Help Me Remember (Rose Canyon, #1)(76)

He nods. “Will you tell me what happened that has you running?”

“I can’t live in a place where nothing makes sense. Until it does, it’s better for me to go to the only person left who is a constant.”

Emmett’s lips form into a tight line. “I’ll let you know if we find anything.”

“I’ll let you know if my memory returns and I can give us answers.”

He winks, and I turn to Charlie. They usher me down the hall and to the car. She gives me a big hug and steps back.

“Thank you,” I say before getting in the car.

“Take care of yourself, Brielle. Give me a call if you need anything.”

Quinn snorts a laugh. “You don’t even work for the company, and you do more than your husband, who owns half of it.”

She rolls her eyes. “Now I know why Ashton volunteered you for this assignment.”

He gets into the car, chuckling. “Ready?”

I look at my apartment, the building that seemed so different fewer than twenty-four hours ago. I was happy, waiting for Spencer in a beautiful dress. There was so much hope for what we could’ve been and now all I see is darkness.

I turn to him. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

With my earbuds in, I close my eyes, unwilling to watch this slip away from me, and drift to sleep to a song about losing the love of your life.





We’re about four hours from my mother’s house, and Quinn looks over at me for the tenth time.

Since I moved the location, the team had to readjust completely, and Jackson is meeting us outside the city limits. I feel horrible and silly, but I also know this is the only option I can handle. With each mile we travel, my heart and head settle a bit more. I needed this distance. I needed to get out of there.

“You can say it,” I tell him, knowing he’s been itching to weigh in.

“Say what?”

“Whatever is on your mind.”

“I’m not paid to think,” he says, focusing on the road.

“You’re his friend.”

“I am.”

“And . . .”

He shrugs. “I learned a very long time ago that it’s best for everyone if I try not to make sense of women.”

I shake my head, noting the wedding band on his left hand. “And your wife agrees with that?”

Quinn grins. “It’s my wife who taught me that lesson.”

“I’m not normally like this,” I explain. “I’m the level-headed one, but I don’t feel like I have control over anything in my life right now.”

“Do any of us ever really have control?” he asks.

“I’d like to think you do right now.”

Quinn nods slowly. “We’ll use that as an example then. I’m driving. I am in control of the car, but I have no control of anything else. I can’t control someone if they decide to change lanes or stop an animal if it decides to run into the road. Life is no different. I get planning since it’s literally what I have been trained to do, but even in a carefully constructed plan, control is nothing more than having the ability to adapt. If we don’t, we die.”

I turn my head to the side. “I feel like I’m dying.”

“That’s because you’re trying too hard to control the parts of the situation that can’t be controlled.”

“So, I’m supposed to just let it all happen, and then what?”

He glances over at me and then back to the road. “What options do you have? You can’t force your memory back.”

“No, but I can’t accept being lied to either. Not when I don’t know the truth.”

“And he lied . . .”

“Yeah.”

Quinn purses his lips and breathes heavily through his nose. “It sucks for all of you. My friends and I have gone through a lot of shit in our time. We’ve lost people we love, been hurt both emotionally and some of us physically. None of it was within our control. My wife and I . . . well, we went through the figurative version of hell. I didn’t think we would come back from it. I needed her to make me want to live, and she was shut away, wishing she could die to alleviate the pain. After I thought we’d turned a corner, she got on a plane and left me to go to California.”

I blink, seeing the similarity to my story. “And then what? Did you go after her?”

He shakes his head. “I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

Quinn pulls into the gas station, parks, and looks at me. “Is that what you want, Brie? You want him to be in a car a few miles behind us?”

My throat tightens, and the panic boils up. I can’t speak so I just barely move my head.

“I don’t know what he’ll do, but if he’s like me, he won’t. Not because he doesn’t want to or because he doesn’t love you more than anything in the world. And I promise you this, he would lay down his life if it meant you’d be happy. That is how I know he’ll wait for you.”

Those stupid tears threaten to come back when he tells me that Spencer loves me. He knows and believes it, even if I can’t get my mind around it. “How do you know?”

He leans over with a sly smile. “They pay me to be observant.” He then points out the windshield to a car parked facing the pumps. “That’s Jackson over there. I’m going to brief him. I want you to stay in here, lock the doors, and only open it if I say strawberry.”