Free The Doctor's Memories (BWWM Pregnancy Romance) by Nisha Davis

donned her robe and made her way to the door, tying the belt as she faced the delivery man in front of her. “Can I help you?”
    “Got some packages to deliver. Please sign here.” He stuck a handful of pages and a pen in her direction while turning to pick up something in the hallway. Without batting a lid at her state of undress, he walked past her and put them down, before going out to fetch a huge easel which he balanced against a wall. “Ma’am, if you could sign please, I have more stops to make.”
    “But I…”
    “Please ma’am. You are Selena Montclair? These are for you and I need to go.”
    Selena signed and closed the door behind him, staring at the brown paper the parcels were wrapped in. There was a note stuck to the easel, she noticed. She opened it.
    Selena,
    It’s not over until it is over, and as for me, that’s nowhere soon. My mother is out of ICU and will be alright, but I want to be close to her so as to keep an eye on her. Take my absence as a reprieve, if you will, but keep in mind that I will be seeing you again, soon.
    I thought you might like playing around with the paint and things. I hope everything you might need is included; I asked them to send everything an artist would need.
    Yours,
    Nick
    Selena sat down with the note in his hand and stared at the parcels. ‘ He bought me art supplies? Seriously?’
    She stuck it all under the kitchen counter, except for the easel, which she ended up leaving where it was, and went back to bed.
    ***
    It was three days later that Selena finally opened her presents. The easel she placed in front of her living room window, with one of the canvasses on top of it. Then she tackled the package which she knew would hold the paints and brushes. She was not disappointed. Everything she could possible need was included. She took up the palette and squeezed some paint onto it. Standing in front of the easel, she dipped a brush, mixed some paint, and started applying brush strokes to the canvas. She was soon engrossed, oblivious to her surroundings, as a face slowly started taking form in front of her.
    It was as she was painting the eyes, that the first memory hit her. A younger version of those same eyes had once looked at her laughingly, grabbed hold of her and swung her around before lowering her to the floor and kissing her soundly. Then another memory came flooding in. A strong hand gripping hers as they walked down a beach with gulls swooping overhead. And then there was another. They came faster and faster, as if they were images that were flashing on a screen, and her brush strokes became frenzied, stopping only now and then as she mixed some paint on the palette before resuming her onslaught on the canvas. Soon, the tears were dripping down her cheeks, but Selena carried on, driven to remember as she was driven to complete what she had started out doing as an experiment.
    At last, gasping, she flung herself away and sat down on the stool she had placed in front of the easel earlier. The face was Nick’s, albeit a younger version, without the small crow’s feet at the sides of his eyes. He looked relaxed, happy, and his eyes were smiling.
    “I remember you! I remember me! I remember it all!”
    Selena danced around her apartment to some tune playing on the radio, even taking up her hairbrush and singing into it as she went. Once the preliminary euphoria had worn off, however, she remembered the accident, remembered the fight she’d had with her father, her determination to contact Nick using a pay phone, as her father had taken her cell from her, her rush to get to the drug store, the sudden sickening squeal of tires, and waking up in the hospital, unaware of who she was or the child she had lost.
    Selena wept, mourning the child she never had a chance to know, the life she had lost, but most of all, she mourned for herself and Nick, for the life they could have had and had lost. “Oh, Nicky!” she whispered brokenly, “I need you.”
    As she