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She’d had a lot to deal with during the past few weeks, and though she’d been very concerned about her memory when he’d taken her to California, the garden had helped relax her when they’d arrived.
But he’d known something had been changing inside her the past few days. She’d been thinking about her place in life as an individual, and about the two of them as a couple. She was worrying about their relationship.
And that worried him.
Her fingers fluttered in the air between them, as though she wanted to touch him but didn’t dare. He caught them in his hand and kissed her knuckles, needing to break this spell.
“I’ll get the coffee,” he said, and walked around her to the coffeemaker.
Though he knew things could not go on forever as they had since he’d taken her from the hospital, he couldn’t help wishing they would. She knew only what he wanted her to know.
But the harder she thought, the more likely she was to remember.
Then she’d know what had really happened.
And that would not be good.
Chapter Two
All right, maybe they did have a good thing going.
Gusty examined that likelihood as she added chocolate chips and pecans to the smooth cookie batter. She and Bram had gone into town for plumbing supplies, and she’d picked up a few additional groceries before they headed home. She had game hens and a casserole dish of dressing baking in the oven, potatoes boiling on top of the stove, cauliflower steaming and ice cream in the freezer.
She wasn’t sure why she was making the cookies. She couldn’t recall having made them for him in the past, but she did have very recent memories of his consideration and his determination to keep her safe, of his taking her to old Dr. Grayson the first day they arrived in Paintbrush, and establishing her last-trimester care. At this point in time there was little she could do to pay him back but provide him with a favorite treat.
Her hands slowed in their work as she remembered the sexual sizzle that had taken place earlier when Bram had touched her abdomen. She’d felt something ignite inside her and had seen a small explosion in his eyes.
He’d walked around her into the kitchen easily enough, but he had to have felt as affected as she—and she didn’t even remember anything they’d shared.
He’d suggested they’d been eager lovers. With what she’d come to know of him—his kindness, despite his insistence on her compliance in matters of her safety—she found that notion both exciting and daunting. She must have had to fight constantly to protect her individuality. And yet she’d married him, so she must have accepted that and found a way to deal with it.
She shifted a little uncomfortably and put a hand to the small of her back as a twinge there reminded her that she’d stood too long.
Sounds of metal clanking on metal came from the bathroom as Bram worked on the plumbing. The iffy nature of the shower had been the cabin’s only inconvenience. The water trickled weakly rather than sprayed, and she’d grumbled about it that morning, telling him she longed for a good solid spray against her aching back.
She was touched that he seemed anxious to grant her the wish.
She put more chocolate chips in the batter and, with one hand rubbing her back, folded them in with the other.
Gusty was placing the first pan in the oven when a male voice behind her said in pleased wonderment, “I thought I smelled cookies!”
She turned to find Bram behind her, a wrench in one grubby hand and a rag in the other.
“I’d give you a bite,” she said apologetically, “but they’re too hot.”
“How about a bite of batter?” he asked hopefully.
She shook her head. “Raw eggs can carry salmonella.” She took a few chocolate chips in the tips of her fingers. “Will this do?”
He shrugged. “Better than nothing.” He held his dirty hands away from her as she popped the chips into his mouth.
“How’s the shower coming?” she asked, offering him a sip of her coffee.
“Mmm. Thanks. I’m just about finished. It was mostly lime buildup. I soaked the head in cleaner and I’m about to reconnect it. If it works, you can have a shower after dinner.”
“That sounds wonderful. And the cookies will be cooled by the time you’re finished. If it won’t spoil your dinner.”
“Cookies never spoil anything,” he said over his shoulder as he returned to his task.
He had second helpings of everything at dinner, and while she enjoyed her meal also, she knew she’d probably pay for the pleasure with heartburn during the night.
“It seems you married me for my cooking,” she observed, sipping at a glass of milk while he carried their plates to the sink.
“That,” he said, “and because you were on my mind constantly.”
She wondered about that. “Is that the same as love?”
He scraped the dishes and put them in the dishwasher. Coming back to the table for bowls of leftover dressing and potatoes, he gave her a quizzical look. “I thought so. I’m usually very focused and on track. Until I met you and you consumed my life.”
She had to ask. “Has that been good or bad for you?”
He grinned and headed for the counter with his burden. “Mostly good,” he said.
She laughed lightly. “Mostly?”
She reached for the cauliflower and the rolls, intending to help clear, but his hand came down on her shoulder to hold her in her chair.
“I said I’d clean up.” He took the vegetable and rolls from her, then started to cover everything and put it in the refrigerator.
“Mostly,” he went on as he worked, “because I used to be focused and on track,” he repeated wryly, “and since you came along, I’ve had to adjust to having my attention split between my work and my life.”
“And your life didn’t come first when you were a CIA agent?”
Everything put away, he took the ice cream from the freezer and brought down two bowls. “No.” He answered matter-of-factly, as though he’d accepted it and didn’t particularly regret that now. “Everything about you is secondary to the work. But I was young then and it didn’t matter. The men I worked with became my family.”
“You told me you’d already quit the CIA when we met.”
“Yes.”
He scooped ice cream into the bowls, put the carton away, then brought them to the table, going back for the plate of cookies she’d prepared.
“Then you didn’t quit on my account and don’t resent me for that?”
He raised an eyebrow as he took his chair again. “No. Why?”
“Because,” she said for the second time, “something isn’t right between us.” When he rolled his eyes impatiently, she raised a silencing hand. “I know, I know. You told me it was because I can’t remember, that we’re usually very physical and this celibacy is unnatural. But I think it’s something else.”
SHE PROPPED HER ELBOW on the table and studied him with the disturbing concentration of the innocent. He tried to look back at her with the same innocence.
But he had a feeling she wasn’t buying it.
“How can you be so sure,” he asked, pushing the cookie plate her way, “when you can’t even remember us?”
“It’s something I feel now,” she said, choosing a cookie and taking a dainty bite out of it. She chewed and swallowed. “I feel as though it’s me. There’s something about me that you’re upset with, or displeased with. Did I do something awful?” She studied the cookie in her hand then looked up at him again, her expression reluctant. “Did I have an affair, or something?”
Even a hesitation before he answered the question would have given him a break, but he couldn’t do that to her. “No, you haven’t had an affair. You’ve been a wonderful wife.”
She looked somewhat relieved, though not entirely convinced that there wasn’t a problem between them. “You’re not just saying that because I can’t remember anything?”
“No,” he said firmly. “I’m saying it because it’s true. We have a good, strong marriage. We’re in love.”
“Okay,” she said finally, then finished off her cookie. “You told me you have one sister.”
He nodded. “Lisa. She’s in Kansas where her husband’s a doctor.”
“Is she older than you?”
“Younger by a year and a half. I have three little nieces.”
She spooned ice cream into her mouth. He took advantage of her distraction to eat some of his own before her interrogation began again. She seemed to be marshaling every detail from their conversations over the past three weeks in a new attempt to force the data to help her remember what had gone before. He managed two bites before she continued.
“And your parents are gone?”
“My father died in jail,” he replied briefly, trying not to sound bitter or flip. But it was difficult. He was bitter about them, and he always sounded flip when he tried to pretend that it didn’t matter. “My mother was an alcoholic and finally died of liver failure about ten years ago.”
She looked stunned. He hated that. Then her eyes filled and he was torn between being touched by her sympathy, when she didn’t even remember him, and annoyed with himself for upsetting her.
He reached across the table to catch her hand. “It’s all right. Lisa and I adjusted to it long ago. She got married at sixteen, but to a great guy and they managed to make it work. He got a scholarship, she got a job and they both worked day and night until he finally graduated from medical school. He joined a clinic, and then they had their family.”
“And you joined the army after she got married?”
“I was a cop first, then joined the army.”
She smiled at that, then frowned again, squeezing his hand. “I’m sorry about your parents. I can’t remember mine, but I don’t think I went through anything that awful. You said that I told you they’ve been gone for some time.”
He ran his thumb over her knuckles. “That’s right. You liked your father, but didn’t get along well with your mother. She was sort of a prima donna, I gather.”
She frowned over that and drew her hand back. It occurred to him for the first time that since she had no memories of them, knowing they were gone closed a door she’d never have a chance to reopen.
She drew a deep breath, clearly regretful. “I don’t remember anything about them, and it makes me feel a little like an orphan.”
He felt a desperate need to cheer her up. “You still have your sisters.”
She straightened in her chair, suddenly smiling. “Yes. I’m a triplet. That’s different, isn’t it? In the photos on my bedside table in Pansy Junction, they look like two clones of me, yet I don’t remember them. Where are they again?”
“Athena lives in D.C.,” he replied. “She’s a lawyer. And Alexis, the artist, lives in Rome.”
She turned the names over on her tongue, saying them over and over, closing her eyes as though that could form an image in her mind. When she opened them again, her eyes were troubled, her bottom lip shaky. “I don’t remember them. Neither of them. And they’re probably wondering where I am.”
He hated to tell her the truth here, but he knew he had to. “I’m sure they are,” he answered. “You were all over the news when you were pulled out of the water and didn’t know who you were or where you’d come from.”
“That’s cruel, isn’t it?” she said urgently. “They don’t know that I’m safe.”
He nodded. “That was the choice we had to make to keep you safe. Any attempt to call either one could result in our being tracked.”
She settled down, apparently accepting that that made sense.
“I like knowing I have somebody.” The statement was plaintively made, as though she desperately needed someone—besides him.
It was interesting, he thought clinically, that no one had been able to hurt him since his mother’s ugly drunkenness when he’d come home from school, anxious to tell her about a success only to find her passed out on the sofa. No one, that was, until now.
He’d die without question or hesitation for Gusty and their baby, but she couldn’t remember their relationship, was certain there was something wrong with it, and that she needed something more than he could give her.
On some intelligent level, he knew it was foolish to be jealous of her sisters. He loved his own sister very much. They’d sustained each other through the worst times in their lives.
Gusty had turned him inside out over the past eight months, but her safety and the safe arrival of their baby into the world was all he dreamed of, was the reason he’d abandoned everything to hide away with her and keep her from harm.
It was selfish and egotistical, he knew, to want to be her everything, but knowing that and changing how he felt were two very different things.
“You ready for that shower?” he asked, pointing to her abandoned bowl of ice cream. “You can even turn the head now to adjust the spray.”
She ignored his question and nibbled on another cookie, looking more composed.
“Am I a good teacher?” she asked.
“There’s a Teacher of the Year plaque in your office at home. I pointed it out to you, remember?”
She frowned and gave one nod. “I do, sort of. But home was kind of overwhelming. All those things I’d hoped I’d remember when I saw them, and didn’t.”
“I think you’re good at everything you do,” he assured her. “You seem to know all about gardens and cooking.” He held up his cookie. “And you’re thoughtful. Always trying to help someone, or comfort someone.”
She frowned over that. “Am I wimpy?”
He laughed. “As the man who’s had to argue with you over just about everything, I can say no to that with authority.”
She pushed away from the table. “I guess I’ll clean up and have that shower.”
He went around the table to help her up. “I’ll clean up, you go ahead.”
SHE SHOULD HAVE ARGUED, but the prospect of a stream of hot water beating on her sore back was too delicious to delay. She went to her bedroom for the flannel nightgown Bram had bought her in town, then doffed her clothes in the bathroom.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she stepped into the shower stall and was a little startled by her size. It was one thing to see herself clothed, and quite another to see her naked, pregnant self.
She stepped into the shower stall, closed the door on the mirror, modulated the water temperature carefully to hot but not too hot, then turned the water on full force. She groaned at the instant relief provided when she turned her back to the spray.
She let it beat for long moments, then got serious about washing. With that accomplished she took the shampoo from the shower caddy and set about the major production of washing her hair. She scrubbed at her scalp, then brought her hair over her shoulder and, starting with the bottom few inches, slowly scrubbed her way up.
She rinsed slowly and carefully, combing her fingers through it to make sure she was rid of all the shampoo. After giving her body one more rinse, she turned off the water.
