The Ranchers Son (3 page)

Ethan watched sleep
take Adam from the room, observed his features as he relaxed into slumber, and
saw a glimpse of the Adam he’d known from his time at the ranch—pale skin, dark
hair, and long lashes that framed his uninjured eye—and tried not to focus on
the cuts and bruises that crossed and marked his face.

“It’s highly
irregular.” Doctor Armitage was still talking, but it was just a buzz in the
room.

“We should leave
him to sleep,” the nurse said. Her badge said her name was Clare, and she
pulled the sheet and blanket more neatly around the sleeping Adam. “Everyone
out.” The interns all scurried away, some of them looking decidedly pleased
they were getting out of standing with Dr. Armitage.

She pointedly
looked at Ethan and lowered her voice so that the doctor, who was still talking
to Detective Manning, couldn’t hear. “He’s vulnerable,” she said. “Sweet guy,
but he’ll need help.”

“I get that. I
want to take him home. We’ll be able to help him there.”

She nodded. “We
should leave him now.” She rolled her eyes to indicate the doctor, and Ethan had
got the point. She needed him to get the doctor out of the room.

In a flurry of
motion, Ethan stood and ushered everyone out, following them and closing the
door behind him. He didn’t want to leave, he wanted to stay in the room and
watch over Adam, but he had things to say, and questions to ask.

The doctor rounded
on him before he could get a single question in. “You have to understand there
is no structural brain damage as such, so what has been the primary cause of
the missing memory can only be something physical or
psychological
. He is, for all intents and purposes,
repressing his memories. He needs to be studied.”

“Repressing memories
by himself?” Ethan was confused; was the doctor implying that Adam had chosen
not to have memories?

Doctor Armitage
drew himself tall and cleared his throat. “There is a difference between global
amnesia, or what you might call fugue state, and situation-specific amnesia.”
He waited for someone to say something, like he expected those around him to
show awe. Ethan said nothing, and the doctor continued. “Global is the sudden
loss of personal identity. It lasts only a few hours or days, which is clearly
not the case here.” He stopped again.

Drama queen.

“So what kind of
amnesia does he have?” Ethan asked, patience with the posturing on the wane.

“What I think our
young man is suffering from, is situation-specific amnesia as a result of the
attack. He experienced something so horrific that he quite literally turned off
his memories to protect himself.”

“Something
horrific, like the attack itself.”

“Yes, he was
possibly at increased risk of this due to sexual or physical abuse in
childhood, or some other kind of sufficiently severe psychological stress.”

Ethan held his
words. He had way more knowledge about Adam’s childhood than he was willing to
share with the doctor. Adam had never wanted to share things back then, and
he’d probably hate it just as much now.

“Nothing like
that,” Ethan lied.

“Well, whatever, I
wanted to attempt to rediscover the repressed memories, which we may be able to
access by psychotherapy or possibly hypnotism.”

“We’ll look into
that when I get him home.”

“You don’t know
what he is trying to hide from,” the doctor protested. Maybe there was a kernel
of compassion in the man beyond his love of research? Then he blew that theory
out of the water by adding another comment. “Anyway, I need his input against a
control group.”

That put the last
nail in the coffin. “I’m taking him home tomorrow.”

“I’d like to talk
to the brother,” Doctor Armitage persisted.

“Surely whether he
leaves or not is Adam’s decision?” Ethan countered.

“I’m not sure he’s
capable of making that decision.”

“Medically?”

“No, emotionally.
I mean, how do we even know who you are to him?”

Ethan pulled out
his cell phone and prepared to forward a set of emails between himself and Cole
to Detective Manning. “What is your email?” The doctor reluctantly handed it
over, and Ethan copied him in. “This will be enough. I’ll talk to Adam in the
morning. Meanwhile I’ll need a full medical assessment of his injuries to take
with me to Jedburgh. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to sit here until
morning.”

He didn’t go back
into Adam’s room; he hadn’t been officially checked as a family rep, and he
understood that Detective Manning would need to clear him.

Doctor Armitage walked
away with resentment in every step, and Manning looked at his retreating form with
exasperation. “Idiot doctor,” he muttered, then held up his phone and checked
the emails Ethan had sent. He sent one in return. “That’s the 911 call, made
from a burner phone which we located in the trash just off of campus.”
Extending his hand, he shook Ethan’s. “Good luck to you, Officer Allens.”

“Call me Ethan.”

With a nod of
understanding, Manning left, and as he walked out, the nurse came back in with
a coffee cup and a smile.

“Thought you’d
need this,” she said.

“Thanks for your
help back there.”

She smiled.
“You’re welcome. Doctor Armitage isn’t a bad guy, just an academic who sees
medical problems but not the people caught up in them. I’ll be at the desk if
you need me.”

She was about to
leave, but he stopped her. “Wait. What can you tell me about Adam?”

She hesitated and
tilted her head a little in thought. “You mean besides medically? He’s a sweet
guy, very polite—calls me ma’am. He likes to watch nature programs and the news
channels. His favorite jello is green, but then, let’s be honest, there isn’t
much taste to any of the jellos, so that means nothing.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,”
she said, then left.

This time he
didn’t have any questions to call her back for. He listened to the 911 call but
Manning had been right, the voice could be any guy with a hand over the receiver.

He settled into
the uncomfortable chair and considered who to call. Cole was out of touch, and
Cole’s ex-wife hated everything to do with the family and its past tragedies,
so that took care of Adam’s family. Then what about his own? There was no point
in phoning his dad—what could he say to him? Oh yeah, Dad, I found Adam, but
no, not Justin. So no brother for me, no son for you, just your friend’s son,
who doesn’t even remember him.

He shot off an
email to the Navy Liaison address he had, and asked that they forward it to
Cole. After that he had nothing to do except sit in the shitty chair, with hope
rekindled inside him, wishing that somehow Adam would get all his memories back
and know where Justin was. Then he researched as much as he could about
amnesia, part of him wishing he could find something Doctor Armitage didn’t
know.

He must have
nodded off at some point, waking to another coffee from Clare and a ten-minute
warning that breakfast was about to be brought up to the patients. His neck ached,
and he was semi curled up in the hard chair.

“Thought you
needed this. If you want to go to the cafeteria, I can keep an eye on Adam.”

“No, I’ll stay
here. Thank you, though.”

“I’ll see if I can
get someone to bring you up something.”

A quick glance at
his watch showed Ethan it was a few minutes after six. He checked his email.
He’d only sent the information to Navy Liaison late last night, but there was already
a message back saying all efforts would be made to get the information to Cole Strachan.
There was a group joke sent by one of the shift officers back at the precinct,
and some spam. Other than that, nothing.

Ethan stood and
stretched tall, sipped his hot coffee, and watched the April morning unfold
before his eyes. Clare managed to scrounge up some pastries, and he ate them at
the window, a hundred thoughts racing through his head.

A nurse
disappeared into Adam’s room, and Ethan tensed in expectation. He desperately
wanted to go in there, but would Adam even be interested in talking to him?

“Are you Ethan?”
the nurse asked. The tray in her hand carried untouched food.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You can go in. He’s
asking for you.”

As he started to
walk past her, she thrust the tray at him. There was a plate of eggs, and a sorry-looking
pancake. “Try to get him to eat some of this,” she said.

He took the tray,
because he didn’t really have a choice, and went into Adam’s room, kicking the
door shut behind him. There was no one in the bed, but the bathroom door was closed,
so Ethan assumed that was where the errant Adam was. He placed the tray on the
table and waited, looking out of the same window Adam had been standing at last
night. From this angle and at this height, Ethan could see the water of Lake
Michigan and watch the hospital parking lot grow busier by the minute.

The bathroom door
opened. Ethan instinctively turned and wished he hadn’t, because now he was
staring. Not so much at the pajama bottoms that rode low on slim hips, or the broad
chest that had a smattering of hair, tapering to a happy trail downward, nor to
the muscles in Adam’s arms. No, Ethan was staring at the scars—new ones and
some way older by the look of them—bruises purple and yellow and green, and the
tattoos.

Tribal tattoos
circled Adam’s arms, over his right shoulder, and down onto his pec: big
swathes of dark ink with finer detail in curls around muscles. Something that
looked like old burns marked his neck. A body that had seen a lot, felt a lot.

“I don’t remember
them,” Adam said, his voice lost. He ran his fingers over the tattoos as if touching
them would bring back memories. “They must have hurt, don’t you think?”

Ethan thought of
the small tattoo over his heart and recalled the discomfort of getting it. His
hadn’t hurt; the million tiny pricks into his skin were nothing.

“Maybe,” he
offered.

Adam turned a
little and checked the tattoos in the mirror, peering close. “I wonder what
they mean?”

When he turned, he
exposed more marks on his back and the fine lines of a horse standing on his
hind legs. Ethan inhaled sharply.

“What?” Adam
snapped, attempting to see his back even though he couldn’t get the right
angle. “What is it?”

“Your horse.”

Adam frowned. “That
is my horse? I want to see that again, the detective took a photo but he didn’t
have a copy for me.”

Ethan pulled out
his cell and snapped a shot of the beautiful tattoo, then passed the phone to
Adam, who stared at the picture.

“Why is it—” Any energy
seemed to leave him in the exhalation of a sigh, and he slumped to sit on his
bed. “—I remember this is a cell phone, but I don’t recall patterns on my own
skin?”

From his research
Ethan learned terms like brain centers and retrograde amnesia, alongside
traumatic stress, he didn’t understand a lot of it. “I have no idea.”

Adam curled into
himself, hunching over his knees, looking utterly defeated.

Compassion welled
inside Ethan, and he sat next to his old friend, pushing the tray toward him. “Eat
your eggs,” he said gruffly.

Adam side-eyed him
and huffed before taking the tray and resting it on the small hospital table.
He forked some into his mouth, grimacing as he chewed and swallowed, but at
least he ate half of what was there, and one cold, dry pancake.

“I need a proper
breakfast,” Adam grumped.

“Like what?”

“Hot fresh bacon,”
Adam said immediately, paling at what he was saying. “I think that I love bacon.
I’d eat plates of the stuff if you gave them to me.”

“And real pancakes,”
Ethan added. He reached over and poked at the sorry excuse for one that had
been served. “But not like this one. Fluffy, steaming pancakes.”

Adam nodded and
darted his tongue out to collect a small piece of egg resting on his lips.
“Maple syrup,” he added softly.

“You always liked
maple syrup.”

Adam finished the
eggs and grimaced again. “When we get out of here, will you find me bacon?”

“Of course.”

“Real bacon, and
pancakes with maple syrup. That sounds just like what I want to eat.”

Ethan’s chest
tightened as Adam looked up at him under his eyelashes, his dark eyes holding
humor. Adam and Justin had spent their childhoods getting Ethan to do what they
wanted: the older brother with money from a part-time job, the one with the
car. And he’d done everything they asked.

“I wouldn’t take
you anywhere bad,” Ethan said

Adam pushed the
tray to one side. “I need a shower, and then we go, right?”

“Right.”

“You should take
photos of all my tattoos, so you could maybe find out more about me.”