Mind Lies by Harlow Stone Read Free Book Online Page A

Her cheek bones are high, chin small, and nose straight.
    “Who are you, Jerri Sloane?” I whisper to myself.
    Dr. Katherine Hope was right; she is a good looking woman. Not too tall, maybe five-foot-six. Not too curvy but not stick-thin either. I brush my fingers over the tattoo on the shoulder of a black bird in flight before leaving the mirror, the stranger, behind. Perhaps she’ll have more answers for me tomorrow.
                  I walk out of the bathroom to find Portia waiting outside with a food tray. “You look much better, babe. Hop back in bed, and we’ll get dinner out of the way.”
    Warily, I move back to the bed, refreshed and a little hungry. I eye the tray she brought in topped with a bowl of soup and half a sandwich before she scurries away back to the kitchen. It doesn’t smell bad. It can’t be worse than hospital food.
    “Don’t worry. It’s from Junior’s, the deli we like,” Portia tells me.
    I open my mouth to say something, but she cuts me off. “I saw that look. And trust me, you have every right to have it there. I’m not a terrible cook, so long as I pay attention to what I’m doing. It’s when I don’t pay attention when shit happens.”
    I smile as she settles onto the bed beside me with her own dinner. “Like burning Cooper’s dinner?” I ask.
    She nods with a gleam in her eye. “Exactly that. That man can be distracting . . . trust me.”
    I test a spoonful of the vegetable soup. It is absolutely divine. “This is really good.”
    “It’s your favorite from Junior’s. We eat there a lot when we’re working; it’s a few doors down from the shop.”
    After eating in silence for a few moments, I broach what I feel is one of many elephants in the room. “I dreamt about him again.”
    Her eyes leave mine. She fiddles with her sandwich. “You wanna tell me about it?”
    I lean back against the headboard, releasing a held breath. “Do you think I’m crazy?”
    Soft eyes meet mine. “No, Jer. You’re a lot of things, but crazy is not one of them. You’re meticulous and driven. You’re thorough and loyal. You’ve never been late paying a bill. If my hair looks like shit, you give it to me straight, and you don’t give false promises. You may have lost your memory, but you’re not crazy.” She pauses to take a breath. “I guess the hardest thing is I feel like I’ve missed something, you know? Like, I’ve been so overwhelmed and consumed by the wedding and pregnancy stuff this past year that I feel like maybe I didn’t pay enough attention.”
    I reach out and grab her hand because it feels like the right thing to do.
    “Jer, I could be wrong, and so could you. But I’d be an idiot and a liar if I said I wasn’t curious sometimes. When you go on your hunts for the shop, you’re almost always still around Boston, but there are times you’ll fly somewhere. There are times when I don’t talk to you for a few days.”
    I give her hand a squeeze and gesture for her to continue. She tucks her blonde hair behind her ear and says, “Cooper and I talked last night. And please don’t get upset with him because Cooper and I tell each other everything. But we talked about how you are when you come back. Sometimes, you’re Suzy Sunshine, with deliveries on the way and a truck full of new treasures for the shop.” She looks off, not really at anything in particular. Her eyes are glazed, lost in a moment of the past.
    Softly, she says, “And sometimes, you’re just back , with no extravagant finds, smile on your face, or deliveries coming in. Sometimes, it’s like wherever you went, you forgot your happy. You’ll shrug it off, sleep it off, or take the rest of the day off. I’ve asked—even pushed once—but I’ve never looked much more into it. Sometimes you’d tell me you were a little lonely. Sometimes you’d say you had the flu. And, hell, sometimes you’d say you were remembering little bits from your childhood and the loss of your family.