Page 30 of Tamed By a Passionate Lady
He stilled, listening more intently. Had he heard correctly?
But they came again, stronger this time, more insistent.
Come back to me.
Whoever she was, it was as if she was calling him. Beseeching him, from somewhere far away. But where was he, and why was she asking him to come back from there?
The endless blackness swirled again in his mind, overtaking everything. There were no memories now. No vivid pictures running together for him to cling onto. There was no anchor now. He had been set adrift in this eternal dark, a place that he had no memory of going to and did not know how to navigate.
Somehow, he knew that he had to do what she asked; that if he didn’t, then he would be lost in this world forever. Somehow, he had to try to reach the woman if he was ever going to become himself again.
Whoever that may be.
He tried to move, but nothing seemed to obey him. It was as if his legs and arms were simply not there. Desperately, he tried again, harder this time. It was useless. It was as if his mind was completely disconnected from his body.
Where was he?
Panic started to overtake him. He had to get back. It was imperative. He did not know why, and he did not know how, but he knew that if he did not make it, all would be lost. He would be swimming in this endless darkness forever.
She was speaking to him. He tried to answer her. He tried to find his voice, but it was impossible. It was as if his vocal cords had been disconnected from his mind as well. It was as if nothing was working anymore.
Come back to me.
Her voice was the anchor. Her voice was the cord that he needed to follow.
Desperately, he tried to follow it, swimming upwards, flailing wildly, into the black.
Chapter 11
Adaline stared down at his hand, interlaced with hers. She was momentarily surprised that he didn’t instinctively pull away from her touch. If he had been conscious, she knew that he would have done it in a heartbeat.
Her heart was so heavy as she gazed at him. His beloved face, resting on the pillow. Her eyes trailed over it, tenderly.
He usually had a healthy, ruddy complexion, but now he was so very pale. She watched his chest rise and fall, with each inward and outward breath. That sight alone convinced her that he was still alive; if she wasn’t witnessing it, she would have been certain that he was actually dead.
His eyes were closed, and his eyelids didn’t flicker at all. She gazed at the short, brown lashes, feeling an urge to reach out and touch them. She had never felt them before. There was so much of him that she had never explored. Not only his body, but his mind, and his heart.
He had made sure that they stayed strangers to each other. Sometimes, he had almost bent over backwards to make sure of it. The memory of the night before his accident hovered in her mind again. The night that she had tried to kiss him. The night that she had tried to show him, once again, how much he meant to her.
She took a deep breath. Dr. Brown had told her to talk to him, to remind him of the life that he had here, so that he would return. The doctor had also told her that she should remind him of their love.
She smiled wryly. The doctor didn’t know anything about their lives together. She could not lie to the man lying on the bed, even if he could not hear her. She couldn’t tell him that he loved her, so that he could come back to her.
But she could tell him how much she loved him.
She tightened her grip on his hand, trying to find the words. And then, as if out of nowhere, she started to speak.
“James,” she said slowly. “We are all so worried about you. I am worried, but so is Reuben, and so is Isabel. Everyone here at Birkenhead Lodge prays for you daily, hoping that you will wake up, that you will have the strength to choose life.”
She stopped, staring at him ardently. His face hadn’t changed at all. It was still the pale mask that it had been when she had sat down.
She sighed. “I know that our marriage has been hard for you,” she continued, her voice catching with pain. “I do not know the reason why, because you have never told me. But that does not mean that I want to lose you. I want you to live. So much…”
Her voice drifted away, onto a sob. She didn’t know how she was going to do this. She didn’t know how she was going to continue at all.
“I know that you do not love me,” she said, barely able to look at him. “But it has been my continual hope that you will one day. That one day, you will see that I am here, and that I will always be here.” She hesitated. “I hope that one day we can have a family together. It is my deepest wish…”
She gazed at him, willing him to respond in some way. But his eyelids remained firmly closed, his hand slack in hers.
