And it came to him in a flash of knowledge that, at least between brothers, no amends would ever need to be made. Oh, sure, there would be explanations and apologies, maybe even a few accusing words exchanged. But where once Cade may have felt he’d have trouble if not being forgiven than in forgiving, he didn’t any more. Any lasting blame on either side, he knew now, was as water under the bridge.
And that, if nothing else, was something this whole occurrence had produced for which he’d be forever thankful.
Loren grinned, then took a step toward him. Cade found his feet would move, too, and in half a dozen strides they caught each other in a bear hug that involved much slapping of hands on backs and laughing out loud and maybe even a tear or two.
“You haven’t changed a bit,” Loren said, taking him by the shoulders and giving him a once-over. “Still look to be in that hardworkin’ cowboy form I’d thought would’ve gone to seed at least a little by now.”
Cade felt himself grinning like a fool. “Pretty amazin’, isn’t it, considerin’ mine and Virg’s steady diet of steak and biscuits.”
He looked his brother over, too, stunned into blurting out, “But you, Loren...you’ve definitely changed. A lot.”
“Blunt as ever, aren’t you, Cade? I hope I’ve at least changed for the better!”
Truth be told, he had. The once lean, lanky kid of twenty-four had filled out some, and from the looks of his hair and clothes, he’d grown even more citified. And more...sure of himself. Sure of who he was and what his purpose was in life.
And Cade could see at least part of the reason why as Loren let go of his arm and turned, beckoning behind him. “I’ve been wanting you to meet someone for a long time.”
A tall woman came shyly forward, her gloves and woolen hat held before her in her hands. She had short, red-gold hair and soft green eyes and a smile that stretched a mile wide.
Loren put his arm around her shoulders as pride fairly shone from him. “This is Sarah, my wife.”
“Cade.” Her voice was low and sweet. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
“That so?” He slanted Loren a baleful glance.
“All good,” his brother assured him on a laugh.
Feeling awkward as a duck out of water, Cade held out a hand, but Sarah would have none of it. She put her arms around him in a warm hug, kissing him on the cheek.
“Loren told me what you did for Sara and her baby,” she whispered against his ear. “I’ll never forget that for as long as I live. Never.”
Strange, he thought, that she should say almost the exact words Sara had.
“It was nothin’,” Cade mumbled, sure he was turning turkey red.
She pulled away, her green eyes filled with worry. “And I understand she’s got another challenge ahead of her.”
He nodded. “It’s not gonna be easy on her.”
She pressed her lips together, and he could tell she was trying not to cry. “At least she has that precious baby to help remind her of—”
“Hello.”
Looking beyond his shoulder, Loren’s wife gave a small gasp, her hand going to her mouth.
Cade pivoted. Sara had come out into the hallway and stood with her hand on the doorknob of hers and the baby’s bedroom as if she were of a mind to flee back inside, shut herself away physically as well as mentally. Protectiveness surged in him, and he felt for a moment he’d have done anything to spare her this trial.
He didn’t dare move, though—or hope—either way.
Then his lungs filled with relief as she dropped her hand and, squaring her shoulders, slowly approached the three people, two of them perfect strangers, who watched her from the other end of the hall.
Sarah Ann wasn’t about to let her make such a difficult journey alone. She rushed to meet her cousin, arms open, but something in Sara’s face must have stopped her from embracing her, for she came up sharp in front of the shorter woman.
“That’s right, you don’t know me.” She pressed her palm to her chest. “I’m—I’m your cousin, Sarah Ann.”
His Sara extended her hand. “I’m happy to meet you—and sorry not to know you.”
Sarah Ann gave a soft laugh that turned into a stifled sob. “Oh, you poor darling! What you’ve been through.”
Sara held her head high, and pride threatened to overflow in Cade’s chest. Maybe he’d been wrong, and she had a lot more emotional fortitude than he gave her credit for.
As for himself, though, his stomach had turned to fire.
“I don’t feel poor but very fortunate, actually,” Sara said. “I have a wonderful baby.” Her gaze touched on Loren, who stood beside Cade. “And now I have a cousin, and a cousin-in-law, I didn’t know about.”
She faced Sarah Ann stalwartly. “But I need to know now, Sarah. Who is my husband?”
Sarah Ann glanced back quickly at Loren, who gave her a nod of encouragement. “Your husband...was Greg Childress, dear.”
Hearing the name at last gave Cade a feeling of that unreality Sara must have been experiencing. Greg Childress. Sara’s husband. Her baby’s father.
Yet he could see the name still meant nothing to Sara. “Was?” she asked calmly.
“Dear, dear Sara,” her cousin murmured, her voice breaking. “Greg died in a car accident, six months ago. You’d only just learned you were going to be parents.”
So, here at last was confirmation of the terrible, horrible event that Sara hadn’t been able to live with. They’d both dreaded such, but at her cousin’s words, Cade knew he never could have imagined the kind of desolateness that eclipsed his soul at that moment.
For Sara stood as still as death itself, her eyes growing larger and rounder than he’d ever seen them, as if she’d happened upon a scene of shattering devastation. But then, such an incident truly had occurred: the utter destruction of her heart with the loss of her husband.
And Cade understood then, with completeness, that no, there was no chance, not for either of them.
Still, it took everything in him, every last particle, not to go to her, wrap her in his arms and shield her eyes—shield both their eyes—from having to confront the destruction—and the crushing aloneness.
Her cousin had no such hesitation, for welcome or not, she put her arms around the slighter woman, hugging her as if she’d never let her go.
“We wondered if you’d die, too, from grief,” she said. “I think it was only the expectation of that baby of yours that kept you hanging on.”
Chapter Eight
SARA FELT MADE of wood. Her body, enclosed in her cousin’s embrace, seemed like a column, her legs two posts of support. Even if she’d tried with all her might, she couldn’t have found it in her to return Sarah’s hug, because she didn’t think her arms would bend. Nothing would on her body. She was stiff—and lifeless. Especially her face, which seemed carved in an expressionless mask. An impermeable one, too, with nothing further being allowed to filter into her brain while she continued to fight with all her might to stay in this moment, moving neither backward nor forward. For some reason, doing so had become vital to her. Almost a matter of life and death.
At the thought, the panic and fear she’d been fighting struck again in a killer blow, nearly causing her to lose all the breath in her body, all perspective in her mind....
The next thing Sara knew, she was sitting in an armchair in the living room, a glass of water in her hands. She stared fuzzily at it, wondering where it had come from. Had she fainted?
But no—no one was acting overly concerned. Across from her on the sofa were her cousin and her husband. Loren, who had turned out to be the man in her dreams, was talking rather animatedly to her. Sarah Ann was cooing over a baby in her arms, and Sara realized with a start that it was hers.
Maybe she’d actually blanked out, a
s Dr. Barclay had said his friend had done, losing a year out of her life she never recovered memory of. The possibility that she might have done the same, even for a few moments, gave rise to another wave of panic in Sara. It was much too close to the scene on the side of the road in which she’d come to the slow realization that she didn’t know who she was or where she’d come from.
What if this time she lost her memory of her baby? Or Cade?
She couldn’t! But she seemed to be growing less and less resistant to stopping the inevitable. Less able to know which choice to grab hold of—and which to turn away from.
Yet she wasn’t alone this time. She did have her baby. And Cade. Or did she?
Frantically, Sara glanced around for the man who was her strongest link to whatever past she had right now.
Her heart settled not at all as she found him standing at the coved entrance to the living room, one shoulder against the wall, his gaze trained watchfully on her.
For that distance had returned to shadow his eyes. There were plenty of places left to sit, even with Virgil occupying the other armchair on the far side of the fireplace, but he seemed to be taking pains to keep in the background.
Yes, Cade was and would be there for her, as he said, but she realized that it could only go so far.
Because she had an identity now: Sara Jane Childress. Had a husband, Greg, whom she had apparently loved to such distraction his death had shattered both her heart and her mind.
But such a thing still seemed completely unreal, she wanted to tell him. The name meant nothing to her. At least when she’d heard Loren’s, she had felt a glimmer of recognition, however faint. With Greg, though...nothing. Nothing at all.
And what kind of woman did that make her?
Feeling as if she were still fighting her way through a fog of confusion, Sara tried to focus on what Loren was saying.
“Y’see, the plan was for me to drive to Oklahoma City and help you arrange for the movers, then drive back to Albuquerque on the twenty-seventh in time to catch the plane to Mexico with Sarah Ann here,” he said, giving his wife’s shoulders a squeeze. “Then, once you’d tied up the rest of your affairs and seen the movers off, you were going to leave from Oklahoma on New Year’s Eve Day, timing your arrival to coincide with ours back in Albuquerque.”
His handsome face, so much like Cade’s and yet completely different, clouded over with remorse. “It’s only about a ten-hour drive, easily doable in a day, and interstate the whole way. Your doctor in O.K.C. had given you the go-ahead, told us that even with some of the risks, getting you moved closer to us ASAP was gonna be the best thing for you, seeing how your emotional state was so changeable....”
He held a hand out to her in appeal. “I—I swear I thought you’d be fine, Sara.”
“Of course you did,” she murmured, ducking her head to take a sip of water, needing it running through her and reminding her to stay in the moment. “I don’t blame you or anyone else for what happened.”
“So why was she drivin’ your car?” Cade asked, his own expression unfathomable.
“Hers didn’t seem to me in the best shape for highway drivin’. It was a little compact, older model, perfectly fine for getting around in the city.” He looked across at Sara. “You told me it was yours and Greg’s second vehicle. I guess your good car was the one he’d been driving when...uh, I mean... Oh, I’m sorry, Sara.”
At his gaff, he reddened, and his wife put a hand on his knee, squeezing it in a silent sign of loyalty and understanding that made Sara feel suddenly more cold and alone than ever.
“In any case,” Sarah Ann smoothly continued for her husband, “Loren just didn’t think your car fit for you to take on a road trip. There was no time to sell it and buy another, so he decided to drive it back to New Mexico himself, and leave ours for you to drive.”
“I was also thinkin’ about the weather,” Loren added helpfully. “I mean, the real snow doesn’t usually come through the Panhandle until January or February, but obviously we can get some pretty ugly weather in these parts before that. When I think of you out on the highway and that storm rolling in...”
He ran his hand through his hair distractedly in a gesture reminiscent of Cade. “Sara, I’m sorry. I thought I’d given you some cautions and what to watch the forecast for before you took off—”
“But for some reason I took off anyway,” she finished for him, the affection she’d felt for him in her dream coming back to her, and she drew on its comfort. “Really, Loren, I don’t blame you for that, either. I—I must have had my reasons.”
Although it was anyone’s guess as to what those reasons were. She could see Loren and Sarah Ann looking at her expectantly, as if she could pull the answers out of a hat like a rabbit.
“So that’s why Sara had your car,” Cade spoke up. “And probably why I kept smelling your sandalwood cologne around her. It was about all we had to go on, figuring things out.”
Loren nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, I guess I can see how you might’ve thought Sara Jane was Sarah Ann.”
Cade scratched one cheek with a decidedly studied air. “But why wouldn’t she have any other belongings other than the overnight bag Virgil found in the trunk?” he asked. The information he was prompting Loren for occurred to her when he continued, “I mean, you’d think Sara would have been carrying a purse or billfold of some kind.”
“Oh, where’s my head?” Loren said with a snap of his fingers, turning back to Sara again. “I guess I am runnin’ on fumes. Right after I got off the phone with Cade, the owner of some little café off of I-70 called. Seems a waste removal truck was pickin’ up a Dumpster outside and they found a purse behind it with your stuff in it.”
He made a face. “I’m sorry to say the guy told me whatever cash you might’ve had was gone, I’m betting the credit cards, too. He called the number on your I.D. and got the message forwarding your calls to my number. I told him we’d try to pick it up in the next few days.”
“So my purse was stolen,” Sara said slowly, not sure what to think about discovering she’d been right in that detail, at least.
“You already remembered that happening, Sara?” her cousin asked with the same anticipation.
“No. I remembered only my purse being gone, and that it had been stolen, but not how or when.”
“But I didn’t tell you the rest of it,” Loren said excitedly, drawing her attention back to him. “The owner said he remembered a pregnant woman comin’ into the café ’round one or so New Year’s Eve Day to get some change to use the phone, but she didn’t stay to eat. He said she seemed in a real hurry, pretty agitated. Could it’ve been because you’d been mugged or held up? I mean, I know Doc said he didn’t find any evidence of head trauma, but maybe you did suffer some kind of physical blow that caused your amnesia.”
Yet again, they both looked at her expectantly, but Sara could only shake her head. “I-It could have happened something like that, but nothing makes me feel as if it did.”
“What about after that?” Loren asked. “Do you remember who you called or why?”
She shrugged helplessly, her fingers clenching around the water glass. “I wish I knew, but I don’t. As Cade said, we’ve had little to go on but a few sketchy clues here and there.”
Sara shot a confirming glance at him. But he no longer was looking at her. In fact, he seemed to be avoiding her even more completely all of a sudden.
Why? What had changed?
“Wait. I’ve got an idea.” Loren sat forward intensely. “You and Cade’ve both said you had next to nothing to go on to figure out who you were or why you’d lost your memory. So maybe what’s holding you up from remembering more is having something familiar, like the contents of your purse, to jog your memory. I mean, if your I.D. was still in it, your billfold probably is, too, which means any photos you had would b
e there. Do you know if you had any in your purse?”
“I don’t know.”
“Photos of you and Greg, I mean?”
“I don’t know!” Sara clenched the glass tighter, until she thought she’d break it or her fingers. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’ve got this hit-and-miss way of knowing some things that happened and not others. Believe me, it’s almost driven Cade crazy trying to figure out how it happened if not why—”
Sara broke off, thoughts reeling. Yes, she was doing the same thing with Loren and Sarah as she’d done with Cade, being very careful to stay away from exploring too deeply why she’d gotten amnesia in the first place.
That wasn’t her fault, though! The few times she had, she’d felt like she’d die of fear! She’d have done anything, anything not to go there.
Almost on reflex, she again sought Cade out with her gaze. He stood very still, head down and fingers tucked pensively into the front pockets of his jeans.
Sara rubbed the ache that had come to her head, feeling suddenly as if she’d keel over from weariness in the next second. “I’m sorry, but would you mind if I took the baby and went to bed? I—I’m very tired, all of the sudden.”
“No, not at all!” Sarah Ann said quickly, gathering the infant to her as she came to her feet, her husband following suit. “We’re sorry for keeping you up so late.”
She burbled nonsense to Baby Cade right up to the moment she turned him over to Sara, who took him with a kind of desperate relief, holding on to him for dear life.
“Th-there’s just so much to think about, so much to absorb, you see,” she stammered in weak explanation. “All I want right now is to put it away for a while, put it out of my mind—”
She broke off, heartsick.
She saw a silent message pass between her cousin and Loren. “Now that we’re here,” Sarah Ann said, “we’ll have plenty of opportunities to piece together the chain of events.”
New Year's Baby (Harlequin Heartwarming) Page 15