Surprise Daddies: A Contemporary Romance Box Set Page 16

  “He’ll charm you out of your entire plate if you’re not careful,” I say, as I sit down at the table across from her.

  “I don’t doubt that in the least,” she laughs.

  I break a piece of bacon in half and toss it to Stabler. He catches it before it hits the ground and chomps away happily on it. Technically, I know I shouldn’t be giving him bacon. Especially not at the table. Not only is all the grease and fat in bacon not good for him, allowing him to beg at the table for it is teaching him bad manners.

  But, given that I live alone, don’t have visitors all that often, and I don’t really care what other people think anyway, I don’t deny Stabler anything. He’s a good friend, great companion, and has helped me get through some real dark shit in my head. I limit the amount of bad food he gets, but I will usually share just about everything with the furry oaf. He lays down on his side next to the table, his eyes still moving between the two of us as he waits for his next morsel.

  Isla and I eat in silence for a few moments, the air between us thick with awkwardness. We’re strangers to each other and have been thrust into a situation where we’re living with each other – how could that not be awkward from the jump?

  Added into that mix, of course, is the fact that Isla doesn’t remember anything about herself, or her past, so it’s not like we can even talk about things we have in common since she doesn’t know if we have anything in common.

  She looks up at me and laughs, a genuine smile lighting up her whole face. I cock my head and look at her, not knowing what she finds so funny. She goes on for a few moments, then wipes her mouth as she settles down. She raises her eyes to mine, and they still sparkle with her good humor.

  “I was just trying to come up with something to talk about,” she says. “But I don’t have anything I can really bring up. It’s not like I remember anything that interested me. It just struck me as funny that I have absolutely nothing to add to any conversation. I don’t know why, but I get the feeling that I’m not the kind of person who’s ever at a loss for words. I kind of feel like I talk – a lot. Like I always have something to say. So, to be suddenly mute is kind of an odd feeling.”

  I grin. “Yeah, I guess that would be an odd feeling,” I agree. “Honestly, I can’t even imagine what you’re going through right now. I imagine it has to be frustrating as hell to not be able to remember a damn thing.”

  “You have no idea,” she says. “I vacillate between wanting to cry and wanting to smash things.”

  “I bet.”

  She shakes her head. “I just wish I knew what this was all about. I mean, I know you told me the whole story about my brother and the cartel and all,” she says, sounding miserable. “But it just seems so strange. So unreal. Like a story, you told and all of that happened to somebody else.”

  I toss Stabler another chunk of bacon, watching him scarf it all down. “I imagine that’s how your brain is trying to cope with it – deflect it and make it something out of a movie. Or something somebody else went through. Makes it a little more palatable and easier to accept.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” she says as she chews thoughtfully on a piece of toast. “I just – I can’t believe I somehow ended up in this fucked up mess with a drug cartel.”

  “For what it’s worth, it’s not like you did something bad. You did nothing wrong, Isla,” he says as his eyes bore into mine. “If there’s one thing you need to fully embrace, it’s that none of this is your fault. You got caught up in it because your brother made some really poor decisions. You’re collateral damage in all of this, as shitty of a deal as that is. You did nothing wrong.”

  “It really is a shitty deal,” she agrees. “I mean, deep down, I can just feel that I’m not a bad person, but –”

  “You’re not,” I say simply.

  “But, how do you know?” she asks. “I mean, how can you be so certain?”

  “For one thing, I read the entire DOJ file on you and your brother, and this whole fucked up mess,” I confess. “The one thing that stands out loud and clear is that you were put into WITSEC, not because of anything you did, but because they wanted to keep you safe. The Zavala’s go after the families of those who turn snitch. They like to make a statement like that by butchering the families.”

  “How awful,” she gasps, her eyes wide.

  “They’re animals,” I say. “The second thing is that after spending as many years in the Corps and the Marshal’s Service as I did, I’ve gotten pretty good at reading people. I’ve developed a pretty good bullshit detector and can usually size a person up within minutes of meeting them.”

  She gives me a grin. “And have you sized me up?”

  In many ways – and most of them, I will never tell her about. Some of the thoughts that have gone through my head about Isla, have – to put it mildly – transcended the boundaries of good taste and professionalism. I have to do a job, and the last thing I need to do is behave like some awkward horny teenager – despite the fact that that’s exactly how I feel when I’m around her. Isla is having quite a strange, yet profound impact on me, and I have no idea how or why. It’s bewildering.

  “I have,” I finally answer. “You’re a good person with a good heart. You would never knowingly involve yourself with these kinds of murdering lowlifes. I would bet everything I own on that.”

  She shakes her head. “You can’t know that. Words in a file are one thing,” she says. “But, words in a file can also lie. They can paint an entirely wrong picture.”

  “They can,” I concede. “Which is why I also use my intuition to back me up. Like I said, I’ve got a lot of experience with reading people. I know when somebody’s lying to me, and when they’re not. I have something of a sixth sense about when somebody is a threat to my safety, and when they’re not. When they’re a good person, or not. It’s all part of having to deal with people in a region of the world where they want to kill you. You learn real fast how to read people.”

  She nibbles on a piece of bacon, then tosses a piece of it to Stabler who snatches it up and looks at her like she’s the greatest person on the planet. He doesn’t even look at me like that. I can see that she looks a little bit reassured, but the lack of memory is holding her back from truly embracing everything I’m saying. I think deep down, she knows she’s a good person, but is just so afraid of not having any sort of memory to back that belief up, that she can’t quite commit to it.

  “You were a schoolteacher, Isla,” I remember.

  She looks at me, a curious look on her face, which is quickly followed by a flash of – something. Was it recognition? Did some thread of memory weave itself into her mind?

  “History,” she says, looking up at me with a guarded sense of hope. “For some reason, when you said I was a teacher, History popped into my head.”

  I nod. “That’s right,” I smile. “You taught high school History.”

  She leans back in her seat, a small look of triumph on her face. I can see her straining her mind, trying to retrieve other threads of memory, hoping that if she can pull enough of them in, she can weave together the tapestry of her life. I sit and watch, and after a couple of moments, she lets out a long, frustrated breath, obviously not getting anything else.

  I’m tempted to let her read the DOJ file Walt gave me on her. But I worry that some of the information in it will only traumatize her further. Yeah, I can sanitize it by removing crime scene photos and whatnot, but some of the information contained in that file is traumatic enough, even without photos to accompany the horror.

  The temptation is there though. Letting her read about herself and about her life might trigger other memories. Or, the other risk is that it could traumatize her further, driving all of her memories even deeper underground. I don’t know if that’s something that could actually happen, I’m not a psychologist after all, but it’s a thought I have to consider.

  With as much as our brain protects us from hurts and traumas, the last thing I want to do is trigger a bad respon
se in hers that’s detrimental to her recovery.

  I toss Stabler a full strip of bacon, finally earning that look of pure adoration he gave so freely to Isla and clear the dishes from the table.

  “Thank you,” she tells me.

  I set them all down in the sink and look up at her. “How are you feeling?”

  “A lot better,” she says. “Except for the whole amnesia thing, I feel totally back to normal.”

  She laughs at her own joke, and I join in. I’m glad to see that she still has a sense of humor, even if it is the gallows variety. Once I have the dishes cleaned off and loaded in the dishwasher, I dry my hands off and look at her.

  “Tell you what,” I say. “Since we don’t know how long we’re going to be roommates, let me give you the nickel tour of the place.”

  “Sounds great,” she says softly.

  Isla follows me around the house, as I take her through the wide-open floor plan in the front of the house. I show her how to operate the remotes for the television in the living room, as well as make sure she finds the hidden cabinet next to the fireplace where I store dry wood. As if he’s trying to help show her the ropes, Stabler jumps up onto the couch, occupying his usual spot – which is the entire loveseat.

  “Yeah, Stabler gets his own couch,” I point out.

  “I can see that,” she laughs.

  “And he gets a little touchy if you try to take it from him.”

  She laughs and leans down, scratching him behind the ears. She earns that doggy-smile, and some hard tail thumps against the couch for her efforts. All of that out of the way, I take her to the rear of the house. The first room I show her is my office.

  “This is where I usually conduct all my business,” I tell her. “But, feel free to use the computer in here if you need to.”

  “Must be hard getting an internet connection out here.”

  “Not too bad, really. This entire house is off the main grids. We generate our own power here – wind and solar mostly. I do have a backup generator though, that will kick on automatically in the event of total power failure. We’ve got multiple satellite dishes, and built-in redundancies, so if somebody ever were to cut our main internet connection, the system would automatically switch to the next without missing a beat.”

  “Sounds like you’re prepared for the Apocalypse out here,” she laughs.

  I shrug. “I believe in being prepared for anything that may get thrown at you. If you eliminate potential blind spots and weak points, you stand a much better chance of surviving anything.”

  “Including zombies?” she asks, a twinkle in her eye.

  “Definitely zombies,” I laugh. “Come on. Follow me this way, smartass.”

  She lets out an audible gasp when we step into the next room – the library. Isla rushes in and starts running her fingertips over all the spines of the books on the shelves. That’s one thing I read about her in the file – she’s an absolute bibliophile. Walt had made a notation in his notes that she’s happiest in a bookstore, so it’s not entirely surprising that she likes my library. The love of a good book is one thing I know she and I definitely have in common.

  “If there’s one good thing about your amnesia, it’s that it’s going to be like reading these books again for the first time for you,” I say.

  Her laughter is soft, yet high pitched. It sounds like wind chimes blowing in a gentle breeze. It’s a sweet, melodious sound, and one I find I could really get used to hearing. I watch her turning in a circle, taking in the library, a look of absolute rapture on her face.

  The ceiling in this room is raised, and on three of the walls, I have built-in bookshelves that run from the floor, up to that tall ceiling. They’re all crammed full of nuggets – mysteries, horror, non-fiction, historical biographies. In all, there are thousands of titles on the shelves.

  In one corner of the room is a small coffee bar I put in myself – I love having coffee while I read, sue me. The fourth wall of the room is floor-to-ceiling glass, allowing the natural light to filter in, and splash across the soft, deep, overstuffed couches that make up a sort of lounge. I like to come in here some days, drink coffee, and read all day, so I figured that I might as well make myself comfortable when I’m at it.

  “I don’t know that you’re ever going to get me to leave this room,” Isla smiles wide as she takes in the library around her. “I can feel down to my very bones that I’m a huge reader.”

  “You are,” I acknowledge. “I thought you might appreciate this place.”

  “I absolutely do,” she murmurs. “I don’t know how I know it, but I do.”

  “Well, make yourself at home,” I encourage. “The coffee bar is over there, so feel free to make yourself a pot whenever you want it. Also, that smaller loveseat belongs to Stabler.”

  She laughs. “You really do spoil that dog.”

  As if on cue, he pads into the room and leans up against my leg, nuzzling my thigh with his big furry head. I look down into those deep chocolate colored eyes and see nothing but love and affection in his gaze.

  “He’s worth it,” I tell her.

  Isla is giving me a curious look and a gentle smile.

  “What?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “It’s just kind of cute seeing a big, burly man such as yourself turn into a puddle of goo around the dog.”

  I kneel down and take Stabler’s head in my hands and scratch behind his ears. “He’s much more than just a dog to me.”

  There are a few moments of silence as I dote upon my dog, and Isla continues to prowl the shelves. Every now and then she pulls out a book, looks at the first few pages and frowns. I know she’s trying to jog her memory by using something she’s as intensely passionate about as reading, but her success at this point is limited, which is frustrating her to no end.

  Still, the fact that there are a few cracks beginning to form in that wall in her mind and whispers of memory are starting to come back to her is a sign I’ll take to be encouraging. She may not recall everything right now, but I’m starting to think that it’s only a matter of time, given that the hint of some of her oldest memories are starting to surface.

  “Did I have any bags or anything with me in the car?” she asks, turning around to face me.

  I shrug. “I honestly don’t know. My focus was on getting you out of there,” I say. “I didn’t stop to check.”

  It’s as if another memory is swimming around just beneath the surface of her mind. “I just – I seem to recall always having a bag packed in case something bad happened. I guess something like this whole mess.”

  “Given your situation, it would be smart, prudent planning,” I say.

  She looks at me brightly. “Do you think we can go back to the car? Maybe there’s something in there that will help –”

  “I’m absolutely not taking you anywhere near that place,” I interject. “I need to keep you out of the public’s eye as much as possible. We already ran the risk at the hospital and almost got caught. I’m not going to make that mistake again, Isla.”

  She sighs and gives me a tight smile. “I understand. I just thought –”

  “I’ll tell you what though,” I say. “First thing tomorrow, I’ll go back myself and grab your bags.”

  It’s a good idea, and I’m kind of kicking myself for not thinking of it first. Of course, her bags might contain something that can help us jog her memories. If the car’s still there. I have no idea if the police found it, if vandals looted it, or what. For all I know, the whole damn wreck is going to be gone.

  But, it’s worth the effort to go back out and take a look. At the very least, she’ll have some clothes again.

  “First thing tomorrow?” she asks.

  I nod. “Yup. I’ll leave Stabler here with you, show you how to check the security systems, and then I’ll go out and see what I see.”

  Isla surprises me by throwing her arms around me and pressing her firm body tightly against mine. I awkwardly pull her to me, embracing her as w
ell. I feel her round, full breasts crushed against my body and feel that familiar stirring in my groin – one I haven’t felt in a while though.

  “Thank you, Baker,” she says. “Thank you for everything. You saved my life, and you’ve been so kind. I appreciate everything you’ve done – and everything you’re still doing for me.”

  “I’m just trying to help,” I grind out through gritted teeth.

  I step back quickly, giving her an awkward smile. The last thing I need is for her to feel my erection pressed against her. She looks at me with a mischievous little gleam in her eye, and I get the impression that I didn’t step away soon enough. I do note though, that she doesn’t seem entirely put off by it.

  “Anyway,” I say, clearing my throat. “Let me show you to the security suite.”

  She and Stabler follow me down the hall toward the security suite I’d had installed. It’s where I can monitor everything that happens on my property, as well as deploy some countermeasures to keep myself – as well as Isla and Stabler – safe, to the best of my ability.

  The whole time I’m showing her all of my security measures though, all I can think about is the feel of her firm, tight body pressed to mine, and how I’m longing to feel it again.

  Later that night, she and Stabler are tucked into the library. She’s engrossed in a book, and Stabler seems pretty content to keep an eye on her. I decide that I’m going to grab a shower and turn in for the night since I figure I should get up pretty early and get out to the site of the wreck. They’re forecasting rain for tomorrow, and I’d like to beat the storm if I can. I turn on the shower and let it start to warm as I strip down and toss my clothes in the hamper.

  I step into the walk-in shower, clouds of steam billowing around me. Stepping beneath the spray of the nozzle mounted into the ceiling overhead, I close my eyes and brace myself for the shock of heat. I prefer my showers to be scalding hot, but it takes a minute to adjust to the temperature.

  Slowly, my body grows accustomed to the heat, and I turn my face up, letting the water rain down over me. I don’t typically indulge in too many luxuries in my life, but this bathroom is definitely one of those I allowed myself when I had the house designed and built.