Page 32 of Accidentally Mine

Brent

O ne of the things that had drawn me to my brownstone was the rooftop.

A private area for me, away from neighbors, with the hot tub and grill and seating area overlooking the gardens.

But my favorite part was an area that was hidden by shrubbery.

Long and narrow, it stretched across the back of the roof patio, and I’d had it enclosed with a wall.

It was the only easily accessible place I had to practice my archery.

Anytime I felt a little stressed, I found myself up on the roof, shooting arrows.

The process was instant stress relief. Assuming the shooting position, nocking the arrow on the bowstring, drawing and anchoring the bow.

Aiming. Taking a deep breath. Releasing the string and following through.

It always left me more relaxed and in a better state of mind.

It wasn’t working this evening.

“Hey. Your aim is off,” Ernest called from just behind me, before going to the target to pull the arrow out and returning to my side.

I lifted my hand over my eyes to shield from the sun. “Sun glare,” I said, though the sun had mostly disappeared behind the clouds.

Ernest was no idiot. He didn’t buy it. He knew as well as I did that I rarely missed. “Right.”

I lined up my next shot and hit center, but the next two were wild, way off the gold center of the target.

I couldn’t get Roselynn, or Rebecca, out of my mine.

She was keeping her motivations from me.

She was going to get her affairs in order, and then she was going to leave.

She didn’t trust me enough to let me in.

And where would that leave me?

I was falling for her. Dammit, I hadn’t wanted to.

After my injury, I’d convinced myself that I was meant to be on my own.

That someone like me, broken, didn’t deserve the company of a woman, whose life I’d only make difficult with my lingering difficulties.

Then Roselynn came along and not only reminded me what I was missing, but also made me think that maybe I had something to offer, after all.

When my next arrow went wild, barely hitting the target, Ernest raised a hand. “Hey, kid, maybe you should call it a day? It’d really be a wicked pisser of a day if I got an arrow up my ass.”

I chuckled, conceding, and stashed my bow and quiver of arrows in the cabinet I’d had built for that purpose.

I stepped down into the rooftop patio and sat in one of the lounge chairs at the table overlooking the gardens.

From there, I could only see the treetops.

It began to drizzle a little, but the umbrella was up.

Somewhere, a boat’s foghorn blasted. A cool, hazy fog was blowing in off the ocean, kind of like that night.

As much as I tried not to think of it, something always brought me right back to that damn night.

“I’m trying to understand,” Ernest said, pouring me a lemonade and sitting in the chair opposite. “You’ve got the girl. Isn’t she what you want?”

“I’m pretty sure she’s what I want,” I said, thinking about the last time I’d seen her.

But since then, she’d been distant. We’d had an amazing night together, and then she’d ignored my phone calls, my texts.

I hadn’t seen her for two days. Things were far from settled.

“But I don’t think I have her. I think she’s going to leave. ”

He nodded. “Marie said something like that.”

I sucked down the full glass of lemonade and sat up straighter. “She did? What did she say?”

“Nothing much. Just that her niece was itching to leave. I got the feeling there was something in her past. Something more than the accident.”

I sucked an ice cube from my glass and crunched on it.

“It’s an abusive boyfriend, this Markin guy who just so happens to be fucking mafia.

She was running away from him then. She won’t talk to me about it.

I think she’s afraid that if I know too much, it could hurt me.

And what can I do if she won’t be totally honest with me? ”

“Did you ask her?”

I frowned. “What do I say? ‘I know you’re hiding from your mafia connection’ and force her to spill it to me?”

He shrugged. “Well…yeah. I mean, maybe a little more tactfully than that, but that’s the basic gist.”

I slumped back in the chair and tilted my face to the cloud-heavy sky.

“I wanted to go there. I was going to.” I rubbed my temples.

“But I’m always second-guessing things now.

I used to be more decisive than this. I can’t help feeling like I’ll come across wrong and push her away. I feel like half a person.”

I bit back what I was thinking. That Roselynn deserved a whole person. She deserved more than me. And maybe it would be better for her if she did leave town and have a chance to find him.

Ernest pushed down his mirrored sunglasses and studied me. “You’re a hell of a lot more than half a person.”

I saw the look in his eyes and knew what was coming. “Three-quarters?”

He shook his head. “I was going to go with more like five-eighths.”

“Ah.” I leaned over and smacked his arm. He could always be counted on to make me laugh. “I’ll take it.”

He sipped from his own glass of lemonade. “You’re well more than the average man. Trust me on this. Brain injury or not. I’m just an old guy, but I know people. Your parents would be proud of the man you’ve become.”

My parents. I’d never known my mother, but I’d seen pictures of my mother and father smiling together, proof that they’d had a happy marriage before I was born. Dad had spoken of her often, and I’d often walk in on him staring at those pictures, a sad look on his face.

Now, I could barely even remember the damn pictures. Hell, they were somewhere in my home, and I couldn’t for the life of me think of where they were. But the thing that bothered me most were the memories of my dad. I’d had so many of them. Now, they were slipping away. Disappearing forever.

“Would they?” I asked, staring at my empty glass. Because I didn’t know.

“Yeah. Definitely.” Ernest would know better than me.

He and my father had met fishing on the McCorkle Fishing Pier in South Boston and had become the best of friends when I was just a baby.

My dad would hunt with me, but he and Ernest would fish every Friday, then they’d go out for beers at the pub.

When I was eighteen and my father didn’t show up for their regular fishing date, Ernest called the house and I’d told him the bad news, that my father had suffered a stroke.

He came to the funeral and kept checking on me every so often.

When I left school and started my company, he got in touch to see how I was.

I learned that he’d been laid off from his job as the concierge at the Four Seasons, because of ageism—he wasn’t as fast as the kids half his age.

I needed someone to handle my affairs, and he was available.

He’d been my sounding board ever since, for the past eight years.

More than that, he was like a second father.

Divorced, with an ex-wife who’d moved away and taken the kids he loved and turned them against him, he’d had an empty place in his life.

Through the years, he’d become the man I’d go to when I wondered what my dad would say about something, since they were so alike.

They even looked alike—at least I thought they did. I couldn’t fucking remember.

Now, everything was blurring. I couldn’t remember any of my father’s individual traits.

Fucking hell.

“I can’t remember him,” I muttered to the floor of the patio. “It’s all falling away. My head is like Swiss cheese. I’m losing things. Losing who I am. Who they were. What happens if I lose everything?”

“You won’t,” Ernest said, standing. He walked to the grill and turned the dial.

“People who haven’t suffered brain injuries forget things too, kid.

Live in the present, keep looking to the future.

That’s what you need to focus on. You live each day to its fullest potential and leave the past where it is. ”

I nodded. Focus on the future. If I had a future. If I didn’t have Roselynn, I had no idea what my future would hold. More of the same. Work at the company I’d created and loved. But there had to be more.

I wanted more.

But I didn’t know what I had to offer to a woman.

When I was in bed with Roselynn, making love to her?

That gave me confidence. Feeling her respond to my touch, bringing her to a shuddering mess against me, making her sigh and experience pleasure that I could tell she’d never felt before. It felt like I was healing her.

Just as she healed me, made my heart open to the possibility of love.

Ernest reached into the grill side cabinet and pulled out plates and silverware, setting the table for dinner. “On the menu: Steak. Potatoes. Salad. This weather’s supposed to clear by dinner.”

“Sounds good,” I said, tenting my fingers in front of me. I needed to get inside and take a shower, but instead, I sat, rooted to the spot. Thinking of the future. There was nothing to flip a coin on now. And a trick coin would be useless. I had no say in whether she stayed or left.

Or did I?

I ate dinner with Ernest and texted Roselynn one more time, before I went to bed. As expected, I didn’t get a response.

Fucking maddening.

When I went to bed, I dreamed of my parents. That they were standing at the side of the highway, watching my accident happen. I knew it was them, but their faces were just a blur.

And then those eyes again. Turquoise. Roselynn. Rebecca. Two women fused into one.

I woke in a sweat, sat bolt upright in bed, and made a decision, once and for all.

There was no doubt, it was Roselynn haunting my dreams. And if that wasn’t fate, I didn’t know what was.

I would confront her, and I would fight for her. She may have felt like she was the one who’d torn me apart, but the truth was, she was the only person who truly made me feel whole.