A/N: Thank you to Catsluver. What would I do without you? :)
Thanks also to those of you who reviewed as guests. Your kind words are very much appreciated!
Chapter 14
The first thing TJ became of aware of was that she could breathe again. The next thing was that she felt numb and was starting to get sleepy.
"Her heart rate's almost normal again. The sedative is kicking in." It was that pretty lady talking, the one who was weaning her from the vent. Oh, yeah. Georgia. Like the state.
"Lord, have mercy." Aunt Tru's face was suddenly in TJ's line of vision, the faint smell of Marlboro Menthol Lights familiar and mildly annoying. "What happened, girl? You scared the daylights out of us."
TJ didn't know what to say. What had happened? She remembered with a strange, surreal detachment that she had pieced part of the puzzle together, that, as unthinkable and utterly impossible as it seemed, she'd solved the mystery of the twins, of why everyone kept talking to her about them. She was their mother.
How could that be? It was so far out of TJ's realm of comprehension that she was completely numbed by it. She couldn't even begin to fathom it or even be freaked out by it. She couldn't feel much of anything, except maybe curiosity.
How big of a chunk of her life was missing? Who was Sam to her?
Your husband, whispered her conscience.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. She remembered the wedding band on his finger and tried to block out the image, shutting her eyes tightly.
Had they been in love? Had she dated and married a handicapped guy? What the hell? If she'd met him in San Diego, why was he in Kentucky? Maybe because her parents were helping him with the twins? Had he moved to Moss Fork because of her?
What had happened to Jeremy? Why wasn't she married to him?
A twinge of emotion, a vague jab of panic, penetrated the numbness at the thought of Jeremy. She loved him, had been in love with him her entire life. She had given herself to him body and soul. How could she have fallen for someone else, let alone conceived twins with someone else?
Georgia patted TJ's shoulder, her long black curls falling forward as she loomed over. "I'm not sure what went wrong, sweetie, but we had to put the vent back on the original settings. You were really struggling with your breathing. You like to 've passed out."
TJ knew that she failed the breathing test and should be disappointed by the setback, but she wasn't. She just stared at Georgia, not really seeing her—preoccupied with wondering how to get answers to her questions. She shifted her attention to the other people in the room, to her parents and Sam. They all had expressions of concern on their faces. Sam still held the baby girl, and Fern held the baby boy—TJ's son—who was getting fussy and sucking on his fist. Fern absently soothed him by bouncing up and down and softly shushing him.
TJ stared at the boy but felt nothing. She wondered if she was supposed to suddenly feel some kind of motherly instinct toward him—toward both of the babies. Well, she didn't. She was indifferent to both of them, these twins that everyone had gone on and on about, the little miracles. Apparently, they'd been born early—preemies.
She was mildly curious when they'd been born, but, really, she didn't care. Were they somehow the reason she'd had the stroke?
She looked at Sam, determined to get some answers. "Who are you?" she mouthed. Deep down, she knew the answer, but she needed to hear it, needed confirmation that Sam was really her husband.
He looked perplexed, his brow wrinkling.
She rolled her eyes in frustration. "Who...are...you?" she repeated slowly.
Aunt Tru stepped out of Sam's way. He placed the baby girl on his shoulder and held her with one hand while he pushed one of his wheels the short distance closer to TJ.
"You want me to take her?" Aunt Tru asked him.
He looked up at her, seeming reluctant. TJ wondered if Sam thought the same thing about Aunt Tru's smoky smell that she did. He seemed to overcome whatever reservations he had, though, and smiled politely. "Sure. Thanks."
Aunt Tru beamed at him and gently took the baby. "Hello, sweet pea," she cooed to the baby in her raspy voice, holding the baby close to her face. The baby waved her tiny fist, bumping it against Aunt Tru's chin, and Aunt Tru grabbed the little fist and smothered it in kisses. "I'm gettin' me some sugar." She went for another round of kisses on the baby's cheek. "Yes, I am. I'm gettin' me some sugar."
TJ wondered why people always talked so silly to babies. She'd never been around babies much, but she'd been known to talk to her dog Elliott in a goofy voice. She guessed it was the same thing. Elliott was like her baby.
"TJ?" said Sam.
She looked at him.
"Do you want to try asking your question again?"
She nodded. "Who...are...you?" she mouthed.
His lips tightened and he glanced at Fern and Vern, who had frowns on their faces and were obviously still trying to figure out what TJ said. It was evident by the expression on Sam's face, though, that he understood. He swallowed. "Are you asking who I am, TJ?"
She nodded.
He looked worried. "You don't remember my name?"
She clenched the blanket on her bed in her fist, aggravated, and nodded emphatically. "Sam," she mouthed.
He looked relieved, but then his eyebrows knitted together. "I don't know what you mean. I'm sorry. I'm Sam, but you know that."
He was close enough that she could reach his left hand, and she grabbed it firmly. With her finger, she pointed to the gold band on his ring finger.
He peered at her cautiously. "It's my wedding band. You—you gave it to me." He looked pensive. "Do you remember the wedding, TJ? Do you remember when we got married?"
Despite the sedative she'd been given, she still felt the blow. She had married this guy. She'd hoped somehow that it wasn't true, that she was wrong, but she couldn't deny it any longer. She stared at him, unable to believe it. He was attractive and seemed nice enough for what little she knew about him, but she would never love anyone as much as she loved Jeremy. What had happened with Jeremy? She started to panic, the beeps on the monitor reflecting the frantic beating of her heart, but then the sedative kicked in and a warm, soothing feeling suffused her, calming her. She closed her eyes.
"TJ, do you remember the wedding?" Sam's voice was urgent.
She opened her eyes and shook her head.
"You don't remember that I'm your husband?"
She shook her head.
He swallowed. "Do—do you remember me?"
Very slowly, she shook her head again.
His face blanched to an ashen color, his expression utterly stricken. His jaw was like granite and he looked away as though he was trying to control an extremely strong emotion. When his gaze traveled back to her, his eyes were filled with pain.
"God Almighty," muttered Vern, scrubbing a hand over his face.
Fern moved closer and sat on the edge of the bed, still holding the baby boy but oblivious to the increasing activity of his grunts and fist sucking. He let out a tiny squawk, but Fern just absently patted his back, her eyes fixed on TJ. "TJ, do you remember being pregnant with the twins?"
She shook her head.
Sam seemed frozen, still white as a ghost.
Aunt Tru had ceased her silly crooning to the baby girl and regarded TJ with strained worry. "What do you remember, hon? What's the last thing you remember?"
TJ laid her head back on her pillow, feeling weary. She looked around the room, taking in the various degrees of stunned horror on everyone's faces. Georgia, who had been silently observing, stood with a hand covering her mouth, a pitying look on her face. She was shaking her head slightly in alarm.
TJ had the unkind thought that all this would be old news in Moss Fork this time tomorrow, even though she didn't know whether Georgia was a gossip or not. It didn't matter. The word would still get out. Heck, even Aunt Tru wasn't exactly known for having tight lips.
This would be too juicy of a story for it not to infiltrate every nook and cranny of Tucker County. Moss Fork and the greater area of Tucker County were the kinds of places where everyone knew everyone's business, where they gossiped mercilessly behind each other's backs—yet they'd gladly give the shirts off their backs if there was someone in need.
Sam's quiet voice seemed to reverberate through the room, and he repeated Aunt Tru's question. "TJ, what is the last thing you remember?"
Hmm. Good question. She remembered high school graduation. She remembered getting ready to go off to college, getting all the items she would need for her dorm room, corresponding with her would-be roommate, who seemed nice enough. She remembered spending lots of summer nights hanging out with Jeremy after they got off work from Donna's Diner. She remembered kisses in the moonlight by the pond. She remembered losing her virginity. That was the last thing she remembered.
She had been on the brink of a new beginning, an exciting journey to womanhood and love and becoming an adult, of being on her own. Then she'd woken up in this bizarre world that was like living in an episode of that creepy show The Outer Limits. But she couldn't tell anyone that making love with Jeremy was the last thing she remembered—her dad would string Jeremy up by his toenails—so she mouthed, "College."
Fern looked bemused, but before she could respond, the baby boy she held started getting really fussy. Fern glanced at Vern. "Mix up a couple of them formula bottles, about four ounces each; would you, Vern? Make it two because I'm sure Sami Joy will be hungry soon, too."
Vern looked like Fern had just asked him to prepare a gourmet meal, but he didn't argue. TJ would have found his facial expression funny in other circumstances, but there wasn't much funny about this situation.
Vern pulled the diaper bag off his shoulder, set it on the floor, and started rummaging through diapers, burp cloths, and other baby paraphernalia for the items needed to make the bottles.
Satisfied that Vern was doing as told, Fern shared a look with Sam. It was clear no one had understood what TJ said. "Say again, hon," prompted Fern.
TJ had the urge to throw something, but there was nothing to throw. At this pace, it would take a month to make them understand and get answers.
Sam spoke in that same calm, even voice that somehow always seemed to command attention. "TJ, do you think you could write it down?"
She nodded, although she wasn't actually sure. Everything was so messed up. She wouldn't be surprised if she'd forgotten how to write.
By now, Vern had made the two little bottles of formula, and Aunt Tru started feeding the baby girl while Fern started feeding the baby boy. Neither woman took any joy in it. They were both staring at TJ with troubled expressions. It was like they were hardly aware of the babies.
After a few minutes, Georgia procured a pen and notepad from somewhere and handed it to TJ. The pen felt odd in TJ's hand, and she had a moment of panic that she really had forgotten how to write.
"It's okay, Teej," soothed Sam, as if sensing her fear. There was a crease between his brows that made him look both sincere and sympathetic. "Take your time. Can you tell us the last thing you remember before waking up here?"
TJ stared at the pen in her hand and flexed her fingers around it. She forced herself to try to form letters, and, to her relief, once she began, they started flowing, although her large handwriting looked like a five-year-old's.
"Getting ready for college," she managed to write out. She turned the pad around and showed it to Sam and Fern, feeling triumphant at her accomplishment. Her dad and Aunt Tru leaned in to get a look at what she'd written, too. Georgia had the grace to refrain from looking, although it was clear by the expression on her features that she was dying to know.
Fern frowned. "You mean getting ready to go off to San Diego State, when—when you were a freshman?"
TJ nodded, and everyone looked at each other.
Sam swallowed thickly. "TJ, can you tell us how old you are?"
She wrote "18" in large numbers and showed them. Sam's jaw tightened and he looked down, but not before TJ saw the deep despair and anguish on his face. Her mother's eyes welled with tears.
Well, that wasn't a good sign. TJ started to feel a sickening glob of foreboding in the pit of her stomach. How much worse were things gonna get? Wasn't her life fucked up enough? Judging by the looks on everyone's faces, apparently not.
"What year is it, dumplin'?" Daddy asked, his face deceptively neutral.
TJ was uncertain of herself now. "2004?" she wrote tentatively.
If the oppressive silence that followed was any indication, that wasn't the right answer. Aunt Tru looked away, chin trembling, and everyone else just stared, obviously stunned.
Finally, Fern gave TJ a sad look, her voice heavy with emotion. "Oh, honey."
The foreboding feeling seeped from TJ's stomach into the rest of her body, chilling her to the bone. "What year is it?" she wrote.
No response.
She gritted her teeth, suddenly angry. Bearing down with the pen, she wrote "YEAR?" with bold, awkward strokes, savagely underlining what she'd written and thrusting the pad at all of them.
Sam looked her in the eye, his mouth in a grim line. "It's 2010."
His answer enraged her and completely upended her whole world. And in that moment, she hated him and everything about him. She wanted him gone, him and his stupid twins.
They had stolen six years of her life.
XXXXXXXX
Dr. Upton waved a penlight into each of TJ's eyes, leaving a residue of light that burned into her retinas. She blinked, trying to get the comet tails to disappear.
The doctor drew his bushy gray eyebrows together. "Well, TJ, you're doing remarkably well. With the trauma the stroke caused to your temporal lobe and the length of time you were in the coma, I would have expected the damage to be much worse."
TJ just stared at him. What a fucking idiot.
She was missing six years of her life. She had gone to bed an eighteen-year-old and woken up old. She would be twenty-five in a little over a month. She had lost what promised to be the best, most exciting years of her life. She was married to a stranger that she felt absolutely nothing for, except a dislike bordering on hatred, and she didn't care if that was fair to Sam or not.
Four years of her undergrad and a year and a half of grad school, gone. She couldn't even begin to fathom the ramifications of that.
She had gotten pregnant and given birth to twins. It made her want to laugh because it was so absurd. But, no. It was a miracle. If she heard someone say that one more time, she would scream. Her mother had explained that Sam never thought he would be able to father a child without fertility intervention because of his paralysis, but against all odds, they had conceived twins.
Yeah. What a fucking miracle. How did she get so lucky?
Sometimes, she wanted to die. But she sure was glad that the damage to her brain hadn't been "much worse." In her opinion, she'd be better off as a vegetable. At least that way she wouldn't know what the hell was going on around her and how much she had lost.
A few days had passed since the universe had collapsed in on her. She had a speaking valve in her trach so she could talk now, but, ironically, she had nothing to say. All she could feel was a deep, dark rage—and a fierce longing to see Jeremy.
She wanted to talk to him and find out what had happened between them. She was angry with him. How had he let this happen? How had he let her get involved with someone else to the point where she could have gotten married and pregnant?
She was angry—livid—with herself, too, for letting it happen. Why hadn't she been on the pill? Why hadn't she been more careful? She'd had her whole life mapped out, and children weren't a part of it until she was established in her career and was married for a few years to Jeremy. To Jeremy. Not Sam Fucking Winchester.
Her parents and Sam were there in the room, all wearing expressions of attentive concern on their faces. TJ was irritated that Sam had come. He was an intruder as far as she was concerned, but she guessed Dr. Upton's prognosis impacted him, too. At least the twins were with Aunt Tru somewhere and they didn't have them to contend with.
It was awkward for both TJ and Sam when Sam was around. It was obvious he didn't know what to say to her, and she didn't have anything to say to him. She tried to pretend he wasn't there, but it was kind of hard. He seemed to fill up the room whenever he was there.
Dr. Upton was oblivious to TJ's morose thoughts and kept talking. "You could have had hearing problems, vision problems, speech problems—the list goes on. But you seem to be recovering quite nicely."
Who was this guy? He was supposed to be some great neurologist from Lexington, but so far, TJ was not impressed with him. All he ever did was shine light in her eyes and ask her stupid questions and make stupid declarations of how great she was doing.
The doctor glanced at her parents and Sam. "Have you noticed anything other than the long-term memory loss, any changes in personality or demeanor?"
Her mother frowned. "No, not really. It's been hard to have a conversation, though, since, you know, she hadn't been able to talk."
Dr. Upton nodded.
Vern looked hopeful. "What about her memory, Doc? Will it come back?"
Dr. Upton's expression was professionally detached. "I'm sorry. No."
Well, at least he called a spade a spade.
Vern's face reddened and he looked angry. "How can you be so sure?"
Dr. Upton was unfazed. "In my experience, I've never seen anyone recover lost memory from a stroke of this severity. It's not like she got a bump on the head and everything goes back to normal once it's healed. Of course, the brain is one of the last frontiers. There's still things we don't know. She's already, as I said, retained much more of her faculties than we thought possible. Still, the possibility of her regaining the memory she has lost is pretty much nil."
Fern pressed her fingers to her lips, eyes brimming. TJ just sat there, watching and listening as if she were an indifferent observer, like they were talking about someone else. She supposed knowing she would never get her memory back should be a blow, but nothing was as shocking as the things she'd already learned. In fact, she really didn't care if she got her memory back. She didn't want to remember. She just wanted her old life back. She still had all those memories, and it was something to build on. She wanted to pick up where she left off.
Her eyes involuntarily met Sam's. He was staring at her, his face unreadable except for that tick in his jaw that she'd learned meant there was restrained emotion just under the surface. His gaze made her uncomfortable, and she looked away.
Dr. Upton patted TJ's shoulder, completely ignorant of the tension in the room. "I'm confident you'll eventually be able to lead a normal life, TJ. There's no reason you can't recover from this and move on. The memory loss is a setback, certainly, but I can't say this enough. It could have been so very much worse."
TJ nodded and gave him her biggest smile. Her voice was hoarse from disuse and it always made her feel a bit breathless when she spoke because of the trach, but this time she didn't care. "Thank you, Doctor. That's great news." She was glad that he'd hammered the proverbial nail in the coffin. The last six years of her life were gone. Period. End of story. She stared defiantly at Sam. "Moving on with my life. That's exactly what I plan to do."
XXXXXXXX
TJ was searching the web on the iPad her parents bought her as a get-well gift. She was amazed by it and how easy it was to use. Apparently, this new technology invented by Apple was taking the world by storm in the form of phones and "tablets" like the one she had. She'd found several games from the App Store that were free and downloaded them, and she searched the Internet for hours at a time, reading endless news articles, trying to catch up on everything she couldn't remember from the last six years.
She checked her email and ignored the ones from people she didn't remember. She did the same when they called her cell phone. She supposed it was rude, that these people had been her friends—really close friends, according to her mom—but they were strangers now and she didn't feel like repeating awkward conversations with them like the ones she had with Sam.
Several of the voice mails had been from Sam's brother, Dean—her brother-in-law. How bizarre that she had a brother-in-law. He sounded nice enough, expressing all the obligatory sorrow that she didn't know him from Adam and the same well wishes that all the others had given her. There had been a sadness in his voice that was disturbing, a pain that had been missing from the others, and she wondered why. Maybe it had to do with Sam, and she wondered how close Sam was to his brother.
It hit her then that her phone had a camera. Maybe she'd be able to find a picture of him. Maybe she'd find pictures of the others, too. Of course, how she was supposed to know who was who, she didn't know. It was worth a try, though.
She flipped through the pictures on her phone. There were literally hundreds of them, mostly of people she didn't know and of places she didn't remember going. There was a picture in front of a place called Shorty's that she figured must be a restaurant or something. She was in the pic, along with three other people—a gorgeous red-headed girl hugging a guy with short, dark-blond hair, and then Sam and herself in the front. She had a vague memory that she'd seen the redhead and the guy when she was waking from the coma and figured this had to be Dean. It would explain why he would have come all the way from California to see her, if he was her brother-in-law.
In the picture, Sam was in his wheelchair and TJ was in his lap. Her arms were around his neck, obvious smiles of happiness on both their faces. She looked like she was where she belonged, as if she'd never wanted to be anywhere else.
She touched the tiny version of herself in the photo and then touched her own face. The girl in the picture was someone TJ didn't recognize. She looked like her, but something was off, not quite right. TJ felt like she was seeing an older sister that she didn't know existed. The girl in the picture seemed more sophisticated, more confident, more grown up.
TJ was off the ventilator now and the trach collar had been removed yesterday. The whole weaning process had taken a little over a week. She had a bandage-like patch covering the hole in her neck, but Georgia had assured her the hole looked to be healing nicely and the patch would be gone in a day or two. She said once the hole was healed, it would hardly be noticeable.
TJ was able to eat again, and while her eyes had been bigger than her stomach at first and she wasn't able to eat very much, she was eating enough now that they would probably remove the feeding tube within a week or so. It helped her appetite that the trach was gone and she could smell food again.
She was starting to feel more human and less like she'd been plugged into the Matrix—although she wished she could ditch this reality she'd woken up to and find her old world where everything had been much simpler and made sense.
Her muscles were starting to rebound from the months of disuse. Apparently, not only had she been in a coma for six months, but her muscles had weakened considerably during the illness and the bed rest she endured before the birth of the twins.
She could make it to the bathroom now on her own and could walk short distances, although she tired easily and still slept a lot. She was making headway, though, and her physical therapist was enthusiastic about how quickly she was recovering.
The doctors said she could go home once the feeding tube was out and she was taking in enough calories on her own. She could do her PT on an outpatient basis and do most of her strengthening exercises at home. She wasn't sure that was a good thing and wasn't too gung ho to go home. Sam would be there and so would the twins. She would have to see them all the time, and the thought made her stomach tighten uncomfortably.
What was she supposed to do? Try to fall in love with Sam again—assuming she was even in love with him before? The thought was appalling. It was like being in an arranged marriage.
Then there was the issue of the twins. She didn't even feel like an adult, let alone a mother. She still felt like a teenager. Did everyone expect her to try to be a mom to two infants that she had no recollection of and no maternal feelings for? She didn't know the first thing about taking care of babies or parenting. The thought of being tied down to them for the rest of her life was terrifying and stifling.
She felt the familiar rush of panic and tried to push it all away, overwhelmed and confused. It made her blood pressure spike and her hands shake. She was beyond relieved when there was a knock at her open door and she raised her head to see Jeremy standing there.
He looked handsome in a gray business suit, very GQ, although she never in a million years would have believed he would wear a suit if she wasn't seeing it with her own two eyes. He held up a white paper bag from Dairy Queen and gave her a charming smile. "I got the okay from Aunt Tru," he said in his laid-back drawl. "You still like Heath Blizzards?"
She burst into a grin. "Well, the me from six years ago does. I don't know about the twenty-five-year-old me."
He raised his brows. "Good enough." He walked into the room, set the bag on the overbed table, and took two Blizzards out. TJ set her iPad on the table, and he handed one of the cups of thick ice cream to her, along with a red plastic spoon.
She folded her legs and sat Indian style so he would have room to sit on the bed with her, although there was a chair nearby. He got the hint and rolled the table out of the way, then sat down.
She took a bite of the Blizzard and rolled her eyes in ecstasy. The sweet, creamy ice cream treat with bits of toffee and chocolate mixed in suffused her with waves of pleasure. It was her favorite, and she was touched that he remembered. "Mercy. I don't know how long it's been since I had one of these, but it's heaven." She looked him in the eye. "Thanks, Sucks."
He was in the middle of taking a bite, and he laughed around it. Once he swallowed, he said, "You're welcome. And I never thought I'd be happy to have you callin' me Sucks, but I am."
She felt a blush coming on and looked down at her Blizzard. After savoring another bite, she looked up at him. She was glad to finally be alone with him. There were so many things she wanted to ask him, but she hadn't had the chance because her parents or Sam were always there whenever Jeremy visited before.
For the first time since she'd become aware of what was going on, she felt self-conscious about her appearance. Her hair was in a ponytail, but, as usual, half of it had fallen down, and she wondered how bad it looked. At least she was wearing some nice silk pajamas her mom had bought her instead of one of the nursing home gowns.
"So, what's with the suit?" she asked.
He gave her a slightly perplexed frown and looked down at what he was wearing, like he'd forgotten what he had on. "Oh. Goes with the job. I'm on a lunch break."
"What job?"
"I took over the bank—sort of. Ray Dean McAllister is showing me the ropes, teaching me everything my dad knew."
She froze for a moment, hardly believing her ears. "The bank bank? The bank that you swore you would never take over, the bank that's been in the Suggs family for three generations, the bank that was the bane of Little Jeremy Suggs' existence? That bank?"
He smirked, cynical humor in his steel-gray eyes. "That would be the one."
Her heart sank. He'd had so many dreams. He'd wanted out of Moss Fork just as badly as she did. "Why, Jeremy?"
He shrugged and looked down at his spoon, fiddling with his ice cream. "I went to college for a while, but my mom..." He hesitated and then looked up. "I guess you don't remember that my dad passed away at the beginning of my junior year at Kentucky."
She stuck her spoon in her ice cream and reached out, squeezing his arm. "God, Jeremy. I'm really sorry."
He gave her a rueful smile. "I know. You came all the way back from San Diego for the funeral."
"Oh." She hated that she didn't remember and felt frustration brewing inside her. "This is all so fuckin' weird, Jeremy—pardon my French. I feel like just a few weeks ago we were working together at Donna's."
He stared at her for a moment and then his beautiful mouth curved with dry amusement. "Yeah. That is pretty fuckin' weird."
She snorted. "So what were you gonna say about Liv?"
He sighed. "My mom didn't take my dad's death well at all. She hasn't been—well, let's just say she kind of forgets where she is sometimes."
"I know the feeling. How bad is it?"
"It's bad. We have an assistant that helps me watch out for her while I'm at the bank because I can't leave her alone. A lot of times Mama seems fine, and then something will just snap, and she thinks my dad's still alive and that I'm him."
TJ sat back against her pillow, taking that in. Jeremy's mom Liv was like an aunt to her. TJ even called her Aunt Liv, and Jeremy called her mom Aunt Fern. Liv had always been such a beautiful, vivacious, intelligent lady. She was one of her mom's best friends. TJ couldn't fathom that Liv would go off the deep end like that.
Jeremy took a bite of his ice cream, like he needed something to do in the awkward silence that had developed.
TJ felt kind of bad for asking, but there was so much she didn't know. "So, what happened to Ross?"
A flash of pain crossed Jeremy's features. "He, uh..." He cleared his throat, not looking at her. "He was killed in a tractor accident. You know how it is around here. The hills are steep. If you're not careful, it's easy to flip a tractor."
She nodded and felt a heavy, profound sadness. Everyone knew and loved Ross. He had run the local bank after inheriting it from his own father, Jeremy Ross, Sr., and was well-respected for his big heart. He'd been known to give many a farmer down on his luck a helping hand and would only foreclose on a farm when there were absolutely no other options.
The bank had been the main source of income for Jeremy's family for generations, but the Suggs farm that bordered the Nelek farm had been a source of pride for Ross. He worked it when he had time and the rest was done by hired farmhands. Still, he would sometimes spend hours on the weekends plowing with the tractor or fixing fences or doing any of the other hundreds of tasks that were required on a farm. He loved the land. It had been a part of him.
TJ felt a lump in her throat and her eyes burned.
"Aw, Nelly. Don't cry. It's been four years. It don't hurt as bad as it used to."
Four years. That made her cry just as much as knowing Ross was dead, and she looked away and wiped the tears from her cheek.
Jeremy put his cup on the table, and she handed hers to him to do the same. She'd only eaten half of the Blizzard, but she'd lost her appetite.
She drew in a deep breath, getting control of her tears, and studied Jeremy. He was still the same, although he'd filled out more. She remembered him as a wiry, athletic teenager, but he looked more like a man now. She could see how his mother might confuse him with his daddy. He looked just like him.
"You cut your hair," she accused mildly.
"Yep. I sold out," he drawled. "Music and runnin' a bank don't mix. I left that artsy shit behind. Got to play the part, you know?"
He sounded bitter, and who could blame him? Music had been his passion in high school. He was a gifted guitarist and could also play a banjo like nobody's business, but it was like pulling teeth to get him to do it. He said it was too country, too hillbilly, like bluegrass music. He didn't like bluegrass, purely in defiance of the expectation that a banjo player from Kentucky ought to play bluegrass. Instead, he'd always been into indie and obscure rock bands that nobody ever heard of.
"Did you major in music at Kentucky?"
"Yep." He smiled wryly. "Didn't do much to prepare me for the damn bank."
She huffed. "Well, if you don't like how things turned out, just have a stroke and lose the last six years of your life. Then you can start over."
He snorted a little laugh through his nose. "Yeah. I guess that's one way of doin' it."
They were quiet again, so many things in the air between them.
Finally, she broke the silence. "So, um, are you—you know, do you have a girlfriend?"
He gave her a mischievous look and then drawled, "Yep. I've got lots of girlfriends."
She rolled her eyes. "I guess some things never change." She was relieved, though, that he wasn't in a serious relationship.
He chuckled and then looked at her intently. "So what exactly is the last thing you remember?"
She paused, wondering if she would make a fool out of herself if she told him that being with him was the last thing she remembered, that she was still in love with him. She shrugged. "I remember getting ready to go to college. I remember working with you at Donna's that summer after we graduated high school."
He was still staring at her with that penetrating gray gaze, his eyes dark and light at the same time. "Do you remember those nights at the pond drinkin' that god-awful homemade wine my Uncle Wade gave me? Hoo-wee, that stuff would've took the paint off the barn."
She gave a small laugh and looked down, playing with her fingernails. She didn't know why, but she couldn't tell him the truth, wasn't sure that she could trust him. Maybe he wasn't the same Jeremy from before, and she didn't know what had happened afterward, why they had obviously gone their separate ways. "No," she lied. "I don't remember."
He reached out and cupped her chin in his fingers, tilting it up so she would look at him. He searched her face for a long time.
Her pulse quickened. He was still so beautiful, still her Jeremy.
"I think you do remember those nights, Nelly," he said in a sultry drawl. "I know I remember."
Of course she remembered, and it was achingly frustrating that it was like yesterday to her, that all the emotions were still raw and fresh. The threat of tears made her throat narrow. "What happened, Jeremy? Those nights at the pond—I thought—I mean, things had finally changed between us. We were closer than ever. How could this have happened? How could I possibly be married to someone else? You were—" She stopped abruptly before she said something really embarrassing, like professing her love for him like an idiot.
He pulled her into a hug, and it felt so good to be in his arms, so comforting. It was her undoing, and she started to sob on his shoulder, feeling the pain, the loss, and the overwhelming confusion of everything that had happened closing in on her. She didn't want the contact with him to end, wanted to stay in his arms forever. Finally, they broke apart, and he handed her a tissue from the box on the bedside table.
She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. "Sorry. I kind of messed up your suit."
He strained his eyes to the side and looked at his shoulder. "That's all right. You can cry on my shoulder anytime." He grabbed another tissue and dabbed at the remnants of her waterworks.
She gave a faint, embarrassed laugh. Her face felt tight and swollen, and her nose was stopped up. She sniffed and wiped her nose again, then looked at him. "What happened, Jeremy? I need to know."
He pressed his lips together and made a slight grimace. "I made a huge mistake. That's what happened."
His words knocked the breath out of her and made her heart clench. There it was, the truth she'd been dreading. He regretted being with her. "Well, thanks," she said with sardonic sarcasm to hide how much it hurt. "Your brutal honesty is such a breath of fresh air."
He glanced at her with a frown on his face. "Why do you say—" His eyes widened, and he put his hand on her knee. "No, no. Nelly, you—that's not what I meant. I don't regret that night for one minute. You hear? That was the best night of my life."
"It was?" she asked, hope starting to blossom inside her.
He nodded and caressed her jaw with his fingers.
She closed her eyes, feeling a pleasant buzz from his easy touch. After a moment, she opened her eyes. "Then what was the huge mistake?"
He gave her that lopsided smile of his that she loved so much. "My mistake was ever letting you go."
TBC