Deb Kastner - Her Forgotten Cowboy

“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.

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.