Bending Over Backwards (3 page)

“Neal,” he said a little too loudly, commanding the other man’s silence. Then, more easily, “Neal, let me make this easy on you. I quit.”

Stunned silence was the reaction for a moment.

“What? Are you sure?”

Leo smiled. No argument from his so-called friend, not even an attempt to talk him out of it. That made him sure.

“Yeah. I am. I don’t know if my memory is ever coming back, and if it does, well, maybe we can talk again. Until then, you don’t have to cover for me anymore.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Neal said, at least having the grace to sound somewhat regretful. “We’ll miss you around here, man. We already do. You can stay in the house, though, as long as you want. It’s not like I’m using it.”

“Thanks, Neal, but I’ll find my own place as soon as I can. I’ll be talking to you.”

They hung up, and Leo found his hand was shaking as he did so. Something huge had just happened, something devastating. Something inside him felt like it had broken.

Another part of him felt free. Like he was falling.

Was he stupid? Had he made the stupidest decision ever? Maybe.

Grabbing his sneakers, he headed down to the beach. He needed to move. He’d go crazy if he stayed inside, in his own head, for any longer.

Leo had no idea what was next. His life was a blank slate, and it was terrifying.

He started at a slow jog, working off some steam. It felt good, so he picked up the pace, running harder, letting the physical demands on his body push away the stress of the morning.

About a mile or so down, he was overheated and decided to stop, stripping his shirt off and wading into the water.

“Damn, that’s cold,” he muttered to himself, pausing briefly.

But he’d been raised on Long Island beaches where he’d swum in plenty of cold water. Taking a deep breath, he jumped in, head first, letting the icy dark of the Atlantic shock the heat from his body.

“Holy shit!” he exclaimed, surfacing about twenty feet out, choking on some salt water as a wave took him by surprise.

But it felt great. Maybe the shrinks were right about him gravitating to the water because it was where he felt comfort or pleasure, since this was the best he’d felt in a long time. And he knew that was true even before the shooting.

He missed this.

Not wanting it to end, he started swimming, cutting through the water in strong strokes, unsure when the last time was that he’d swum outside the pool at the gym.

Not for years. After his mother passed away, he sold the house and had no reason to go back to the beach. That he couldn’t remember much about the last few years, specifically, suggested that he didn’t do much other than work. Now that was all gone.

His mind wandered and Leo didn’t pay attention as his body tired. Out of nowhere, a sharp pain started shooting down his left arm. Not a heart attack, that he knew, but it got worse, even though he stopped to tread water.

He was maybe fifty yards from the shore, in deep water. Even in the numbingly cold water, his shoulder ached with a hot pain that left him gasping. Unable to keep himself afloat, he dipped below the surface and then pushed himself back up again.

Stay calm
, he instructed himself, old habits taking hold. People who panicked in the water were the ones who died. His mother had drilled that lesson into his mind daily when he was a kid.

The pain didn’t pass, but his panic did, and he managed to turn himself around, easing into a weak sidestroke that was enough to bring him closer to shore—far away from where he started—as the longshore current dragged him. His feet finally landed on sand, where he could stagger out of the water.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Leo felt a hand on his sore shoulder and looked up to see two young people, a girl and a guy, staring at him in concern. He yanked his shoulder away and stumbled, falling back on the sand.

“I’m fine. No problem. Just overdid it,” he managed, wanting them to go away and stop staring at him.

When they didn’t leave, he waved them off.

“I said I’m fine.” He didn’t care that he sounded ungrateful and unfriendly. This time, they did back off.

Leo closed his eyes, feeling helpless, and hating it. He was fit, strong, young. Or he had been. Everything was different now.

As if to prove it wasn’t so, he pushed himself up and started walking, albeit slowly, back to the beach house, which was at least three miles away. His legs were shaking under him by the time he made it inside the sliding doors, his humiliation complete, if private. He peeled off his shorts and collapsed on the sofa, utterly exhausted and demoralized.

His shoulder ached like a raging bitch, the pain grabbing at his arm and chest, even reaching up the side of his head. Pushing up again, he went to the kitchen and found the pills he hadn’t touched since he’d gotten the prescription, and shook a few into his hand. He swallowed them dry and made his way back to the sofa. Eventually, sleep solved everything.

Chapter Three

Jasmine was ashamed of herself, and it wasn’t a feeling she was used to or happy about.

Back home after her classes, she’d eaten a small takeout dinner and had failed in resisting the compulsion to look Leo up on the internet. Sure enough, there it was.

The shooting, the funeral for the one person killed, and a story about Leo Fischer. Leo, in particular, was the focus of several articles since he had been hit by a bullet when he pushed another man out of the way.

He
was
a hero.

She’d treated him like pond scum.

Leo’s contact info on his business pages with his firm had been removed, probably to keep the press and other people from bothering him while he recovered. But his picture and his accomplishments were listed—all impressive, especially at his age.

But how did a person recover from something like that, exactly? Jasmine pondered the thought as she put the dishes in the sink.

Apparently, Leo’s brain thought it best to forget it all. Jasmine couldn’t blame him. She’d been through her own share of bad times, though nothing as terrible as what he’d gone through, and she sure wished she could forget some of it.

And here he was, alone—in the truest sense of the word, she figured. If he had family, wouldn’t he be with them?

He’d clearly been devoted to his success in the firm, and that had taken a central place in his life. She’d lived on the other side of that for seventeen years. Her father had been a virtual stranger to her, the man who supplied the money that paid for their life—until it had all crashed down around them.

Then when things had gone bad, he’d taken the coward’s way out, evading charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission, leaving her and her mother, effectively, with nothing.

Her mother had a nervous breakdown and moved in with her sister after a long, expensive hospitalization; after that, Jasmine moved on and built a new life.

Which was probably what Leo was trying to do, and she’d been cold. Suspicious and bitchy.

That she was tired and stressed or that she’d been hurt in the past were not excuses. She tried to model the yoga lifestyle and all of its principles for her students, and that meant showing kindness and compassion towards others.

The best way she knew to make up for her gaffe was to bake; it also eased her own stress. Pulling a bunch of ingredients from the cupboard, she went to work on some dried cranberry and dark-chocolate-chip oatmeal cookies—her own Cape Cod invention.

Slowly the aroma of the dough and the process of the baking calmed her mind, and when they were done, she arranged them in a basket, looking at the clock. It was only a little after eight in the evening—more than enough time to deliver some cookies—and an apology.

After a quick shower and a change of clothes, she headed back out to the car, stopping for a moment to take in the lovely evening. How long had it been since she had paused and noticed the world around her?

The roses were ripe on the bushes all along her clamshell driveway, their scent floating around her. Her house was only a ten-minute walk from the beach. Not quite close enough to hear the surf, but close enough for her to smell the salt that hung in the air.

The small cottage had been a find. It was a foreclosure that needed a lot of work, and she’d picked it up for a song. Over the years, she’d worked on renovating it as she could. When she’d bought it seven years before, there had been less money, but more time. She’d gone to auctions, garage sales, and had learned a lot about remodeling. It was fun.

It had been a while since she’d done anything to the house, though. Time was in short supply these days. She stood looking at the paint peeling on the edges of the porch and the torn screen in one window. She could at least fix up these small things before winter, she vowed.

Walking by her car, she shoved her keys back in her bag. Leo’s beach house was only a short distance down the beach, and it had been a while since she’d been out for a walk in the evening. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone for a swim.

Never mind that.

She’d done well; her business was thriving, and she’d built a stable platform for her future. No one would ever pull the rug out from under her again, like her father had done. Jasmine made her own life, and it was a good one. She just had to balance her time a little more.

Heck, maybe she could actually afford to hire someone to fix the screen and the porch for her, she thought with a satisfied smile.

As she made her way to the beach house, she frowned as she noticed no lights were on. Maybe Leo was out.

Climbing up the back steps to the deck, she peered inside the sliding glass doors—there was one light on inside, though everything was quiet. She knocked.

No response.

Knocking again, she pulled at the door, and it slid open easily. Something blocked her view—a mammoth bookcase was in the middle of the room, newspapers spread out all around it, sandpaper and some tools lying on the floor.

Leo’s?

“Leo? It’s Jasmine, from the yoga class. Are you home? Hello?” she called inside. Seconds later, she heard his footsteps before she saw him turn the corner.

“Leo?”

He looked like hell. Shirtless, in only his boxer shorts, his hair was a mess, and he stared at her like he didn’t know who she was.

“I’m Jasmine, we met this morning,” she said awkwardly, wondering if she’d overestimated her place in his memory.

“Right, sorry.” He spoke sluggishly and looked down as if realizing he was wearing only his underwear.

“C’mon in. I have to find some pants,” he mumbled, talking more to himself than to her.

She was unsure now. Had he been drinking? Was this safe? She hesitated, but then stepped farther inside the room. There were people on the beach, and she had her cell phone in her pocket where she had easy access to it. Besides, he didn’t look like he was in much shape to do anyone harm.

“I made some cookies, and I thought you might like some,” she said loudly, as she walked to the hallway where he’d disappeared. Farther down, she found the kitchen.

More old stuff. What the heck? Toys, tools, all rusty stuff. It didn’t fit with the otherwise gleaming, contemporary space at all. Moving some things aside, she set the cookies on the counter as her discomfort increased. She thought it might be a good idea to leave before he got back.

“Cookies? That’s great—I’m starving,” he said more clearly, suddenly standing right behind her.

It made her turn in surprise, and she bumped into him. He put his hand on her shoulder to steady her.

She stepped away quickly.

He’d put on some jeans and an old tee shirt with the name of a manufacturing company on the front. His hair was still all over the place, his eyes bleary. Up close, he looked way too good, even in his messy clothes with his messy hair.

He smiled then, God help her. Her gaze traveled over him again, in spite of her intentions, and she remembered the photo of him in his suit on the website. Silver-gray, like a shark. She couldn’t afford to fool herself. Even if he was recovering from an injury, Leo was a shark.

“Why did you make me cookies?” he asked, stepping around her to check them out.

“I, um, I felt bad about being rude on the beach this morning, and for thinking you were, well, that you were lying about your…situation.”

He picked up a cookie, took a bite, his eyes never leaving hers as he tasted.

Jasmine swallowed hard, trying not to stare at his mouth. The kitchen in the beach house was large, very large, but she felt like they were in a small space together. Too close.

Maybe not close enough.

She shut her eyes, as if that might make him less hot when she reopened them.

Nope.

“That was nice of you, but unnecessary. I should apologize. I was coming on to you when you were working,” he said, popping the rest of the cookie into his mouth. “Wow, these are good. I can’t remember the last time I had a cookie someone other than Keebler made.”

She frowned. “Really? I thought your memory loss was only work-related…?”

He grinned. “I was speaking figuratively. I actually can remember cookies my mom made for me, and that would be the last time I had homemade ones. Until now. Thank you.” His smile was sincere, but his eyes still blurry.