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Their small beast, who was equally at home in that penthouse, accompanied them.
“I never did go through with my plan,” he told his friend as they sat on the couch, drinking one of Emma’s special coffee blends.
George and Stella were sitting on the floor, busy entertaining Meowmus with the absurd assortment of cat toys he’d accumulated.
“What plan was that?” Rainer asked, his eyes on his wife.
“The cat,” he confessed in a low voice. “Meowmus just remindedme that I intended to talk Emma into going around Verdant Falls with me to see if it would jog her memory.”
“Didn’t you decide that was a bad idea? Because it upsets her?”
“It does,” he acknowledged. “But that was before they changed her medicine, before the construction site.”
Rainer shifted to face him with an expression that could have curdled milk. “What about that near tragedy made you think she would want a trip down memory lane? Except for your sorry ass, she’s been firm about keeping the past she can’t remember in the past.” He leaned forward, lips firming. “Or do you intend to force the issue now because of Stella? Because I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“I don’t intend to force anything.” Garrett wasn’t a complete idiot. “But when Emma recovered a pre-accident memory at the construction site, I thought it all might be coming back. But so far, it’s the only one. I wasn’t going to push in Verdant Falls, just support her if she wanted to take a look around.”
This earned him another scowl.
“I’m sure that’s what you’d like to believe,” Rainer warned. “But that unspoken expectation would be there. And Emma’s astute enough to recognize that for what it is.”
His friend came closer, pitching his voice lower so the girls wouldn’t hear him. “You now have a beautiful daughter in addition to your beautiful wife. I don’t want to watch while you screw it all up by reaching for some idea of perfection.”
That one hit home. “The way I always do, you mean?”
“Perfect only exists on paper and in your memories,” Rainer murmured. “It’s not a thing of the present. And trying to plan your future around it isn’t just borrowing trouble. It’s inviting it home and letting it crash on your couch.”
Grunting, Garrett took a sip of his coffee, savoring it despite the heavy conversation. Damn, Emma could pick a bean.
“What memory was it?” Rainer asked.
“Hmm?”
“The memory Emma recovered?” Rainer prodded. “You never actually saidwhat it was.”
“Oh, the thing about the cat.” He set the mug on the side table. “Not this one. My aunt’s old Persian.”
Rainer sat up. “You mean how the cat would lie in wait for you, hiding under the couch?”
“Yeah.” He laughed. “Emma remembered the story I told her when she was in college. The little shit would wait for me to pass by on my way to the bathroom. Then it would leap out to claw the shit out of me. Fucker always did it in the middle of the night when I was half-asleep with a full bladder.”
He’d accidentally pissed himself a little one time. But he didn’t tell Emma that.
Rainer didn’t join in the laughter. “Shit. Emma didn’t remember that. I told her that story.”
Garrett stilled. “What?”
Rainer sat up straighter. “I shared it with her when she came over to pick up Meowmus after we cat-sat early on. She was commenting on how you didn’t seem to like the animal and was wondering why you would adopt one. I said at least this one didn’t lie in wait to ambush you and ended up telling her the whole story.”
The once excellent coffee swirled in his stomach unpleasantly. “You told her this before the construction site?”
Rainer nodded.
Fuck.
“Hey,” Rainer hissed. He pointed an accusing finger, wagging it in his face. “That right there. You shut that shit down and you do it now.”
He scowled. “What did I do?”