Her Forgotten Cowboy
Deb Kastner
She can’t remember the past He can’t imagine a future without her in Cowboy Country Suffering amnesia after a car accident, Rebecca Hamilton arrives back in Serendipity, Texas, pregnant and seeking the baby’s father—her estranged husband, Tanner. Returning to the ranch home they once shared is her best chance at regaining her memories. But will recalling the tragic reason they separated only drive a bigger wedge between Rebecca and the man she’s falling for all over again?
She can’t remember the past
He can’t imagine a future without her in Cowboy Country
Suffering amnesia after a car accident, Rebecca Hamilton arrives back in Serendipity, Texas, pregnant and seeking the baby’s father—her estranged husband, Tanner. Returning to the ranch house they once shared is her best chance at regaining her memories. But will recalling the tragic reason they separated only drive a bigger wedge between Rebecca and the man she’s falling for all over again?
A Publishers Weekly bestselling and award-winning author with over 1.5 million books in print, DEB KASTNER writes stories of faith, family and community in a small-town Western setting. She lives in Colorado with her husband and a pack of miscreant mutts, and is blessed with three daughters and two grandchildren. She enjoys spoiling her grandkids, movies, music (The Texas Tenors!), singing in the church choir and exploring Colorado on horseback.
Also by Deb Kastner (#u3cb86acc-4729-5a17-8e96-918cfb718115)
Cowboy Country
Yuletide Baby
The Cowboy’s Forever Family
The Cowboy’s Surprise Baby
The Cowboy’s Twins
Mistletoe Daddy
The Cowboy’s Baby Blessing
And Cowboy Makes Three
A Christmas Baby for the Cowboy
Her Forgotten Cowboy
Christmas Twins
Texas Christmas Twins
Email Order Brides
Phoebe’s Groom
The Doctor’s Secret Son
The Nanny’s Twin Blessings
Meeting Mr. Right
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Her Forgotten Cowboy
Deb Kastner
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-09730-7
HER FORGOTTEN COWBOY
© 2019 Debra Kastner
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
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That was why she’d returned to Serendipity. To find this man.
Rebecca stared silently into the cowboy’s sad yet angry blue eyes.
He was definitely flummoxed by her question.
“Who am I?” Tanner repeated her question incredulously. “Rebecca, what are you talking about?”
“I feel like I should recognize you,” she admitted, feeling the heat rising to her cheeks. “No. I know I should. But I...I’m sorry. My mind isn’t cooperating. I’d hoped— Well, if anything would give my memory the jolt it needed to return, this would have been it. And yet I don’t know who you are, other than your name. Tanner Hamilton?”
His expression clouded with confusion.
“Of course, I’m—” He paused. “Wait. Are you trying to say you really don’t know your own husband?” He removed his hat by the crown and threaded his fingers through his thick blond hair.
He needed a haircut, Rebecca thought, but then realized what an odd observation that was for her to make. It was somehow...personal.
Dear Reader (#u3cb86acc-4729-5a17-8e96-918cfb718115),
This is my final story from Serendipity, and Texas’s First Annual Bachelors and Baskets Auction benefiting the senior center. Tanner and Rebecca have a much different relationship than my other heroes and heroines. They’re a married couple, separated by time, distance and heartbreak. But when Rebecca comes back to town with a case of amnesia, will they find their second chance?
This book was difficult for me to write. I always have humor in my books, but this one dealt with the heartbreaking subjects of infertility and stillbirth. I pray that any of my readers who’ve experienced infertility or stillbirth will find comfort in our Savior’s arms.
I’m always delighted to hear from you, dear readers, and I love to connect socially. To get regular updates, please sign up for my newsletter at www.debkastnerbooks.com (http://www.debkastnerbooks.com). Come join me on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/debkastnerbooks (http://www.Facebook.com/debkastnerbooks), and you can catch me on Twitter @debkastner (https://twitter.com/debkastner).
Please know that I pray for each and every one of you daily.
Dare to Dream,
Deb Kastner
If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.
—2 Timothy 2:13
To my husband, Joe.
I almost lost you to a double stroke.
I praise God every day that He’s given us a second chance.
You are my love and my best friend forever.
Contents
Cover (#ud899d67b-7098-5b06-b8d3-ec0d855828a4)
Back Cover Text (#u1829d2c2-7dcb-512e-ac32-ca55984a0de9)
About the Author (#u55d4b687-bb63-5c09-b473-8ce345236607)
Booklist (#ub20fc7c1-8bf5-54a0-aec6-4009b62e9dc3)
Title Page (#u312add60-80cb-5289-baec-606405db492a)
Copyright (#u16585fae-84fb-5b3f-b748-5c19c71b7d21)
Note to Readers
Introduction (#ud77d9cba-919e-58a3-86b0-25173ae225a4)
Dear Reader (#u2deecffc-3579-536f-800d-f7c466a67d4b)
Bible Verse (#uefeaebab-14a3-557f-b9e6-f68db4b014e6)
Dedication (#ud430f641-28ea-5d18-a51b-761aecda73f5)
Chapter One (#u6f12f38c-edc6-5a09-a02a-85ca76bba168)
Chapter Two (#uce0020fe-fe1c-5c5f-bd54-b3d3582418c3)
Chapter Three (#u178df652-aa9f-5652-9e1c-b80135fd63d2)
Chapter Four (#u1cbbd404-1980-5f4e-92f0-d7ec6918cc02)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u3cb86acc-4729-5a17-8e96-918cfb718115)
Everybody knew.
Tanner Hamilton stood stiff-spined, arms crossed and his knees locked tight, front and center on the makeshift auction block located on the community green at Serendipity, Texas’s First Annual Bachelors and Baskets Auction, and scanned the entirely too enthusiastic audience. Sweat beaded his brow and made his black T-shirt stick to his skin.
It was ripping him up inside to be standing out here at the center of a public venue with everyone’s eyes upon him. If they weren’t judging him, then at the very least he spotted pity in some of their eyes. It was a small town. His friends and neighbors—everyone in his acquaintance and probably some who weren’t, had heard about poor Tanner Hamilton.
It wasn’t like he was the only man in the world whose wife had ever left him, but he might as well have been, for the way he was feeling.
His heart was in shreds and there was nothing he could do to hide it.
He clenched his fists against his biceps as he forced a breath into his burning lungs. Tension rolled off his shoulders, leaving his neck stiff and unmovable.
He hated when people stared at him. This whole experience made him feel more like he was on a chopping block than the auction block. He wasn’t much in the mood for community events these days, especially because he was pretty sure he could guess what was going through the crowd’s minds right about now.
Poor Tanner. His wife went and left him without a word about where she’s gone. Why’d she do it? It is always hard to tell in cases like these. It could be she was at fault. Then again, maybe Tanner had somehow run her off.
Run her off?
No.
He gritted his teeth even harder to keep from shouting that one single, defensive word out loud.
No.
He might be guilty of a thousand things in his relationship with his wife—many thousands of things, if he were being honest—but not that. He hadn’t told her to leave.
He hadn’t told her anything.
Most of these folks from around here knew who the true injured party in his relationship with his wife was—and it wasn’t him. Maybe it was his pride talkin’. Maybe not. He’d had plenty of time to mull over what had gone on between them during the rough times, and even though he knew they had more than their fair share of problems and trials for a young couple, he still couldn’t imagine what could have suddenly set Rebecca off to the point where she would purposefully choose to ignore the wedding vows she’d made to him to love him for better or for worse.
Where were those vows now?
He couldn’t say. He didn’t even know where she was.
He would admit, but only to himself, that maybe what they’d been facing at the time had been worse for both of them, especially Rebecca, but he wouldn’t have run away from their problems, no matter what. When he’d said, To have and to hold, from this day forward until death do us part, he’d meant every single solitary word.
Rebecca, on the other hand? Not so much.
So they’d drifted apart in those last few months before she’d left him. That happened at some point in every marriage, right? It wasn’t all roses and sunshine all the time.
He was a simple rancher with an equally simple philosophy about how to love his God and live his life. A man dealt with whatever circumstances God gave him without complaining. Sometimes it was good, sometimes not so much. Some things a man could plan for, see the storms coming so he could batten down the hatches. Other times things came unexpectedly, or didn’t come at all. Sometimes life swung a fisted punch in a gut which was hard to recover from, and no doubt about it. But a real man had to pick himself up, dust himself off and keep on keeping on. That’s how he ran his ranch, and up until a short while ago, that’s how he’d believed he’d kept his marriage alive and stable.
Maybe not, though. If he’d paid more attention, maybe—
But a dozen maybes wouldn’t bring Rebecca back to him.
Even with all the problems between them, most especially the heartbreaking pain of them suffering through the seven months’ stillbirth of their firstborn daughter, whom they’d named Faith before they buried her in the ground, he never would have imagined Rebecca would out-and-out abandon him.
But six months ago, she had.
After they’d buried their daughter, Rebecca had spent weeks in bed, not even allowing him to open the curtains to let some sunshine in or turn on the lights. She didn’t want to have anything to do with her life anymore—or with him. He’d taken to sleeping on the couch so as not to disturb her. She took pills for anxiety and insomnia, but they didn’t really help her.
And then he’d come back in late from his ranch work one evening and she’d been gone. No note or anything. No explanation.
Just gone.
She’d disappeared to no-one-knew-where, not even her mother, and she’d only called him once since the day she’d walked out on him.
She had been reaching out to him with that one phone call, and in hindsight, he realized he should have taken the time to listen to her, to try to talk through their problems and bring her back home. But she’d caught him off guard on an evening when he was already feeling down. And when he’d picked up the telephone and heard her voice, he’d been so angry he hadn’t even let her speak. He’d understood why they called it seeing red, because that’s exactly how it felt.
And to his shame, he hadn’t let her say a word. He just hung up on her.
He didn’t know whether to be glad or sad or mad that she’d taken the hint and hadn’t attempted to reach out to him again.
Probably a mixture of all three.
In any case, he didn’t belong up here on a bachelor’s auction block. He was a man unhappily separated from his wife and he didn’t want anything to do with women. Full stop. It didn’t matter to him that every man in Serendipity, married and single alike, was offering his services for this very special auction.
Tanner just wanted to go home. Alone. To grieve in private.
If he hadn’t promised Jo Spencer, the boisterous old redhead who was both organizer and auctioneer, that he’d do his part for charity, a fund-raiser to build a local senior center recently approved by the town council, Tanner wouldn’t be here at all. He would have stayed home at his ranch where he belonged. At least out on the range with his horse and the cattle he could nurse his broken heart in peace and quiet.
Well, not exactly peace, anymore. Nor quiet, for that matter.
He no longer had that luxury.
“Uncle Tanner! Uncle Tanner!”
He looked down to the front row of the crowd to see his three-year-old niece, Mackenzie, madly giggling, bouncing up and down and waving at him, as excited about this outing as Tanner was not. Tanner’s mother-in-law, Peggy, Rebecca’s mom, was attempting without much success to corral the small girl, whose blond curls bobbed right along with the rest of her body. She had more energy in her pinky finger than Tanner had in his whole body on a good day. She also had the biggest blue eyes Tanner had ever seen—and she knew just how to use them to melt his heart.
But it wasn’t her fault none of the adults around her could get their lives together.
Mackenzie deserved his very best, so he made a gigantic effort to smile and wave back at her. Hopefully it looked like a smile and not a grimace, for the child’s sake.
Five months ago, Tanner’s sister, Lydia, had landed in jail for the second time on drug charges, leaving her daughter, Mackenzie, temporarily in Tanner’s care, as he was the only other living relative. Two major life changes in six months was two too many, but Tanner was determined to do whatever it took to protect and provide for Mackenzie. He was incredibly grateful for Peggy, who had cheerfully moved to the ranch to help with the round-the-clock care the preschooler demanded.
Peggy had never questioned Tanner’s loyalty to Rebecca, even though their relationship had come to such an abrupt ending. In Peggy’s mind—and in Tanner’s—she was still family, and always would be.
Mackenzie’s arrival in Tanner’s life was the ultimate irony. Rebecca had left him because the stress of losing their daughter was more than Rebecca had been able to handle, and she’d become withdrawn and moody, which Tanner frankly couldn’t comprehend.
For whatever reason, or maybe many reasons, she’d eventually left him altogether.
And then only a few months later, Mackenzie had entered his life.
If Rebecca had stayed, maybe she could have healed her heart by caring for the precious little girl God had brought into Tanner’s life. They would have been a family.
Rebecca’s most heartfelt wish was to be a mother, and she would have been such a good mother figure for Mackenzie. She’d had so much love to give a child.
If only she were here to take on that role now. What a difference that would have made.
But she wasn’t here, leaving Tanner a single man trying his best to juggle ranch life with finding quality time with Mackenzie.
“Go, Uncle Tanner!” Mackenzie called, joyfully clapping her little hands. “Yay for Uncle Tanner!”
Tanner breathed out heavily and flashed a puppy-dog glance at Jo, hoping she might take pity on him and release him from this painful obligation, but she just smiled encouragingly and opened the bidding.
“As y’all know, Tanner here is a lifelong rancher. Need your fences repaired or your tack buffed to a shine? Tanner’s your man. Need help rounding up stray calves? You’re looking at the answer to your problem right here with this handsome fella.”
To Tanner’s surprise, within moments, folks were cheerfully tossing out bids, merrily one-upping each other to win what Tanner considered not a particularly great prize.
He should have expected this, he belatedly realized. His friends and neighbors were eager to support him throughout these tough months and this was one concrete way they could do it, showing him a little love by their high bids. Of course they felt sorry for him and Mackenzie, but it wasn’t the kind of pity that put a man down. They were trying to build him up.
He released his breath and tried to relax. This would be over in a minute. He’d worked himself into a dither for no reason. It wasn’t his fault Rebecca had left him, and everyone in town knew it. He had a new appreciation for those willing to step up for him.
He would mend fences or round up cattle for the woman who won him to the best of his ability, and then his obligation to Serendipity’s new senior center would be met.
He removed his dark brown Stetson and combed his fingers through his thick blond hair. He was overdue for a haircut. Rebecca had always trimmed it for him.
He nodded gratefully toward Bob and Janice Jones, an elderly couple near the back of the crowd who were currently the high bidders. Janice was a spunky ol’ gal and blew him a kiss, which he captured with his hand and pressed to his cheek. He grinned, his first genuine smile of the day.
Sweet old lady.
Nearby, a young woman flicked her auburn hair off her forehead with her thumb and forefinger, and then shook it out again, causing her hair to drop right back into place over her copper-penny eyes, basically undoing what she’d just accomplished.
The air around him froze, lodging firmly in Tanner’s throat. He tried to take a breath but choked on it. Coughing didn’t help. His blood turned to lead in his veins and an iron fist gripped his heart, squeezing painfully.
Rebecca.
There was no question about it.
Her hair was longer now, closer to shoulder length than chin length, as it had been the last time he’d seen her, but he knew that nervous gesture as well as he knew the beat of his own heart. He’d seen it a million times before. Whenever something was bothering her or she was deep in thought, her hand went straight to her hair.
He’d once thought it was cute the way her bangs always swept right back down to brush her high cheekbones just after she’d pushed them aside. Now the gesture only made his gut churn until he thought he might be physically sick.
Janice Jones was still waving cash in the air and staying ahead of the other bidders, but Tanner couldn’t wait for his lot to be finished. He didn’t have a moment to spare if he was going to catch up to his wife.
Even now, Rebecca had picked up her backpack and was turning away, then walking toward the far edge of the park where a few townsfolk were already picnicking. He immediately noticed her limp. One of her legs was encased in a walking boot.
When had she been hurt? How?
If he didn’t catch her now...
He shrugged an apology to Bob and Janice and bolted off the front of the platform, not even bothering to use the stairs. It was a six-foot drop to the ground and he landed hard, hitting it at a dead run.
“Pardon me. Excuse me. I’m sorry,” he muttered as he threaded his way through the gathering, ignoring the buzz of surprise he’d created by his unexpected exit. He didn’t care if he was creating drama the folks in town would gossip about for weeks.
The only thing on his mind was catching his wife.
“Rebecca,” he called as he narrowed the distance between them. “Rebecca. Please. Wait!”
She neither turned nor paused. It was almost as if she didn’t hear him.
Or else she was ignoring him, which was probably the more likely explanation. She was walking away from him again, just like the first time. But if that was the case, then...
Why was she here?
“Rebecca,” he called again, just before he reached her side. His lungs burned from the effort of running. Working on a ranch, he was in good shape, but a runner he was not.
“Rebecca,” he pleaded. “Hold up a minute.”
He grabbed hold of her elbow and turned her around, only then realizing that in addition to her leg, her wrist was in a splint. Something bad had definitely happened. Was that what she’d called him about that day? That she’d been hurt and needed his help?
And where had he been? Out on the range, nursing his own internal wounds.
Shame mixed with anger and warred deep within his chest.
But then again, he reminded himself, pressing his emotions back, none of this would have happened had she not left him in the first place.
“What’s the deal?” he demanded, his raspy voice coming in short, unsteady breaths, half because of the dash he’d made to catch up with her and half because of nerves. It had never occurred to him that she might return today of all days.
Her eyes went wide with surprise, shock and concern. She glanced down at his hold on her elbow and took a physical step backward.
“Rebecca?” Frustration pulsed through him as she jerked out of his reach and tucked her good hand underneath the one in the splint. Why was she acting as if he were about to accost her?
“I—I’m sorry, I—” Rebecca stammered. She sounded lost. Confused. Maybe even a little frightened.
Of him?
Their marriage had not ended well, but he had never, ever given her a reason to fear him. He’d barely even raised his voice when they had arguments, which were few and far between, anyway.
Sure, they sniped at each other when they were tired, just like every other married couple in the world, but they hadn’t fought much. That wasn’t their way. Instead, resentment burned under the surface of their relationship but never emerged, so they’d drifted apart. Their rainbows-and-unicorns promise to each other that they would never let the sun go down on their anger just sort of slipped away into the twilight.
Yet despite everything that had happened, and even with what felt like an uncrossable rift between them, he had still loved her with his whole heart—
Until she’d betrayed him.
She had left him, not the other way around. She was the one who needed to make the first move. To reach out. To apologize.
Their eyes met and locked and he narrowed his gaze on her. There was something peculiar in the way she was looking at him, all glassy-eyed, her pupils dilated. It was almost as if she were looking through him rather than at him, as if she didn’t recognize him.
“I am R-Rebecca.” She sounded as if she wasn’t entirely certain that was true. As if she didn’t know her own name. Her dark red eyebrows lowered, shading her gaze. “But who are you?”
“What?” he asked, his voice rising in tone and pitch. He was thoroughly flummoxed by her question. She may as well just have physically pushed him. Her words had the same effect.
She took yet another step back and raised a protective hand, laying it across her burgeoning midsection.
For the first time since she’d turned around to face him, Tanner’s gaze dropped to her stomach. His breath left his lungs as if he’d been sucker punched.
For a moment, his sight clouded, darkness tunneling his vision as the reality of his world tilted on its axis.
Rebecca was pregnant.
* * *
She knew her first name was Rebecca.
Rebecca Foster was the name she’d been born with and the one she remembered—even if her driver’s license said something else.
She opened her hand and read the words written in black ink on her palm.
Check notes—cell phone.
Filled with both curiosity and anxiety, she glanced at her phone.
Hamilton.
Her name was Rebecca Hamilton.
She closed her eyes for a moment and repeated the name in her mind.
Hamilton. Hamilton.
Rebecca Hamilton.
There was something vaguely familiar about the sound of the name, and the butterflies currently flittering about in her tummy had nothing to do with her growing baby, but that was as far as it went.
She couldn’t claim that name as hers. Nothing in her Swiss-cheese memory gave her that assurance.
According to the notes her best childhood friend, Dawn, had written to help her navigate her way in Serendipity, Rebecca was separated from her husband, Tanner.
Tanner.
Tanner Hamilton.
Her husband.
According to her notes, separated but not divorced.
She didn’t believe in divorce—and she strongly felt that moral principle, the same way she still believed in God. Why she knew this when she couldn’t put names to the faces of those she supposedly knew best confused her even more.
It made no sense to her that she could know some things absolutely and know absolutely nothing about others.
If she didn’t believe in divorce, then why had she left this man—Tanner Hamilton?
She let that name roll around in her head for a moment, but again—nothing. It didn’t matter how hard she tried, her memories would just not come. And trying harder, straining her already overloaded brain to retrieve them, only gave her a migraine.
Rebecca was sure Dawn had explained to her at some point why she was no longer in a relationship with Tanner, but she hadn’t put an explanation in the notes on the phone and Rebecca couldn’t recall a reason. Nor could she remember why Dawn had refused to come with her back to her hometown. She only knew that where Serendipity and Tanner were concerned, she was here on her own.
Everything had been so vague since the accident, but she knew Dawn had been a good friend to her, so she couldn’t dismiss the nagging notion that her best friend did not like her husband, which she remembered from this morning when they’d had a heated discussion over why Rebecca should not return to Serendipity.
Dawn had reminded her that it was she who had stayed by her side the whole time, both in the hospital and afterward, caring for her and doing her best to supply the information Rebecca’s mind refused to provide. At this point, what else could she do but trust that Dawn was telling her the truth?
That, and the fact that she remembered who Dawn was from high school. It was only the recent years that were a complete blank to her.
But while her memories were MIA, her emotions were present and accounted for, almost more than she could handle. Part of her wished she’d never come back, and part of her wanted to run away again even now. She’d never felt more anxious and awkward in her entire life—or at least the part of her life she remembered.
After the hit and run, Rebecca had been in the hospital for two weeks, suffering from a blow to the head, two cracked ribs, a bruised wrist and a broken ankle. Her ankle had required reconstructive surgery which had included metal plates and pins. Dawn had been riding in the passenger seat in the car with her but, thank the good Lord, had only suffered from minor cuts and bruises.
The doctor had told Rebecca it would be a while before she completely recuperated physically. Even a month after the incident, Rebecca still felt achy and sore and had a hard time sleeping. Muscles ached where she didn’t even know she had muscles.
Ha. Amnesia joke. Her lips twitched despite her anxiety.
The biggest, most problematic injury had been her memory, which was now spotty at best and sometimes left her at a complete blank. She remembered how to read but the next day she wouldn’t be able to summarize what it was she’d read. She knew how to drive a car and had a handle on the rules of the road, but if she didn’t have her notes with her and the GPS from her cell phone she’d forget where she was going. And she didn’t even want to think about attempting to cook anything, even though she had a gut feeling she used to be someone who’d enjoyed spending time preparing meals. But now, if she wasn’t careful, she was liable to burn the whole house down when she forgot she’d put something in the oven to roast.
But the most frustrating thing of all was she had no memory of the past few years. Relationships. People. Nada.
At least her faith in God hadn’t left her, or she didn’t know how she would be able to deal with everything she was now facing. She’d been six months’ pregnant when the truck came out of nowhere and T-boned her sedan, and it was only an act of God that her baby was still safely cocooned in her womb.
No. Not her baby—
Their baby. The man standing in front of her was the baby’s father.
It frightened her to look into Tanner’s eyes and draw a complete blank. She had no memory of the man to whom she had once committed her heart and life. The man to whom she’d made sacred vows, and then, to her mortification and shame, had apparently found reason to break them.
That’s why she’d returned to Serendipity. To find this man, to connect with her past, in the hope that seeing her husband again would trigger her thoughts and memories to return.
She stared silently into the cowboy’s sad yet angry blue eyes, willing her memory to supply the information needed to appropriately place this tall, muscular man into the framework of her life.
He was definitely flummoxed by her question.
“Who am I?” He repeated her question incredulously. “Rebecca, what are you talking about?”
“I feel like I should recognize you,” she admitted, feeling the heat rising to her cheeks. “No. I know I should. But I—I’m sorry. My mind isn’t cooperating. I’d hoped—well, if anything would give my memory the jolt it needed to return, this would have been it. And yet I don’t know who you are, other than your name. Tanner Hamilton?”
His expression clouded with confusion.
“Of course, I’m—” He paused. “Wait. Are you trying to say you really don’t know your own husband?” He removed his hat by the crown and threaded his fingers through his thick blond hair.
He needed a haircut, Rebecca thought, but then realized what an odd observation that was for her to make. It was somehow...personal.
“Rebecca!” An older woman with her white hair pulled up high in a casual bun brushed past Tanner and tightly embraced Rebecca, tears flowing unheeded down her cheeks. A little blonde girl Rebecca guessed to be about three, who had been tightly grasping the woman’s hand, now skittered behind Tanner, clutching his leg and peeking out from behind his knee, clearly startled by the woman’s outburst.
“Honey, you’re home.” The older woman kissed Rebecca’s cheek and cupped her face in her hands. “Oh, Rebecca. I was so worried. What happened to you?”
Rebecca’s emotions resonated without prompting to this woman’s embrace. It was a childlike, natural response to the woman whom she knew without a doubt.
When Rebecca closed her eyes, she pictured a much younger version of this woman, without the lines of stress that now creased her forehead and eyes. In the picture in Rebecca’s head, her mother had the same bright auburn hair as Rebecca now possessed. She was making dinner in an old country kitchen, laughing and dancing with a handsome black-haired, blue-eyed man.
“Mama,” she whispered, and her heart concurred.
“You’re pregnant,” her mother exclaimed, immediately pressing a hand to Rebecca’s belly. “Oh, darling. The Lord blessed you and Tanner. I knew He wouldn’t let you two down.”
Tears pricked Rebecca’s eyes and she nodded. She didn’t miss the glance her mother flashed Tanner—one filled with something akin to fear.
But why would that be? Did her mother not consider this happy news because Rebecca and Tanner were at odds with one another?
A moment later, her mother’s gaze turned back to her and filled with such joy that Rebecca decided maybe she’d mistaken or misread what she thought she’d seen a moment before. Her mother looked radiant as she whispered to Rebecca’s womb, and Rebecca couldn’t help the soft smile that escaped her as she laid her hand over her mother’s and felt the baby kick.
Tanner didn’t appear to share the same enthusiasm. His brow lowered and his jaw ticked with strain.
“The baby is moving well?” he asked.
Rebecca wasn’t quite sure what he was asking, but apparently her mother did.
“Baby is kicking up a storm,” her mother assured Tanner.
“I see.” He ran a hand across his whiskered jaw. “So when were you planning to tell me you were pregnant with our child?” His voice was husky and still held an edge to it which Rebecca couldn’t decipher. “Or were you just going to leave me in the dark?”
He was clearly unhappy with the news of the pregnancy. Did he not want a baby, other than the child clinging to his leg who was yet another stranger to Rebecca?
Was that why she’d left him? Because she’d wanted a family and he didn’t? But somehow, that didn’t seem right, either.
It was just so weird. Tanner was her recently estranged spouse and the father of her baby. And yet his face was that of a stranger. She felt no intimacy there.
It was too much for Rebecca to take in all at once and her emotions were going haywire.
And what about the little girl peeking out from behind his leg?
Who was she?
Their daughter?
There was no spark of recognition in Rebecca’s heart regarding this little girl. She wasn’t experiencing any kind of gut instinct suggesting she’d ever even seen the sweet preschooler before today, although that was a definite possibility, since the child appeared to be very comfortable not only with Tanner, but with Rebecca’s mother, as well.
But the child wasn’t hers. Surely she would remember that.
She might not remember who she was. She might have left Serendipity—and Tanner—for reasons she couldn’t now fathom, but she would never abandon her own child.
She didn’t need total recall to tell her that.
She crouched down to the girl’s level and smiled.
“My name is Rebecca,” she said softly. If only she knew more, if there were more for her to say. She wished the little girl didn’t immediately draw away from her as if she were a stranger. For some reason, that hurt her heart.
“This is Mackenzie,” Tanner said warily. “She’s my sister Lydia’s child. Your niece. You were with me at her christening, but I guess she’s grown up a lot since then, so you probably wouldn’t recognize her.”
Rebecca stood and slanted Tanner a look. Was he mocking her, or giving her a way out of an uncomfortable situation? It was the not knowing that made her heart feel as if it were being squeezed by a fist.
“I think we’d better find someplace quiet to talk,” her mother suggested. She threaded her arm through Rebecca’s, as if to reassure herself Rebecca was real and that she wouldn’t be running away again.
That physical link reassured Rebecca, as well. She was not as all alone in the world as she currently felt.
Tanner gestured toward the community green, where many of the townsfolk had already spread out picnic blankets and were happily lunching together. It was becoming more crowded by the moment as the auction started to wind down.
“We aren’t going to get any privacy here,” he said. “This isn’t the kind of conversation I want my neighbors to overhear.”
“You’re right. Besides, none of us has a picnic basket, anyway,” Peggy pointed out. “I hadn’t planned to bid on anyone today. Shall we go back to the ranch where we can talk in private?”
“The ranch?” Rebecca echoed.
We live on a ranch? Like with cows?
Dawn had told Rebecca she was a schoolteacher. Middle school math, although she was trained to teach anything from middle school through college. She remembered numbers and equations, and that had sounded good and right to her. It was instinctual. Numbers were solid. They didn’t change.
But a ranch?
Talk about feeling way, way out of her comfort zone. She couldn’t believe she would actually choose to marry a cowboy.
“Rebecca, did you drive here?” her mother asked, concern flashing across her gaze. And it was no wonder. An amnesiac driving a car was a frightening thought, indeed.
Rebecca shook her head. “I used a car service.”
“Super. Then you can ride back to the ranch with me. I’m living out there with Tanner now to help take care of the little one,” she said by way of explanation. “And soon now it will be two little ones. How exciting.”
Tanner’s gaze met Rebecca’s for a moment, and she doubted exciting would be a word either one of them would use right now. But her mother didn’t appear to notice and continued speaking.
“Tanner, you take Mackenzie with you in your truck and we’ll meet you back at the ranch.”
Back at the ranch.
A place she didn’t remember, but which she had evidently once called home.
Chapter Two (#u3cb86acc-4729-5a17-8e96-918cfb718115)
How could God do this to them?
Tanner gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white. He was trying to control his breathing so he didn’t scare Mackenzie, but it wasn’t easy to do. The air was coming in gasps and burning his lungs.
How could God let this happen to one family? It was almost more than he could bear.
He felt as if he were on some kind of nightmarish merry-go-round and he didn’t know how to get off. He’d been half expecting to be served with legal documents soon, since his communication with Rebecca had been completely cut off—which he now regretted and for which he privately admitted at least partial responsibility. If he hadn’t hung up when she’d reached out to him...
Instead of acting like a rational, mature adult, he’d let his anger, ego and pride get the best of him.
And now this.
Now he knew why she hadn’t returned his phone calls and texts. She’d been in the hospital recovering from a horrible car crash.
She—and their baby. He still wasn’t certain what to do with the knowledge that they were expecting a child.
At the moment, all he could do was feel perplexed.
And amazed.
No matter what their past, it gutted him that Rebecca had been injured, could even have been killed. Thank God He’d taken care of them and things hadn’t been worse than they were now.
Rebecca still suffering from the many physical injuries she’d sustained—and their unborn child somehow still safe in her womb.
Oh, dear Lord. Their baby.
And Rebecca’s apparent amnesia—
What was he supposed to do about that? It was all so surreal. He didn’t think things like that happened in real life. That was the stuff of television detective shows.
He pulled his truck up next to the ranch house and let Mackenzie out of her car seat in the back of the dual cab. He couldn’t help but smile when she wrapped her trusting little arms around his neck so he could help her out of the vehicle.
The moment her little feet hit the ground, she squealed and went straight toward the herd of goats, her favorite ranch animal in all the world, she’d told him on multiple occasions. She held her hands out wide as if to hug the nearest goat. She giggled hysterically when one of the larger goats grabbed ahold of the hem of her shirt in its mouth and tugged.
The silly goats got into everything and drove Tanner crazy, but at least they kept the grass around the house under control.
It had been Rebecca’s idea to get the herd in the first place. Like Mackenzie, Rebecca also loved those mischievous animals and often saved the dinner scraps for them—or at least, she’d used to, before she’d left him.
Before the accident that took her memory away.
Minutes later, Peggy arrived with Rebecca. For the longest time, the three of them stood in front of the house without speaking, watching Mackenzie play with the herd of goats.
Rebecca looked around wide-eyed, her expression filled with almost childlike wonder as she took in the scene—Mackenzie playing with the goats, and the chickens clucking in their coop, reminding Tanner that they hadn’t yet gotten their midday meal. Tanner’s small herd of horses milled about in a nearby pasture, and another small pasture on the other side of the ranch house contained Rebecca’s most beloved small herd of alpacas.
After visiting a wool festival and getting to meet live alpacas, she had gotten this crazy idea into her head that she wanted alpacas of her own. She’d done her research and then presented her idea to Tanner. He’d never been able to deny her anything, so before he knew it, they were proud owners of a half-dozen alpacas, which she’d carefully grown in numbers. Rebecca would gather their wool and spin it, often spending her evenings knitting by the fire in the winter and out on the front porch in the spring and on mild summer nights.
He watched her expression when her gaze landed on the alpacas, feeling as if his heart stopped beating as he waited and hoped for even the smallest sign of recognition. But to his surprise, her face tightened with strain. Her lips pressed together tightly and her brow furrowed over her nose. She brushed her hair back, only to have the locks fall forward again a moment later.
Peggy’s gaze met Tanner’s and she gave him a brief nod. She’d noticed Rebecca’s odd reaction, too.
“Let’s go inside and get comfortable, and then we can chat,” Peggy suggested airily, as if they had invited a good friend over—a guest, and not her daughter and his wife. “Rebecca, do you prefer coffee or tea?”
Coffee, Tanner thought. He used to tease her that she liked a little coffee with her cream and sugar.
Rebecca’s gaze shifted to Tanner and then back to Peggy.
“I—I don’t know.”
“Coffee it is, then,” Tanner said, jumping in to relieve Rebecca’s discomfiture. “Don’t worry. I know just how you like it.”
Rebecca nodded, her copper eyes turning glassy with tears.
Tanner’s chest tightened. What had he said that would make her start crying? They were talking about coffee, not their breakup. Her tears had always had a way of punching him right in the gut, and despite the time and distance that had been between them, that much hadn’t changed.
He was only trying to help, but he’d somehow made things worse.
Over coffee.
Peggy and Rebecca settled in the living room and Mackenzie dug into her toy box in the corner. She’d quickly warmed up to Rebecca and was now showing Auntie Rebecca this and that, chattering about her favorite toys while Tanner made coffee in the kitchen.
Rebecca dutifully exclaimed in delight as Mackenzie exhibited her very favorite doll.
The tension, which seemed to have eased somewhat when Tanner was watching from the kitchen, immediately rematerialized the moment Tanner entered the room.
“Here,” he said, offering a mug to Rebecca. “Taste it and see what you think.”
Rebecca sipped at the coffee, which was a light mocha color due to all the cream and sugar Tanner had dumped into it. Her expression relaxed.
“This is really good. Thank you.”
Tanner let out a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. Everything else in their lives had changed, and he hadn’t been positive that wouldn’t have included Rebecca’s taste in coffee, as well.
Did amnesia even work that way?
He really was clueless, and didn’t have the slightest idea where to start.
He looked around, wondering where to sit. Rebecca was seated at one end of the couch, while Peggy was in her usual spot in the only armchair. That left him with the choice of awkwardly sitting on the other side of the couch or choosing the rocking chair, which had been a favorite of Rebecca’s when she was knitting mittens and hats from alpaca wool. He’d only started using the rocker recently, when he needed to calm Mackenzie down from an anxiety attack or rock her to sleep.
He and Rebecca had bought that rocking chair when they’d first started trying for a family, certain they’d be using it to rock their newborn within the year. How young and naive they’d been back then. Tanner never would have guessed that the desire to start a family could also ruin one.
When month after month the negative pregnancy tests taunted them, Tanner had subconsciously grown to despise that piece of furniture as a constant reminder of what had never been. And then after the stillbirth—
But at the moment, it was either the rocker or the couch, and he knew he would never be comfortable sitting right next to Rebecca. He settled in the rocker and took a sip of his coffee, welcoming the scald of hot liquid as it burned down his throat.
All three of them were looking at each other, but no one spoke. The tension and uneasiness was so palpable he could have sliced it.
How did one even start a conversation like this?
“So, Rebecca,” Peggy said tentatively, relieving Tanner of having to be the first to speak. “Why don’t you tell us what you remember.”
* * *
What did she remember?
A big, fat nothing.
It was all she could do to remember what she’d had for breakfast this morning, although in the past month her short-term memory had made significant gains. It was impossible to describe how lost she felt. It was almost like someone coming out of a coma of many years and finding her life to be completely different than she recalled. She remembered her childhood up to a certain point and then there was nothing but a big, fat murky cloud shadowing her memories.
She’d returned to Serendipity in the hopes that seeing what ought to be familiar people and places would trigger her memory, but all she was getting was a throbbing headache for all her efforts.
She pulled out her cell phone and opened her notes.
“My friend Dawn helped me with this,” she explained. She didn’t miss the resentful look that passed between Tanner and her mother. Neither appeared happy with the knowledge that the notes she was consulting came from Dawn.
Why was that?
“Is that who you’ve been staying with? Dawn Kyzer?” Mama asked, with a surprising edge to her tone that hadn’t been there before.
Rebecca was startled by their negative reaction and responded a little defensively. Dawn had been her best friend all her life. She remembered that. Which meant her mother would have known that, as well. And though she didn’t know the reasons behind the choices she’d made, she’d clearly gone to live with Dawn after her breakup with Tanner.
“I was driving, but Dawn was in the car with me when the accident happened. Thankfully, she only received a few bumps and bruises. She stayed by my side in the hospital and has cared for me ever since.”
“Then we owe her for that,” her mother acknowledged begrudgingly. “Although she should have called us and let us know what had happened.”
Tanner didn’t respond, but it was clear he didn’t like Dawn. Rebecca searched her mind for why that might be, but no explanation came to her.
She was an amnesiac, but that didn’t mean she was stupid. Dawn had obviously refused to come with her to Serendipity today, and now Rebecca could see why. There was some kind of rift between her husband and best friend, and she suspected she was the root cause of it. And her mother was right—Dawn should have reached out and let them know Rebecca had been in an accident instead of telling the hospital she was the only person Rebecca had.
Rebecca watched as Mackenzie carefully and methodically set up an entire ranch scene of stuffed animals, all the while humming a joyful tune under her breath. She positioned two horses, a cow, a pig, four goats and what Rebecca thought must be a llama in what Rebecca belatedly realized was with the same organization as Tanner’s ranch. The little girl was brightly chattering away at the animals, making sure they knew they were in the right place and why. Rebecca couldn’t help but smile as her heart warmed toward the preschooler.
Reluctantly, Rebecca turned her attention to the adults in the room.
“How long ago was the accident?” Tanner asked, gesturing to her ankle boot. “Tell us more about it.”
She blinked in confusion and once again consulted the notes on her phone.
“It’s been a month now. I was in the hospital for two weeks, the first of which in the ICU.”
“Two weeks?” Peggy echoed. “Oh my.”
“And your memory? It’s not improved since then?”
“That’s hard for me to gauge,” she pointed out adroitly. “My short-term memory has its moments. I call it Swiss cheese. Sometimes I remember, sometimes I don’t. I am having better success retaining an entire day’s worth of memories, but they don’t always follow me into the next day. I make copious notes about everything, mostly hoping to stimulate the fog in my brain. My long-term memory is completely AWOL ranging back to my early adulthood.”
She paused. There was one question she’d been wanting to ask ever since she’d first encountered her mother at the community center. She had gathered her mom was staying with Tanner and helping with Mackenzie, but was that because—
“Mama?” Her voice was dry and she coughed to dislodge the emotions jamming her throat. “At the community center—I didn’t see—didn’t see—”
She couldn’t finish her sentence as tears once again filled her eyes. At this point she couldn’t seem to stop bawling and sniffling no matter which direction the conversation went. She pressed her palms to her eyes, not wanting to disturb little Mackenzie with a frightening outburst.
Her mother reached for her hand and gently stroked it in both of hers. “Your father passed away several years ago. He had a massive heart attack when he turned fifty.”
“Oh, I—” Rebecca hiccuped and sniffled some more. Tanner stood and reached for a box of tissues. He set the box next to her and pulled a couple out, handing them to her.
“Th-thank you. When I first saw you today,” she said to her mother, “I had this flashback to you and Dad dancing in the kitchen.”
Her mother laughed softly. She’d clearly had time to grieve and the memory was a pleasant one. “Oh, he was always doing that with me, silly man. He’d put a rose between his teeth and tango me from one end of the kitchen to the other.”
Rebecca remained silent for a moment as the information and accompanying emotions washed over her. In her messed-up brain, her father had still been alive and well. To find out he wasn’t—
Tanner cleared his throat. “He walked you down the aisle at our wedding.”
Rebecca’s eyes widened at the sensitivity of this man who was her husband. How could he know how important that would have been to her?
“He did?”
“You bet he did,” her mother said. “I’ve never seen a prouder father than he was when he handed off his only daughter to a man he respected.”
That man was Tanner—the man she’d chosen to separate from.
“You should have seen how nervous Tanner was when he came to your father and me to ask for your hand in marriage,” her mother continued. “It was the cutest thing.”
“Aw. Do you have to call me cute?” Tanner’s cheeks turned red. “Let’s not go quite that far. Babies are cute. Puppies are cute. Cowboys are...rugged,” he finished lamely.
Rebecca and her mom chuckled at his vain attempt to save his ego.
Privately, Rebecca thought Tanner was both rugged and cute. He had the rough skin of someone who spent all his time outdoors and worked with his hands, but the scruff on his face couldn’t quite hide the twin dimples in his cheeks.
She looked back and forth from Tanner to her mother and once again changed the subject. There was so much she needed to know.
“Is Mackenzie...?” Her voice trailed off.
“Your niece,” Tanner answered, sounding surprisingly patient given the circumstances. “My sister’s girl. I’m her temporary guardian right now. If you had stayed—” He choked on the word and didn’t finish his sentence.
They stared at each other for a moment without speaking. His gaze was saying so much, and yet there was nothing she could translate into words. She wondered if there might have been a time in the past when they could communicate that way, able to speak without words. At some point they must have been madly in love with each other. He’d asked her to marry him and she’d accepted, and she couldn’t imagine marrying someone she didn’t love with every fiber of her being.
So what had happened between the I do’s and today?
She wished she remembered what had broken them up. But maybe her brain wasn’t ready to handle that much knowledge yet.
And yet it was the one question she most wanted to ask but was most afraid of voicing.
“So, you don’t remember anything about—what? The last few years?” Mama asked. “You seemed to recognize me right away when we met earlier.”
“Yes, but it wasn’t exactly how you look now. Like I said, I get little flashes of memory sometimes, but they only serve to confuse me. I remembered you and Dad dancing. That’s why I recognized you.”
Once again, she consulted her notes on her phone. “My short-term memory is spotty. It’s getting better every day, but I still occasionally forget things right after hearing or doing them. My amnesia appears to have completely erased several years of my life. The doctor says I will get better with time and that the best way for me to snap out of it is to immerse myself in the life I once knew, what’s most familiar to me.”
“I guess it makes sense then that you remember Dawn, who was your best friend since elementary school, and obviously you recognized your mom. But with me, you came up a complete blank, because I didn’t come on to the scene until later on,” Tanner observed bitterly.
“I’m sorry.” She didn’t know why, but she felt the need to apologize, even though none of this was her fault. But he sounded so hurt that she didn’t remember him.
“Why’d you come back here?” Tanner asked, resentment rising in his tone. “Since you remember Dawn, why didn’t you just stay with her?” She couldn’t blame Tanner for his bitterness. They had been separated, so it was logical for him to ask why she’d search him out. And she only realized as he asked the question that her presence here wasn’t fair to him.
“Because my driver’s license still says Serendipity.”
“And your last name is Hamilton.” It wasn’t a question and Tanner didn’t phrase it that way. He hadn’t said still Hamilton. That made Rebecca more curious than ever as to what their relationship had been like before it had gone wrong.
Her gaze locked with his. “Yes. It does say Hamilton. But the person I remember is Rebecca Foster.”
His brow lowered and his jaw ticked with strain.
“I’m here because this is where I have the best chance of triggering more recent memories, and at this point, I’d do anything to get them back. But I understand this isn’t going to be easy for you. If you want me gone, I’ll leave.”
“Of course you won’t leave,” Mama exclaimed. “You have to stay with us. Let’s not forget you and Tanner are about to have a baby together. Isn’t that right, Tanner?”
Tanner continued to stare at her, his blue eyes sparkling with pain and anger.
Her breath caught in her throat as she waited for him to answer. Her whole world revolved around what he was about to say. If he sent her packing, which he had every right to do, how would she ever remember how things used to be?
But it really was his choice to make. It was his life she was barreling into after months apart, after who knew what had happened to tear them apart in the first place.
He blew out a breath and shook his head, an action that belied his next words.
“Yes, Rebecca. You should stay.”
Chapter Three (#u3cb86acc-4729-5a17-8e96-918cfb718115)
Tanner stood in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and sipping from his mug of coffee as he waited for Rebecca to join him.
Because Rebecca had no recent memories and needed someone to look after her, it only made sense that she stay here at the ranch with him and Peggy.
But he didn’t have to like it. In fact, it was ripping him up inside.
He didn’t know what to do with his anger and resentment. It almost seemed unfair to direct his anger toward Rebecca under the circumstances, seeing as she remembered nothing of their lives together, never mind their breakup.
This woman wasn’t the one who’d left him. And yet she was.
Even though they’d been separated and he’d had no real hope of reconciliation, his heart ached deeply that their whole relationship, every good and bad moment they’d experienced together, had just disappeared from her mind.
He had disappeared from her mind.
And now they were going to have a baby.
After everything, if God were gracious, they were finally going to see their dream come true.
Only now this special blessing was arriving in a crazy, broken world that Tanner had no idea how to fix. Not surprisingly, his gut ground with fear when he thought of this baby. Would he or she be healthy? He and Rebecca couldn’t handle another heartbreak like the first one, especially now.
Adding his guardianship of Mackenzie to the mix just made everything that much more confusing—and that much more pressing. They had to figure out how to deal with all of their problems now.
Today, he was showing Rebecca around the ranch. He hoped maybe the familiar setting might trigger something for her. That’s what her doctor had said.
Butterflies flitted around in his stomach. He had no idea why he was nervous. He’d been married to Rebecca near on six years now, even if they’d been separated for most of the last one.
It wasn’t as if they were strangers. But in the oddest way, this almost felt like they were going on a first date. And for some reason, he really wanted to impress her with his ranch.
Their ranch.
He supposed it was because he didn’t know how to act around her now. She was a different person from the woman he’d married, or even the one who had walked out on him six months ago.
He had to get to know this woman if they were going to get anywhere.
“I’m ready to go.”
Tanner’s heart leaped into his throat, hammering madly as he whirled around to see Rebecca enter the kitchen. He’d been so lost in his thoughts he hadn’t heard her approach.
He swallowed hard when he got his first glance at her. She was wearing a cap-sleeved soft green T-shirt, formfitting blue jeans and sensible boots. She’d pulled her sleek auburn hair back into a ponytail and her copper eyes were glowing with anticipation.
One thing hadn’t changed, and that was how beautiful she was to him. She was simply stunning. He couldn’t help the way his heart always responded to her, now today just as it was then, from the day they’d first met.
Even if he didn’t have any idea of the woman she’d become.
“Great,” he said, setting his mug aside. “I’m anxious to show you everything. What would you like to see first?”
Her gaze went blank. “I don’t know. I can’t remember anything about the ranch. I barely know the names of the different kinds of animals, and that’s only because my mind remembers what I learned in kindergarten more than college. Old MacDonald Had a Farm, you know.” She chuckled dryly, but it wasn’t much of a joke. “You’ll have to show me around and explain just what it is you do here. I promise I’ll take good notes.”
He supposed that shouldn’t have surprised him. If she didn’t remember people, she wouldn’t remember places, either. Or animals.
Peggy and her late husband, Casey, had both been schoolteachers and Rebecca had grown up in a house in town.
Becoming a rancher’s wife had been a big adjustment for her, but she’d thrived on it. At least he’d thought she had, at the time. When they’d first married, she’d been excited about every little thing. After she’d plunged into a dark depression and wouldn’t so much as get out of bed, he wasn’t so sure. Maybe he’d never understood his wife at all.
“Let’s start in the barn,” he decided. Earlier that morning, he’d stabled her sorrel quarter horse mare, Calypso, so Rebecca would be able to see her and interact with her. He desperately hoped for a spark of recognition. She and Calypso had been inseparable from the moment he’d bought the horse for her as a wedding gift. Rebecca had ridden out every day after coming home from teaching school and had insisted on caring for the mare herself.
“Chicken coop’s over there,” he said as they walked toward the barn. “You used to gather eggs every morning before you went off to class.”
“Really?” She wrinkled her nose in distaste and he could tell it wasn’t ringing a bell. “I actually picked up eggs from under a chicken?”
He chuckled. “That’s usually how it’s done. Do you remember that you’re a teacher?”
At this question she brightened up a little, her face coloring and her eyes sparkling.
“Middle school math. Try on this for weird and unexplainable. I still know how to do geometry and algebra. Even calculus and higher math. I might be able to go back to teaching at some point, as soon as I learn how to put names with faces again.”
“Right.” A cloud of discouragement formed in his chest. It seemed to him like she remembered everything except him. Was God punishing him for something? Because that’s what it felt like right now.
They entered the barn and he hesitated, waiting to see if she would pick out Calypso from the five horses he’d stabled for his little test.
Rebecca walked from stall to stall, pausing to look at each of the horses. After a moment, she turned back to Tanner.
“They’re all very nice,” she said hesitantly. “I feel like this is all faintly familiar. Do I like riding?”
“Very much,” he assured her. “You used to ride nearly every day. Do you have any idea which horse is yours?”
Her gaze widened and she shook her head.
“One of them is mine?” Her eyes lit with excitement and then darkened with frustration.
His heart dropped into his stomach. This must be incredibly traumatic for her. He couldn’t even begin to imagine the stress she must feel. And here he was selfishly dwelling on his own problems.
“You rode most afternoons after school to wind down and clear your head. I thought you might recognize your mare. This is Calypso.”
He led her to Calypso’s stall and she opened the gate, sliding in next to her mare and running a hand across her neck.
“Hello, Calypso. It’s nice to meet you—again.”
* * *
Rebecca felt just the slightest flash of recognition after Tanner had introduced her to her mare. It was so short she couldn’t grasp on to it and hold it, and she suspected it wouldn’t have happened at all if Tanner hadn’t outright told her which horse hers was.
She grabbed a soft-bristle brush from the wall and groomed Calypso, starting at her neck and working her way down. The act was both soothing and familiar. She hadn’t remembered Calypso, but yet she instinctively knew how to take care of her. Tanner didn’t have to tell her what to do.
“How do you know how to groom Calypso?” he asked. “You didn’t start riding until after we were married. You can’t remember anything about that time, or which horse is yours, but you know how to use a brush to groom Calypso?”
“I can’t answer that,” she said, putting the brush aside and affectionately running her hand down Calypso’s muzzle before exiting the stall.
“There are certain things I know how to do, like driving a car or grooming a horse, but I can’t remember people, or places—or specific animals, evidently. It must be some kind of muscle memory when it comes to doing certain things.”
His gaze narrowed on her and studied her closely. She started to feel like a trained monkey in a circus. In a way, she was no better than that, performing acts she had no idea why she knew how to do but somehow just came naturally to her.
She locked her eyes with his so he’d know she wasn’t lying or perpetrating some kind of elaborate hoax. Amnesia made no sense. The rules were that there were no rules. That was maybe what frustrated her the most.
“Let me show you the goats,” he said. “Maybe they’ll ring a bell for you.”
The goats were up against the front porch and Tanner swept his hat off, waving it around to get the goats to disburse farther from the house. “Your little herd keeps the grass down around the house, so they aren’t completely worthless. I don’t ever have to bring out the mower.”
“I like goats?” She watched a large black-and-white goat butting a much smaller tan one. It appeared to Rebecca like the larger was picking on the younger, and it made her wonder why she would want an animal like that in her yard.
Tanner grinned and nodded. “It was your idea to get them. You had to talk me into them. Mackenzie likes them, too.”
Rebecca had reached the edge of the herd of goats and she hesitated, putting her hands in the front pockets of her jeans so she didn’t have to touch them. They looked kind of mean with their little horns and slit eyes.
“Oh,” she gasped, when one of the goats butted her leg, sending her off-balance. Tanner snaked his arm around her waist with lightning speed, steadying her until she could stand on her own two feet and back away. The bigger her son grew in her womb, the more klutzy and off-center she felt, like one of those penguins in Antarctica.
“It’s okay,” Tanner assured her with a chuckle. “He’s just playing with you.”
“What about that big one over there? It looks to me like he’s picking on the little one.”
“Naw. They’re just playing.”
Tanner had assured her that she liked goats. That he’d bought the herd because she’d asked him to.
And now they scared her and she wasn’t sure she would ever find the guts to interact with them.
Everything frightened her. Would it always be this way?
“I’ve saved the best for last,” Tanner said.
“There’s more?” she asked, hoping he wasn’t going to show her his cows. She didn’t know how it had been in the past, but at the moment, she had zero interest in bovines. They had long tongues and licked their noses, and just—eww.
Now how did she manage to remember such inconsequential facts as those and yet was unable to remember she even had a husband, much less all the history between them? She was so frustrated she wanted to throw something, preferably something breakable.
He led her to the far side of the house where a small fenced pasture lay. Inside were fluffy creatures with long necks and enormous brown eyes.
“Llamas?” she guessed. It was one of those words that just popped out from the back of her mind. She’d probably learned about llamas in elementary school.
Tanner leaned on the gate, but Rebecca held back.
“Close. That was a good guess. These are alpacas. This herd is not only your favorite hobby but your pride and joy.”
“My...hobby? But don’t they spit?” Another useless piece of trivia.
He laughed. His smile lit up his whole expression, softening the stress lines, and Rebecca’s stomach did a little flip. She wished her response was from a glimmer of true recognition, but no. She couldn’t go so far as to call it that.
It was physical chemistry. She could certainly understand why she’d been attracted enough to this cowboy to marry him. Even now, she found herself inexplicably drawn to him, though her brain refused to offer up why. He was handsome, and as he’d mentioned earlier, rugged, in a way that really captivated her.
“Alpacas spit sometimes. Llamas spit more often and they can be mean. Alpacas are for the most part gentle creatures. You use their wool to knit. You love everything about the whole process, from shearing their fleece to knitting hats and mittens for the homeless out of their wool. Do you remember how to knit?”
She nodded. She remembered how to knit, although she didn’t recall knitting for the homeless. And she definitely didn’t remember anything about the alpacas, nor any of the processes needed to turn fleece to knittable wool.
One of the alpacas spotted her and came at her at a dead run. She gasped and stepped back, even though she wasn’t leaning against the gate like Tanner was.
The alpaca screeched to a dead stop just short of the gate and chewed her out with the strangest honking noise she’d ever heard.
Tanner laughed. “They kind of sound like geese, don’t they? Betty here is wondering why you haven’t come to see her in so long.”
“She looks like she needs a haircut,” Rebecca said.
“Yeah. We’ll have to do that soon if we’re going to get you and your mom knitting in time for Christmas.”
“Right.” Rebecca hoped Tanner wasn’t expecting her to do the shearing, although he’d said that was something she’d done in the past.
“A couple of years ago you started competing in agility competitions with the alpacas.”
“Agility?” Not surprisingly, her mind was drawing a complete blank.
“Weaving through stakes, loading and unloading from a trailer, putting their packs on their backs. That sort of thing.”
“I see.” She didn’t, of course.
“You’re really good at it. You’ve won quite a few trophies. I don’t know whether you noticed them or not, but we’ve got them all displayed on the mantel over the fireplace in the living room.”
Rebecca’s throat closed around her breath. Tanner almost sounded proud of her accomplishments.
Then his gaze clouded over and his frown deepened.
“After you left, I almost got rid of the alpacas,” he admitted. “Keeping them around was just more work for me to do, and they reminded me of you on a constant basis. It—it was hard.” He lifted his hat and tunneled his fingers through his blond hair, then replaced his hat and lowered the brim over his eyes.
Another alpaca, this one a spotted brown and white, approached the fence far less aggressively than the first one, and much less vocally, and leaned her head over, close enough for Rebecca to tentatively touch her soft wool.
“I’m glad you didn’t sell them.” Her throat tightened around the words. It was an odd feeling brushing her palm over the alpaca’s soft head. She searched her mind and found nothing regarding the animals, and yet her heart naturally responded to their big brown eyes and enormous eyelashes.
Her baby gave her a good, swift kick in the ribs and she rubbed at the spot where his little heel was.
Tanner’s gaze dropped to her belly. “Does the baby move around a lot?”
“Oh, yes. Come here and feel.”
It was a little awkward taking Tanner’s hand in hers and placing it over her belly, but the baby did a nice flip for his daddy, who grinned when he felt it.
There was something so special, so intimate, about a man and wife sharing this moment with their unborn child. She had lost far more than she knew, but somewhere deep down, one thought echoed through her heart and mind.
She was home.
Chapter Four (#u3cb86acc-4729-5a17-8e96-918cfb718115)
Tanner poured the perfect amount of waffle batter into the iron, closed it and flipped it over to cook. Knowing how to make waffle batter from biscuit powder was only one of the many things he’d had to learn after Rebecca had left him. He spread bacon evenly into a frying pan and grabbed an eighteen-pack of eggs out of the refrigerator, expertly cracking them one-handedly into a bowl.
After their wedding, his starry-eyed bride had taken over everything inside the house, from the cooking to the cleaning and laundry. She’d also done her fair share of outside chores. And worked a day job. She’d never complained, but after she’d left, Tanner had come to a belated realization that he really should have pitched in more and done his share of the inside chores, as well.
He glanced into the living room, where Rebecca was sitting cross-legged on the floor playing ranch with Mackenzie, making her stuffed animals talk in high, funny voices and deep, low ones. Mackenzie grabbed her tummy and rolled over, pealing with laughter as Rebecca made the rooster ride on the horse’s back, squawking wildly.
There was no sign of the depression which had shadowed Rebecca before she’d left Serendipity. Gone were the sadness and fatigue, the agitation and the way she’d pulled into herself and away from everyone and everything that used to have importance in her life.
Now she was contentedly sprawled across the living room rug making stuffed dogs bark and plastic cows moo.
And Mackenzie was eating it up. The little girl had lived her whole life in Denver and was completely enamored of the country lifestyle. She was becoming a regular cowgirl. No dollies or tea parties for this curly-haired sweetheart. Her world was all about horses, cows, goats, pigs, chickens and alpacas, and she loved every moment of it. She was even helping Tanner with minor chores around the ranch, learning the true meaning of what it meant to grow up in the country.
It was more than that, though. Rebecca was spending quality time with a little girl who’d had too little of that in her life. Though Tanner loved his sister, he wasn’t blind to the fact that Lydia had never been an exceptional mother. She was too selfish, and usually too high, to give her daughter the kind of attention she needed.
Rebecca gave a lighthearted laugh and Tanner’s gut tightened. She was so good with the little girl, a real natural. He had always believed Rebecca was meant to be a mother. It was part of what had attracted him to her in the first place.
That was why it had been so hard for him to believe the Lord wouldn’t bless them with a child. Those three infertile years had been heartbreaking enough. And then when finally—finally—the pregnancy test was positive and their firstborn grew in her womb, only to be stillborn at seven months...
It just didn’t seem fair. Why them? They believed in God, went to church every Sunday. Loved each other and were committed to being good parents and bringing their children up in the Lord.
He and Rebecca wanted—had wanted—a large family—four kids, at least. His sister, who was completely irresponsible in every area of her life, had, at best, looked upon her child as an inconvenience, during the time Tanner and Rebecca had remained childless.
After doing everything right, they had lost their child, while Lydia had given birth to a perfectly healthy little girl. Tanner struggled to find God’s purpose in this when everything in his life was upside down.
And now Rebecca was pregnant again? It was so hard to remain positive when it seemed their whole lives had gone against them.
It was strange having Rebecca back in the house again, hearing her voice, her laughter. He couldn’t help but respond mentally and emotionally to the woman he’d loved since the first moment he’d laid eyes on her.
And yet nothing was the same.
In the months after Rebecca had left him, Tanner had realized just how spoiled he’d become, relying on his wife to pick up the slack while he obliviously worked the ranch. There were so many areas of his life he’d never had to worry about, things Rebecca had quietly taken care of herself and never complained about.
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