“The brain is powerful. Don’t underestimate your reactions. They’re likely there for a reason,” Sasha told her.
The ache behind her eyes started to spread to the back of her head.
She reached down and placed her hand on Leo’s. “I think I’ll skip this morning’s walk. See if I can’t get rid of this headache.”
“That’s the best idea you’ve had so far,” Pam said as she removed the blood pressure cuff.
He lifted her hand to his lips, pressed a kiss to her fingertips. “Let us know if you need anything.”
Leo and Sasha left the room, but Pam lingered. “How about some Tylenol?” she asked.
Olivia didn’t respond. She simply adjusted herself in bed and pulled the sheet over her shoulders.
“That’s what I thought,” Pam muttered before closing the door behind her.
Who the hell am I?
The more she asked the question, the more afraid of the answer she became.
Clouds surrounded the log home, cocooning it in a dense shroud of moisture. The gray skies matched the mood inside the house.
Olivia’s unexpected outburst had given everyone a stark reminder that her memory was going to come back, and when it did, her reaction may be just as unexpected as it had been in the bathroom.
The way Neil’s team gave Olivia space showed Leo just how much room they needed to avoid injury.
She didn’t emerge from her room until long after lunch. By dinner she was a little quicker to smile, but slower to move.
It was meatloaf night for the second time, and she insisted on making the mashed potatoes.
“You really don’t have to,” Isaac told her. “I’m sure we can manage.”
“I don’t welsh on bets or go back on my word. You make the hamburger thing, leave this to me.”
Leo joined her at the sink and washed his hands. “I’ll help you peel.”
She gave him room and not an argument.
He counted that as a notch in the right direction.
“Did your mother make you help in the kitchen?” she asked him.
“My grandmother. My mom hates to cook. Nana, on the other hand . . .”
“Is she still alive?”
He turned the water on in the sink. “They both are. Nana lives in a retirement community, always talking about how she drives the widowed men crazy. Insists that she has at least one marriage proposal every six months.”
“You grandma sounds like someone I’d like to know,” Lars said from his perch in the living room.
Leo thought of his nana’s smile and easy nature. “You might just be young enough for her,” Leo suggested.
Olivia’s laugh was the first one he’d heard all day.
“You’d like her. She says what everyone else is thinking and doesn’t care who it offends.”
“Best way to live,” Isaac said.
Olivia hacked away at the skin of a potato with a vegetable peeler, and Leo used a small knife to do the same job.
“How old is she?”
“Eighty-two. Still has all her faculties . . . walks on her own two feet.”
“So why the retirement place?”
“She says she needs people around, and if it wasn’t for where she lived, she’d be bugging her family to entertain her. She’s the woman that is first on the group bus to Vegas or when they go wine tasting in Temecula. She does a senior cruise once a year.”
“Isn’t senior cruise an oxymoron?” Isaac asked.
Leo nodded, finished with one potato, and moved to another. “She’s enjoying her life. We should all be so lucky.”
Just talking about his nana made Leo wonder about Olivia’s family.
Who were they?
Did she even have a family?
Did any of them?
Or were they all like the toys on Misfit Island, odd, damaged, and alone?
A splatter of rain drew his attention away from thoughts of Neil’s crew and out the window.
“I felt this coming,” Lars said, staring at the rain.
“Oh?” Olivia asked.
“My right leg has been talking to me all day.”
Olivia glanced up at Leo, a knowing smile on her lips. “When did you break it?” she asked.
“In the service.”
Damn if she hadn’t been right about the injury. Not that Leo had noticed any limp, even after Olivia brought it up earlier that week.
“Don’t make it sound all heroic,” Isaac teased.
“Are you suggesting Lars wasn’t playing Superman at the time?” Olivia asked.
“I was flying through the air.” Lars laughed.
“Jumping out of a plane on a training mission. Came in too hard.” Isaac opened the oven and put their dinner inside. “Catch Lars after a few beers, you’ll hear the story three different ways.”
“That true, Lars?”
Leo enjoyed the amusement on Olivia’s face as she learned the team’s