Saving Alyssa. Loree Lough

it.

      “What kind of man shares years and has a child with a woman—causes her death—and can’t raise a mental image of her?” he’d demanded.

      “First of all,” Max had said, “you didn’t cause Jillian’s death. Senator O’Malley did. As for forgetting what she looks like? Trust me. It’ll happen. And when it does, it will prove you’re healing. Because you’re normal.”

      If she thought a quote from some required psychology course would help alleviate the fear, she was dead wrong, and he’d told her so. Besides, how could a person who’d never lost a spouse know what was normal and what wasn’t?

      Much as Noah hated to admit it now, Max had been right about one thing: the day had come. She’d been off beam about that other thing, though, because he felt anything but normal. He could call her, put George’s “she’s a good listener” claims to the test...again.

      Water from the tap overflowed the pot’s rim, shaking Noah from his daze. He emptied half the water down the drain, then carried the pot to the stove. He turned the burner on high, thinking it probably wasn’t a good idea to call Max. She knew every hideous detail of his past. That if he hadn’t joined forces with the corrupt senator, it wouldn’t have been necessary to choose between jail time and testifying against the man. If he hadn’t testified, the accident intended for him wouldn’t have killed Jillian, which prompted the decision to move from a fourteen-room house in Chicago’s River North neighborhood to a four-room apartment above a bike shop, living under assumed names, afraid to get close to anyone for fear that what happened to Jillian might happen to Alyssa.

      Yeah, Max knew the details of his story and accepted the facts without passing judgment. Not that she needed to...

      Noah despised himself enough for both of them.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      BILLIE SAT AT her desk, trying to get comfortable as she keyed in html code on a client’s website. Not an easy feat with one foot propped on an open file drawer. She missed her exercise ball, but since the accident, she’d had to make do with her old, non-ergonomically correct chair. That alone, she thought, hobbling toward the kitchen, was incentive enough to keep the ankle iced and elevated, per doctor’s orders.

      The doorbell rang as she grabbed a fresh ice pack. According to the wall clock, it was nearly nine o’clock.

      “What kind of nut drops by unannounced at this time of night?”

      A peek through the front door’s sidelights told her: Troy, the oldest of her twin brothers, dodging moths drawn by the porch light.

      She threw open the door. “Holy smokes, Troy, what are you doing here?”

      “I, ah...” He chuckled quietly. “Good to see you, too.”

      “Sorry. That didn’t come out right at all.” She wrapped him in a hug. “I’m just surprised to see you.” Stepping aside, Billie waved him into the foyer and tried not to stare as he dragged a big, bulging suitcase inside. “Good grief. Is there a body in there, or are you planning a trip around the world?”

      He looked at the bag and shrugged. “I kinda left in a hurry, and just jammed stuff in there.”

      “Uh-oh. What’s up?”

      “Can we talk about it later?”

      “How much later?”

      “Feed me, and maybe I’ll feel like dredging up the bad news.”

      “Always the tough guy, huh?” Billie pointed toward the hall. “You know where to stow your gear.” On the way to the guest room, he nodded toward the home office space she’d fashioned in one corner of the living room. “I’ll stay out of your hair. Promise. You keep designing those websites as if I wasn’t even here. This is temporary. I just need to get my head straight before I go ho—” He cleared his throat. “Before I go back...” he frowned slightly “...to Philly.”

      He’d started to say home, and changed his mind. That worried her almost as much as the notion that her big, rough-tough marine brother, who’d earned a Purple Heart and a Silver Star in Afghanistan, had come here to hide. But from what? She hobbled alongside him and pointed at the hideous black soft cast the E.R. doctor had prescribed. “I’d never admit it to anyone else, but my ankle is killing me.” Silently, she acknowledged that if Noah Preston hadn’t insisted on driving her home earlier, it would hurt a whole lot more.

      “What did you do to yourself this time?”

      “Took a curve too fast during a race,” she said, limping along behind him. “You can have your Superman and Captain America. My hero is the tree that kept me from going over the edge.”

      He rolled the suitcase into the guest room’s closet. “You’ve fixed the place up real nice. Hard to believe it’s only been a year since you moved in,” he said, glancing around. Then, pointing at her ankle, Troy said, “Let me guess. You’re planning to go out again, next chance you get.”

      “Why wouldn’t I? I love cycling.” It had saved her, in more ways than one. But since Troy knew that almost as well as she did, Billie saw no need to remind him of those awful, scary months following the stillbirth.

      “Maybe I’ll get a bike and go with you, see if riding can fix what’s wrong with my life, too.”

      The sadness in his voice wasn’t lost on Billie.

      “Another fight with Victoria?”

      He only shook his head.

      “You’re way too good for her,” Billie said. “I never understood what you saw in—”

      “Do me a favor and drop it, okay?”

      She took one look at his all-business expression and decided to press him for details later, after he’d had a meal and a good night’s sleep. “You still driving that small convertible?”

      “Yeah....”

      “Then we’re in luck. I traded my car for a small pickup, and it came with a double bike rack. I know where we can get you a great mountain bike, too...if Victoria hasn’t talked you into another cruise or something.”

      “Billie, c’mon. Give it a rest, will ya? You don’t hear me asking when you last talked to that idiot you married, or how you can afford this place after caving to avoid a confrontation with the jerk—who took way more than he deserved in the divorce settlement—if you ask me. Or if you regret giving up your job as a flight attendant just because Chuck the Pilot didn’t like you being in the air when he wasn’t.” Her brother took a breath and plowed on. “Or if you’re sorry you left Philly, where the baby is buried.”

      “Okay. All right. I get the message. I’m sorry! If I’d known you would bring up every awful thing in my past, I never would have—”

      “I’m the one who’s sorry.”

      And he looked it.

      “I have a good mind,” she said, pretending to pout, “not to show you where the extra hangers and clean towels are.”

      Troy laughed halfheartedly. “You’d only be punishing yourself....” Wiggling his eyebrows, he said, “Now show me what you’ve done with the place since we moved you in.”

      Billie gave him a tour of the five-room cottage, and then headed to the kitchen to pour two glasses of iced tea. Troy carried the tumblers and followed her to the back deck, where she flopped onto a lounge chair.

      “I can’t believe how much you did in such a short time,” her brother said. “The folks made it sound like you were living in an unfurnished shoebox.” He sat on the other lounge chair. “If I could find a place like this, I might never go back.”

      Evidently, things with his fiancée were worse than Billie had thought. “I know you’re vulnerable right now, so maybe this isn’t the best time to tell