New Year's Baby (Harlequin Heartwarming)

by Jodi O'Donnell

  Cade stood at the window over the sink, each hand crammed under the opposite arm as he stared out into the darkness beyond, much as she’d been doing. As if he were searching it for answers, too.

  Or for someone—such as Loren.

  “Couldn’t sleep?” she asked.

  He pivoted, his stance immediately guarded. It obviously wasn’t from surprise. She hadn’t bothered with being quiet.

  “I didn’t mean to disturb you,” he said impassively.

  “You didn’t. I’ve been wide-awake for hours.”

  There was a little more emotion in his voice as he asked, “Is it the new room?”

  “No. It’s very nice. Very convenient, like you said.” She spread her arms. “Witness my presence here right now.”

  He shrugged in depreciation as he had when Doc had given him credit for saving her child.

  She didn’t want to let this opportunity go by to do the same. “I meant to thank you, yet again, for all the special considerations and accommodations you’ve made for Baby Cade, and me.”

  “It’s nothin’. Although it pretty much breaks every rule of the house, givin’ you and the little mite such treatment.”

  He had yet to call the baby by the name she’d given it, she noticed. “Oh, and what are the house rules?”

  “Strictly serve yourself.” He gave a nod in three different directions. “Beans on the stove, drinks in the fridge, library in the john.”

  She had to laugh. He had a way of putting things that delighted her. Almost as much as the definite thaw in the atmosphere, which heartened her even more.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t to last.

  “Mind if I have a seat?” she asked. “I don’t feel like sleeping.”

  His eyebrows lowered. “Sara, you need your rest.”

  “It seems all I’ve done the past few days is rest,” she answered tartly, moving deliberately to the square Formica-topped table in the middle of the room and taking a chair. “If it weren’t for this frigid winter weather, I’d go outside for a little air right now.”

  “If it weren’t for the frigid winter weather,” Cade commented, as cool as ever, “you wouldn’t even be here right now.”

  So. She had her answer. She concentrated on pleating one end of the belt on her robe. “That reminds me. I was watching the news show some footage of the blizzard. It’s been declared one of the worst to hit the area in a decade.”

  Cade gave a mirthless chuckle. “This storm was nothing but wild and woolly Panhandle weather as usual. Why those media folk’ve got to make stuff out worse than it is, is beyond me.”

  “As I understood from the reports, people along the Gulf have had even worse problems with the weather front as it moved south. Apparently the flooding was pretty bad in Houston. People were stuck on their rooftops waiting to be evacuated.”

  “It’s never taken more than a little bit of weather to stop traffic in Houston,” he said. “Up here, life goes on.”

  Sara left off toying with her belt. “I’m only trying to provide you with some reassurance that this weather front really has been instrumental in keeping you from doing much to locate Loren.”

  “I appreciate the thought, but I can make my own assumptions.” He scoured his hand over that springy chestnut-brown hair, making it stand up even more. “Although I do keep wonderin’ how I could’ve waited to contact the police.”

  On reflex, Sara reached her hand across the table toward him. “Cade, really. You’ve got to stop blaming yourself.”

  He eyed her hand where it lay, palm up, as if it were a live wire. “Well, I gotta blame someone for not takin’ immediate action,” he said with the merest hint of his old sarcasm, which she had begun to hate. It usually meant he was withdrawing for good, as he’d done earlier today—when she’d challenged him.

  It hit her then. “You blame me, don’t you?” Sara said, astounded and furious at once. Well, her mind may not be returning right away, but she most definitely was getting back some of her spirit. “Don’t you?”

  True to form, his whole being turned remote. She thought he’d leave—but no, he simply said stubbornly, “Somethin’ doesn’t add up, that’s all. I’m not sayin’ it’s your doing. Just...something’s not right.”

  Once more he returned his vigil out the window as if it contained a crystal ball that would provide him the answers he sought—unless he wasn’t looking for answers there so much as avoiding her.

  Oh, she knew he didn’t want to be here with her! It was practically in his every glance and movement. That awful, debilitating panic expanded in her like a balloon filled to its bursting point, and Sara sought to control it in the first way she could think of.

  “I’ve remembered more about your brother,” she blurted.

  That brought him around, although warily as ever. He propped the heels of his hands on the counter in back of him, and with only the light over the stove to provide illumination, the pose accentuated every muscle in his chest and stomach. “What do you know?”

  Sara buried her hands in her deep pockets so he wouldn’t see them tense into fists as she negotiated the tightrope walk of revealing enough but not too much to him. “Like I said, I don’t know anything for certain—only that in the images I’ve seen of Loren, never is he in trouble or even distressed. He’s a little concerned is all. That’s why he wrote your name and address on that scrap of paper—he knew you were the one to send me to if I needed someone in his absence. And since that thought was virtually the only one I held on to from the past, I’ve got to believe such images are real and that Loren’s all right.”

  Cade’s gaze was probing, and it was all she could do not to drop her own to conceal her real thoughts from him. No, the danger that continued to hover in the back of her mind wasn’t coming from Loren.

  Finally he drawled, “You’ll still forgive me if I don’t take these ‘images’ you’ve seen on faith and keep doing some checkin’ around myself.”

  “Fine!” Sara sat back in her chair in exasperation. “So what have you found out about Loren?” she challenged.

  His mouth thinned. “Not much, that’s for sure.”

  He shoved off from the counter, taking a step toward the table, seemed to rethink his direction, then pivoted and reached into a cupboard for a glass. “I talked to a detective in the missin’ persons’ division over in Albuquerque. He said normally they don’t take any action to look for someone till they’ve been gone three days. I told him I didn’t know but that Loren had been missing that long or longer. I gave him the gist of what you knew, what I knew, about what might have happened. So he’s going to send some officers over to the address I gave him and have a look around, talk to the neighbors.”

  He paused at the sink, one hand on the faucet as he stared yet again out into the vast darkness. “Who knows but that Loren’s there and just...not able to come to the phone.”

  “Cade, honestly,” Sara said. “Let’s try not to borrow worry.”

  “I told you, that doesn’t work for me.” He cranked hard on the faucet. “I do have a past with Loren I remember.”

  Water gushed into the glass and spilled over. He lifted it, dripping, and drank deeply, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, gaze ever trained on that darkness beyond the window he seemed determined to own. “I wouldn’t be doin’ right by him not to use it to try and come up with some whys and wherefores,” he said, “so don’t expect me to.”

  “I don’t expect you to!” Sara contradicted in pure frustration, hands clenching harder within the pockets of her robe, her nails biting into her palms. She wished he’d quit looking out that window and turn around and look at her! She needed him to, actually, and soon, although she couldn’t have said why.

  “Cade.” She hoped her voice didn’t sound as desperate to him as it did to her. “I’m worried
about Loren, too, believe it or not. But remember what you said to me when Baby Cade was taking so long to be born? About letting go of the past for the time being, try not to borrow trouble by worrying about the future, and put our efforts into the here and now? I don’t know what’s happened to Loren, but whatever has happened has. It’s done. So let’s just do what we can, and the real story is simply going to unfold as it unfolds.”

  He lifted one shoulder and let it fall. “Sorry, Sara. I can’t do what you seem to be able to do and take it as it comes, and trust that it’ll all come out right in the wash.”

  “Really, Cade, this is such a silly argument.”

  “Really. Well, it doesn’t seem silly to me.”

  Her fists flew out of her pockets and slammed on the table. “What a stubborn man you are!”

  “Just like my brother before me, which, of course, you will have forgotten.”

  Sara glared at that strong, stalwart, stubborn back of his. He may doubt the accuracy of her dreams, but she knew without a doubt she’d been experiencing a scene straight out of her past when the man who must be Loren had told her how his brother never gave up, even when sure defeat stared him in the eye.

  Or was that simply her own projection of what she felt about Cade? Because of its own accord her gaze drifted to those wide, sturdy shoulders, and she was taken back to the night of her son’s birth. She’d seen in Cade’s eyes then how much he had not wanted her there, did not want this responsibility thrust upon him—and yet he’d more than risen to the occasion; he’d very likely saved Baby Cade’s—and her—life. And it had seemed to happen through sheer force of his will.

  And now, through that same will, he seemed equally determined to deny that force.

  Was that what Cade had meant today when he’d said something about controlling what happened to us, good or bad? Was it really possible to bend fate to one’s will?

  It seemed utterly impossible! No one could change what was meant to be any more than they could change what had already happened!

  Oh, but you can sure try, can’t you?

  Sara stood abruptly, knocking the chair over behind her. Cade whirled at the sound.

  “Sara, what is it?”

  She felt clammy, as if the ghost of something—or someone—had passed through her. “I don’t know. I just... Oh, Cade, what’s going on with me?”

  She peered at him as if through a tunnel, which made her feel suddenly claustrophobic. “I mean, something does tell me there’s nothing wrong with Loren, but then...there’s another part of me that’s saying there is something terribly wrong! Before, I thought it was the baby, but he’s fine, the doctor says he’s fine. It’s me who’s not fine!”

  As before, that clawing, gnawing fear took hold of her and, leaning her hands on the table as she squeezed her eyes shut, Sara fought it off as best she could. But it was an impossible task—how could she fight what was inside her, a part of her? How could she fight herself? Why should she have to?

  And oh, she felt so alone! She had wanted to avoid going to this place in her mind tonight, but somehow it had happened.

  “Sara. Sara.” Dizzily, she strained to find Cade at the end of that tunnel. She was shaking all over, teeth chattering. If only he would reach out to her, touch her, as he had before, then she knew she’d be all right. In the past few days, though—even in the past few hours—something had changed in Cade. He wouldn’t touch her again, she knew of a sudden, and it was because of that strength of will of his, so strong it had seemed the only force strong enough on earth to save her baby. To save her.

  She simply couldn’t live without him!

  The darkness sucked her down deeper, a pit of pure terror and chaos, and still she stood alone, fought it alone, eyes wide-open but unable to see, mouth agape with no sound, no voice, no hope...

  And then strong hands were upon her, gripping her by her upper arms, holding her up, supporting her, as Cade called her name. Yes, he was here for her, as he said he’d be. Nothing had changed. He wouldn’t let her fall backward into that bottomless pit, not Cade.

  Yet when her vision had cleared infinitesimally, she saw not that will of iron in Cade’s ravaged features, but a man desperately torn—all because of her.

  It was wrong, what she wanted from him, for it was more than just his support. More than just a touch. Still it seemed beyond her power not to want that precious connection with him again, even if it did tear them both apart.

  No, she couldn’t go to that place in her mind, but what sort of impasse waited for her back there that she’d run from, as if for her life, rather than face it?

  And what kind of woman did that make her?

  She covered her face with her hands. “Oh, Cade.”

  “Here, sit back down while I get you some water.”

  He stooped to right her chair and she slumped into it, her fingers twining and untwining on the tabletop, her thoughts still awhirl and heart aching. Then he was there again, pressing a glass into her hands. She gulped down half the water in two swallows.

  It helped. She became aware of Cade crouching at her side, concern written into every line of his face.

  “I didn’t tell you, but I called Loren’s number again,” he said, low. “All I got was the answering machine, but I let him know that you and the baby are safe and well and taken care of.” He swallowed with difficulty. “I—I didn’t mention your amnesia yet. I didn’t want him to worry...you know, if it still matters—”

  He broke off, obviously trying to give her the assurances she needed, the assurances they both needed, that they were doing the most that they could be expected to at this moment for her husband, his brother.

  Heart full to bursting, Sara choked out, “It does matter, Cade...to me.”

  Their gazes connected as the moment between them held and lingered. Oh, how badly she wanted to reach out and make the bond burgeoning between them real! She knew she dare not, for with that gesture she’d lose what he had given to her that first night, and had renewed just now, that gift of trust in a force that she’d felt forsaken by in her slumbering memory.

  He was right, though, in that they couldn’t remain in that place forever. The past they shared connected them even more strongly than the present. And so it stood to reason that until she remembered the past they hadn’t shared—the past she’d forgotten—it would forever keep them apart.

  And she’d lose Cade instead, not through the vagaries of her memory, but because she had not shown the same strength of mind as he’d shown her.

  She owed him that much.

  “Would you...would you tell me about Loren, Cade?” Sara made herself ask before she lost her courage.

  His expression became immediately skeptical. “Why?”

  “I was talking to Dr. Barclay before he left, and he said something called reality orientation might help me to get my memory back, such as hearing familiar music or looking at photos of Loren, th-that kind of thing.”

  “But are you sure you want to stir yourself up even more than you are already?”

  “Not at all.” She knotted her fingers together to keep them from trembling. “I’m simply trying to do the right thing here, too,” she whispered.

  He cleared his throat, lashes dropping slightly. “I don’t have any photos of Loren, is all.”

  “You have memories of him, though.”

  “That I do.” He shifted on his haunches. “All right.” He glanced around, his gaze lighting on the deck of cards on the table Virgil had gotten out earlier to pass the time by teaching her to play cards.

  Cade picked them up as he took the chair opposite hers. “How about a game of cards while we talk?”

  “Now?” she asked, surprised. “I know Virgil said even if I learned how to play from Loren, I’d need to keep my skills sharp if I was going to survive in this
family. But just how much do you McGiverns play?”

  “Right about this time of winter when there’s not much to do? It’s an ongoing thing.” He shuffled expertly. “And Virg’s right. You really do need to sharpen your game if you’re gonna survive in this family. We McGiverns—of which you’re one—are a competitive lot. Granddad was the best. Used to pop out his glass eye and polish it on his sleeve, all the while with a face blank as a stone wall. Tell me that didn’t ruin your concentration.”

  Sara dubiously watched as with one hand he cut the cards, then cut them again.

  “Look, Sara,” he continued, obviously interpreting her look, “it just seems to me that if we’re gonna be diggin’ into some of the past about Loren, and doin’ so in a frontal attack tends to make you as agitated as a short dog in long grass, then having the side distraction of a card game might occupy enough of your mind to keep you from feelin’ quite so...desperate. You know?”

  When still she hesitated, he slid the cards across the table toward her, his hand remaining atop them. “You can deal first. I even shuffled for you.”

  She could see what he meant. Such a tactic would also turn the pressure down between them, too.

  She tried to remember what the ranch hand had taught her. “All I know how to play is five card draw.”

  Rather clumsily, she dealt the cards. “So are you as tough a competitor as your grandfather?” she asked.

  “As far as the kind of sport I am, I guess I’d have to say fair to middlin’. Not a sore loser, but if I win, I’ll say it myself—I have a bad tendency to gloat. It’s not a pretty sight.”

  Sara couldn’t imagine it as he sat across from her unshaven and with his hair tousled. He looked as if he’d just come from bed, which he had.

  Maybe this exercise was doomed from the start.

  “I really do want to hear about Loren,” she reminded him as much as herself.

  “You got it,” he said firmly.

  She picked her cards up. It was all she could do to keep a bland face. She had two tens, two fives and a three. If she discarded the three, all she needed was a ten or five to make a full house, if she remembered her hands right. If she didn’t get any of those cards, though, she still had two pair, which was a pretty good hand.