Chapter 35
Jack got up extra early to get all his chores done so that he and Lisa could be on the road early. He kissed Lisa's head before leaving their bedroom.
Lisa stretched and looked up at Jack. "Good morning," she said sleepily.
"Good morning. Go back to sleep. It's super early. I just wanted to finish my chores early so we can get an early start to the cabin." Jack leaned down to kiss Lisa.
She covered her mouth to block Jack. "Morning breath."
Jack shrugged and moved her hand and said, "Oh, well," before kissing her anyway. He winked and left to go do his morning chores.
Lisa blushed and buried her face in her pillow. Her heart was racing, and she had butterflies in her stomach. "Oh, I need to get a hold of myself." She tried briefly to go back to sleep but realized it was hopeless. She eventually dragged herself out of bed and started getting ready.
When Jack got back to the house, Lisa was in the kitchen putting coffee in a thermos and making egg and cheese sandwiches to take with them on the road as well as other food to have for lunch.
Jack walked over to Lisa after taking off his boots and kissed her cheek. "Good morning."
"Good morning to you too. I made us some coffee and am putting together food to take with us." Lisa gestured to everything she had prepared.
"Thank you. The egg and cheese sandwiches look good. I'm going to take a quick shower, and then we can go." Jack walked off to get his shower
"Okay, I'll be ready to go whenever you are," Lisa called quietly over her shoulder. She finished getting ready in the bedroom while Jack was showering. No one else was up yet, so they tried to be as quiet as possible.
On the way to the fishing cabin, Lisa fell asleep. Jack just let her sleep. He knew that she had been working hard lately, and he wanted to let her rest. He almost woke her up when they passed the spot where the accident happened, but he worried that it would ruin their day. It made him sad to pass that place where his life changed, but he took a deep breath and tried to just put it out of his mind. He wanted to enjoy the day with his wife.
When they arrived at the cabin, Jack reached over and patted Lisa's arm. "Lis, we're here."
Lisa groaned and stretched as she woke up. "Oh man. I passed out. Last thing I remember, we were a little outside of Hudson, and I had just finished my sandwich. I should have had some coffee."
"I figured that I'd just let you sleep. You've been working so hard. We can drink coffee here." Jack got out of the truck and went around to her side to help her get out.
As Lisa stepped out of the truck, she began to really look around. "Oh, Jack. It's beautiful. I see why you love coming up here."
Jack grabbed the coffee thermos, and they went to the porch to have a cup of coffee before they did anything else. Lisa sat on a chair, looking around, just taking everything in while Jack poured coffee for the two of them. He handed her a cup of coffee and then sat back in his chair.
"I can't get over how beautiful this spot is." Lisa was blown away that this was where Jack's fishing cabin was located.
"It's the best place to be if I'm not at Heartland. Having you here with me makes it the best place to be at the moment," said Jack.
Once they finished their coffee, Lisa looked over at Jack. "Can you show me inside the cabin?"
"Sure, it's probably kind of dusty in there. Nobody has been here since we were here six weeks ago," Jack warned.
"That's fine. I just want to see it." Lisa stood up and walked over the door and waited for Jack to open it and show her around.
Jack stood up and walked over to Lisa. "You're cute." He kissed her on the forehead and then opened the door for Lisa. Once inside, he put his arm around Lisa. "It's nothing special here as far as stuff goes, but I have lots of good memories here. This is the last place we were before the accident. It was such a nice trip to the cabin. One of the best, really."
"We'll just have to make new memories." Lisa pressed a kiss to Jack's cheek.
After looking at the cabin for a few minutes, Jack and Lisa got their fishing gear and walked down to the river.
Jack helped Lisa get into her waders and then got into his own. They carefully made their way into the river. Jack started to help Lisa with casting her line, but she didn't need any help. She was able to cast her line in perfectly. Jack looked at Lisa in shock.
"How were you able to do that so easily?" he asked.
"I don't know. That was crazy." Lisa was in shock as well. "Is it like a muscle memory thing?"
"I don't know. You're the one who somehow remembers how to fish but doesn't remember anything else from your life for the past 17 years," Jack responds.
"That was insane. It's like I just know how to do it. I didn't even think about it." LIsa reeled in her line and cast it again. "See? I just know how to do that. I didn't even know that I did."
"That's amazing. It kind of gives me hope that you'll be able to eventually get your memory back. Clearly, there are memories in there somewhere." Jack had been trying so hard not to get his hopes up that Lisa would regain her memory, but that had completely flown out the window the second he realized that she remembered something. He leaned down and kissed Lisa on the cheek and then stepped away from her so that he could cast his own line.
Lisa's heart was racing. She wanted her memory back so badly. Losing so much time made life difficult in so many ways. She was struggling to figure out who she was currently and how she got there. In many ways, she didn't think she had changed much, but in others, there had been monumental shifts. Marrying Jack and living at Heartland were the main ones. She never thought she would get married again, and she had been okay with that. Although she didn't remember meeting 17 years ago, she remembered meeting him now, and even though it was under very different circumstances, he intrigued her. He wasn't who she had ever imagined being with, but as she got to know him, she understood why she was. She was just waiting for her feelings to catch up with what she knew about her relationship with Jack. There were times when she wanted to pretend that she had stronger feelings than she did just so that she could be with Jack in every way, but she wanted to be honest. Restarting their marriage with a lie would have been wrong, and when it came down to it, she hated dishonesty. Even though it was hard and Lisa was feeling impatient, she was working on growing her feelings for her husband slowly and honestly.
Neither one of them were having much luck catching anything, but Lisa was having fun discovering a skill she didn't know she had. After a few hours, they got hungry and went back to the cabin to eat some of the sandwiches that she packed for them.
While they sat on the porch enjoying the nice day and taking in the beautiful scenery, Jack looked over at Lisa. She looked happy and relaxed there, and it made his heart clench. He loved her so much, and even though he wanted everything to go back to the way it was before, more than anything, he wanted his wife to be happy. "After lunch, do you want to fish some more, or do you want to go for a walk or just hang out around here?"
Lisa looked over at her husband and smiled. "Hmmm, I hadn't thought about anything beyond lunch. A walk sounds nice. It's so beautiful here and it might be nice to walk by the river."
Once lunch was over and they cleaned up after themselves, they took off on a walk. Jack reached down and took Lisa's hand. As they were walking, he pulled it up to his lips and kissed it. "I'm glad that we got a chance to come up here before Georgie leaves, and you're working a lot more."
"Me too," Lisa agreed.
On their way back to the cabin, Jack noticed a change in the weather. "It looks like it's going to rain. We better hurry to the cabin."
The couple ran hand in hand to the cabin, but they weren't fast enough, and they were caught in a torrential downpour. They got into the cabin as fast as possible.
Lisa was trying to wipe her wet hair out of her face. "Wow, that came up out of nowhere."
"Gotta love mountain weather," Jack joked.
"We are soaked, and we didn't bring anything to change into. I'm freezing now." Lisa was shivering and wrapped her arms around herself to try to contain her body heat.
"There's firewood here inside. I'll start a fire so that we can warm up. I don't want to drive in this weather. We can wait for it to clear up." Jack started working on a fire while Lisa went out on the porch and was wringing out her clothes to get rid of any excess water that she could. Jack joined her once he was done making the fire. "Come on back inside. The fire is going, and we can try to warm up next to it."
The two of them dusted off some chairs and put them in front of the fire so that they could sit down and warm up. Lisa reached over to hold Jack's hand. "Thanks for building a fire. I'm still freezing, though. I hope the rain stops soon so we can just get in the truck and go home."
"I think we need to get out of these wet clothes. We're never going to warm up while we're wearing them."
"You're right, but I'm not sure being naked is the answer either," Lisa deadpanned.
"I didn't mean that. There are blankets we can use to cover up." Jack walked over to the bed and pulled the sheet that was covering it up to keep dust off of it and grabbed a couple of folded up blankets that were on the end of the bed. "Here. You can use this."
Lisa took the blanket from Jack. "Thanks. Can you turn around and go over there to change? I'd like some privacy."
"Of course." Jack walked over to the bed and kept his back to Lisa, and she kept her back to him.
Once they got out of their wet clothes and wrapped in their respective blankets, they laid their wet clothes out in front of the fire. Lisa sat down on the bed. She was still shivering.
"Why don't you get into bed and get under the covers? It might help you warm up," Jack suggested.
Lisa got into the bed. It smelled a little musty, but she was too cold to care very much at the moment. She had gotten chilled through.
Jack saw the expression on Lisa's face when she got into the bed. "When we know that we're going to be staying, we bring clean sheets. These are the sheets we brought last time. I'm sorry that they are probably a little stinky now."
"It's okay. I can deal with it if it helps me get warm." Lisa snuggled deeper into the covers.
Jack sat in front of the fire for a while, but he was tired and went over to the bed. "I'm getting tired. Do you mind if I join you?"
Lisa lifted up the covers. "Climb on in. Actually, having your body heat under the covers might help me to warm up faster."
He quickly got into the bed before she had a chance to change her mind. As much as Jack wanted to pull Lisa into his arms, he settled for lying on his side and facing her so that he could look at her.
"Hey. Stop staring at me and go to sleep. I'm actually going to try to sleep, too. I'm pretty tired as well." Lisa rolled over and closed her eyes.
Both Jack and Lisa fell asleep. When Lisa woke up, she was facing Jack again but was much closer to him. She was pressed against his chest, which was exposed as the blanket wrapped around him had moved down. Jack also had an arm wrapped around her waist. She didn't know how to feel about their very intimate position. She was mostly very okay with being so close to him, but part of her felt like it was too soon. As Lisa lay there, she tried to figure out how to get up without waking him up so that it didn't have to be an awkward situation. Something she didn't realize was that Jack was lying on one side of the blanket wrapped around her so as she pulled away, the blanket came loose, and she was exposed. Lisa gasped, and Jack opened his eyes and had a straight on view of Lisa, and his eyes got big in surprise.
"Close your eyes!" Lisa demanded.
Jack's eyes snapped shut. "I'm sorry, Lis. It was an accident."
Lisa pulled her blanket out from under Jack, wrapped it around herself, and sat up. "Okay, you can open your eyes.
Jack opened his eyes and then began pulling his blanket up over his shoulders to cover up as well. "I really am sorry, Lisa. How did we get in that position anyway?"
"I have no idea. We did it in our sleep. I'm going to check on our clothes and see if they're dry yet." Lisa didn't want to talk about it. She was thankful that everything seemed to be dry so that they could get out of there. "It's all dry, and it sounds like the rain has let up as well. We should probably start heading home. I'm sorry we didn't catch any fish."
"It's okay. It was still nice to come up here with you and make some new memories with you. I am kind of sad that I mostly missed you sleeping so close to me," Jack admitted.
Lisa shook her head at Jack. "So you weren't sorry to essentially see me topless?"
"Honestly? I am sorry because it made you uncomfortable," replied Jack.
"You aren't sorry that you saw me like that, though, are you?" Lisa challenged.
Jack shrugged his shoulders. "Well…"
Lisa started laughing. "You really are incorrigible. You're lucky that I like you so much. I'm lucky that you're such a gentleman. A lot of men might have tried to take advantage of the situation. You have no idea how much I appreciate that."
"Lisa, I would never." Jack looked horrified at the idea. "I love you so much, but even if I didn't, I would never be anything but a gentleman."
"I know you wouldn't. Thank you for that." Lisa picked up her clothes and moved to sit on the bed. "Can you turn away while I get dressed?"
"Of course." Jack turned away while Lisa put her clothes back on.
Once she was done getting dressed, she stood up and turned to look at Jack. "Okay, I'm dressed.
Jack went and grabbed his clothes, and Lisa turned away this time. "Okay, I'm dressed now, too."
Once they were both dressed, they went to look outside. Everything was wet, and there were puddles everywhere, but the rain had stopped. Jack stepped outside. "Let's clean up the cabin and go home."
"Yes, I'm ready. It's been really nice to see this place and understand why you love it so much, but I'm ready to go home too." Lisa began folding blankets while Jack put out the fire. After they got the cabin cleaned up, they went out to the truck and began their drive back to Heartland.
It was getting late by the time they left the fishing cabin, so they decided to stop at a diner to get some dinner on their way home. Shortly before they got to the diner, their phones started going off. Lisa checked, and they both had panicked text messages from Lou, wondering where they were. Lisa called Lou and let her know that they had gotten drenched in a freak rainstorm and waited until they dried up before they left. She gave an estimate for when she thought they'd be home. Jack chuckled as he heard Lou's worried voice from Lisa's phone.
Lisa laughed as she ended the call. "Oh my, she was super worried about us. I could hear Katie and Tim in the background telling her that we're adults and we can take care of ourselves."
"That's Lou. It's how she shows love for us. She'll get over it." Jack pulled into the parking lot for the restaurant.
The couple had a quick dinner and then got back on the road to get home. They were both tired and ready to take showers and go to bed. Jack realized one the way home in his tiredness that he forgot to point out where they had the accident. He figured it was for the best. They'd had a pretty good day, and focusing on that might have ended their trip on a down note.
The house was mostly dark when they got home. They tried to be quiet as they came into the house. Lou and Amy were sitting on the couch talking when they walked into the living room.
"Hey Grandpa, Hey Lisa," said the girls.
"Hi girls." Jack and Lisa stood behind the couch. "Jack, why don't you go take a shower first since you get up first." Lisa sat down in a chair in the living room and leaned back.
"You look exhausted, Lisa," said Amy.
"I am. I woke up when Jack got up to do his chores early, and then I couldn't fall asleep again. I can't wait to take a shower and go to bed."
"So how was the trip other than getting drenched in the rain?" asked Lou.
"It was good. We learned that I apparently still know how to fish," Lisa informed the girls.
"What?" asked Lou. She was surprised, and based on the look on Amy's face, she wasn't alone.
"I know. It's crazy. I can't remember anything else about my life, but I guess since it's a physical skill, it's different from other memories. I don't really know." Lisa wondered if there was anything else she remembered that she didn't know about.
"Wow, that's amazing!" exclaimed Amy.
Lisa nodded. "Yeah, it was."
"So other than that, how was the trip?" asked Lou.
Lisa knew that Lou was trying to get information out of her about the trip, but she refused to take the bait. "It was good except for getting soaked in the rain. I can see why your grandfather likes going up there so much. It really is beautiful there."
Jack came out of the bathroom and headed for the bedroom. "Goodnight. See you tomorrow."
"Okay, I'm going to get my shower. I feel gross from the day." Lisa grabbed some clean pajamas and headed for the shower herself.
When Lisa came out of the shower, Amy and Lou had gone to bed. She couldn't help but roll her eyes because they had made it so obvious that they just wanted information out of them. She turned off the lights and went to her room. Jack's light was off, and he was already snoring. Lisa chuckled quietly at the picture he made. He was facing away from her side of the bed and was as far over to the edge as possible. Lisa got into bed and turned off the light on her nightstand, and went to sleep. She had a lot to think about from the past day.
To Be Continued
Author's Note: Thanks for all your reviews. They really do help motivate me to keep writing. It's nice to know that people are enjoying this story. Life has been lifing lately, so I've had less time to write than I usually do, but hopefully, that will change now. Oh, fyi, in case goes down again. This is being cross posted on AO3 as well under the same username. For a while, I was behind on updating things over there, but it's all caught up now.