The Alcolar Family. Kate Walker

The honest answer is not a damn thing—but that’s not so unusual, is it? I understand that quite often in an accident where someone is knocked unconscious, they can’t remember the actual event. The bang on the head sends it out of your mind.’

      ‘Yes, that can often be the case.’

      ‘I understand I was at my brother’s apartment. That I slipped on the steps outside, fell, hit my head. Luckily, my girlfriend was with me… what is it?’

      He had caught the look that had passed between the two doctors. A slightly concerned, slightly questioning look. One he didn’t like at all. One that worried him.

      ‘What is it?’ he repeated. ‘What the hell’s wrong now?’

      ‘Nothing to concern yourself about,’ they assured him. ‘But we would like to ask you just a few more questions.’

      ‘Okay,’ Joaquin growled impatiently. ‘Ask. Anything, if it will help me get out of this damn place.’

      So they asked and he answered. And their reaction to his responses turned his thoughts inside out and made his head reel in shock.

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      ‘THE doctor says what?’

      It was Mercedes who asked the question, the surprise and shock they were all feeling ringing in her voice. And Cassandra could only be grateful that Joaquin’s younger sister had no hesitation in responding so fast and so forcefully to what her brother had just told them. At least it hid the way that she was unable to speak herself, her silence the result of a sense of shock that had made her thoughts reel.

      ‘He says that I have partial amnesia,’ Joaquin explained with an exaggerated patience that made it plain that he didn’t want to have to go through all the details yet again, even if his family needed to hear them. ‘It’s not just the immediate events of the accident that I can’t remember—there’s quite a bit more that’s been wiped too.’

      ‘How much?’ Cassie forced herself to ask it, then immediately wished she hadn’t as her voice was such a revealingly painful croak that she felt hot colour flood her cheeks in embarrassment at the sound.

      ‘Weeks.’ Joaquin’s tone was wry. ‘The last thing I can remember with any clarity is Mercedes’ birthday party.’

      ‘But that’s almost a month ago!’ his sister exclaimed.

      Almost a month ago, and perhaps the last time they had been truly happy together, Cassie admitted to herself. She and Joaquin had had a wonderful time at that party, dancing together under the stars, and then they had gone back home and held a long, passionate party all of their own. Spending the rest of the night in bed, but definitely not sleeping.

      It was after that that things had started to go wrong. When Cassie had started to worry about the dates on the calendar, and the significance of their upcoming anniversary—the importance of Joaquin’s uncompromising one-year rule.

      But if all that Joaquin remembered was the night of the party then it was no wonder that he had smiled at her as he’d come round. No wonder that he had begged her to stay.

      He had forgotten all that had happened in between, the rows, the anxieties, the way that he had declared so openly to her face that he ‘didn’t do’ commitment. The images of the appalling night at Ramón’s apartment, when he had come hunting for her and, finding her there, had leapt to the conclusion that she and his brother were lovers, had been wiped from his brain by the blow to the head he had suffered after storming out of the building and falling on the stone steps.

      So he hadn’t forgiven her at all. Hadn’t rethought the whole situation and realised his mistake and resolved to put things right. The smile that he had given her—the smile that had meant so much to her—had been meant in a way for a totally different person. And the woman he had asked to stay with him was not the one he really remembered at all, but an echo of a month ago, before everything had changed.

      ‘So—’ Her voice cracked hoarsely and she had to slick her tongue over her dry lips in order to moisten them, swallowing hard before she could go on. ‘So you remember nothing about the accident—about that night.’

      ‘Not a thing.’

      Frowning darkly, Joaquin raked both his hands through his hair in a gesture that revealed the unsettled state of his thoughts much better than any words.

      ‘Nada. I don’t even know what I—we—were doing at Ramón’s. Why were we there?’

      ‘Why…?’

      Why were we there? Cassie’s thoughts spun in panic as she struggled to think of some way to answer him. But what could she say that wouldn’t reveal the truth? How could she explain that she had been living with Ramón without arousing once again the savage, furious jealousy that had sent Joaquin raging out of the apartment and into the rain that night?

      ‘I—you…’

      ‘The doctors say we mustn’t tell you anything.’

      It was Ramón’s voice that cut in sharply. He had been standing outside in the corridor, talking to the specialist who had been treating Joaquin, and luckily he came into the room just at this moment.

      ‘Nothing at all,’ he went on, after one swift, warning glance into Cassie’s troubled face. ‘They say that we mustn’t push anything or try to make you remember. That we have to leave it all to come back in its own time. Or not at all.’

      ‘And what if it is not at all?’ Joaquin growled, obviously not happy about this.

      ‘Then we’ll deal with that when it comes to it,’ his brother assured him breezily. ‘But they seem pretty certain that it won’t. A thump on the head like the one you suffered was bound to scramble your brains just a bit. You need to take things steady, wait for everything to settle back down again. And not get in a mood about things or you could face a setback.’

      ‘I’m not a baby.’ Joaquin scowled. Cassie could guess at the sort of thoughts that were going through his head. An unfailingly strong and healthy man, he had clearly been shaken by finding himself in hospital, and he obviously hated the restrictions that his accident had placed on him, even if for just a few days.

      ‘Give it time,’ she said, trying to soothe him. ‘It’s only been a couple of days so far. Who knows what difference a week might make?’

      Who knows? Cassie echoed to herself, not knowing whether it was something she should hope for or dread.

      How was she supposed to act with Joaquin now? He might not remember all that had happened in that missing month—but she couldn’t forget a thing. He thought that they were still happy together, that nothing had come between them. He certainly didn’t suspect her of having an affair with his half-brother—at least not now!

      But what would happen when he did remember? When he realised that that smile, that ‘Stay’, had been directed at that other Cassie, the one who no longer existed in his buried memories and heart.

      She might have a reprieve now. A chance to go back to how it had once been. A chance to live once more in harmony and happiness with Joaquin, but there was no way it could last. Some time, inevitably, Joaquin’s thoughts would clear, and he would remember everything and then they would be right back where they had been on that dreadful night in the moments before he had had his accident.

      ‘All right,’ Joaquin conceded unwillingly. ‘If that’s what the doctors advise, then I suppose I’ll have to go along with it. Anything, so long as they let me out of this place. And they’ve said I can go home.’

      ‘But only if you have someone who will look after you,’ Cassie put in unthinkingly, wishing she’d bitten her tongue when she saw Joaquin’s look of surprise.

      ‘Well, of course I’ll have someone to look after me. I’ll have you.’

      ‘I—’