The Second Mrs Adams

Maybe things would improve between them now. The nurses all talked about how lucky she was to be Mrs. David Adams. He was gorgeous, they giggled, so sexy...

So polite, and so cold.

The nurses didn’t know that, but Joanna did. Was that how he’d always treated her? As if they were strangers who’d just met, always careful to do and say the right thing? Or was it the accident that had changed things between them? Was he so removed, so proper, because he knew she couldn’t remember him or their marriage?

Joanna wanted to ask, but how could you ask such intimate things of a man you didn’t know?

“Joanna, what’s the matter?” She blinked and looked up at David. His green eyes were narrowed with concern as they met hers. “Have the doctors changed their minds about releasing you?”

Joanna forced a smile to her lips. “No, no, the cell door’s still scheduled to open at ten in the morning. I was just thinking about...about how it’s going to be to go...to go...” Home, she thought. She couldn’t bring herself to say the word, but then, she didn’t have to. She wasn’t going home tomorrow, she was going to a rehab center. More white-tiled walls, more high ceilings, more brightly smiling nurses... “Where is Big Meadows, anyway?”

“Bright Meadows,” David said, with a smile. “It’s about an hour’s drive from here. You’ll like the place, Jo. Lots of trees, rolling hills, an Olympic-size swimming pool and there’s even an exercise room. Nothing as high-tech as your club, I don’t think, but even so—”

“My club?”

Damn, David thought, damn! The doctors had warned him against jogging her memory until she was ready, until she began asking questions on her own.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Do I belong to an exercise club?”

“Well, yeah.”

“You mean, one of those places where you dress up in a silly Spandex suit so you can climb on a treadmill to work up a sweat?”

David grinned. It was his unspoken description of the Power Place, to a tee.

“I think the Power Place would be offended to hear itself described in quite that way but I can’t argue with it, either.”

Joanna laughed. “I can’t even imagine doing that. I had the TV on this morning and there was this roomful of people jumping up and down...they looked so silly, and now you’re telling me that I do the same thing?”

“The Power Place,” David said solemnly, “would definitely not like to hear you say that.”

“Why don’t I run outdoors? Or walk? Didn’t yóu say I—we—live near Central Park?”

His smile tilted. It was as if she was talking about another person instead of herself.

“Yes. We live less than a block away. And I don’t know why you didn’t run there. I do, every morning.”

“Without me?” she said.

“Yes. Without you.”

“Didn’t we ever run together?”

He stared at her. They had; he’d almost forgotten. She’d run right along with him the first few weeks after their marriage. They’d even gone running one warm, drizzly morning and had the path almost all to themselves. They’d been jogging along in silence when she’d suddenly yelled out a challenge and sped away from him. He’d let her think she was going to beat him for thirty or forty yards and then he’d put on some speed, come up behind her, snatched her into his arms and tumbled them both off the path and into the grass. He’d kissed her until she’d stopped laughing and gone soft with desire in his arms, and then they’d flagged a cab to take them the short block back home...

He frowned, turned away and strode to the closet. “You said you preferred to join the club,” he said brusquely, “that it was where all your friends went and that it was a lot more pleasant and a lot safer to run on an indoor track than in the park. Have you decided what you’re going to wear tomorrow?”

“But how could it be safer? If you and I ran together, I was safe enough, wasn’t I?”

“It was better that way, Joanna. We both agreed that it was. My schedule’s become more and more erratic. I have to devote a lot of hours to business. You know that. I mean, you don’t know it, not anymore, but...”

“That’s OK, you don’t have to explain.” Joanna smiled tightly. “You’re a very busy man. And a famous one. The nurses all keep telling me how lucky I am to be married to you.”

David’s hand closed around the mauve silk suit hanging in the closet.

“They ought to mind their business,” he said gruffly.

“Don’t be angry with them, David. They mean well.”

“Everybody ought to mind their damned business,” he said, fighting against the rage he felt suddenly, inexplicably, rising within him. “The nurses, the reporters—”

“Reporters?”

For the second time that night, David cursed himself. He could hear the sudden panic in Joanna’s voice and he turned and looked at her.

“Don’t worry about them. I won’t let them get near you.”

“But why...” She stopped, then puffed out her breath. “Of course. They want to know about the accident, about me, because I’m Mrs. David Adams.”

“They won’t bother you, Joanna. Once I get you to Bright Meadows...”

“The doctors say I’ll have therapy at Bright Meadows.”

“Yes.”

“What kind of therapy?”

“I don’t know exactly. They have to evaluate you first.”

“Evaluate me?” she said with a quick smile.

“Look, the place is known throughout the country. The staff, the facilities, are all highly rated.”

Joanna ran the tip of her tongue across her lips. “I don’t need therapy,” she said brightly. “I just need to remember.”

“The therapy will help you do that.”

“How?” She tilted her head up. Her smile was brilliant though he could see it wobble just a little. “There’s nothing wrong with me physically, David. Or mentally. I don’t need to go for walks on the arm of an aide or learn basket-weaving or—or lie on a couch while some doctor asks me silly questions about a childhood I can’t remember.”

David’s frown deepened. She was saying the same things he’d said when Bright Meadows had been recommended to him.

“Joanna’s not crazy,” he’d said bluntly, “and she’s not crippled.”

The doctors had agreed, but they’d pointed out that there really wasn’t anywhere else to send a woman with amnesia... unless, of course, Mr. Adams wished to take his wife home? She needed peaceful, stress-free surroundings and, at least temporarily, someone to watch out for her. Could a man who put in twelve-hour days provide that?

No, David had said, he could not. He had to devote himself to his career. He had a high-powered Wall Street firm to run and clients to deal with. Besides, though he didn’t say so to the doctors, he knew that he and Joanna could never endure too much time alone together.