Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Two


I was only allowed to mope for about a day and a half before my mom sat me down and made me spill. She knew I hadn’t come back here because things had been going great for me.

A mom always knows.

So I spilled my guts to her that Sunday afternoon, sitting on the couch with a glass of wine for fortification. It was a rare moment where we had the house to ourselves. My dad was napping upstairs and my siblings were busy with their kids’ various back to school programs and were currently elsewhere.

It struck me how much I had needed this; needed to come home and just sit here on the couch and pour my heart out to my mother the same way I had when I’d been twenty-two; wanting and needing to leave home, or as a thirteen-year-old who wanted a boy to notice her, or as a six-year-old who was angry with her big sister. There was never anything talking to my mom couldn’t fix, or at least make infinitely better.

Of course, I couldn’t tell her everything. If my mom knew that I’d been the hostage in a bank robbery, she would never let me leave her sight again.

No, I couldn’t do that to her. Maybe one day I would tell her, but not today. So instead I explained to her how my tireless work had finally started to take a toll on me, how I had met this absolutely amazing man who had opened my mind and was helping both challenge my beliefs and strengthen my spirit. I explained to her how it had started out as him being my personal self-defense trainer, which she of course approved of, and then how things had gotten more complicated with our fake dating as we tried to convince his controlling mother that we were serious so she would sign over his gym to him.

My mom was amazed, amused, but also concerned for me by the end of the tale. I had also spared her the gritty details of my love life, but I knew that she understand that Mason and I were more than just friends at this point.

But we also weren’t together.

My mother understood in deeper ways than perhaps anyone else could, though. She embraced me and expressed sympathy with how hard this all sounded like it had been for me.

Sadly, she didn’t even know the half of it.

I just couldn’t bear to burden my mother with any extra worry for me, not when she worried for me enough as it was. Plus, she had plenty of grandkids to worry about now, too, if not any from me.

“Well, this fella sure sounds special. At least, it sure seems like you think he’s special, and that’s enough for me.”

I smiled at her faintly through my tears. “He is.” I assured her softly.

“Well? Then what are you doin’ moping around here for? Why don’t you go get the man?! Didn’t I raise you better than this?”

I sighed heavily. “I tried, Mama! I went to the gym to talk to him, with a basket of stupid flax seed muffins and everything, and then-!”

I explained about seeing him with the leggy brunette, expecting nothing but sympathy, but my mother was shaking her wizened head of dyed blonde hair, fetchingly cut into a chic bob. “Oh, honey. You never even gave the poor guy a chance to explain himself? It could’ve just been some totally platonic work associate.”

I bit my lip and dropped my gaze from my mother’s blue eyes.

“You must really care for him, to be so affected like this.”

I shrugged, uncomfortable now so I sipped more wine. “It doesn’t really matter, does it? He made it perfectly clear that he wanted nothing to do with me where romance was concerned.” I got up to pour myself a refill on my pity wine. “It’s not like he’s gonna suddenly show up at the door to declare his undying love for me.”

Just then the doorbell rang and my mother laughed.

“Don’t speak too soon, dear!”

“Har-har.” I muttered, going to answer the blasted door.

I swung it open, feeling rather contrary right then, and was shocked clean out of my socks to find none other than Mason Blacksteele himself standing there on my family’s porch.

###

“Who is it, honey?” My mom called from the couch.

“Just...hang on a minute!” I called back, then stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind me.

Mason raised his eyebrows, beginning to smile that damnably sexy smile as his brown eyes drifted over me.

I flushed and cinched my pink fluffy robe a bit tighter. I was painfully conscious of my smeared, day old makeup and messy topknot, not to mention my fuzzy Strawberry Shortcake slippers.

“How did you find me?!” I demanded in a harsh whisper.

His smile widened. “If you have enough money, you can find anyone. Cute place, do I get to come inside?”

I stared up at him, noticing how when his smile faded he had a new darkness around his eyes. Something had happened, I realized. He hadn’t shown up at my childhood home to sweep me off my feet, as my crazy pounding heart couldn’t help but hope.

I darted a glance at the silver Lincoln parked along the curb, clearly a rental.

“What are you doing here, Mason?” I asked, looking back up into his espresso rich brown eyes.

That’s when I saw it; he broke down, letting go his armor of debonair charm and easy-going charisma.

“It’s my brother.” He said in a short, thick sort of way. “He’s-Colter’s been in an accident and now...he can’t remember anything.”

###

I shook my head in confusion, unable to process for a moment. “He-wait, what? Oh my God, poor Mina!”

“What’s it called, that thing they get in action movies; amnesia? Yeah, he can’t even remember his own wife, apparently. Hell, maybe he can’t remember our big fight anymore.” He said this with just a tinge of hope in his voice.

Then he looked at me, really looked at me.

“Annie...I need you.”