Recaptured Dreams (22 page)

She hurled herself off the back patio, running barefoot across the grass. It squished between her toes with her long strides. She leaped over the fence and into Xavier’s waiting arms. His breath rushed out, and she giggled as they crashed to the ground.

“Shh,” Xavier grunted. “I thought the point of this was to be quiet.”

Her lips met his, and a zing of satisfaction flowed through her veins. “Forget quiet,” she breathed as she drew away. “Father said I can see you any time I want.”

Xavier’s eyes widened. “Why the change of heart?” He rolled her over, pinning her beneath him. His fingers smoothed across her hair. She sighed at the intensity of his sea-blue eyes. Eyes that only saw her.

Yes, she thought, why the change of heart indeed?

“Sophia?”

Sophia jolted back to awareness, snapping her eyes open and dropping a plate of cookies to the concrete patio.

“Oh. God.” She bent, hands shaking to pick up the pieces of broken china. “I’ve never been back here before, and I—”

A hand closed over hers. “Stop. It’s okay.” Xavier’s tone was cool, collected. His hand cupped her elbow and lifted her back up. “What are you doing out here?”

She cast her gaze away. “Looking for you.”

He dipped his head, forcing her to look at him directly. “With cookies?”

She bit her lip and took a step back, wiggling out of his grasp, careful not to step on any broken pieces of china.

“Peace offering,” she whispered.

He cocked his head and studied her. He held out his hand to the side, drawing Sophia’s attention to a swing at the far corner of the porch. “Would you like to sit with me?”

“Do you actually want company? Weren’t you out here hiding from me?”

His eyes crinkled with a frown, but he said nothing. Instead, he snatched her hand and led her to the swing.

Sophia plopped down, her gaze floating across the expanse of the yard, wondering what had just happened to her.

“You’re pale.” Xavier’s breath caressed the side of her face.

“I think I just saw an old memory.” She slanted her head to look at him. “Of you. Us.”

He lit up. “What was it about?”

“Did we sneak around to see each other a lot?”

He gave a lopsided grin. “Yes. After you introduced me to your mom and dad the week we met, they forbade me to see you anymore.” His eyes narrowed, focused on the spot near the fence she’d just seen in her memory. “Until one day your dad lifted his rule.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I was so happy at the time I didn’t question it.” He stroked his fingers through her hair with a sad smile. “I’m guessing
you
know, somewhere in there.”

Leaning back, Sophia exhaled loudly. “This afternoon, at your studio, I loved watching you work. You were so in your element. And…” She rubbed her arms, fighting off the chill from their argument on the way home. She didn’t want to go there again. Her eyes flitted back to the quickly darkening yard. “Where do you think you’d be now if you hadn’t met me?”

He shrugged, swinging his arm around her to rest on the back of the swing. “A bad place. If I’d stayed on the path I’d been on that summer, I imagine my friends and I would’ve done pranks—dangerous ones—and ended up in jail. We’d talked about doing far more than just pranks, too.” He closed his eyes. “I loved the adrenaline from it, so I imagine I would have gone along with whatever they wanted.”

“I don’t understand how you could turn around so easily.” She’d been trying to turn around most of her life, having no luck.

The twinkle in his eyes said everything. “All you need is the right thing—or in my case, person.” His tone grew serious. “What about you? From what you know about yourself now compared to then, do you think you would be different?”

Uneasy, Sophia rose and walked to the edge of patio. “My mother mentioned I was rambunctious and independent before the accident.”

Xavier chuckled. “I would agree with that.”

“So much so that my grandmother was in fits over it, apparently. But my mother admitted that I’d changed after the accident.”

“How so?”

She plucked a branch from a low shrub and peeled back the bark a little piece at a time. “I’m not sure. I suppose after the accident, my mother—and probably my grandmother—saw a way to make me act more like I was supposed to. Proper.”

“And have you?”

“For the most part.” She dropped the peeled stick and yanked out another. “I’ve fought with her tooth and nail over it, though. I always knew something was amiss in how they treated me. And the more I think about it, the more I think that summer with you had something to do with it.” She cast him a quick glance. “They never understood the fact that since my memory was missing, a piece of
me
was missing. They’d always wanted to go on like nothing had happened. Like I was this normal child. When I was far from it.”

His firmness was suddenly behind her, engulfing her. She hadn’t heard him move. His voice was but a hairsbreadth from her ear. “I’m sure they did what they did to shield you because they love you.”

“No. Although I want badly to believe it.”

Fingers stroked up her back. She froze. There was no doubt she wanted him to touch her, but his moments of hot and cold were confusing.

“You know,” he whispered. “I’ve made several mistakes in my past, and when I found you, I saw that as my chance to fix them. To be a better person. Maybe your parents feel the same way.”

Her throat constricted. “Maybe.”

The sun dipped completely behind the horizon, leaving the patio glowing under a low moon. The crisp evening air settled in, making Sophia shiver.

“This might sound strange,” Xavier said, stepping to the side. The dim light of the night made his features look more vulnerable. “But I kind of know where they’re coming from.” His hand cupped her cheek as his eyes gave way to an unspoken emotion. “I’ve got my chance again with you, and I’m terrified of screwing it up.”

Her breath hitched. There were so many things she wanted to say. So many things she wanted to ask. Finally she said the first thing that came to mind: “I don’t think there’s a way for you to screw this up. But I have to admit, I’m jealous of your memories, Xavier, and I—”

His hand dropped from her face, and he took a step back. When she looked him in the eye, her heart sank. The tenderness was gone; the aching, beautiful, distant blue was back.

He jammed his hands into his pockets and twisted about, his head angled toward the raising moon. “I wish I could tell you what you want to hear, Sophia.” His shoulders hunched. “There’s nothing more I want than for you to feel what I feel. To know what I know. But it’s like I said earlier,
how I feel
means nothing when it comes to helping you get your memories back. There’s
so
much more than just memories, Sophia. So when you said earlier I was like your mother, you were right.”

She reeled back as if she’d been slapped. She’d wanted to bury their argument from before—and thought Xavier would be responsive. Why would he now choose to say such things? And why had he chosen to bring her to America if he was so bent on keeping things from her?

Her fingers landed on his shoulders, and he tensed, leaning away from her touch. She dropped her hand, turned, and went back inside the house. She wasn’t quite sure, but as the door clicked shut behind her, she thought she heard him murmur the words “I’m sorry.”

Sophia sat in the car the next day, dazed and most certainly baffled. Xavier had been keeping his past feelings from her—and maybe even his present ones. While she appreciated that honesty, she didn’t fully understand why.

“We’re here,” Xavier said quietly, the first words he’d spoken to her since the night before. But she wanted to hear more…so much more.

She dragged herself out of the car and made her way to Montauk Point Lighthouse. Her mind wasn’t on the fieldtrip of the day; it was still stuck on the conversations from the day before. She was determined to learn what everyone else knew and wouldn’t give up until she felt what everyone else felt. She’d even studied the cracks in the sidewalk, the greenery lining the house, the gleaming white house paint, every shutter, every wall covering, every curve and slope inside and outside the house, hoping that maybe little details would spark something—anything.

Sophia stood by herself reading about Montauk history in what was once an old bedroom of the lightkeeper’s house. Xavier had wandered off.

A lot had happened, and Sophia understood the need to process feelings. Good grief, she was still dealing with her own feelings for Xavier, and Xavier had ten more years of feelings to sort out. But that didn’t explain the closeness he’d shown, only to be quickly covered with coldness. Maybe he was trying to prove that he wasn’t in love with a memory and he just didn’t know how.

There were so many different ways to justify his behavior, so many different ways to perceive his actions, it was maddening. And without her memories—or his total cooperation—none of it would make sense. No matter what, she couldn’t work out what was going on with her own rollercoaster of emotions if Xavier was keeping feelings from her.

That realization left a gaping hole in her chest. One she hadn’t comprehended was there and one she had no idea how to fill.

A heavy breath blew from her lips.

Her main focus had been to get some part of her memory back, but after all, she was a woman. A woman who had held the most wonderful man, and somehow he was slipping away…

“Sophia.”

She twirled around and put on her best fake smile. She told herself the concern that always floated in Xavier’s eyes or the way he fidgeted around her didn’t matter. She told herself that, other than the fling they’d had, she didn’t have any feelings for him. Only problem? That was an utter lie.

“Do you enjoy sneaking up on people when their minds are somewhere else?” she asked as she turned back around to the history information.

“Sorry. Where was your mind?”

She shook her head. “Oh, nowhere it couldn’t be brought back from.”

“I didn’t mean to startle you.” He stepped in front of her.

She lifted her face to look at him. There was a reflection there of something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. She reached out to him but drew back when he flinched. His eyes, clear as the sea outside, pinned her down. The salty air drifted through the lightkeeper’s house. The hole in her chest grew as she found it hard to draw in even a shallow breath of air. Her heart beat in her ears, and she felt it ache for him.

Someone bumped into Sophia from behind, and she rocked on her feet, breaking her eye contact. Her heart rate slowed, and the throb in her heart loosened slightly. All the strange sensations were gone. Completely gone. She took a calming deep breath as she glanced at Xavier one more time, daring her body to have the same reaction.

Xavier’s eyes had glazed over, and he shook his head. “Um,” he mumbled.

Had he had the same feeling?

“Xavier,” Sophia said as she tugged at his shirt. “Are you okay?”

The color drained from his face.

“Xavier,” she repeated.

“Um…yeah,” he said when he broke out of his trance. “I thought you might want to take a look at the lighthouse tower.”

“Of course.”

He stared at her again. Did she have something on her face? She ran her fingers across her chin just to double-check. She started rambling, hoping that her mind would clear.

“I’ve read here that the tower was completed in 1976 and stands one hundred and ten feet tall. It has one hundred thirty-seven steps to the top, and apparently you can see a vast view of the ocean and the coastline below. The keeper’s house was built in 1860, and—”

Her words cut off when Xavier snaked his arm around her back. His other hand possessively came around the nape of her neck as he drew her body close to his. He studied all the angles of her face with those wild eyes again. The same eyes she had seen that night at the fashion show. And yet this wasn’t the same Xavier she’d taken to bed; he had changed somehow.

Her breath caught in her throat. She was unable to speak, unable to move. If she kissed him now and showed him how she felt, could she change that look in his eyes?