Page 48 of Don't Forget Me
Nick caught her eye and smiled—so different from the last time she’d been in here when they fought. The more time they spent together, the more he let himself open up to her, kindness replacing the gruff anger she’d seen before.
It was almost as if he was… happy with their situation. Something she didn’t want to consider. No matter how good it felt to be near him, she couldn’t forget everything she knew. And the longer they remained in their comas, the less chance there was that they’d wake.
She couldn’t fathom that future.
“Is dinner ready?” There was an eagerness to his expression that warmed her from the inside out. He liked her cooking. A man who’d spent years eating in the world’s best restaurants enjoyed her food.
It was another reminder that he was Nick Jacobs.
And she was Elizabeth.
Just Elizabeth.
A woman with too many secrets. “It’ll be a little while. The squash takes a bit of time to cook.” It was her mom’s recipe. Spaghetti squash with fresh parmesan, basil, and sun-dried tomatoes. She’d made fresh bread and honey pecan salad to go with it.
Food her kids would have never eaten.
Reaching a hand out, she waited for Nick without stepping into his sanctuary. His fingers entwined with hers, and he pulled the door shut, turning the key in the lock before putting it on top of the doorframe.
“Habit.” He shrugged.
“I get it.” And she did. If she didn’t allow him to have the things he held back from her, she’d be a hypocrite.
Staying here would be so easy. She didn’t live in fear of an illness that never felt completely gone; she didn’t still have days where the weakness was too much, where she was reminded just what her body had gone through. Here, she could do anything.
Except see her kids. Her dad.
Her fingers squeezed his tighter as she dragged his arm around her. “I’m sad tonight. I just want you to hold me.”
His lips brushed her hair. “You’re missing them?”
She nodded. “I keep wondering if it would be better to miss someone and never see them again or to not miss anyone at all.”
“Definitely missing someone. It’s always worse never to have had them at all.”
She looked up at him, wondering if he was thinking about his brother. Reaching up, she pulled his face down for a kiss. “I’m sorry.” She wasn’t sure she’d said that to him yet, but reading the manuscript made her feel close to Stephen despite never meeting him.
He gave her a sad smile. “What’s this talk about never seeing them again? Where is the girl who told me she had it in her to fight for both of us?”
“She’s been trapped in some weird alternate world for weeks with no end in sight.”
He pulled her against his chest, and she clutched his shirt, fighting back tears. The emotions swirling through her were at odds with each other.
She missed the twins and her dad. More than she could put into words.
Yet, she didn’t regret a moment spent here with Nick.
Then, there was the guilt of falling for someone when she should have been doing everything she could to get home.
Falling.
She hid her face in his shirt, inhaling the pine scent of his soap and committing it too memory. No, she couldn’t fall for a man she barely knew, one who might be a figment of her imagination.
“You make me feel like I’m losing my mind,” she admitted. “I can feel you, your touch. I think of you when I can’t see you. But what is this, Nick? We still don’t know. One of us is imagining the other. Maybe you’re not really here, and it’s just me creating a character like the men I love from the movies.”
The dinging of the oven timer prevented him from giving her an answer she knew he didn’t have. Wiping her face, she pulled away and walked into the kitchen, embarrassed to have broken down.
She busied herself removing the squash and using a fork to pull it apart before finishing dinner preparations. When she brought their plates to the table, they started eating silently, her words hanging like a wall between them.
