Cade dropped his hands and stepped away.
On reflex, Sara said, “You weren’t interrupting anything, Virgil.”
“That a fact?” Virgil said skeptically.
“It is,” Cade answered for her. “Sara fell off the fence into a drift, and I was helpin’ her get dusted off.”
His face had flushed an even deeper red, but he met his ranch hand’s eyes steadily, as if daring Virgil to challenge him.
Fingers shoved mightily into his front jeans pockets, the hand looked not in the least convinced, but he didn’t contradict Cade, either.
Shame, insidious and devouring, skulked through her. Oh, was Cade right? Because right or wrong, this certainly couldn’t continue—she couldn’t deceive good-hearted, honest men like Virgil, and she couldn’t ask Cade to.
Most of all, neither of them could deceive Loren. It would eat them both alive, but most of all Cade. She couldn’t do that to him, either.
No, she’d never be able to deny the bond between herself and Cade, but he was right in that it could go nowhere. Not as long as she was married to his brother. And she was married to him, no matter what she felt or didn’t feel for Loren.
Oh, could fate be so perverse, she wondered bitterly, as to have given her this kind of undeniable love for Cade, only to make her forever deny it?
It wasn’t fair! Would she have to let Cade go—too?
Her breath abruptly left her as her mind started to go into a spontaneous spin. She didn’t know if she could. Not Cade. But she had to, if she truly wanted what was best for him. And she did, more than anything.
Let him go. Just let him go. You’ve got to. Yet the very suggestion that she might put her on shaky ground, so that she felt herself slipping into despair again, into that place in her mind that was foggy and murky and muddy and oh, so terribly frightening.
Real denial rose up in her. No! She wouldn’t let it happen.
Then you’ll lose him for sure....
The strength of that inescapable truth tugged her inexorably down into a whirling, swirling tidal pool—
Then she felt Cade’s hand gripping her elbow, bringing her back, supporting her yet again. Or perhaps sending her a warning.
For as her vision cleared, she saw what he must have: the real portent, which was framed in Virgil’s expression and confirmed with his next words. “I thought it best to come find you straightaway,” he said.
Sara’s hand flew to her throat as all air definitely left her lungs. “Oh, is it the baby?”
“The babe’s fine,” Virgil assured her gruffly. “No, it’s the phone call you’ve been waiting for.”
It wasn’t clear whether the hand meant her or Cade, but it was clear who the call was about.
Their gazes collided.
“Loren,” Cade breathed.
Chapter Seven
CADE WAS OVER the fence in an instant and halfway across the corral before he remembered Sara. He came back to help her around the corral, his hand on her elbow to hurry her, but her long coat and those boots hampered her gait and slowed them both down.
It was next door to impossible for him to check his impatience—and fear.
“Virg, you’ll stable Destiny for me, won’t you?” he asked on his way by.
The hand nodded, his face as stony as Cade had ever seen it.
He flat didn’t have the courage to ask Virgil the real question on his mind, whether it was Loren calling or one of the detectives from Albuquerque with news of his brother. He tried to believe either would be better than this ceaseless not knowing that was wearing him down like sandpaper on soapstone, but the attempt was futile.
So what did he wish for? What could he wish for that didn’t betray his brother further and place the blame squarely, directly on him?
Beside him, Sara stumbled. Cade caught her before she fell, yet that didn’t prevent him from urging her on at an even faster pace. It was those stupid boots of Virg’s. He’d half a mind to burn them behind the barn first chance he got.
“Cade, wait!”
Coming up short, he glanced down at her with barely concealed frustration.
“I...need to catch my breath,” she panted, holding her side.
He’d forgotten she had given birth only a few days ago. Right now, that seemed like it had happened in the distant past.
She leaned upon his arm, and he saw only then how pale she’d become. Perspiration sheened her forehead.
What a self-absorbed jerk he was! He wasn’t the only one fighting panic. “Sara, I’m sorry.”
“Give me a minute, please. Just one minute.”
Funny she should say that. One minute. That had been all he would have asked for once—a minute on either side of Loren’s entrance into the stable to find him and Marlene in what his brother had believed to be a state of unbridled passion.
And now? What if Virgil had interrupted Sara and him a minute or so earlier, before he had known the bliss of Sara’s lips under his?
He glanced down at her, and found she stared up at him with those bluest of blue eyes. Even clouded with worry, they reminded him of stars—star sapphires. He’d seen that kind of stone once, and the name had put him in mind then, as it did now looking at Sara, of someone having stolen them from the sky.
No, he couldn’t do it. Right or wrong, he couldn’t go back to not knowing that singular pleasure of holding Sara in his arms, even if it haunted him for the rest of his life. Which he was betting it would.
“Ready?” he said, not ungently.
She nodded, straightening. “Yes.”
He took her elbow again, this time walking at a slower pace. Finally, they reached the back door. The warmth of the house hit him like a furnace as he entered, Sara close behind him, but he couldn’t be bothered to stop and remove boots or coat or hat. Cade strode straight to the phone in the hallway and picked up the receiver, his hand shaking.
“Hello?”
“Cade? Is that you?”
He sagged against the wall as pure relief rocked through him, and he was thankful for that, if nothing else. “Loren. Yes, it’s me. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, just fine.”
He sounded fine. His voice cracking, Cade said, “We were sure worried about you.”
“Sorry about that. Believe me, it was no fun on this end, either. Been holed up in an airport in Cancun for the past few days trying to get a flight or even a phone call out. That storm system took out electricity in every town on the Mexican coast, is what we were told. But we’re doin’ great now that we’re back in the good ol’ U.S. of A. The big question is, how’s Sara?”
Cade’s gaze shot to hers as she stood beside him, herself still in her outdoor clothes and snow melting in her hair. “She’s fine, too. So—so’s the baby.”
“Yeah, we got your message soon as we got in.” That was the second time Loren had referred to “we.” Had he been traveling with coworkers on business? To Cancun?
And Loren continued to do it as he said, “Sorry we weren’t here to get it in person. I take it you got my letter?”
“Y-yes, I did.” Feeling like he’d die of heatstroke in the next second, Cade unbuttoned his coat one-handedly and shucked it, tossing it over the stair railing. “And your note, sending Sara to me—to here.”
“I’m glad I thought to do that. Decided not to try to outrun a blizzard, did she?”
“Uh, yeah.” He realized Loren might want to hear the story from his wife and turned, about to offer the receiver to Sara, only to find she had disappeared. Where did she go? He’d have thought she’d be frantic to talk to her beloved husband.
Except Sara didn’t feel that way about Loren.
In any case, it was apparent his brother had no idea she was even there on the ranch as he went on.
“I hope she didn’t mind having her baby born at Sagebrush’s small-town clinic instead of a proper hospital. Where’s Doc been putting her up?”
Cade took a deep breath and decided to just say it. “Loren, the baby was born here. And Doc wasn’t able to make it, on account of the blizzard.” He did hesitate over the last piece of information. “I had to deliver the baby myself.”
It was almost as if Loren had hung up, the ensuing silence at the other end of the line was so complete, and in an instant Cade was back to being the brother with less experience, less natural-born instinct when it came to knowing how to handle a sticky situation, be it with a cow or a woman.
Then Loren exclaimed, “Cade, how did you do it? I mean, the baby wasn’t due for another six weeks. Even thinkin’ Doc was doin’ the honors, it gave us both shivers.”
Who was this “we” he kept talking about? Sara and him? But Sara was here!
Or at least she had been. Where had she disappeared to? he wondered, his confusion growing, along with that sense of alarm he’d encountered the first time he’d laid eyes on her.
“But Doc Barclay said the baby was full-term, or close to it,” Cade said distractedly, stretching the telephone cord to try to see into the living room.
“Really?” Again there was a silence on the other end of the line, and it became apparent to Cade this time that Loren had muffled the receiver and seemed to be talking to someone in the room with him. “Well, that’s sure strange. Her doctor in Oklahoma City seemed pretty sure she wasn’t due for another month and a half.”
His confusion only compounded. “Sara’s doctor was in Oklahoma City—not Albuquerque?”
“Sure, although we’d already made plans to line her up with a good doctor here as soon as she arrived. Believe me, Cade, I’d never have let her try to make a trip, even if it was only a ten-hour one, so close to her due date if I’d known. How in the world could things have gone so confoundedly wrong?”
Wrong...wrong...wrong... The word echoed in Cade’s head, and he slumped against the wall, thumb and forefinger pressing into his eye sockets, as the weight of his sentence sounded as deeply within him. He should have known he wasn’t to get off so easily. Not that Loren knew what had transpired between him and Sara—for Cade vowed then and there that he would never know—only that he would have to find some way to live with the knowledge of what he had done.
And that was fall in love with his brother’s wife. He may be able to deny it to Sara, but he was no longer able to deny it to himself.
“Aw, what am I sayin’, ’cause they didn’t, did they?”
Cade shook his head, still bent against his hand. “What?”
“Things didn’t go wrong, did they? It all ended up just fine, thanks to you, Cade.” Loren’s voice grew rough. “Really, there’s no way either Sara or I could ever thank you enough. I should’ve known, I guess. You always come through when a body needs you to, no matter what. I told Sara that, you know.”
“I—I know,” Cade said as roughly, the regret and the guilt growing apace as he wondered how he was going to be able to come through this time.
Then, something at that moment made him lift his head. Sara stood at the end of the hallway. She’d divested herself of her coat and boots, and held her dark-haired baby cradled against her. Her own dark hair, black as night, swirled around her shoulders, and with those eyes of starshine, she looked almost otherworldly. And as much out of his reach.
“I—I needed to have our baby in my arms when I first talked to him,” she said. A shaft of light reflected the gold of her wedding band as she pressed her hand to the back of her child’s head.
Reflected in her eyes were the guilt and regret that were tearing him apart. Tearing them both apart.
Yet he could see she was concerned for him, too—concerned that he also find a way within himself to set matters right with his brother and be at peace.
Strangely, he had already gotten what he needed from Loren.
“You—” He cleared his throat, full of emotion, his gaze resting on the woman who filled it so completely. “You don’t have to thank me, Loren. Just seein’ Sara and the baby safe and well—that’s all that matters.”
And with those words, Cade knew he gave in to the inevitable, accepting what had happened for what it was. Sara and the baby’s health and happiness were all that mattered, had been all that had mattered the night he’d been born. And if he’d had to give away a part of himself that he now was unable to take back, then so be it.
Besides, to try to do so would be to deny his very existence, especially when he saw Sara’s blue eyes fill with tears, making them look for sure like sapphires on the starriest of nights.
Barely realizing it, Cade wished for the impossible with the last particle of hope in his soul.
“Considering what Sara’s had to deal with in the past six months, I’m sure she feels the same,” Loren said. “She’s had kind of a rough time of it. Did she tell you what she’s been through?”
“Not exactly,” Cade hedged as Sara came toward him.
“What do you mean?” his brother asked.
“Maybe she should tell you herself,” he said, starting to hand her the phone. But she was already shaking her head, indicating that she wanted him to, which made sense, he realized. He was the one who actually “knew” Loren.
“I don’t know how to say this ’cept just to say it, Loren. Sara has amnesia.”
“Amnesia? You mean she doesn’t know who she is?”
“That’s right. It took a while for us to figure it out here, what with your letter spellin’ her name with an H on the end and leaving it off on the note you gave her with my info on it.”
“There’s no H in her— Wait a minute.” There was another muffling of the receiver before Loren came on the line again. “So was she in an accident? Is she all right?”
“’Cept for the amnesia, Doc says she’s fit as can be, so no worries so far as that goes. He did say, though, that the memory loss could be caused by her goin’ through some emotionally traumatic event that she’s had to block from her mind.”
Sara had arrived at his side, and it took everything in him not to reach out to her. He’d gotten used to touching her that quickly. “That’s why we thought something had happened to you.”
Swallowing hard, he made himself go on. “Loren, she doesn’t remember you.”
“What about Sara? Does she remember her?”
“Does she remember...who?”
Loren actually laughed. “I’m sorry, Cade. It’d help if I quit confusin’ us both. I usually call ’em by their middle names when I’m talkin’ about them in the same conversation or when they’re in the same room. I’m askin’ if Sara Jane—Sara without the H—remembers her cousin Sarah Ann—Sarah with the H. Sarah Ann McGivern. My wife.”
Every bit of blood in his body drained to his toes. Or at least it seemed that way, because he’d become light-headed of a sudden, his sight going black around the edges, so that when he stared down at Sara, all he could see was her face—that hopeful, trusting face that had never stopped, couldn’t stop, believing that all would work out in the end.
His own face must have looked a fright, for instead of him reaching out for her, Sara reached out to him, grasping his forearm as he held the phone.
“You mean my Sara...I mean, the Sara who’s here, who gave birth, isn’t your wife?” Cade asked through numb lips. “This isn’t your baby?”
At his question, Sara’s own face drained of color, her grip on his arm tightening. His free hand shot out to support her and the baby, so that they stood locked together.
“Good grief, Cade, is that what you thought?” Loren asked. “No, my wife and I have been in Mexico the past week on a delayed honeymoon before our baby is born in five months. We’d planned to be back by the time Sara Jane
had driven to Albuquerque, but a ration of bad luck and a monster weather system took care of that.”
Cade could have cared less about his brother’s travel plans right then. “So if not you, then who—who is Sara married to?”
Again silence fell on the other end of the line, this one reverberating with shock. “Of course, neither of you know.”
“Know what?” Cade almost shouted. Sara clung to him, the baby between them, and it took all of his strength to keep them both upright at this moment as he tried, once again, to alter his thinking—to alter his world—in which this woman had begun to figure so greatly. “Know what?”
“Her husband...he’s...” He cut himself off in another of those sidebars on the other end, but he was back on again within a few seconds. “Look, Cade, the news isn’t good, I’ll tell you that, but it’s not the kind of thing that should be explained over the phone, especially with Sara Jane already in some kind of shock. It’s only about five hours to your place from Albuquerque. I’m lookin’ at Sarah, and she’s as dead on her feet as I am, but neither of us is gonna rest easy until we get there. If you can stand another couple of guests, we’ll be on the road as soon as I hang up.”
Cade knew he had no choice but to answer yes. It took him three tries to get the phone back in its cradle because he was holding on to Sara and the baby with all his might.
Once he did, he wrapped his other arm around her, lending her all the support he could, gathering as much as he could from her as he tried to sort it out in his head.
Sara had a husband—a husband who was not Loren, the man she’d just claimed not to love as one. So she’d been right—they’d both been right—in their feeling that something wasn’t matching up, although in Sara’s case it was her “knowing” that she didn’t feel such love for Loren, just as she’d simply “known” he was not in trouble.
But what about Sara’s real husband? From the way Loren had made it sound, something had happened to him, but how? When? And why couldn’t Sara remember anything about him or the love they’d shared?
New Year's Baby (Harlequin Heartwarming) Page 13