Unforeseen Danger (10 page)

Several minutes later, Catherine opened the door and gave Nikki a reassuring wink.
 
Jake trudged in behind her.

“Hey,” he paused.
 
“How are you feeling?”
 

His tone was that of a chastised little boy being forced to thank someone for a gift that he didn’t like.
 
Absurdly, Nikki had to resist the urge to laugh.

“Much better, thanks,” she said with forced cheerfulness.
 
“They finally let me take a shower, and Catherine helped me brush this tangled hair.”

Jake glanced up, finally looking directly at her.
 
Nikki sucked in her breath at the feel of those beautiful eyes upon her.

“I’m glad,” he said.

He pulled up a chair beside the bed and they made small talk.
 
She told him about the memory therapy she had that morning, even though there wasn’t much to tell.
 
At least her short-term memory seemed to be improving.

“Your best friend, Darcy, will probably be here today,” he said absently.
 
“She’s been your best friend since junior high and she’s pretty worried about you.”

“Darcy.”
 
She shrugged, feeling a little sad.
 
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
  

“Hard to forget that one.”
 
Jake smiled.
 
“She’s crazy.
 
The two of you together are dangerous.”

Nikki was listening to her mother-in-law chit chat about people she didn’t remember when a brief knock sounded at the door.

“Come on in, Darcy,” Jake called out.

“Now, how did you know it was me?”
 
A pretty blonde stepped around the corner and grinned at Nikki.
 

“I told Nikki that you loved her, and – hey!”
 
Jake spied the sacks of fast food in her hand.
 
“Oh,
Darce
, did I ever tell you that you’re my hero?”

She laughed and handed them to Jake.
 
“Thought you and my girl here could use a few greasy
carbs
about now.
 
Always makes me feel better.”

Nikki smiled at the girl as Jake pulled her tray around and began to lay out her food first.
 
Darcy nodded her greetings at Catherine, and then approached Nikki’s bed.
 

“Hey, kiddo.”
 
Darcy perched on the edge of her bed and stared at her with luminous
gray
eyes.
 
“Prince Charming here tells me that you have somehow managed to forget all that crazy crap that you’ve gotten me into since we were twelve.
 
Just how have you managed that?”

“I don’t know,” Nikki replied, surprised to find
herself
close to tears.
 
Darcy squeezed her hand and said lightly, “C’mon, even a couple blows to the head couldn’t erase the memory of when you and I dressed up like punk rockers, with big pink hair and everything, and sang for the entire student body in eighth grade.”

It was Nikki’s turn to wince.
 
“I think I probably would’ve tried to repress that one on my own.”
 

She caught Jake off-guard.
 
He nearly spit
french
fries on Darcy as he choked on his laughter.

“Well, we
won
!” Darcy pouted, crossing her arms over her chest.
 
“Okay, Okay!
 
How about the time your mom scored us backstage passes on your fifteenth birthday and we met Him?”

“Who?”
Nikki asked in confusion.

“Him!
 
Jon Bon
Jovi
!
 
The rock star?”
 
Darcy gasped, rolling her eyes in pretend ecstasy at the thought.
 
She frowned.
 
“C’mon, girl!
 
This was the biggest moment in your life until you met Old Blue Eyes here.”
 
She jerked her head at Jake, who was taking savage enjoyment in a double cheeseburger.

“I see you’ve forced me to sing,” Darcy said sorrowfully, then began to belt out a tune in a voice that was more than a little loud and off-key.

Nikki’s eyes
widened,
and she sang the next line of the song.

Jake looked at Nikki in amazement and said, “Woman, I cannot believe you remember some big-haired rock star and you can’t remember the man who carried you nearly a mile out of the woods that time when you fell and broke your ankle—”

“Not to mention what you were doing back there with him in the first place,” Darcy interrupted with a grin.

“Too much information!”
Catherine exclaimed and stood.
 
They laughed and Catherine said, “Seriously, darling, I need to go.”
 

She bent to place a kiss on Nikki’s forehead, and Nikki caught the ‘wow’ that Darcy mouthed to Jake.
 
He shrugged back at her.
 
Catherine then went around to Jake and kissed him.

“Do you need me to stay again tonight?
 
If you do, it’s no trouble.
 
I need to run home and do a couple of things, but I could be back in an hour.”

Jake glanced at Nikki and then shook his head.
 
Nikki felt her hopes surge again.
 
Catherine told Darcy goodbye and left.

“I just remembered the song,” Nikki said to Jake, “not meeting him.”

“
Him
,” Darcy corrected, with added emphasis.
 
She shot Jake a patient look.

“Jake, just about every girl our age spent her nights feverishly dreaming about Jon,” she paused, holding her hand to the side of her mouth with a whispered aside to Nikki, “Some of us still do!”
 
Nikki laughed and she continued gleefully, “in rooms with posters of his face covering the walls.
 
How could some of that
not
stick?”

Jake sighed.
 
“One of these days, it’ll be the stalking charges that stick.”

“Ha, ha!”
Darcy retorted, and then pushed Nikki’s food over to her as Jake dug his second burger out of the sack.
 
“You
eat,
hon.
 
I can do all the talking,” she assured her, and Jake snorted his agreement.

“Actually, I have to admit, this is kind of a relief,” Darcy said with twinkling eyes.
 
“You have been witness to roughly eighty percent of my most embarrassing moments, so now I won’t have to kill
ya
to keep my secrets safe!”

“Hmm.”
 
Jake stared at her blankly.
 
“You mean like the one where you got plastered at Susan’s St. Paddy’s Day party and made out with Tommy Miller in the coat closet?”

Darcy gasped.
 
She threw a pack of ketchup at Jake’s head, and then turned accusing eyes to Nikki.
 
“I cannot believe you told him that.
 
I can’t let Jake have that kind of power over me!”
 

Nikki laughed and shrugged at her best friend helplessly.

“Refresh my memory,
Darce
.
 
Was that when he was going through his biker stage?”

Darcy put her head in her hands and moaned.
 
“I swear,
Nik
, when you get your memory back and remember just how dorky Tommy Miller is, I am going to
kill
you for this!”
  

Nikki felt an instant bond with this girl and was profoundly glad that she was here.
 
It was so nice to see Jake laughing and teasing.
 
She knew instinctively that this was the Jake she’d fallen in love with, the way he’d been before…

Before what?

Her intuition told her that Darcy knew her secrets.
 
Maybe if she knew what she’d done to Jake, she could figure out a way to fix it.
 
She had to get Darcy alone to ask her about it.

She managed to eat half her hamburger and most of her fries and though it made her stomach churn, she managed to feign a craving for chocolate.

“I’ll go down to the vending machines,” Jake offered.
 
Nikki thanked him and waited until the door shut behind him to grasp Darcy’s hand.

“Darcy, do you know what’s going on between me and Jake?”
 
She could tell from the other girl’s expression that she did.

“
Nik
, I think you need to ask Jake—” Darcy began.

“He won’t tell me!” Nikki said.
 
“He just looks at me, so hurt and confused and angry, and I don’t know why.
 
He just gives me vague answers that we had different expectations, but I know that I’ve hurt him somehow.
 
I don’t want to lose my marriage and not even know why.”
 

The other girl sighed.
 
“I’m not sure you want to hear the truth from me,
Nik
, because I can’t defend what you did,” she said finally.

“It doesn’t matter to me if I was the one who was wrong.
 
I just want to know what happened so I can try to make things right.
 
If I was wrong, I need to find some way to make Jake forgive me.”

Both women quieted as the door creaked open.
 
Dr. Carver came in, smiling at them.

“Well, Nikki, how would you like to get out of this cracker box tomorrow?”

Nikki was speechless.

“Your last batch of tests looked good and you’ve started retaining a little information now.
 
Other than your amnesia, you made it through the wreck with remarkably few injuries and I think you can complete your recovery at home.
 
It might speed your memory to be among familiar surroundings.
 
We’ll send a therapist to your house daily to do your memory exercises and you’ll have another also coming daily for awhile to help with your physical therapy.”

“That would be great!” Nikki said, hoping that being among her own things would get her closer to remembering what her life had been like before the accident.
 
Just then, Jake came back in, and Dr. Carver told him the news.
 
Nikki saw a shadow of apprehension cross his face, and knew that the thought of taking her home wasn’t an altogether pleasant one for him.
 
Dr. Carver clapped Jake on the back and went off to finish his rounds.

***

A cold wave of dread seeped into Jake’s bones, drowning his light mood.
 
The thought of being alone with Nikki, truly alone, filled him with uncertainty.
 
He handed Nikki her candy bar and sat down, half-listening to Darcy’s chatter.
 
He looked into Nikki’s pale eyes and wished that he were the only lover she’d ever known.
 
With a start, he realized that – for now, anyway – he was.

Jake felt sorry for Darcy as she attempted to regain the same light mood, but now there was a strange undercurrent in the room that her banter couldn’t disguise.
 
Eventually, she looked at her watch and announced that she had to go.
 
She leaned to hug Nikki goodbye, and Nikki squeezed her hand.

“Hey, Blue Eyes.”
 
She punched Jake’s arm affectionately, “Walk me to the parking garage?
 
It’s probably dark outside now, and there could be some creepy guy hanging around down there, just waiting to ravish a stunner like myself.”

“Couldn’t be any creepier than Tommy Miller,” he teased, and was rewarded with a cuff to the back of his head.

“
Ow
!
 
Okay, okay, I’ll go!”
 
He glanced at his wife.
 
“Be right back, Nikki.”

They got in the elevator and Jake pushed the basement level, where the garage was situated.
 

“How are you doing, Jake?
 
Really?”

Jake sighed and leaned back against the elevator wall.
 
“I have no idea.
 
One minute I’m mad, the next I’m hopeful.
 
I don’t know what to do, other than wish that I was the one with amnesia.
 
It’s so hard to hang on, when every time I close my eyes, I picture her in the arms of some guy.”

“What made her finally tell you?”

“I told her I wanted a divorce.
 
I served her with papers the day before the accident.
 
That made her so furious that she finally confessed, but she said she couldn’t tell me who he was.”

Darcy gasped.

“I didn’t feel that I had a choice,” Jake said defensively.
 
“First, Nikki kept lying to me about it.
 
Then, she wouldn’t say anything at all.
 
I thought that serving papers on her would make her realize that I wasn’t going to just let this go.”