A Memory Away. Melinda Curtis

all the cautions and practicing and caveats, she drew a breath, and flung her hopes toward him as if he were her life preserver. “I think I’m your wife.”

      * * *

      DUFFY RELEASED THE woman’s hand as if he’d accidentally grabbed a rattlesnake. “I’m not married.” And he’d sure as hell remember if he had been.

      “Or I was... Or I was your girlfriend...maybe?” She glanced down at her belly. Her very pregnant belly.

      Holy in-need-of-a-handrail.

      Duffy sat down heavily across from her, still chilled from the winter cold. Chilled now to the bone. “I haven’t... You couldn’t...” He swiped a hand over his face, very much aware that his boss was upstairs and the walls in the century-old house were very thin. “Who are you?”

      “Jessica... Jess Aguirre.” There was a quiet beauty about her. Long dark hair, big dark eyes, a smooth olive-skin complexion. Many women shared her physical features. Few carried themselves with a combination of contained dignity and edge-of-her-seat intensity. “You...um...don’t know me?”

      “You or your passenger.”

      Reality was returning. He could see it in her face. Jessica seemed stricken that she wasn’t his significant other, but otherwise she appeared stable. She didn’t wield a knife, didn’t draw a gun, and she wasn’t screaming to high heaven that he should know who she was.

      “But...you have to know me.” Jessica leaned over the table—or as far as she could with that baby bump—and whispered, “We’ve kissed and...” She glanced at her stomach.

      And here Duffy had thought he’d taken care of all of his brother’s loose ends. “I’m not Greg.”

      “Greg.” She murmured his brother’s name, then repeated it—stronger.

      “My twin.” Duffy took out his wallet and handed her a picture he’d only recently started carrying—him and Greg before a Little League game.

      She placed the photo on the table next to a crumpled newspaper clipping of the winery staff, her smile as soft as morning dew on a grape leaf. “Greg.” She said the name as if testing it with her tongue and finding it acceptable.

      He felt compelled to explain. “We were identical.”

      “Were?”

      “He died nearly six months ago.”

      “No.” She moved a hand to her belly.

      “Struck by lightning.” Yes, there was a God. Although, “He was killed instantly and didn’t suffer.” Duffy was proud of the detached way he delivered the news. His brother had been a greedy piece of trash, which some siblings may have forgiven, but not when the target was Mom and Dad. “So if you’re looking for the man who did you wrong, it was him.” Duffy gazed out at the cold, dormant vineyard, which felt much like his heart. “My brother was no saint.”

      “I don’t believe that.” She slid Duffy’s picture across the table. “Or you wouldn’t be carrying his photo.”

      He wasn’t going to rehash the painful details of his life with this stranger. “Why are you here?”

      Jessica closed her eyes. “I came looking for closure.”

      “Did Greg steal from you?” The question had to be asked, and he didn’t hide the bitterness. Greg had taken every penny of their parents’ retirement fund. Luckily, Greg hadn’t spent it all before he died. “Did he promise you he’d love you until the end of time?”

      “I... I... I can’t remember.”

      * * *

      HE WAS DEAD.

      Whatever Jess had been expecting to find by coming here, it hadn’t been this.

      He was dead.

      Whoever Greg had been.

      He was dead.

      There’d be no tearful reunions, no admissions of mistakes, no offered apologies. How foolish she’d been to expect to show up here and find a man who loved her, one who’d fall to his knees as he held her hands and begged for forgiveness.

      Sadness for Greg’s death mired her insides, more for her baby—who’d never know his or her father—than for the man she barely remembered. It seemed wrong somehow. The day. The news. The man she was left facing.

      The baby kicked her ribs.

      “What does that mean?” Duffy asked, pulling her back to the present. “You can’t remember.”

      Flashes of memory shuttered in her head with every word Duffy uttered, every shrug of his shoulders, every nuanced flick of his brow. His face was austere, where Greg’s had been amiable. His eyes were care-lined where Greg’s had been carefree. And the clash of burgundy vest with a red-sleeved T-shirt? Greg would never have paired those two colors. Of that, she was certain.

      “I was in a car accident five months ago.” Jessica dropped her gaze to her baby barge, needing to swallow twice before she could get more words out. “I have retrograde amnesia. I can remember growing up. I can remember how to make sugar cookies from scratch.” She swallowed again. “But I haven’t been able to remember anything about my baby’s father.” She couldn’t even remember whether they’d once been married or in love. “Not until I saw you.”

      “So Greg’s the father?” Even Duffy’s voice was different. His words spoken slower. His tone deeper and filled with cynicism.

      “I’m certain of it...now.” She took a drink of her once-hot tea, feeling as cold as the green beverage. How much should she tell Duffy? He wasn’t coming across as the most supportive listener. But what had she to lose by holding back? “You seem so familiar. I remember you kissing me—”

      “Greg,” he inserted tersely, staring at her hard. Not only had Greg been unwelcome here, Jess was, as well.

      She strengthened her voice. She’d lived too long without answers to walk away from his obstinacy. “I remember us—him and I—laughing.” It was hard to imagine her laughing with Duffy.

      “Well, I’m glad he made someone happy.” He’d perfected that unforgiving look.

      Greg, what did you do? “But...you were twins...brothers. You didn’t get along?”

      “Greg would steal the belt from your waist if he could make a buck off it.” So much anger. It vibrated in the air between them, pressing her back as if he’d pushed her.

      Snatches of images. Smiles and laughter. Tender touches and endearing words. She couldn’t believe Duffy’s opinion of Greg. Still, doubt crept up her throat, closing it off.

      “Greg took all your money, didn’t he?”

      So much weariness in his tone.

      It weighed on Jess. She’d felt burdened for so long, she wasn’t sure how much more she could take.

      It couldn’t have been Greg who’d taken her money. There’d been love between them. She just knew it. Every time she began to question it, a feeling of love would rise up. That feeling was conspicuously absent today. “I can’t prove he took anything.”

      “Fess up. There’s something missing.” His gaze probed for the truth, but there was a reluctant slant to his eyes, as if he didn’t want to know.

      I’m so sorry, Baby. Jessica’s hand drifted to her stomach. “The only thing I know is that a week before the accident, my bank account was drained.”

      “He did it.” Duffy was maddeningly certain.

      Jessica shook her head when instead she wanted to shake him. “I can’t be certain of that.”

      “I am. I know my brother better than anyone.” His lips pinched upward at the corners, so tense