Under The Mistletoe With John Doe

marriage was falling apart.

“Are you coming back later?” she asked. “After I take my parents home?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve been getting a lot of fleeting thoughts and images, but I can’t quite make sense of them. And I think it’s better if I just go home where it’s quiet.”

Go home? Just days ago he’d started referring to her house as home. And now he was talking about Doc’s.

Or did he mean California?

She couldn’t explain just how she knew it, but he was leaving her. And he hadn’t even taken a step.

Jason headed back to Doc’s place to await a call from California. He’d hated the fact that he’d cut out early on Betsy’s dinner party, knowing that it was rude. But he wasn’t sure when one of his brothers would call back. And he wanted to be there when it happened.

Fortunately, while he was making a bologna sandwich for dinner, the telephone rang.

He waited a beat before answering so that he didn’t appear to be too anxious. “Hello?”

“Jason? Where the hell have you been? We’ve been worried sick. You flew to Houston to find Pedro, and then that’s all we heard.”

“I…uh…haven’t found him yet.”

“But where are you? After not hearing from you for a couple of days, we filed a missing person report. We also sent a private investigator to Texas, and he tracked you to a rental-car company in Houston, but he didn’t turn up anything. You never returned the car, and it was reported stolen.”

“It was stolen.”

“By whom?”

“Whoever mugged me and stole my wallet, I suspect.”

“Damn. Slow down, little brother. Are you okay?”

“I’m all in one piece, but I suffered a head injury and had amnesia for a while.” Actually, he still had it, he supposed. “I seem to be getting my memory back in pieces, so you’re going to have to help me out with a few reminders.”

“Okay. I’ll help any way I can. Have you been able to find Pedro?”

“I don’t think so. The problem is, I’m not sure why I was looking for him.”

“Damn,” his brother said again. “Where are you? I’m going to come out there and take you to the hospital. I want you to have a full evaluation by specialists.”

“I’ve already had one. And I’ve been under a doctor’s care.” His thoughts drifted to Betsy, to the hands that touched him in so many different ways. A healer’s hands. A lover’s hands.

“I’m still going to fly out there,” his brother said. “The corporate jet has been getting serviced, but I’ll take a commercial flight. Where, exactly, are you?”

“I’m in a small town in Texas. But you don’t need to come out here.”

“You sure about that?”

Jason wasn’t sure about anything, but something told him he didn’t want his brother to come to his rescue. That he’d never needed him to.

“Yeah,” he said, repeating himself. “I’m doing just fine. But I have a question for you.”

“What’s that?”

“Which brother are you?”

The silence over the line was almost deafening. “Are you kidding me? This is Mike. Your oldest brother.”

“Oldest of how many?”

“Oh, for cripes’s sake. What the hell town are you in? Where’s the closest airport?”

“Settle down. I’m fine. Really. It’s all coming back to me. I’m just trying to piece things together. Can you catch me up to speed?”

Another pause. Then Mike blew out a ragged breath. “Cheryl Westlake filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against me. And a couple of her friends have corroborated her story.”

“Is it true?”

“What are you implying?” his brother asked, his tone short, clipped. Annoyed.

“Oh, hell,” Jason snapped back, as if used to sparring with the guy. “The lawsuit alone implies that. I just asked whether her charges are true.”

“You questioned me about that already, before you flew to Houston. And I’ll tell you the same thing I told you then. I didn’t fire Cheryl because she wouldn’t put out. She wasn’t doing her job. She came in late nearly every day, and she couldn’t cut it as an HR director.”

“So tell me about Pedro Salas.”

“He’s an alcoholic, and we fired him for coming to work three sheets to the wind. You don’t remember that, either?”

Was that why Jason had been looking for Pedro at the Stagecoach Inn? Had he expected to find the guy crying in his beer?

“It’s all coming back to me,” he lied.

“Well, if you don’t find Pedro, that’s fine. It was a long shot anyway. We’ll call the attorneys and tell them it didn’t pan out. They’ll just have to take another approach for our defense.”

Our defense?

Apparently, Mike’s problem had become a family issue, and Jason wondered how he felt about that. Or rather, how the old Jason felt about it. Was he bothered by the inconvenience? Was he ready to battle anyone who attacked the family?

A sense of irritation washed over him. He wasn’t sure if it was due to frustration over the fact that his amnesia wasn’t lifting as quickly as he wanted it to or if it had something to do with his brother and the dynamics of their relationship.

Time would tell, he supposed. He just hoped he had the patience to wait it out.

“When are you coming home?” Mike asked.

“I’d fly back to San Diego tomorrow, but I’m short of funds. My wallet, my ID and all my cash were stolen.”

“Did you cancel your credit cards?”

“Until today, I wasn’t even aware of my name. So, no, Mike, I haven’t gotten around to it yet.” There it went again, the irritation.

“I’ll take care of that for you.”

“Thanks.”

When the call ended, Jason sat in the living room for the longest time, hoping that more of the voices and images would come back to him. But the only thing that came to mind was anger and annoyance at his older brother. And he wasn’t sure what that was about.

Twenty minutes later, when the sun had set and the room had grown dark, the phone rang again. And this time, it was another brother who’d gotten the message and was returning his call.

“Hey, Jason. It’s David. What’s going on? Where are you?”

He gave him the lowdown, and this time, he handled the amnesia news a little better. Or maybe, thanks to Mike’s clarifications, the conversation went a little smoother.

“So what do you think?” Jason asked, clearly unable to let go of the questions that had been dogging him. “Do you think there’s any substance to Cheryl’s allegation?”

“You know how Mike is,” David had said. “He’s a big flirt and he doesn’t always keep his hands to himself or his mouth shut.”

“So it’s possible that he did say or do something that Cheryl could call sexual harassment?”

“Sure, I suppose it’s possible. But we’re family. So we’ve got to stick together, right?”

He supposed so.

“Besides,” David added, “Mike claims he didn’t do or say anything wrong. And I’ve got to believe him.”

Did Jason feel the same way? Until he found some of the missing parts to his jigsaw puzzle, he wasn’t sure.