The Alcolar Family

But after that things slowed down again. Once they reached the hospital it was to find that nothing very much happened fast. There were what seemed to Cassie like endless long hours spent waiting, with very little news to tell at the end of them.

As far as the doctors could tell, Joaquin hadn’t sustained any major injury. There was no fracture, nothing to worry about there. But he had had a nasty blow to his head, and he was deeply unconscious. They would monitor the situation overnight and watch what happened.

So Cassie settled in for the long vigil through the dark hours of the night. She settled in a chair beside the bed, took hold of Joaquin’s hand, fixed her eyes on his face, and waited…

She wasn’t alone. From the start, Ramón had stayed with her, and later, after he had phoned his brother’s family, Joaquin’s father and his younger sister Mercedes arrived in the small private room too.

The other brother, Alex, they discovered, was already at the hospital for his own reasons. His wife, Louise, who was expecting their first child, had gone into labour earlier that evening and he was in the maternity ward with her. He was obviously torn between two loyalties until Cassie took pity on him.

‘You should be with Louise,’ she told him. ‘She needs you. And everyone’s sure that Joaquin’s going to be all right. There’s no need for all of us to stay here. If anything happens, Ramón and I will let you know.’

If the truth was told, she much preferred being on her own, or with just the silent, watchful Ramón for company. The doctors had told her that it could do some good to keep talking to Joaquin, that he might be able to hear her and the sound of her voice might bring him out of the coma he had fallen into.

After the long, lonely week of being separated from him she welcomed the chance to be able to speak to him at last. And because of the darkness and the stillness of the night, because Joaquin’s eyes were closed and she didn’t have to face his reaction to anything she said, she snatched at the chance to tell him the truth about how she felt, murmuring to him how much she cared for him, telling him that he was her love, her life, her reason for existing. All the things that she would never dare to tell him to his face, because she was afraid of seeing the way his expression would change, the cynical scorn that would darken his strongly carved features.

She didn’t know whether she prayed that he could hear her or hoped devoutly that he did not. All she knew was that for once and perhaps for the only time in her life she had her chance to tell the man she loved just how she felt about him, and she couldn’t let that go without taking full advantage of it.

But telling Joaquin of her love reminded her of the brutal marriage proposal he had made to her earlier that evening, the grim travesty of a declaration of feeling that had accompanied it. And in her mind she heard again his voice declaring: ‘I want you all to myself. I’m not prepared to share you with any man—even my brother.’

‘Ramón,’ she said hastily, turning to where he sat in the corner, ‘there’s something I have to tell you.’

‘Can’t it wait?’ Joaquin’s brother asked. ‘It’s late—we’re both tired…’

‘It’s important!’

She couldn’t leave Ramón in the dark about what had happened between her and Joaquin earlier that evening. She had to let him know about the suspicions his brother had had, the faulty conclusion he had jumped to about their relationship. If she left it unsaid, and Joaquin came round to find his brother here, with her, then she shuddered to think of the possible repercussions that might follow. Recalling Joaquin’s rage, his savage bitterness, she couldn’t let his brother face that unprepared.

‘Okay.’

Cassie drew a breath, wondering where to start.

‘If it helps, I think I know what this is about,’ Ramón put in. ‘You were lying when you said you and Joaquin had come to the end of the line. He might have, but there’s no way that you—’

He broke off, staring hard at his unconscious brother.

‘Did he just…?’

‘I didn’t hear anything,’ Cassie began.

But at that moment a faint sound from the bed brought her head swinging round. Joaquin’s eyelids were fluttering, lifting slightly, half opening, then falling closed again as he gave a heavy, tired sigh.

‘Joaquin!’

At once all her attention was focused on him, her hand reaching for and clasping his fingers tight.

‘Joaquin, can you hear me? Are you okay?’

Another sigh was his only response. His eyes remained tightly closed.

But then he stirred again, moving his head slightly on the crisp white pillows. Clearly the movement disturbed him because he frowned faintly, made a small murmur of protest.

‘Joaquin?’ Cassie tried again.

Joaquin, darling, she wanted to say. Joaquin, my love, wake up! Let me see that you’re all right…

But she didn’t dare.

Remembering how she and Joaquin had parted—the blunt, outright rejection of his mockery of a proposal; the way that he had stormed from Ramón’s apartment—she had little doubt that he would rebuff any attempt on her part to show him the way she really felt. So she had to content herself with simply repeating his name, trying to draw him out of his dazed, half-conscious state into more awareness.

‘Joaquin? Can you hear me?’

This time she got a definite response. The heavy eyelids lifted slowly again and his dark, dark eyes looked straight into her anxious blue ones. But Joaquin’s gaze was clouded with confusion and lack of focus and when he frowned again in bewilderment she knew that he was only conscious, but still not thinking straight.

‘Where…?’ he managed and his voice croaked so badly, it was clearly such an effort to speak, that it tore at Cassie’s already far too sensitive heart just to hear it.

She was so used to knowing the Joaquin who was always totally strong, totally composed, totally in control, that to see him like this, struggling even to focus, was almost more than she could bear.

‘You’re in hospital. You had a fall—and hit your head. Do you remember?’

‘No…’

Again it was just a sigh and his hand went up to touch the spot on his forehead where the bruising was worst, flinching away swiftly at even the faintest pressure on a tender point.

‘Careful!’

Cassie moved instinctively to lift his hand, then hesitated, her teeth worrying at her lower lip at the thought that she didn’t know how he would react. She couldn’t take it if he pulled away from her, or rejected her in some other, more forceful way.

‘That’s where you hit your head,’ she said, schooling her voice into neutrality with an effort. ‘It’s bound to be a bit sore.’

Was she imagining things or did Joaquin’s mouth twitch into a faint, ironic smile at the deliberate understatement? He seemed to be coming round fast and that was something that filled her with painfully ambiguous feelings. She wanted him to wake properly, needed desperately to see that he was all right and was well on the road to recovery, but a nasty little worm of fear was eating at her heart at the thought of what that would mean.

She would lose this quiet, peaceful time with him. It would become just the lull between two storms. When he woke fully and recalled the scene in Ramón’s apartment, she wouldn’t be able to sit here, beside his bed, holding his hand. He wouldn’t want her close to him. In fact he probably wouldn’t even let her stay in the room at all. If she knew Joaquin, he would order her out of his presence at once—and he would fully expect to be obeyed.

‘Just relax,’ she said cautiously. ‘Don’t try to fight things.’

His eyes were opening again, a little more easily, more definitely this time. His black gaze was better focused too, which made her heart give a little kick of excitement at the way he was improving.

The next moment, that excitement grew into a real glow of delight. Joaquin managed to open his eyes fully, shifting his head slightly on the pillows again, and looking straight at her.

And he smiled.

It was a little vague, a little lopsided, but it was directed solely at her. The anger and rejection she had expected wasn’t there. Instead, Joaquin smiled straight at her.

‘Hi,’ she said softly.

‘I’d better tell the nurses he’s come round.’ It was Ramón’s voice, coming from directly behind her. ‘And Papá and Mercedes will want to know too.’

‘Mmm.’

The strangled sound that might have been one of agreement was all that Cassie could manage. She felt as if she had just been slapped in the face with a very cold and slimy, nasty-smelling cloth.

Had that smile, from which she had taken such pleasure, and such comfort, not been meant for her? Ramón had been standing just behind her at that moment, directly in Joaquin’s line of sight.

So had he in fact been smiling, not at her, but at his brother?

The rush of joy fled swiftly, dissipating like air from a pricked balloon, and leaving her as limp and deflated as the flat piece of coloured rubber that was all that would be left behind.

Joaquin’s eyes had drifted shut again. Perhaps he was asleep. Perhaps he had slipped into unconsciousness again. She shouldn’t disturb him, but the unanswered question was nagging at her brain, fretting in her heart.

She had to know the answer!

Had Joaquin meant that smile for her? If he woke again, properly this time, would he welcome her presence at his side as he had seemed to do a moment ago? Or had she been totally mistaken, and he had in fact been looking at Ramón? Would the anger and the bitterness of the time in his brother’s apartment resurface? Or had he actually decided to forgive her?

‘Joaquin?’ she tried again softly. ‘Joaquin, are you awake?’

‘Tired…’

His response was a vaguely formed murmur, but at least he had heard her, was still listening.

‘Shall—?’ She had to force herself to ask the question. ‘Shall I go?’

The jet-black brows twitched together sharply in a frown, his eyes still staying closed. Apart from that one tiny reaction, he didn’t speak, but lay silent and still as before.

The bubble of hope that had formed inside Cassie’s heart disintegrated in a rush. Perhaps that smile had been for Ramón.

‘Shall I go?’

Still no answer.

She studied Joaquin’s still face, seeing the way that the long, lush black lashes lay fanned out above the high slanting cheekbones, illuminated by the light from a lamp at the side of the bed. The ebony sheen of his hair was stark against the crisp white of the pillowcases, his skin looking a darker bronze.

Her gaze was drawn to the beautifully sensual shape of his mouth. The need to lean forward and press her own lips to that mouth was like a hard kick in her guts, one she had to fight so hard to resist. But she was relieved to see that his features were more relaxed, the total unconsciousness of earlier, outside the apartment building, easing away.

Seen like this, with the jet-hard darkness of his eyes hidden behind the closed lids, he looked younger, gentler, less dangerous somehow. Even though she knew she was probably deceiving herself, Cassie was tempted to let herself believe that this Joaquin, this quiet, peaceful man, would have smiled at her. That he would be able to accept that she wasn’t living with Ramón in the way that he had originally believed, and that maybe—maybe they could have more?

But that was just a dream, and she knew it. If he opened his eyes then she was afraid that all would change. She would see the cold light in those deep dark eyes, his face would resume its hard, aloof expression, and she would know her present mood for the fantasy that it was.

‘I’ll leave you to rest,’ she murmured, reluctantly loosening her grip on his fingers.

But as she slowly eased away a sudden movement of Joaquin’s hand startled her into stillness once more.

‘No!’

Still with his eyes closed, he reached out and grabbed at her fingers, closing his around them, firm and tight. And as Cassie gasped in sudden shock he forced his heavy eyelids open again, looking straight into her face.

‘No!’ he said again, more forcefully this time.

‘What is it?’

Try as she might, she couldn’t erase the tremor from her voice. Was this the time when he remembered? When everything became clear to him again? She fought to contain the panic that was rising up inside her, struggled to ensure that the hand he held didn’t shake in his grasp.

‘Cassandra—queda, por favor…’

He was tiring even as he spoke. She could see the blurring of his gaze, sense the loosening of his focus as his eyelids drooped again.

‘Queda…’

His grip on her hand loosened as he drifted into sleep. But Cassie didn’t need any restraining grip to hold her there. If the hospital had been on fire, the room filling with smoke, she would have stayed right where she was, as long as Joaquin was there. Nothing would have forced her to move, unless he went with her.

Queda, he had said.

Stay.

And he had added por favor.

Queda, por favor…Stay—please!

Her heart felt as if it would burst with happiness, in a way that was such a stunning contrast to the fear and apprehension with which she had begun the evening that it made her head swim in sheer delight.

Stay. Joaquin had said. Stay—please. He wanted her with him, didn’t want her to go. And that was all she needed, holding as it did the promise of so much more. Of reconciliation and a hope for the future that she had thought she had lost for good.

Even though she knew that Joaquin was asleep, or very nearly so, and that he wouldn’t hear her, she knew she had to answer him out loud, the words too important to keep to herself.

‘Of course I’ll stay,’ she said in a voice that was thick and rough with emotion. ‘For as long as you want—as long as you need me.’

And now, at last, she could no longer find the strength to hold back her tears but simply let them fall, cascading down her cheeks in a show of open emotion. But this time she didn’t care, because these tears were tears of happiness, the outward expression of the joy she felt inside.

Joaquin had spent an uncomfortable couple of days in which he hadn’t known quite what was real, and what was part of the weird, heightened dreams that had haunted the sleep into which he fell with a disturbing regularity. They were so vivid, so confusing, that he would have described them as delirium, even though he had been assured that he was not running a temperature.

People came and went and he never quite knew when or why. Sometimes he would open his eyes and his father was there, or Ramón, and then another time it would be Mercedes who was sitting in the chair by the bed—and occasionally Alex. He seemed to recall that Alex had said something about a baby, but it had blurred into the haze in his head and he couldn’t recall any details.

Sometimes it would be bright day, with the warm sunshine pouring in through the windows; at other times, clearly night had fallen without him noticing and the world beyond the glass was dark, the room lit softly by the bedside lamp. He’d eaten sometimes, just a bit, not tasting anything, and he’d drunk the water people kept offering him and found that that tasted surprisingly good.

But every time his eyes opened, it was always Cassandra that he saw. Day or night. Early or late. She was there. Sitting by the bed, or on the bed. Silent and watchful or talking about something that he couldn’t always take in. She was a calm, reassuring presence in a world that seemed to be always out of focus. And she was always there.

That was fine with him.

More than fine.

He knew that he had spoken to the other visitors, murmuring something that they had seemed to accept as the answer to whatever they had asked, but he couldn’t really recall just what he had said. The one thing he actually registered, the one thing he remembered saying, was that he had asked Cassandra to stay.

He had asked her to stay, and she had stayed.

And that was fine too.

In the end, after three hazy days, the fog that had clouded his brain finally started to clear. He no longer drifted asleep at totally unexpected moments, his eyes focused much better, and he could actually understand what people were saying to him. To his intense relief, he was also let out of the damn bed, and felt decidedly more human once he was sitting in a chair, wearing proper clothes and with his jaw shaved free of the impossibly luxuriant growth of beard that had resulted from three days’ lack of attention.

He would feel even better if the doctors would only let him go home.

If he went home, then he could be alone with Cassandra.

But: ‘You have had a very nasty knock on the head,’ they said. ‘We need to be sure that there’s no permanent damage. What can you remember about the accident itself?’

‘Remember? The honest answer is not a damn thing—but that’s not so unusual, is it? I understand that quite often in an accident where someone is knocked unconscious, they can’t remember the actual event. The bang on the head sends it out of your mind.’

‘Yes, that can often be the case.’

‘I understand I was at my brother’s apartment. That I slipped on the steps outside, fell, hit my head. Luckily, my girlfriend was with me… what is it?’

He had caught the look that had passed between the two doctors. A slightly concerned, slightly questioning look. One he didn’t like at all. One that worried him.

‘What is it?’ he repeated. ‘What the hell’s wrong now?’

‘Nothing to concern yourself about,’ they assured him. ‘But we would like to ask you just a few more questions.’

‘Okay,’ Joaquin growled impatiently. ‘Ask. Anything, if it will help me get out of this damn place.’

So they asked and he answered. And their reaction to his responses turned his thoughts inside out and made his head reel in shock.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘THE doctor says what?’

It was Mercedes who asked the question, the surprise and shock they were all feeling ringing in her voice. And Cassandra could only be grateful that Joaquin’s younger sister had no hesitation in responding so fast and so forcefully to what her brother had just told them. At least it hid the way that she was unable to speak herself, her silence the result of a sense of shock that had made her thoughts reel.

‘He says that I have partial amnesia,’ Joaquin explained with an exaggerated patience that made it plain that he didn’t want to have to go through all the details yet again, even if his family needed to hear them. ‘It’s not just the immediate events of the accident that I can’t remember—there’s quite a bit more that’s been wiped too.’

‘How much?’ Cassie forced herself to ask it, then immediately wished she hadn’t as her voice was such a revealingly painful croak that she felt hot colour flood her cheeks in embarrassment at the sound.

‘Weeks.’ Joaquin’s tone was wry. ‘The last thing I can remember with any clarity is Mercedes’ birthday party.’

‘But that’s almost a month ago!’ his sister exclaimed.

Almost a month ago, and perhaps the last time they had been truly happy together, Cassie admitted to herself. She and Joaquin had had a wonderful time at that party, dancing together under the stars, and then they had gone back home and held a long, passionate party all of their own. Spending the rest of the night in bed, but definitely not sleeping.

It was after that that things had started to go wrong. When Cassie had started to worry about the dates on the calendar, and the significance of their upcoming anniversary—the importance of Joaquin’s uncompromising one-year rule.

But if all that Joaquin remembered was the night of the party then it was no wonder that he had smiled at her as he’d come round. No wonder that he had begged her to stay.

He had forgotten all that had happened in between, the rows, the anxieties, the way that he had declared so openly to her face that he ‘didn’t do’ commitment. The images of the appalling night at Ramón’s apartment, when he had come hunting for her and, finding her there, had leapt to the conclusion that she and his brother were lovers, had been wiped from his brain by the blow to the head he had suffered after storming out of the building and falling on the stone steps.

So he hadn’t forgiven her at all. Hadn’t rethought the whole situation and realised his mistake and resolved to put things right. The smile that he had given her—the smile that had meant so much to her—had been meant in a way for a totally different person. And the woman he had asked to stay with him was not the one he really remembered at all, but an echo of a month ago, before everything had changed.

‘So—’ Her voice cracked hoarsely and she had to slick her tongue over her dry lips in order to moisten them, swallowing hard before she could go on. ‘So you remember nothing about the accident—about that night.’

‘Not a thing.’

Frowning darkly, Joaquin raked both his hands through his hair in a gesture that revealed the unsettled state of his thoughts much better than any words.

‘Nada. I don’t even know what I—we—were doing at Ramón’s. Why were we there?’

‘Why…?’

Why were we there? Cassie’s thoughts spun in panic as she struggled to think of some way to answer him. But what could she say that wouldn’t reveal the truth? How could she explain that she had been living with Ramón without arousing once again the savage, furious jealousy that had sent Joaquin raging out of the apartment and into the rain that night?

‘I—you…’

‘The doctors say we mustn’t tell you anything.’

It was Ramón’s voice that cut in sharply. He had been standing outside in the corridor, talking to the specialist who had been treating Joaquin, and luckily he came into the room just at this moment.

‘Nothing at all,’ he went on, after one swift, warning glance into Cassie’s troubled face. ‘They say that we mustn’t push anything or try to make you remember. That we have to leave it all to come back in its own time. Or not at all.’

‘And what if it is not at all?’ Joaquin growled, obviously not happy about this.

‘Then we’ll deal with that when it comes to it,’ his brother assured him breezily. ‘But they seem pretty certain that it won’t. A thump on the head like the one you suffered was bound to scramble your brains just a bit. You need to take things steady, wait for everything to settle back down again. And not get in a mood about things or you could face a setback.’

‘I’m not a baby.’ Joaquin scowled. Cassie could guess at the sort of thoughts that were going through his head. An unfailingly strong and healthy man, he had clearly been shaken by finding himself in hospital, and he obviously hated the restrictions that his accident had placed on him, even if for just a few days.

‘Give it time,’ she said, trying to soothe him. ‘It’s only been a couple of days so far. Who knows what difference a week might make?’

Who knows? Cassie echoed to herself, not knowing whether it was something she should hope for or dread.

How was she supposed to act with Joaquin now? He might not remember all that had happened in that missing month—but she couldn’t forget a thing. He thought that they were still happy together, that nothing had come between them. He certainly didn’t suspect her of having an affair with his half-brother—at least not now!

But what would happen when he did remember? When he realised that that smile, that ‘Stay’, had been directed at that other Cassie, the one who no longer existed in his buried memories and heart.

She might have a reprieve now. A chance to go back to how it had once been. A chance to live once more in harmony and happiness with Joaquin, but there was no way it could last. Some time, inevitably, Joaquin’s thoughts would clear, and he would remember everything and then they would be right back where they had been on that dreadful night in the moments before he had had his accident.