” I began to say, thinking that taking ownership would lessen the burden Nick must’ve felt. “It’s nobody’s fault. You can’t fault him for wanting to stick up for his sister. He’s just trying to be a good brother, even if he was being a prick. If I had a brother, I’d want him to stick up for me like that. It’s what brothers are supposed to do. They’re supposed to be protective. Especially when they come across the enemy. He has every right to hate me. I’m the evil,
other
girl, and for all the reasons he has to think I’m—”

I stopped, aghast with a sudden suck of breath as water splashed on my face and shirt, prickling my eyeballs and drenching my arm.

“Sorry about that,” I barely registered him say as my brain sought to place blame for the water that came through the open window and was now dripping down my face.

He’d driven too close to sprinklers.

To Nick’s amusement, I was still panting from the shock of it. To my shock, he was amused.

“You did that on purpose,” I realized, yelling, suddenly deciding to yank on the side of his shirt to wipe my face.

I looked over his shoulder to see an expressionless face, and it took all my willpower not to break out in laughter. Only Nick could find sprinklers in the middle of November.

“Rude!” I pressed my face to his shoulder to wipe more wet on him.

“Should I have told you to shut-up instead?”

I mumbled through a restrained chuckle, “At least then I wouldn’t need a towel.”

When I dried off, the conversation continued, him asking questions about my family and me answering as honestly as possible, enjoying opening up about a not so enjoyable past. I talked fondly of my stepbrother Max (briefly mulling over the coincidence that Paige’s brother was also a “Max”), telling Nick that I’d have to reconnect with him and his mother somehow, online or by sending a letter. I wondered if he still played the trumpet. After all the passed time, I was worried about not recognizing him.

I told Nick the short version of my mom’s sickness, and then an even shorter version of Bill’s lovely life, the same guy he’d talked to all those years ago after I’d disappeared. I also mentioned my real father, whose last name was mine and who apparently lived somewhere in St. Louis.

Nick listened quietly, sharing his feelings through the subtlest changes in expression.

Soon we were headed up a steep, rocky canyon. Mercifully, Nick rolled the windows up this time, shielding us from the mucky terrain and mud puddles. The road grew so rugged that when I pulled the visor down to get a fuzzy out of my eye, my forehead hit the visor.

“Is this where I start to hold on?” I laughed.

“Not yet; around the corner. But I don’t suggest you start putting make-up on right now.”

Is that what Paige did in his visor mirror? I was nothing like her. “For your information, I have something in my eye, thanks to,” I cleared my throat. “you!” And then I gave him a mock smile.

That got a small rise from him. “Hold on,” he instructed as we turned a sharp corner. I gripped the handle in front of me.

“Here we go!” I hollered as the engine roared. It was a mistake to turn my face to the road. Jagged boulders stared me down, spiking up the steepest, rockiest hill I’d ever seen.

“We’re not really going up that—” My voice cut out, too wobbly from the bumps to finish. Nick responded with a wicked smile. While looking sideways; my head hit the dash with the unexpected rock that lodged under his side of the vehicle, almost rolling us over. I laughed heartily, my neck jarring up and back.

Holy earthquake, I was bouncing everywhere. And holding to the handle in front only pulled me from the safety of my seat.

I squealed in delight, yelling at the top of my lungs, “I’m going to die!”

The truck slowed, taking the next bump at a pace that didn’t jerk me off my seat.

Nick’s hand was holding to a big strap above his window that read “grab handle”. Together our heads turned to my window, where no such strap existed. “When I bought this,” he explained, “I didn’t expect to have company.”

“Is this why your jeep is always muddy?” We gradually turned another corner, this time treading over a rock on my side, tipping me into him. “Because you try to kill yourself every morning?” My hands latched to his shoulder, steadying me.

“Faithfully,” he said as he started to laugh. “You look like you’re about to pee your pants.”

“That happened a few minutes ago.”

What a rush
, I thought as we arrived at our destination in safety and went to climb out. No wonder he bought a jeep; it was the perfect adventure. Scarier than any outdoor activity I’d ever done, but not scary at all with him there.

He sat atop the hood of the truck and I stood, lightly leaning against the protruding bumper.

“I like to come up here to think,” Nick said. “This is the first time I’ve taken anybody up here with me.”

“Really?” Meaning,
You wanted to take me? I don’t know what to say
. And then “The view’s amazing.” Meaning,
You’re amazing, to have a place like this all to yourself, and then to share it with me
.

“What was it like being in a coma?” The question took me by surprise.

“I guess it was like being asleep,” I said after considering his question. “I dreamt a lot. And the dreams were weird because they were my memories coming back to the surface. I guess my brain was rebelling against the amnesia, trying to remember my life.”

“It doesn’t surprise me that you were rebellious even while you slept.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that would surprise anyone who knows me,” I commented sheepishly. His eyes met mine and he grinned.

“I think the hardest part is not remembering what I was like before. I keep wondering if my personality has changed. Or if what I remember about myself is accurate.”

My whole thought process skewed when I looked over and saw his masculine body relaxed peacefully against the black monster, arms hugging over his face as if shading his sleeping eyes from the sun. Strange, as I stared at him, all of my problems suddenly lost their weight. And all my sweet imaginations and sublime daydreams melted away at the solid reality of him next to me, listening to me. At that moment I wanted to give him whatever he wanted.

“When I saw you for the first time,” he said with a muffled voice, “you were standing by the door to History class. I’ll never forget that day; after all the time that’s passed, the picture is still in my head. You were biting your bottom lip, like you weren’t too sure if you wanted to come in or not. I figured you were a new freshmen from a small town with the typical cold feet, and I almost looked away.

“But something about the energy in your expression kept my attention. It was like you were cheering yourself on, like you’d been waiting for that moment your whole life, and every part of your body was telling you it was time to jump. And then I remember watching you step into class. You got this big smile on your face. I’d never seen someone’s face light up the way yours did, and for no good reason. I remember at that moment wanting nothing more than to take that cute little stranger in my arms and protect her from all her fears.”

When he finished, he lifted one hand to rub over his forehead, but his eyes remained closed.

“I remember that day too,” I said. “I don’t remember everything, but I remember you. Doc says that some of the feelings I remember might be a little different than how I felt in real life, because in my dreams I was reliving the memories. But when I first saw you in my dreams, the sparks were flying like crazy.”

His arms lifted and our eyes met. “And how is that any different from how it really was?”

I bit back a smile, loving the way he teased.

“You know what’s weird? My grandma—well, she’s not really my grandma, she was the manager at the library where I worked in high school, but I always considered her family—anyway, she paid all my medical expenses when I was in my coma. But I just found out that she died a year before I woke up. I have no idea who paid a year’s worth of my medical bills.”

“You should ask Doctor Adams. He would know.”

“That’s a good idea. I think I will. You know what else? When I think about the coma, one of the things I hate most is feeling so helpless. Not being able to do things for myself, like how my nurse had to rub my arms and legs every day, and not paying my own medical bills. I don’t think there’s anything worse than having to rely on other people.”

“Everyone has to rely on others to a certain extent. Life would suck if we didn’t need each other sometimes.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” I paused for a breather. “Sorry I’m talking so much.”

“I like listening to you talk.”

“I think I’m nervous.”

That’s when he pulled up from the truck to stand, leaning his backside against the bumper. “Why? It’s me.”

“Because it’s you.”

“Come here,” he said, tugging the end of my shirt lightly and then guiding me by my waist into the crook of his legs. My hands held his sides, reminiscent of the past. He was solid as a rock—that was something that hadn’t changed. I was holding him in an intimate spot, and yet nothing near the way his hands slowly began brushing through my hair. They didn’t stop there, they moved to my face. His fingers caressed my cheek, and then ran along my jaw line in a little lazy wave. Then his knuckle went to my lips.

I tried to repress a smile, but it surfaced.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing’s funny. I just feel like smiling.”

His lips curled into a small grin. Taking my shoulders, he faced me away from him so that I overlooked the valley.

“Tell me what you see,” he petitioned.

“What?” I laughed. “What do you mean? You can see the same thing I do.”

With his hands still on my shoulders, I was slowly guided back and my body leaned into his lap. “Pretend like I’m blind and describe to me what you see.”

“Why?”

He tickled my cheek with a piece of my hair. “It’s a game,” he responded.

“A game?” I teased back, feeling relaxed in his embrace. I leaned in further.

His arms went around me and his head came close to mine. “Play with me.”

I cleared my throat, mostly to try and focus on something other than the warm breath on my neck and the wicked appeal that came with it. “Okay. Let’s see,” I said, making my voice as normal as possible. “Well, we missed the sunset so I can’t describe that to you. And it’s getting dark. Um, there’s really no color except for the blue sky and the brown ground. Did I just lose?”

“Not yet. But you can do better than that,” he murmured, so close to my ear that I trembled. “I’ve been up here so many times, I forget how beautiful it really is.” Deftly, he placed both of my hands in one of his and soothed me with a light, tender kiss to my neck. “Tell me,” he mumbled in my hair.

“Um, okay. I, uh…” His mouth felt too fabulous on my skin to thinks straight.

When he swept my hair back, continuing to brush his lips across my neck, up toward the start of the hideous-looking scar, I instinctively froze and raised my hand to pull my hair down. But he prevented me.

I shied away as much as his embrace would allow. “No, Nick—”

But his hands tightened, urging me to stay. “Let me,” he appealed, gradually working me closer. His lips moved on my skin as he spoke, “Tell me what else you see.”

“I, uh…” How could I think of anything at the moment? Every inch of my skin tingled, every nerve sang, and still, I was mortified. “I…can see…fields…” His fingers were approaching my scar. The ugly, raised skin, both red and ragged. I wanted to shrink away, hide in the darkness, run from the humiliation. “Please, I don’t want you to. I can’t—”

“Yes, you can,” he whispered.

I cringed when his fingers lightly traced the path of the swollen line of skin, his lips following, warm and gentle, thorough in their examination, pressing softly against the wounds, loving them away, affectionately, reverently, almost worshipful. And right then, I knew…I could. I could let go, let go of every fear and insecurity and reserve, and trust this man completely. At least I would exercise that trust. Experiment on giving myself up to him.
To appreciate and cherish loved ones now, before they’re gone
….

I surrendered, my body relaxed to him, opened to him, reveling in more than the sweet sensation of his lips on my skin. I gave him my secrets, my hidden places, allowing him to know me again, all of me. And at that moment, all of the serenity from every ocean shoreline, from every flowered hillside, from every peach sunset was mine.