He forced himself to slow down, to measure his pace. Automatically he went toward the beach. Seagulls wheeled and screamed on the air currents that swirled above the sandy shoreline, and he looked up, envying them the simplicity of their lives. But how had his own life grown so complicated? At what point had the marriage he’d entered into with Olivia become the broken thing she’d described to him just now?
He shook his head and began to walk along the beach, unheedful of the small waves that rushed up on the sand, drenching his sneaker-clad feet and the bottom of his jeans. The sand sucked at his feet, making walking difficult, but still he pushed on.
Why the hell couldn’t he remember anything? The man she’d described, the driven creature who worked long hours and then expected her attention when he got home—that wasn’t him. That wasn’t who he remembered being, anyway. When and why had things changed so dramatically?
He remembered meeting Olivia at a fundraiser at an inner-city art gallery. He’d been drawn first to her beauty—her long red hair, porcelain-perfect skin and wide sparkling blue eyes had made his physical receptors stand up and take immediate notice. But it had been talking to her that had begun to win his guarded heart. He’d known he wanted her in his life right from that very first conversation, and it had been readily apparent that she felt the same way.
They’d spent that entire first weekend together. When they’d made love it hadn’t felt too soon—it had felt perfect in every way. Six months later they were married and home owners and beginning to renovate the house he’d just fled from. Six years later they were separated and on the point of divorce. What on earth had happened in between?
He stopped walking and raised both hands to his head—squeezing hard on both sides as he tried to force his brain to remember. Nothing. Another wave came and sloshed over his feet, further drenching his jeans. He let his hands drop to his sides. He continued to the end of the beach and dropped down into a park bench on the edge of the strand.
Runners jogged by. Walkers walked. Dogs chased seagulls and sticks. Life went on. His life went on, even if he didn’t remember it. There had to be something. Some way to trigger the things he’d lost, to remember the person he’d been. After ten minutes of staring at the sea a thought occurred to him. If he hadn’t been living here in Devonport, with Olivia, where had he been living? Surely he had another home. A place filled with more recent memories that would trigger something in his uncooperative brain perhaps?
Olivia had to know where it was. The clothes she’d haphazardly shoved into their shared wardrobe had been a mixture of casual wear that he’d worn years ago and new items as foreign to him as pretty much everything else had become since coming home from the hospital. That meant she had to have picked up some things from where he lived. Which meant she could take him there.
He levered himself upright, his legs feeling decidedly overworked and unsteady as he turned and headed back on the paved path at the top of the strand and toward home. Home? No, he couldn’t call it that. Not now. Maybe not ever again. Until he knew exactly why they were apart, exactly what his life had been like, he wondered if he’d ever belong anywhere ever again.
Eleven
Olivia clutched the now-cold mug of coffee she’d poured before sitting at the kitchen table. The breakfast she’d been cooking before the phone call from the lawyer had dried up in the warming oven. Xander had obviously finished cooking it, as she’d asked, and plated up their meals before coming to tell her it was ready. Before overhearing the conversation she’d have done anything to avoid sharing with him today. She’d finally had to throw the breakfast away, but she’d attempted to salvage the coffee. She’d even tried to drink it, but her stomach had protested—tying in knots as she wondered where Xander was.
She’d been frozen here since he’d left the house, alternately staring at the mug and then the clock on the wall as she worried herself sick about him. He’d been gone well over an hour. Unshed tears burned in her eyes. Where was he?
Maybe she should have run after him, wearing nothing but her robe, instead of remaining rooted to the bedroom floor until the front door had slammed closed. But she hadn’t. Instead she’d showered quickly and dressed, then debated getting in the car and driving around looking for him. In the end she’d decided that would be a futile exercise. She simply had to wait for him to come back. If he came back.
A sound at the front door made her shoot up from her chair, unheeding as it tipped over behind her and bounced on the tiled floor.