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“Nothing,” she said, recovering almost as fast. “This is great.”
“That’s not what your face said a second ago,” he argued. “Come on. I’m a big boy. Tell me what’s wrong with the sandwich.”
She shot him a look he recognized as an apology, then said, “Mayonnaise.”
“You used to like it slathered on both sides,” he insisted.
“I’m a mustard girl now,” she said, then took another bite. “But don’t even worry about it. I’m used to it now.”
He moved to the kitchen, then brought over a paper towel and handed it over. “Do you want to wipe the mayo off?”
With effort, she chewed the bite then swallowed. “Yes, please.”
After wiping off most of the spread, she polished off the sandwich in no time. He handed over ibuprofen and a refilled glass of water.
“Camree Lynn,” she said with an ah-ha look on her face.
“What does she have to do with you being here?” he asked. Her best friend had disappeared off the face of the earth in tenth grade and never resurfaced.
Chapter Four
The name had popped into Reese’s mind out of nowhere. “I don’t have any other details. Just her name but this feels important.”
“Is it possible you found out information that led you here?” Darren asked.
She shrugged. “Anything is possible, I guess.” Without her cell or purse, she only had her memory to rely on, and it wasn’t very dependable at the moment.
“We have a name,” he said.
That didn’t mean much without additional context.Uselessdidn’t begin to describe how she felt. Her head ached. The sandwich had eased some of her nausea. “It’s awful to have a blank where there should be something, especially when that something might have been the reason for this.” She held up her wrists to show the deep groves and red slashes.
“At least you’re going to be fine,” he said. “The rest can be figured out.”
Reese took in a deep breath, then exhaled.
“Plus, the sheriff might find your belongings and the law will be all over figuring out who did this to you,” he said.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been more scared in my life waking up to find that I’d been bound,” she admitted before flashing her eyes at Darren. “Don’t feel sorry for me.”
He shot her a confused look.
“I’m not telling you any of this so you’ll have sympathy,” she clarified. Walking away in the manner in which she had, with a text instead of a person-to-person conversation, had been a jerk move.
“Not a problem on my side,” he said so fast it almost made her head spin.
“Good.” She was glad to clear it up. Looking around, she had so many questions about his life here. Would he answer any of them? Tell her that his life was none of her business? If he did, she wouldn’t exactly blame him. Since trying to remember what happened and how she’d ended up here only gave her more of a headache, she decided it couldn’t hurt to ask a few questions about his personal life. “How old are your babies?”
“Eighteen months,” he responded, folding his hands together and staring at the carpet. It was the move he’d always done when he was uncertain about something. Why do it now?
“You don’t know for sure?” she asked.
“What?” He looked up at her and one of his eyebrows shot up. “I know how old the girls are. Eighteen months, like I said.”
“You did the thing you used to do...” she began and then stopped. “Never mind. That was a long time ago. I don’t know what I’m talking about anymore.” People changed after a decade, especially when they’d only known each other as kids. Well, in high school, anyway. Darren had a number of habits that were probably different now that he was an adult, and a father.A father.No matter how many times she repeated the word in her head, it would still seem strange. If the twins—girls, based on the explosion of pink in the room—were a year and a half old, that meant they were born when he was twenty-six years old. Gestation took almost a year, so he would have been twenty-five when they’d been conceived. Since he wasn’t wearing a wedding band, she assumed either he’d never been married, or he was divorced.
Darren would have done what he would have believed to be the “right” thing and proposed after a pregnancy announcement. Ten years might have passed, but she’d bet her savings account that Darren maintained his sense of honor. Call it cowboy code or whatever, but it was the reason he still held the door open for a woman, unless she asked him not to. It was the reason he was helping her now. And it was the reason he wouldn’t ask her to leave unless he knew she would be okay.
Helping her because he still had feelings after all this time wasn’t even a serious consideration.
