Accidental Shield

“You know I’m just kidding, right?” Like earlier today, the pull is too strong to resist, and I lean closer so our lips can touch. Heat flares inside me as our lips clash together in this red-hot collision.

Then comes disappointment.

He cuts our kiss short and jerks up.

I hear something echoing in the house, a bird call? It’s the doorbell. I realize it a second later.

“There’s Cash,” Flint says. “Be right back.”

Great. Perfect timing. Leaning back against the couch, I ask, “How does he get through the gate, anyway?”

“He has an opener. One of a very short list of people I trust.”

So we can be interrupted at any time, day or night? It just keeps getting better.

Okay, so I’m just being bitchy. You’d be too if your chance to suck face with a man as handsome as Flint Calum was rudely ripped away.

Cash is the only doctor I’ve ever heard of who makes house calls.

He strolls through the front door Flint holds open.

“Hello, hello,” Cash says, walking toward me. “How’re we feeling today? Any more dizzy spells?”

“Nope,” I say, “but I’ve been remembering a lot about sea turtles.”

He looks up from his bag on the coffee table. “Turtles?”

“Turtles. You know, because I own a turtle tour company.” Not sure about that, I look at Flint. “I do own it, right?”

“Yeah, honey. All yours,” Flint says.

“Ah, yes, I do recall hearing about your escapades with the local marine life. Very lucrative, I’m sure.” Cash snorts back a chuckle as he wanders over, then shines a mini flashlight at my eyes.

“Jeez!” I throw my hand up, trying to adjust to the brightness. “A little warning first, maybe?”

“My apologies, Valerie. Just figured you’d be as anxious as I am to get this over with. Look straight ahead, please, and no blinking.”

Sighing, I listen, and then sit through another ten or fifteen minutes of mind-numbing questions and annoying tests. At least he doesn’t want to draw blood. I hate needles.

“We Googled amnesia but didn’t find anything too helpful,” I say, just as he finishes listening to my lungs.

“No surprise. It’s standard with your condition. Time and rest are really the only medicine,” he says.

“It did say forgetting who you are is pretty rare,” I tell him, my cheeks heating.

“Correct. Cases of true long-term personal dissociation are quite rare with amnesia and fugue states. Permanent damage to a person’s identity usually comes with more serious traumatic brain injuries.”

His dark-green eyes cut through me. For a second, I hesitate, unsure whether he’ll laugh at me if I say what I want to. Whatever, here goes.

“I’m not pretending, you know,” I say quietly. I don’t even know when that worry hits me, but it does. “I’m not faking amnesia. For attention or something. I don’t know, if there was ever any—”

“Doubt? Perish the thought, lovely lady,” Cash says. “You’re a happily married woman. Perfectly well adjusted. If I had any concerns about other motives for your behavior, you wouldn’t be dealing with me right now. Your husband would’ve brought you a shrink.”

I look over. Flint daggers him with this weird, angry look.

“Okay. I guess I’m being silly. It’s just…from what we read, people lose their memory, short-term or long-term, but usually they still know who they are, deep down. Just not always where they are.” I look down, fidgeting with the chair.

Why am I babbling like this? It’s almost like I’m trying to make myself believe it more than Dr. Ivers, and I don’t know why.

“Precisely. And this is why doctors often suggest patients refrain from visits to Dr. Google. They just love to self-diagnose themselves into a panic, always assuming the worst. You’d be stunned at how many people come to me convinced they have a terminal condition, only to find out it’s a stomach bug or a fractured toe.”

I nod. I’ve heard of that somewhere.

“Memory issues are unpredictable, damnably hard to pin down, you understand?” Cash asks, looking me over one more time before tucking his instruments back into his bag. “Every case is a little different, but don’t let that worry you. I’ll give Flint some pointers on what he can do to help.”

“All right,” I answer. “Thanks.”

He aims a brief smile at Flint. “So, besides turtles, is there anything else you remember?”

“I wish. The turtle stuff just came flooding back while we were on the beach. It helped seeing a huge group of them lounging around nesting. Sort of like the cheesecake dessert from the shrimp truck…it’s just something I know.”

“Shrimp truck?” He looks at Flint again.

“We took a drive to the North Shore,” Flint says, scratching the back of his head. “You said not to keep her cooped up all day. So we did something that’d get her mind off of remembering. She was with me the whole time.”

Dang. If a man’s gaze could chuck a spear, that’d be exactly how Cash looks at Flint.