I’d remember if I knew her.

She smiles, a brilliant white smile.  I notice she has dirt on her cheeks and forehead.

“Are you okay?” she asks, her voice as soft as silk.

I nod.  “Yeah.  I will be, I guess.”

She looks at my leg sympathetically, her eyes clouded.  “I’m so sorry.  You wouldn’t even have been in the café if it weren’t for me.  It’s my fault you’re here in this bed.”

I’m already shaking my head.  No way.  I know what it’s like to take responsibility for something that wasn’t my fault.  I won’t let this girl do it.

“No,” I tell her firmly.  “I wanted to help. If I hadn’t seen you, I’d have seen someone else, so I would’ve been in there anyway.”

Probably.

She shakes her head slightly, the edges of her mouth tilted up.

“Such a gentleman,” she murmurs.  She slides into the chair by my bed, graceful and elegant.  

“You don’t recognize me, do you, Brand?”

My head snaps up when she uses my name.  

She does know me.

I examine her again.  Her face.  Her nose.  Her hair.  Her eyes.

Ms. Greene.

The Greenes.

Good lord.

I fight a groan.  I’ve been gone from here too long.  I’ve forgotten too many things.  In this case, the Greenes are an Angel Bay staple.  They own a huge lakeside estate that they only reside at in the summers, and they’re members at the country club where I used to work.

I do know her. Or, I remember the girl she used to be. She’s certainly grown up now.

“I used to park your father’s car at the club,” I say slowly.  

Nora smiles.  “And you picked me up out of the dirt once.  Do you remember that?”

I do.

Nora was younger, a teenager then, and her horse had thrown her off.  I’d been walking to the clubhouse to get a soda for my break and I’d seen the whole thing.  She’d gone sprawling into the dirt, and the first thing she’d done was stare furtively around, to make sure no one had seen.

It was a nasty spill though, so I had gone to check on her.  Her hands were shaky and I didn’t want to leave her alone, even though it was strictly against the rules for valet staff to mingle with club members.

“Did my father see?” she’d asked me quickly, her lip caught in her teeth.  There was a spot of blood from her braces, and I’d reached out and wiped it off for her.  She wasn’t concerned about her cut lip, though. She was terrified that her father had seen her mistake.

“No,” I assured her.  “I’m the only one around.”

“Thank God,” she’d breathed.

“Do you want me to go get him?” I asked her quickly, thinking that he might help her calm down.

She’d grabbed my arm, hard, her fingernails sinking in.  “Please don’t,” she’d begged, her eyes suddenly full of tears.  “Please.”

It had shocked me, her immediate and adamant refusal. It was like she was scared of him. I’d assured her that I wouldn’t get him, and I’d taken her inside to calm her down myself.  I stayed with her for half an hour.

“I got written up for that,” I remember slowly.  Nora’s face clouds over.

“You did?” she asks in confusion.  “Why in the world?”

From the astonished expression on her face, I almost believe that she doesn’t know.

“Your dad complained,” I tell her simply.  “Someone mentioned it to him, and he reported me.  Valets weren’t supposed to socialize with members, you know.”

“You weren’t socializing,” she points out.  “You were helping me.”

I shrug. “It was a long time ago.”

But her eyes are still dismayed.  A part of me finds satisfaction in that.  Maybe she’s not the ice bitch I expected her to be.  With a father like hers, though, I don’t know how that’s possible.

“I just wanted to check on you,” Nora tells me now hesitantly.  “I feel responsible and I wanted to help.  So I told them they might want to call your mother.  You didn’t have any contacts listed in your wallet, and your phone was password protected.”

My mother?  I stopped listening to her words as soon as she mentioned my mother.

“Why would they call my mother?” I ask stupidly.  Nora shakes her head in confusion.

“Because you were here alone.  I didn’t know who else to call. I thought you might want a family member…” her voice trails off as she stares at my face.  “I see now that I was wrong.  I’m so sorry. I was just trying to help.”

She was.  I’m sure of that.

But calling my mother was the furthest possible thing from helping.   

“Did she even bother to come?”  I ask tiredly.  I’d driven twelve hours to get here because she summoned me, and I doubt my mother even bothered to come to the hospital.

Nora shakes her head hesitantly.  “She told the nurse that she’d come pick you up when you were released.”

Yet I’d gone into surgery with a nicked artery.  For all she knew, I could’ve died on the table and she still didn’t come.

Why does that surprise me?  She didn’t bother to call and check on me when I was on the battlefields in Afghanistan, either.   

Nausea rolls through my stomach and I swallow hard.

“Well, that’s not a surprise.  Thank you for trying to help, Ms. Greene.  I appreciate it.  I know you must be tired.  You don’t need to stay with me.”

She lifts her blue eyes.  “Call me Nora.”

I nod.  “Okay.  Thanks for checking on me, Nora.  I’m glad you’re all right.”

Her eyes soften, glistening with something I can’t name.  “Thank you for making me okay.  You pulled me out, Brand.  If it weren’t for you…”

I interrupt.  “If I hadn’t pulled you out, someone else would’ve.”

She shrugs.   “Maybe.  But either way, thank you.  I’m going to check on you again tomorrow.”

Something soft lives in her eyes, but then she hides it.  I should tell her not to come, I should tell her to not even bother.  But the soft look in her eyes, that fleeting expression, kills the words on my tongue.   She seems like a person who doesn’t let that softness shine through often.