Page 10 of Accidentally Mine

Brent

D uring the accident, I’d fractured my pelvis, shattered a hand, perforated a lung, and broken my leg in two places.

In addition to learning how to walk again, I’d undergone daily therapy to get my brain back to normal function.

It was eight months before I went back to work.

Ten before I got back in a car, and a full year before I bought myself a new one.

But two things I never did? One: I never got back on the Pike again. And two: I never drove again. The car I bought was exclusively driven by Ernest.

I took the T to Brookline that morning, as I’d instructed Ernest to bug off at the coffee shop.

The platform was usually crowded with commuters, but since I’d traveled the opposite direction of the crowds, it wasn’t too bad.

It seemed like crowds made the possibility of a seizure worse, but I’d been willing to risk it.

Rebecca Reece had captivated me, drawn me in.

And I was determined to enjoy the independence I’d taken by ditching my driver.

It wasn’t ideal, going into work with a bloody shirt and a battered nose, and coffee stains all over my new English cut suit.

But I guess I deserved it for acting like a stalker this morning—totally abnormal behavior for me.

It seemed like every one of my eighty employees looked at me agog.

The few brave ones asked, “What happened to you?”

The first few times, I explained that I accidentally spilled my coffee and got in someone’s way at the T station. But when I reached my office, and my secretary leaped up from behind her desk, gasping and diving for the first aid kit, I was tired of being treated as if I would crumple.

She came at me with a Neosporin wipe, and said, “Who did this to you?” as if I were a ten-year-old boy who’d gotten jumped on the playground.

I snorted. “You should see the other guy.”

I went into my office and closed the door, glad I had another suit to change into, and a fully equipped bathroom in which to clean up. I used to run on my lunch breaks, so I’d had it installed for that. Recently, I’d changed my exercise routine to the gym.

I showered and changed, then looked at my nose in the mirror.

I’d broken my nose before, so I knew what it felt like, and it wasn’t broken.

It was tender, but thankfully, no bruises were appearing beneath my eyes.

I felt a massive headache coming on, so I popped some of the extra-strength acetaminophen my doctor had prescribed and swallowed them down without water.

Then I settled at my desk overlooking the Charles River and tried to get some work done.

But my gaze kept drifting to the Globe I’d laid on the desk, and the picture of that sexy as fuck woman, Rebecca Reece. Those eyes. Turquoise. Were they the same ones in my dream? From that night? Was I going crazy?

I hadn’t wanted to leave it up to chance that I’d see her again. It was stupid and stalkerish to follow her, but she’d looked so scared. Like she needed to get away from something, and I hadn’t been able to stop the urge to want to protect her from whatever that something was.

I opened my laptop to the search engine and quickly typed in her name. It brought up thousands of results, Rebecca Reeces all over the country. Lawyers, actresses, even a supermodel.

I amended the search to: Rebecca Reece Boston.

Fewer results this time, but still thousands. The first one, though, was the picture from the article in the Globe . I scanned the search results, another write-up making me take notice:

Rebecca Reece, the only child of Lyndon Reece, owner of Boston-based construction company, Reece Associates, disappeared without a trace on November third. Though her father filed a missing persons report, any and all leads have gone cold.

I studied the date, a strange, prickling sensation spreading over me. That day in November stood out in my mind because it meant something very big to me.

It was the date of my accident.

That couldn’t be just a coincidence. Could it?

If it was her, what the fuck was she doing here, in Boston after disappearing all this time? Was she coming to claim her inheritance? And why had she left in the first place? What had she been running from that night?

I slammed my elbows onto my desk and fisted my hair in my hands.

My mind was fucking with me. Thoughts pinged through my head like a metal ball through a pinball machine.

That couldn’t have been Rebecca Reece in the café.

And Rebecca Reece hadn’t been there that night.

All of that would be an unbelievable coincidence.

Unable to get any damn thing done, I picked up my cell phone and called Kyle.

Kyle White, my best friend, was my ace when it came to this kind of thing.

We’d gone to high school together at Woburn, and he had been accepted to MIT too, but he’d gotten his girlfriend pregnant right after high school and decided to get a job instead.

Now, he was a police detective with the Boston Police Department and looked every bit the part.

“Hey,” I said when he picked up, trying to think of the last time I’d spoken to him. February? It had been a long time, but whenever we did speak it was like no time had passed at all.

“Well, if it isn’t the Humanitarian of the Year,” he snarked. “Saw the write-up in the paper. I’m honored by your phone call, Your Grace.”

“Don’t call me that, asshole,” I muttered, grinning as I scanned the bare walls of my office.

I’d cleared everything from the walls, leaving them blank.

Blank slates seemed to help with my concentration.

Not that it was working very well now. On the blank walls, I only saw turquoise eyes. Everywhere I looked, those eyes.

“I’m sorry. Your Highness,” he corrected.

“Better.” I leaned back in my chair and looked out the window. From there, I could see the Pike, almost exactly where I’d nearly been killed, a constant, looming reminder of the day my life had changed. “How’s…” I couldn’t think of his daughter’s name.

“Avery,” he finished for me. “She’s good. Graduating from middle school in a month. She’s turning thirteen next week.”

Holy fuck. Kyle’s daughter was going to be a teenager. “Jesus.”

“I know. I know, man. Karma. You still saving the world?”

I laughed. These days, I was doing good just saving myself. “Trying to. Listen. Can I ask you to dig something up for me?”

“Sure. Us lowly plebes, we’re just sitting around, waiting for your call, Your Greatness,” he said without a hint of joviality. Kyle White had the typical cop dry sense of humor. “What can I do to serve our city’s brightest star?”

My eyes wandered to the newspaper. “Rebecca Reece. From Boston. Can you tell me what you know about her?”

“Reece,” he mumbled thoughtfully. “Yeah. Like Lyndon Reece? The construction guy?”

I checked the article. “Yes, what do you know about him?”

“Well, he died less than two weeks ago. At the site of that new hotel in the Back Bay.”

“Right. He’s the one. Can you tell me what you know about the Reece family?”

“I can tell you what I know about his death. I was on the scene for that one. Fell thirty stories down an elevator shaft in one of his buildings. Real mess.”

“Shit. Really?”

“Yeah. But from what I heard there was no next of kin to notify. This Rebecca…who is she?”

“I think it’s his daughter. From what I read in the paper, she disappeared a couple years ago. But I figure there’s got to be more to it than that.”

“Yeah. That sounds familiar. Between you and me, I’m betting there were some shady business dealings going on, and someone finally shored up with him by pushing him into that shaft.”

“You think?”

“Yeah. Whenever there’s a bunch of drama going on in one family, it’s usually not a coincidence. They’re up to their eyeballs in it. But that’s just me speaking, off the record. I’ll see what I can dig up.”

“Great. Thanks, bro.” It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him I’d seen her, but I hung up instead. The longer I sat at my desk and thought about it, the more I wondered if I was mistaken.

Shrugging it off, I concentrated on the business at hand. I’d shortened my work day in the extreme since the accident, and I’d already cut significantly into my productive time.

Back in the old days, I’d spent about five hours a day at home, and the bulk of the day in the office.

The accident changed all that. Not only had it shifted my outlook on work, but doctors told me that I simply couldn’t work the schedule I’d worked before.

I needed to take care of myself to continue my recovery and avoid exacerbating my TBI symptoms. So these days, I made sure to cut out by five each evening, get to the gym, eat a healthy dinner at home, before going to bed at a reasonable time, following doctor’s orders to the letter.

Today was no different. After work, I ran on the treadmill at Back Bay Fitness, whittling my routine down to only thirty minutes to compensate for the stress of this morning.

Usually, physical exercise was my outlet for stress that creeped in, but even as I ended my workout and walked up Beacon Street to my brownstone, I thought of those eyes.

As I made myself dinner, I thought of those eyes.

And they were the last thing I saw when I turned out the light and went to bed.

When I did sleep…

I was in the Common Café again, on my regular stool at the bar.

Rebecca walked in, a ball cap on her head that so did not go with the short skirt she wore.

It was cute. This time, there was no shyness in the way she looked at me.

She joined me at the bar, perching on the stool next to mine, and purred, “I’ve been thinking about you. ”

I swallowed hot coffee too fast and it scalded my throat. “And?”