Another chapter up, thanks for reading and the feedback!
Matt and C.J. approached the garage apartment where she would be spending the night and stopped in front of the rickety staircase.
"Thanks for walking me back," she said.
"You're not safely inside yet," he said, "The police are probably busy responding to the scene of the latest homicide but we can't be too sure some strays won't be wandering around here."
She nodded and they walked up the steps that creaked beneath them to the door which she unlocked and forced open.
"Home sweet home," she said, "at least for now."
He looked around the studio apartment and saw that most of the furniture appeared old, almost as if the place hadn't been rented since the 1970s. She flipped on a lamp and went into the kitchenette.
"Would you like anything to drink," she said, "before you head back to the motel? They're some scotch in here."
"That doesn't sound too bad right now."
She took the Scotch and poured it into glasses she had rinsed in the sink. After handing one to him, she gulped hers down in a couple of swallows, not even noticing how it burned her throat. Soon she felt pleasantly warm and her body began to relax.
"Not bad," Matt said, drinking from his glass.
"God, what a night," she said, collapsing on the couch, "what a day…"
She sounded so damned tired, he thought and wrestling with the thought of having killed a man to get away from him. Since she knocked Christian Dean off of a ridge near his mountain cabin, she hadn't killed anyone.
Not like him who had killed people both while in the military and then later on as an investigator. Every life he had ever taken remained with him, hanging around like a ghost. He kept them at bay when one of them took its turn at haunting him but experience and time had taught him that skill. One that C.J. hadn't developed. In a way, he hoped she never would reach that point because he felt like he had lost a piece of himself to get there. He could have taken that life in the parking lot and had slept comfortably at night.
But she sat on the couch placing her head in her hands, feeling suddenly as if she couldn't see past that moment when she had killed the man in the parking lot. And then she had taken off running, then been so desperate to find evidence she had agreed to meet up with a murdering deputy inside his house and do god knows what to get what she needed. Of course then, he had gotten shot probably fatally so before she had even made it to his front door.
"C.J. are you sure you want to be alone tonight," he asked, sitting beside her.
She just looked at him feeling suddenly lost and shook her head slowly.
"What I want from you now, you can't give me," she said, "but I don't want to be alone right now either."
He knew what she meant and he closed his eyes because despite what she might be thinking, he wanted that too. But he couldn't take them down a road that she might regret later when the part of her that remained locked up inside her returned. It would have been too easy to surrender to the feelings that rushed through him now but he didn't.
Instead he stood up from the couch and looked around the apartment.
"Where you sleeping?"
She looked at him bemusedly.
"I'm sitting on it," she said, "It's one of those fold out beds."
He nodded thinking that would work. She needed to get some sleep so that when she woke up in the morning, she would feel less of the despair that had hit her so suddenly.
"There are linens in the closet I think," she said, moving to that side of the apartment.
He pulled out the couch and sure enough, it turned into a full-sized bed. She returned with a stack of linins and pillows to make it up which she did while he looked out the window onto the quiet street. No one lurked out there tonight.
"Who do you supposed killed him?"
Matt looked over at C.J. who sat on the bed, taking off her shoes.
"I don't know," he said, "It seems like someone's taking out key members of the prostitution operation before they can talk."
"I hadn't even gotten there when I heard the shot."
He sat down beside her.
"Why'd you go in there by yourself?"
She just looked at her hands.
"I thought maybe I'd get lucky and find something…like that surveillance video."
"He's responsible for killing some of the women who tried to get away," he said, "That could have easily been you."
She sighed.
"It was supposed to have been me," she said, "He told me he was ordered to kill me after the party."
"Why?"
"Because they found out who I was before I did," she said, "They saw the public service announcement that you gave on television."
"And they were afraid that someone might find them looking for you."
"I'd be dead now if it hadn't been for Piser picking me out for his party," she said, "In a strange way, I guess I owe him for that."
Matt didn't think she owed the creep anything but the thought that he could have missed his chance at finding her…if she didn't have such a strong survival instinct. One that had superseded memory loss as it turned out.
"You saved yourself C.J.," he said, "but you could have been walking into a trap meeting Chad."
She shrugged.
"He just wanted sex from one of the Bannon County women," she said, "I wanted whatever I needed to clear my name."
"Would you…"
She sighed.
"That wasn't in the plan," she said, "I was going to try to divert his attention long enough for me to search his place."
"What if you weren't able to do that C.J."
"I would have found something to knock him out cold with," she said, "I wasn't going to sleep with him."
He scratched his head.
"Not a very well thought out plan," He said, "He could have gotten the upper hand on his own turf."
C.J. knew it was concern for her that drove that comment but it rankled at her. After all, she could take care of herself. She had to take matters into her own hand if she were ever going to be able to go home.
"I could have handled myself," she said, "Am I really someone that you have so little faith in?"
"That's not it," he said, "But you are trying to deal with this all by yourself when you don't have to do that."
She shook her head.
"Houston, I can't keep doing this to you," she said, "How long are you going to be able to be away from L.A. and your work to help me?"
He tilted her face up to look into his eyes.
"As long as it takes."
She heard his conviction in his voice and knew that he meant every word. Until she was freed of this nightmare, he wasn't going anywhere. But she didn't want to see him get hurt or killed in the process because she…but she put that thought out of her mind. The situation was complicated enough without bringing her feelings into it.
"I don't even know you even though I'm supposed to," she said, "but I believe you."
He smiled at her.
"We're going to get through this but you have to trust me enough not to shut me out."
She sighed.
"I do…but it's all so strange because I'm supposed to be best friends with you and I don't remember," she said, "so I tried to go on my feelings, my instincts and see what happened."
He smiled again, knowing that she meant the night they had spent together, caught up in the current of pent up feelings that had caught up with them.
"I was there too," he reminded her, "and I'll never forget what we shared together."
She furrowed her brow even as his words touched her profoundly. So much she remained confused about and she didn't think getting her memory back would change that. What if she remembered that she and Matt…weren't meant to cross the boundaries established for their friendship? Would she really be upset with him as he seemed to believe? She couldn't imagine it but she couldn't imagine what she had been like before the car accident robbed her of her identity along with her memories that built it.
"I won't either," she said, "I wish… well it doesn't really matter."
He stroked her face, wanting so much to do more than that but one of them had to protect the other. As much as he had enjoyed the other night, a part of him reproached him before it because he felt as if he had taken advantage of her confusion. After all, her feelings for him were shaped largely on her inability to remember her relationship with him mixed with the urgency of the situation they had both found themselves caught up in and were trying to end.
"It does to me," he said, "Because you're not the only one that wishes we could just go with what you feel. If you knew what I wanted right now…"
He stopped talking and she rested her hand against his chest feeling his heartbeat there. She imagined that her own had picked up markedly too.
"The why don't we?"
He looked at her, saw the willingness in her face to share herself with him, with no rules governing that and he felt the pull, the want to draw her in his embrace and on the bed. To put everything else going on around them aside for a while, so they could concentrate on each other and these whirlwind of feelings they shared. Damn she looked so tempting sitting there looking at him with those warm eyes of hers and her even warmer body.
Breathing deeply, he just shook his head. If she knew that was one of the hardest decisions he had to make, but how to make her see his actions as that rather than rejection?
"C.J…I can't…we can't and it's got nothing to do with my feelings for me, just trust me on that," he said, "I couldn't live with myself if when you got your memory back, you felt cheated like I took advantage of you…"
Or even worse, feeling violated.
Like he had taken a part of her that she hadn't wanted to share with him.
"But what if my memory comes back and I still want this," she asked, "What will you do then?"
He stroked the hair off of her face.
"We'll cross that bridge when he come to it," he said, "but I'd be lying if I didn't hope that were the outcome."
She smiled at that.
"I guess I can live with that," she said, "It just feels like sometimes there's something greater between us…than friendship as powerful as that might be."
Matt had often felt that too and his memories were intact. Their relationship had always had its complications because he had struggled with the deepness of their friendship as one free of sexual attraction. Because the truth was, there were times that he had known her when he had wanted to cross that line but she remained convinced that it would damage their friendship. That if they brought sex into it, it would eventually come between them. But her memory loss had apparently erased that and maybe that had just left the attraction that she felt for him.
If she regained her memory and those feelings still remained with fewer barriers attached to him, what would he do then? Then he didn't think he could go back to what they had previously shared and keep his hands to himself. But what if instead, she wanted to stick to the parameters of their friendship.
He knew he'd have to go along with that…and wasn't sure that he wanted to do that. But if that's what she wished from him, he would do it.
But he would still want her anyway. The softness of her skin, the scent of her that intoxicated him and the passion that lay behind her eyes because face it, when she unleashed it even a little, he turned into putty.
Her capable hands could certainly accomplish that quickly enough.
He looked at her and thought it was getting quite warm in there so he got up.
"Where are you going," she asked him.
"Just making sure the doors and windows are locked up," he said, doing just that.
She watched him, knowing that her closeness made him nervous in a way she probably wouldn't be used to even if she had her memory.
"Houston come here."
He looked at her then, his eyes filled with the emotions which probably mirrored her own.
"I won't bite," she said, "at least not until I remember whether I want to or not."
He smiled at that and headed back towards her, settling on the bed as the mattress creaked. She looked up at him, biting her lip.
"Could you just hold me tonight while I sleep," she said, "Do you think you can handle it?"
He gave it some thought.
"I think I can do that," he said, stretching out on the bed.
She settled in beside him and he wrapped her in her arms, tucking her against his sturdy chest. C.J. smiled, feeling his breath against her.
"How does that feel," he asked.
"Really nice…goodnight Houston."
He closed his eyes too, the smell of her shampoo reaching his nostrils, enticing him. But he had to be the man that she needed right now. As for anything else, that would just have to wait.
But damn, even as her breath grew softer as he held her, sleep for him didn't come as quickly.