The Lost Fisherman (Fisherman #2)(52)

“No.”

“Hmm. That’s weird. But it’s a memory. That’s good right?”

Fisher seemed anything but feeling good about his recent recalled memory. “I’ll let you get home to sleep.”

He went from insatiable to listless in a matter of minutes.

“Are you okay?”

He returned a single nod, more of a tiny drop of his chin. Then he stared at me for a long moment before a sad smile tugged at his lips. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too.”

“Bye.”

That was it. A sad goodbye.

That sad goodbye ate at me as I drove home. Instead of pulling into the driveway, I kept going and made my way to Fisher’s house, arriving just as he pulled into his driveway.

I walked across the street as he hopped out of his truck. “What aren’t you telling me about your memories?”

“What do you mean?” He didn’t stop to address me face-to-face. He kept walking into his garage.

I stopped right behind him as he bent over to unlace his work boots. Then I followed him into his house.

“You know what I mean. When you told me about the party memory, you looked frightened or maybe in complete shock. Why? Did that memory of her bring back feelings for her?”

He grabbed a beer from the fridge and opened it. After a long swig, he blew out a slow breath. “At her party, Angie pulled me aside and told me she was pregnant.”

Did not see that coming. Neither did my delicate heart.

“I couldn’t remember what happened after that. Angie said she miscarried two weeks later. Then … I could. That’s all she had to say, and I remembered what happened.”

“What happened?” I whispered past the lump in my throat.

“We were supposed to meet for dinner after I finished working. But she showed up at the apartment I was living in at the time, and she was in tears. She’d miscarried. But …” He glanced up at me. “I had a ring. I was going to propose to her that night.”

“But you didn’t.”

He shook his head and took another pull of beer.

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t want to get married. Not yet. I was doing it because it seemed like the right thing to do.”

“So she never knew?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Did you tell her? When your memory came back, did you tell her about the ring?”

“No,” he whispered.

Then it hit me. What he said to me five years earlier when I freaked out at the possibility of being pregnant.

“What if …” I cleared my throat. “Hypothetically, what if I were pregnant.”

“No.” He grunted. “No. We are not doing this. If you come back to me in a few weeks with a positive test, we’ll have this conversation. But I’m not having it now.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not.”

“I think it’s irresponsible to not at least have a plan.”

Fisher was hard and standoffish. That was why. The last thing he wanted was another pregnancy scare when he wasn’t ready to be a father or get married.

But things changed …

Rory and Reese said as much when they said Angie and Fisher had discussed kids. Three kids.

“It’s interesting that Angie told you everything about your past together, but not this.”

His head eased side to side. “I think it was too tragic for her. She got pretty emotional when I told her about my memory.”

After a long moment, I crossed the kitchen and wrapped my arms around him, resting my cheek against his chest so I could hear his heart. I never thought about Fisher’s memories coming back in tiny pieces. And I didn’t think about those tiny pieces cutting so deeply.

“I invited her over for dinner that night to tell her we needed to cancel the wedding.”

My gaze shot up to his as I released him. “What? Are you … are you serious?”

He frowned. “Then the memory came back. Then she started crying. And I couldn’t add more to her that night. So it turned into a total disaster because she had me backed into a corner. And while her eyes were still puffy, she asked me to go to her cousin’s wedding with her.”

I took another step backward.

“And she started crying again thinking about how her mom wouldn’t be there. So I told her I’d go with her.”

“Okay …” I drew out the word with caution. “So you go to a wedding with her. No big deal.”

“It’s in Costa Rica.”

Not okay. That was not okay.

“We’ll be gone for four days. It will be fine. Maybe it will be a good chance for me to really talk with her, express my feelings or lack thereof for her.”

It sounded logical coming from him. He presented it like it really wasn’t a big deal. But it felt like my bachelor was taking another woman to the fantasy suite instead of me. And they were just going to “talk.”

“Tell me you’re okay with this.”

I backed up another few steps and shook my head. “I’m just really tired. I don’t have the mental or emotional capacity to feel anything right now.”

“Reese …” He set his beer bottle on the counter and followed me to the back door.