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“The government made a mistake.”
Emma moved toward Zoey. “Oh, honey.” She took her into her arms with Tara between them. “What are you going to do?”
“Pick up the pieces of our marriage and start over. I need to tell Blake and Mandy now that their dad has returned from the dead.”
“Do you want my help?”
Her mother had supported Zoey through some tough times after Dane had disappeared. Zoey moved back to her hometown because she’d realized she couldn’t do it alone. After three months in Dallas trying to support her family financially and emotionally, she’d finally admitted she’d needed help and turned to her family and the Lord. She never regretted that choice. But right now she knew she had to do this alone, as so many things in the past few years.
“Just take care of Tara.” Zoey lay her hand along her youngest child’s jawline, feeling the softness beneath her palm. “At least you, my sweet, will be all right.” She kissed Tara’s cheek, then went to find her other two children.
In the den Zoey switched off the television, raising her hand to quiet the protests from Blake and Mandy. “We need to talk and I can’t do that with the TV on.” Sitting on the couch, Zoey patted the soft brown leather cushion. “Come here and sit with me.”
Blake sat down next to her without a word while Mandy plopped down on the other side and bounced a few times as though testing the plumpness of the cushion. The whooshing sound permeated the silence. Zoey marveled at how much energy her daughter had after a long day playing and helping her get dinner ready.
“Mommy, who was that man?” Mandy finally settled next to her and looked up at her with her big, brown eyes that reminded Zoey so much of her own.
She didn’t know where to begin. Blake had been nine when his father had left on his last assignment. And her five-year-old daughter hardly remembered the father who had been gone a lot that last year before he’d disappeared.
“Mom, is something wrong?” Blake asked, frowning.
“Mommy, did that man make you sad?” Mandy’s mouth turned down in a frown, too, always imitating her older brother.
Zoey slipped her arms around her children and brought them close to her, savoring their nearness for a few seconds before she had to break the news. Mandy would be all right, but Zoey worried about Blake’s reaction. He hadn’t taken his father’s death well, withdrawing into a shell for months after his father’s disappearance. She’d tried to reach her son, but he was a lot like his father. He kept things bottled up inside.
Realizing she had been frowning herself while trying to find the best way to break the news to her children, Zoey forced a smile to her lips. “No, the man didn’t make me sad. Not at all. In fact, just the opposite. I have some great news to share with you two.” She drew in a deep breath and held it before releasing it through pursed lips. “The man Mandy is talking about is your father.”
“Dad?” Blake pulled away, confusion knitting his brow. “But—I don’t understand.”
“Honey, your father has come home.”
“Are you sure it’s him? He didn’t look like the pictures we have.” Mandy hopped off the couch and faced Zoey, her face screwed up in a thoughtful expression as though she were picturing the man at the door and trying to reconcile in her mind that person with the photos she had of her father.
Both of her children peered at her as though she didn’t have any idea what she was talking about. “Your father was believed to be dead, but he isn’t. He’s returned to us.”
“Where was he? Why did he stay away? Why didn’t he come home?” Blake asked, his voice rising as he bounded to his feet.
Zoey tried to grasp his hand, to tug him close to her. She wanted—needed—to hold him. Blake shuffled farther back, his scowl firmly in place. She didn’t have all the answers for her son. She didn’t know what had really happened and, knowing Dane, might never completely. All she could tell her children was what little she knew. “Your father was hurt and couldn’t remember who he was until recently. He’s in the living room waiting to see you two.”
“Did he bring me a present?” Mandy asked, hurrying toward the door. “Maybe he’ll play a game with me or read me a story.”
Zoey didn’t have a chance to answer Mandy. She flew out of the room, leaving Zoey alone with her son, who looked as if he wasn’t going to budge an inch.
“Honey, your father didn’t choose to be gone for these past few years. As soon as he could, he came back to us.” Drawing on her reserve of strength, Zoey stood and extended her hand toward Blake, noticing the slight tremor in her fingers. “Come talk to him, please.” When her son didn’t move, Zoey dropped her hand to her side and walked toward the door. “We’ll be in the living room when you’re ready.”
For months after his father had disappeared, Blake had cried himself to sleep. He hadn’t understood his father being gone for good. He’d wanted his playmate back—the man who rode him around on his shoulders, played ball with him, built sand castles at the beach with him. After the first year Blake had refused to discuss his father with anyone. She’d had the minister at their church and a counselor speak with Blake, but still he wouldn’t talk about his father. Finally over time everything seemed to be back to normal. Now she wasn’t so sure.
When she entered the living room, she found Mandy sitting next to Dane on the couch. Dane cradled Tara next to him, his eyes unusually bright as he took in first one daughter, then the other. Her mother had brought her youngest to meet her father.
Mandy stared at something cupped in her hand, wonder in her expression. She saw Zoey and leaped up, racing to her. “Look what he brought me. Coins from another country. They’re different from ours. Look!” Mandy thrust them toward her.
Zoey picked up one and turned it over. “They’re pretty.”
“Yes.” Her daughter closed her fingers around the coins and went back to Dane. “Thank ya. I’ll put them with my other treasures.” She stood in front of him now, not quite sure what to do.
Zoey came to her side. “Maybe you would like to show your father your treasure box.”
A smile brightened her daughter’s face. “I’ll go get it.” Mandy ran from the room and pounded up the stairs.
Zoey stared at the entrance into the living room, wondering if her son would appear. Dear Lord, what should I do about Blake? She chewed on her bottom lip and tried to think of what to tell Dane about their son.
“Mandy’s full of life.”
“That she is. There are days she can run me ragged.” Zoey turned back to Dane, whose gaze was glued to his youngest daughter, as though he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.
“She looks just like you, too. I’m glad. I wish I had known. I—”
The pain in his voice shredded the composure she’d fought hard to maintain for her children’s sake. Her heart hammered against her chest, the beat vibrating in her head. Zoey peered at him and saw that glimpse of vulnerability she’d caught in his expression several times earlier. Sensing her regard, he quickly masked his look with a neutral one, something he was very good at doing. This was the Dane she knew—the one who didn’t know how to share his feelings, who held a part of himself locked inside, the person her son was so similar to.
Exhausted from the past hour, Zoey collapsed in the chair next to the couch, wanting as much distance between them as possible in a room that had suddenly become small.
“Where’s Blake?” Dane asked, his gaze fixed on the entrance into the living room.
“In the den.”
“Is he coming in here?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Dane tensed, the only indication that her words had affected him. “Why not?”
“When you…disappeared, Blake didn’t take it well.”
“But I’m here now. I know this isn’t easy, but—”
Again that pain laced his voice and stabbed through her heart, through all the defenses she had erected. “But, what?” Tell me what you’re thinking, she silently added.
Pressing Tara to him, he shuttered his look and rose. “I’ll go have a word with him.”
“Don’t.”
Chapter Two
Dane froze. “What do you mean, don’t? He’s my son. I haven’t seen him in over two years.”
“I know.” Zoey stood, her legs shaky. “When you didn’t come home, he took your disappearance very hard. He cried for months, then clammed up and wouldn’t say a word about you.”
Dane closed his eyes for a few seconds, shaking his head. “Then he should be glad I’m back.”
“He’s—” she searched for a word that wouldn’t be too harsh “—upset. I don’t think Blake knows what to feel right now. Give him some time. He loves you very much. I think he’s afraid you’ll leave again for good.”
“I need to see—” Dane clamped his jaws together and stared toward the entrance as though debating whether to ignore her advice or do as she had requested and give Blake some space.
“Please, Dane. I realize this is hard on you.”
“Hard! I nearly died in that plane crash. If the Xingas hadn’t found me and taken me in, I wouldn’t be here. The first few months after the crash I was—” He snapped his mouth closed, gulped, then continued in a stilted voice, “I want to see my son, hold him.” He buried his face in Tara’s blond curls and breathed deeply while his daughter played with the buttons on his shirt between knuckling her eyes.
“So family is important to you now,” Zoey said without thinking. She hadn’t meant to add to his pain, but she had lived through Blake’s silent suffering, through the years of watching Dane go off on one assignment after another, leaving her and the children alone to cope with his prolonged absences. But the worst was never knowing what was really going on with her husband.
Dane flinched. “Ouch. You’re certainly blunt.”
“Something I’ve learned to be over the last few years. A lot about me has changed.”
“And a lot about me has changed.”
“Then we aren’t the same two people who married fourteen years ago?”
“No, and being strangers isn’t a good foundation for a marriage.”
“I agree. We have three children and we made a vow before God fourteen years ago that I intend to keep.” Her emotions had gone through a roller-coaster ride tonight, as she was sure Dane’s had as well, and she was too tired to get into a discussion about their future at this moment. She was glad when she heard Mandy pounding down the stairs.
Zoey’s mother followed Mandy into the living room and took Tara from Dane. “Dane, I’m glad you’re home safe. I’ll get her ready for bed while you spend some time with Mandy.”
“Thanks, Mom. She’s starting to rub her eyes. Never a good sign.” At Dane’s questioning look, Zoey added, “When that happens, we have about half an hour to get Tara to bed before she falls apart. You don’t want that. She can scream the roof off when she’s tired enough.”
With her treasure box clasped in her hands and a wide smile on her face, Mandy plopped down on the couch next to Dane and carefully opened the old pink-and-white gift box she’d received her last birthday. “See the rock I got when we went hikin’. And look at this coin Jesse and Nick gave me. That’s when they went to—” Mandy peered at Zoey, her brow furrowed.
“To England.”
“Yeah. Isn’t it neat?” Mandy held the coin out in the palm of her hand for Dane to inspect.
“I loved different coins when I was a little boy. I had a collection.”
Zoey blinked, surprised at what Dane had said. She hadn’t known that. When she thought about it, Zoey realized she really didn’t know a lot about Dane’s childhood. Both his parents were dead, his mother from an illness. He had cared for his younger brother for a while, but he’d died when Dane was twenty-one. He’d refused to discuss his past, just as he’d refused to discuss his job. After years of asking, wanting to share his pain and help him, she had given up.
“Where’s the coins?”
Dane cocked his head to the side and thought for a moment. “You know, Mandy, I’m not sure. I guess I lost them.”
Mandy hugged the English coin. “I’ll never lose my treasures.”
Zoey listened to her daughter as she went through all her other prize possessions, cupping them in her small palm to show Dane, then letting him pick them up and examine them. Zoey knew in that moment it wouldn’t take long for Dane to win Mandy over.
Ten minutes later Mandy finished her presentation with a big yawn. “What’cha think of my treasures?”
“I can see why you take such good care of them.”
“And it’s time for bed, young lady. In fact, it’s past your bedtime,” Zoey said, a tightness in her throat from watching the exchange between Dane and Mandy.
“But, Mommy, I want to stay up and talk to Daddy.”
“If you hurry, I’ll tuck you in and read you your favorite story,” Dane said, his words sounding thick, forced. He put the last treasure back in the box and closed its lid, his face averted.
Mandy leaped to her feet and without a backward glance rushed from the room. Dane still didn’t look up.
Zoey chuckled, needing to ease the tension in the room. “Home less than an hour and she’ll do anything you say. Of course, she loves for someone to read her favorite book to her. That’s the only way I can get her into bed without an argument.”
Finally Dane’s shuttered gaze met hers. “What’s her favorite book?”
“This month it’s Henrietta’s Cat. After she can recite it to you, her favorite book changes.”
“I remember how Blake loved to be read to when he was her age.”
The wistful tone in Dane’s voice tugged at Zoey’s heart. She wanted to comfort him, and yet a barrier stood between them that had slowly grown since he’d first arrived, a barrier that had been firmly in place the day he had left on his last assignment. It was as if they both began to remember the past and the problems still unsolved. An awkward silence fell between them. All Zoey heard was the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner.
Dane cleared his throat, running his hand through his hair several times. “Well, I guess—” He rose, uncertainty in his expression.
“It’ll take Mandy a few minutes to get ready. In the meantime, let me get some bedding for you.” She started for the stairs. “I’m sure you’re tired.”
“Zoey, Carl said something about you being a counselor at Sweetwater High School.”
“Yes, I had to do something to support the children. Our savings wasn’t much, and you weren’t legally declared dead yet, so I couldn’t get the insurance. I love counseling the students and using my education. Now, I’d better get that bedding.”
Zoey hurried up the stairs, leaving Dane alone with his turbulent thoughts. Zoey was a high school counselor. She had a whole other life without him. Her life had moved on while his had come to a screeching halt over two years ago. Memories bombarded him. He felt the heat of the fire. He heard the sounds of crunching metal. He squeezed his eyes closed and massaged his temples, trying to erase those aching memories, always just out of reach, never quite clear enough for him to piece the whole picture together.
A sound from the hallway drew his attention away from the past. He glimpsed Blake peering around the corner. He stepped toward his son. Blake darted past him and flew up the stairs. Dane wanted to go after him and pull him into his embrace, but the look on his son’s face kept Dane rooted to the floor. The anger in Blake’s expression made him realize Zoey was right. His son wasn’t ready to accept him back into his life. Pain clawed at Dane’s chest, constricting each breath as he inhaled deeply. Why had he thought it would be simple? That he would waltz right back into his old life and pick up where he’d left off? Did he even want that old life back? What did he want?
Dane scanned the living room and remembered a few pieces of furniture from when they’d lived in Dallas. But so much was different—the house, the town, his wife, his family. He’d desperately needed it to be the same, so he could completely reconstruct his life, fill in the few remaining holes in his memory. He felt the walls closing in on him.
He strode from the living room, fleeing out onto the porch as quickly as Blake had gone upstairs. Taking deep breaths of the crisp, spring air, Dane listened to the night silence around him. Somewhere in the distance a car started. A dog barked. The constriction in his chest eased.
He was in the United States, in Kentucky, Zoey’s hometown. He wasn’t in the rain forest any longer, trying to survive in an alien environment while trying to recover his health and remember. He was getting stronger each day. He had his memory back—mostly.
“Dane, are you all right?”
Zoey’s worried voice penetrated his thoughts. He needed to answer her, but his throat was tight with emotions he refused to acknowledge—was afraid to acknowledge.
“Dane? I saw Blake run to his room. Did you two talk?”
Frustrated, he pivoted, his arms stiff at his sides. “No, I didn’t go against your wishes, if that’s what you want to know. He ran past the living room and up the stairs before I could say a word to him.”
“Give him some time. He’ll come around.” She hugged the bedding to her.
“And what about you and me?”
“I suspect we all need time to adjust to the changes.”
“Because we aren’t the same two people?”
