style="font-size:15px;"> By the time they arrived at the house he felt about a hundred years old, not that he’d admit it to Olivia, who, to his chagrin, had to help him from the car and up the front stairs to the house.
As she inserted a key into the lock and swung the door open he couldn’t help but twist his lips into a rueful smile.
“Seems like not that long ago I was carrying you across that threshold. Now you’re more likely to have to carry me.”
He regretted his attempt at humor the moment he saw the concern and fear on her face.
“Are you okay?” she said, slipping an arm around his back and tucking herself under his arm so she supported his weight. “You should rest downstairs for a while before tackling the stairs to the bedroom. Or maybe I should just get a bed set up down here for you until you’re stronger.”
“No,” he said with grim determination as they entered the hall. “I’m sleeping upstairs tonight. I’ll manage okay.”
She guided him into the sitting room and onto one of the sofas.
“Cup of coffee?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
While she was gone he looked around, taking in the changes from what he remembered. French doors opened out onto a wooden veranda—they were new, he noted. There’d been a sash window there before and—he looked down at the highly polished floorboards—there’d been some ancient and hideous floral carpet tacked onto the floor. Seems they’d done quite a bit of work around the place.
Xander levered himself to his feet and walked around the room, trailing his hand over the furniture and the top of the ornate mantel over the fireplace, which was flanked by wingback chairs. Had they sat here on a winter’s evening, enjoying the warmth of the fire? He shook his head in frustration. He didn’t know. He sat in one of the chairs to see if it triggered anything, but his mind remained an impenetrable blank.
“Here you are,” Olivia said brightly as she came back into the room. “Oh, you’ve found your chair. Would you like the papers?”
“No, thanks. Just the coffee.”
“Still struggling with concentration?”
He nodded and accepted the mug she handed him. His fingers curled around the handle with familiarity and he stared for a while at the mug. This, he knew. He’d bought it at the Pearl Harbor memorial when they went to Hawaii for their honeymoon. He took a sip and leaned back in the chair.
“That’s good—so much better than the stuff they serve in the hospital.” He sighed happily and looked around the room again. “I guess we did it all, huh? Our plans for the house?”
Olivia nodded. “It wasn’t easy, but we completed it in just over a year. We...um...we got impatient to finish and hired contractors to handle a lot of it. I wish you could remember haggling for those French doors. It was a sight worth seeing.”
He must have pulled a face because she was on her knees at his side in a minute. She reached up to cup his cheek with one hand and turned his face to hers.
“Xander, don’t worry. It’ll come back in its own good time. And if it doesn’t, then we’ll fill that clever mind of yours with new memories, okay?”
Was it his imagination or did she sound more emphatic about the new memories than him remembering his old ones? No, he was just being oversensitive. And overtired, he thought as he felt another wave of exhaustion sweep through him. It was one thing to feel relatively strong while in the hospital, when there were so many people in worse condition he could compare himself with. Quite another to feel the same in your home environment, where you were used to being strong and capable.
He turned his face into her palm and kissed her hand. “Thanks,” he said simply.
She pulled away, a worried frown creasing her brow. “We’ll get through this, Xander.”
“I know we will.”
She got up and smoothed her hands down her jeans. “I’ll go and start dinner for us, okay? We should probably eat early tonight.”
He must have fallen asleep when she left the room because before he knew it he was awoken with another of those featherlight kisses on his forehead.
“I made spaghetti Bolognese, your favorite.”
She helped him stand and they walked arm in arm into the dining room. It looked vastly different from the drop-cloth-covered space he remembered. He looked up at the antique painted glass and polished brass library lamp that was suspended from the ceiling.
“I see you got your way on the prisms,” he commented as he took his seat.
“Not without a battle. I had to concede to the ugliest partner desk in all history for the study upstairs to get this,” she said with a laugh.
He smiled in response. There it was. The laugh he felt had been missing from his life for so long. Odd, when it had only been nine weeks since his accident. It felt so much longer.
After dinner Xander propped himself against the kitchen counter while Olivia cleaned up. He tried to help, but after a plate slipped from his fingers and shattered on the tile floor, he retreated in exasperation to the sidelines to watch.
“Stop pushing yourself,” Olivia admonished as she swept up the last of the splinters of china on the floor with a dustpan and brush.
“I can’t help it. I want to be my old self again.”
She straightened up from depositing the mess in the kitchen trash bin. “You are your old self—don’t worry so much.”
“With Swiss cheese for brains,” he grumbled.
“Like I said before, we can plug those holes with new memories, Xander. We don’t have to live in the past.”
Her words had a poignant ring to them, and he felt as if she wanted to say more. Instead, she continued tidying up. When she was done, she looked at him with a weary smile. Instantly he felt guilty. She’d been doing a lot of driving back and forth from here to the hospital and helping when she could with his physical therapy. And he knew that when she was painting, she’d often work late into the night without eating or taking a break. Why hadn’t he noticed the bluish bruises of exhaustion under her eyes? Silently he cursed his weakness and his part in putting those marks there.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for an early night,” Olivia said with a barely stifled yawn.
“I thought you’d never ask,” he teased.
Together, they ascended to the next floor, too slowly for Xander’s liking but an unfortunate necessity as his tiredness played havoc with his coordination.
“Did we change bedrooms?” he asked as Olivia led him to the guest room at the top of the stairs.
“No,” she answered, a little breathlessly. “I thought you’d be more comfortable in here. I’ve become a restless sleeper, and I don’t want to disturb you.”
“Livvy, I’ve been sleeping too long
