Loree Lough - Suddenly Reunited

She’d lived a hard life, and he had no right making it harder still by being thick-headed and narrow-minded. With a little luck and a whole lot of prayer, maybe he’d have the puzzle figured out by the time she got her memory back, and those things that drove her away would become the reasons she’d want to stay. Heart throbbing with hope, he touched his lips to her temple, as if sealing the prayer with a kiss.

The first rays of daylight now spilled over the windowsill, flooding the room with a deep purple hue. By the time he woke her for the next examination of her eyes, the sun would have crested the horizon. And because she’d always been an early riser, there’d be no more shushing her, no kissing her closed eyes to convince her to go back to sleep once she saw the bright light of day, as he’d done after every other time he’d checked her out.

Drew hoped his heart, thumping hard against his spine and onto the mattress, wouldn’t wake her before the daylight had a chance to. He willed it to stop pounding, but it was no use. Much as he wanted to see her open those big beautiful eyes of hers, he wished she would stay this way forever—peaceful and quiet and wrapped in the arms of his love.

Because when she woke up, would she have her memory back? Would she realize he’d taken advantage of her vulnerability?

“Good morning, handsome.” Gabrielle ran her fingers through his hair. “Did you sleep well?”

Relief coursed through him; for the time being, it seemed, she hadn’t remembered.

Drew gave a shaky nod. “I slept fine.”

Grinning, she gave his chest a playful slap. “Fibber. You didn’t sleep a wink, I’ll bet, what with your insistence on subjecting me to hourly torture sessions.” She snickered. “Now I know why detectives in all the movies use that bare lightbulb when they’re interrogating bad guys.”

Chuckling, he shook his head. “It was for your own good.”

She combed her fingernails through his chest hair. “So what’s the diagnosis, Doc? Did I pass muster?”

He tried to ignore the hunger her delicate touch aroused. “You’re mixing your variables, but yes, you seem okay to me.”

“Metaphors,” she said, kissing his throat, “not variables.”

His brow crinkled. How did she expect him to think, let alone talk sense, when her fingertips continued drawing little circles on his chest? “Meta—”

She kissed him full on the lips, then said, “If I have to choose between a guy who knows the difference between variables and metaphors…” Gabrielle pressed as close as her satiny nightgown would allow and, with her lips lightly touching his, said on the heels of a raspy sigh, “Let’s just say I choose you, hands down.”

If she didn’t quit it, she’d get another dose of last night, right now.

No, he couldn’t let that happen. It wasn’t fair to Gabrielle—not in her condition, not under these tenuous circumstances.

“Do you have any baby names in mind?”

He swallowed. “Baby names?” Drew took a deep breath, because if anyone had asked him to describe what a woman’s voice might sound like when she asked a question like that, he’d have said it would come off as cheery, lighthearted—a little giggly, even. But seductive? Sultry? He’d never have guessed that in a million years, and yet passionate was precisely the way his wife’s voice sounded now.

What’s a man to do with a li’l gal like this? he asked himself. Dear God, tell me, what’s a man to do?

The answer came sandwiched between her lingering, breathy sigh and the kiss she placed—of all places—on the tip of his nose. Love her, said a voice from deep inside his heart. Just love her.

And so he did exactly that.

“Drew, do we have company?”

He finished buttoning his shirt as he walked toward the window. Standing beside her, he followed her gaze to the driveway below. “No. Why?”

Gabrielle pointed. “Whose little red sports car is that?”

Both brows drew together as he studied her profile. And then it dawned on him: he hadn’t bought her the car until a week before she’d left, and if she didn’t remember leaving, then she didn’t remember how all-fired mad she’d been about that car.

Should he tell her the truth? No, Doc Parker had made it perfectly clear: “Keep her as quiet and calm as possible. Don’t let her do anything that might cause another blow to the temple. Don’t even let her rattle her brain by jostling her head.”

Drew didn’t want to talk about that car. Fact was, he’d come to hate the sight of it, crunching up the gravel drive every Saturday morning as she headed in for her weekly ride with Triumph. In his mind, the vehicle was the beginning of the end of them. If he told her it was her car down there, the knowledge might jog her memory, start a whole domino series of memories toppling—if remembering now made her half as upset as she’d been on the night she’d left.

“Lie, steal and cheat if you have to,” the old doctor had insisted. “Do whatever it takes to keep that girl calm.”

The possibility of causing further damage to his delicate, defenseless wife made Drew’s heart ache. She looked so beautiful, standing there with the morning light gleaming in her hair, her narrow shoulders wrapped in a pink robe that matched her satiny nightgown. He was about to tell her so, when she faced him and smiled the way she had as they stood at the altar, hand in hand, ready to exchange wedding vows.

“Well?”

Without thinking, he reached out and wrapped a lock of her hair around his forefinger. “Well…what?”

Giggling, Gabrielle gave him a good-natured poke in the ribs. “The car, silly. Whose is it?”

Drew’s cheeks felt hot, because he took pride in the fact that he could count on one hand the number of times he’d deliberately lied in his lifetime. But what choice did he have? If a lie would keep her calm…

“It’s, uh, it belongs to a guy.”

“A guy? What guy?”

“Somebody, uh, someone in town. He, um, he asked if I’d take a look under the hood and—”

She threw herself into his arms, gave him a good long squeeze. “It’s your own fault, you know.”

With his chin resting atop her head, he prayed, Don’t let her remember, Lord. Because if she remembered, she’d leave him. And this time, it might be for good. It hadn’t been easy, going on after she slammed out of his life. But he’d plodded along, hoping that God would answer his only prayer: Bring her home. Just bring her home.

After last night, after this morning, he didn’t think he could pretend the past hadn’t happened. Didn’t know if he had the strength to try.

Reminded again of the selfishness of his prayer, Drew closed his eyes in shame and revised his heavenly plea. Don’t let her remember…at least not yet.

He was as afraid of the answer as he was of the question, but Drew asked it anyway. “What’s my fault?”

With a tilt of her head and a saucy grin, she said, “If you hadn’t developed this—this reputation for being so good with motors, people wouldn’t always be asking you to fix their tractors and their cars and their lawn mowers.” She squeezed him again. “But your helpful nature is just one of the reasons I love you.”

She’d likely said “I love you” a hundred times since he found her standing at the stove yesterday afternoon. How many more times would she say it before everything came back to her?

“Has he been here before?”

“No. Why?”

She shrugged. “Because that car looks…familiar.”

Drew swallowed, hard.

“When will he be picking it up?”

Lost in the depths of crystal-gray, long-lashed eyes, Drew’s mind swam with memories of his own. Gabrielle had told him all about her gypsy-like past, how painful it had been, trying to fit in every time her father plunked her down in a new town; how, just when she’d started feeling like a place could be home, he’d up and move the little family again.