Free Make Me Remember by Beth Kery Page B

her hand and pulled her into a standing position while Milo nuzzled her ankles. “What’s not to like?” He leaned down and brushed her cheeks with his lips, as if he couldn’t resist feeling the heat that had risen in her cheeks at his compliment. Then he transferred his mouth to hers, and Harper lost time for a moment.
    “I’m going to be late for work,” she murmured against his lips.
    He grabbed her hand. “If you’re late, what difference does it make if you’re a little or a lot?” he asked.
    He led her to his bedroom.
    She wasn’t
terribly
late by the time she got out the door. She
was
flustered, happy, and extremely sex-flushed. The chances of her appearing cool and contained in front of her colleagues following the
Chronicle
photo with Jacob were pretty much nil.
    She realized she couldn’t have cared less.
    * * *
    After Harper left for work, Jacob put in a call to Dr. Larry Fielding in Napa. The psychiatrist immediately began talking about Regina’s recent relapse and what he planned to do in regard to her treatment.
    “She’s very depressed,” Dr. Fielding told Jacob. “I’ve moved up her outpatient therapy to four times a week, so I can better assess if she’s suicidal.”
    “Shouldn’t she be in the hospital?” Jacob asked.
    “Possibly, but as you know, I can’t admit her involuntarily unless she expresses active suicidal ideation or shows signs of being unable to care for herself. I’m going to add an antidepressant to her mood stabilizer. That’s another reason I want to see her several times a week, to assess how she reacts. She’ll also continue with the outpatient group, so they’ll be able to monitor her, as well.”
    “As long as she goes,” Jacob muttered as he paced back and forth in front of his office windows.
    “You’ve done everything for her that you can,” Dr. Fielding said patiently. “God knows it’s light-years more than most people would do.”
    But it’s not enough. It’ll never be enough.
    “Jacob, you’re not her savior. She has to want to save herself,” Fielding said as if he’d read Jacob’s mind—which he probably had.
    He closed his eyes and stopped pacing. “I know. I
know
that.”
    “With your head, you do. I know you’re still working on believing it in your heart.”
    Jacob began pacing again, determined not to go down the familiar path with the psychiatrist again. He’d made a lot of progress in accepting his limits in regard to helping Regina. And in point of fact, he hadn’t called Dr. Fielding primarily to ask about Regina. Elizabeth had already filled him in on her status yesterday when they returned to shore. And he hadn’t even experienced a
slight
urge to call about Regina when he’d been spending those idyllic hours with Harper on the yacht.
    “There’s something else I want to speak with you about,” he told Dr. Fielding. He’d been increasingly anxious about Harper ever since she’d awakened him the night before on the yacht with tears on her cheeks saying she’d dreamed of a boy . . . ever since she’d been so urgent to have him make her forget that dream. “Remember how I asked you about a person who had a trauma, and then underwent hypnosis for treatment?”
    “Yes, I recall you asking me some questions. You wanted to know if it was possible for hypnosis to make someone completely forget their trauma, if I recall.”
    “And you said that someone could be distanced from a trauma, but that it was unlikely it would be completely erased from their mind? Under what conditions would a person like that, a person who had been free of any anxiety about their trauma for years, start to have nightmares again . . . maybe even start to remember the trauma in more detail and think about it more?”
    “Jacob, it’s hard for me to say without knowing the specifics and the individual in question—”
    “I realize that. But just give me an example of
why
a person who’s been cured of anxiety and phobias might start