New Year's Baby (Harlequin Heartwarming)

by Jodi O'Donnell

  Now, there was an avenue of thought she simply couldn’t go down. Because what hindered her progress more than anything was that, while fighting to remember Greg, she fought another battle to forget, at least for the time being, Cade. Try as she might, though, she was finding it impossibly draining to repress thoughts of him, put him out of her mind and heart so she could let another in.

  And she simply didn’t believe that any amount of time or distance in the world would make that happen. Whoever she’d been and however she felt before her amnesia, she simply wasn’t that person anymore. She couldn’t continue to look backward. She had a baby to raise and a life to live. She needed to go on. But how to convince everyone else of that? How to convince Cade?

  To her dismay, tears of frustration started in her eyes, and Sara barely managed to blink them back as she tried to turn her mind to other subjects and away from the one that inevitably led her to experience that certain hopelessness she’d been feeling more and more of late. She simply couldn’t go into this meeting looking as if she’d been crying.

  Reaching into her purse, she pulled out her compact and dropped it on the Formica tabletop with a prodigious clatter that had heads at two other tables beside her turning in curiosity. She must be even more nervous than she thought. Snatching it up, she clasped the compact in both hands. She definitely needed to get a grip on herself.

  Maybe she shouldn’t have come today. It was obvious she wasn’t ready for this kind of meeting. But if not now, then when? When might she get another chance?

  She closed her eyes, taking deep breaths to calm herself. It didn’t help. With effort, she tried to clear her mind, and suddenly she remembered Cade’s way of dealing with these things: Just forget about the past for now, set your worry about the future aside, and focus on the here and now, his voice in her head told her.

  And amazingly, she felt a small measure of peace descend over her, even as she realized it had happened when she didn’t fight thoughts of him. But then, she didn’t see how she could anymore.

  Gripping the compact firmly, Sara opened it and checked her makeup. Nothing damaged. Hopefully, the French twist she’d managed to wrestle her hair into this morning was holding. She hadn’t done anything with her hair since the baby’s birth other than pull it back in a clip. The new hairstyle was, she realized, yet another attempt to demonstrate outward change and progress.

  She tilted her head, trying to see in the mirror how her hair was holding. She almost didn’t dare touch it. Lifting the mirror, she tried for a better angle.

  Sara froze at the image in the mirror. A man sat two booths back from hers, one hand on the coffee cup before him, the index finger of his other hand pressed to the underside of his lower lip in purposeful contemplation...of her.

  Sara lowered the mirror, and as if in a trance, turned around.

  Cade didn’t move. Didn’t have to, for the bond between them was as strong and alive and intense as ever as it stretched across those fifteen feet, drawing them toward each other as surely as a magnetic field—or another, even more powerful, force of nature.

  How could she have even begun to believe she could put out of her mind those eyes like molten gold, that springy, thick chestnut hair? That mouth that last time she’d seen him had branded her.

  And those hands...

  No, she hadn’t regained her memory, but even with no clue as to what her past or future held, Sara knew, as she’d always known, this was the one man she would never, ever forget.

  Gaze never leaving hers, he rose, tossing a few bills on the table and picking up his hat before coming toward her with that ambling cowboy gait of his.

  He stopped next to her booth, looking down at her. “Sara. What a coincidence.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” Her swallow was audible, her head was tipped back at such an angle to drink in every long, lean inch of him. He wore that chocolate-brown suede jacket, the one he’d had on the day in the corral when he’d first kissed her, the same black brushed-felt Stetson in his hands. “Wh-what are you doing here?”

  “I’m passin’ through Amarillo on my way to Reno for a horse show day after tomorrow.” He gave a nod toward the bank of windows next to her. “The motel here is cheap but clean, and the owner lets me turn Destiny out in the field on the other side of the restaurant. In fact, I was just on my way out to give him a mornin’ spin around the pasture.”

  So he’d stayed here in the past when he’d been in the area. “Were you...were you going to stop by the ranch to see everyone since you were so close?” she asked.

  There was a measuring beat, then he shook his head. “No,” he said gently.

  “I see.” Sara dropped her chin, trying to submerge the hurt and succeeding only passably.

  “And you’re here because...?” Cade asked.

  She pressed her palms against her ribs under opposite arms. She was cold, all of a sudden. “I’ve got a meeting in an hour or so with an old friend of Loren’s he arranged for me to meet. As a potential client, I mean. Maybe a big one. I’d like to be working more than I am.”

  “So you’ve been able to pick up your skills again all right?”

  Sara lifted her shoulders. “Most of them. It’s been difficult, going through the projects I completed before and trying to get a sense of how or why I did something a certain way. I’ve had to move ahead, in any case,” she said, adding pointedly, “I can’t let what I don’t know keep me from using what I do.”

  His lashes flickered imperceptibly. “Well, good luck. I hope you don’t go away disappointed.”

  Oh, but I will, she thought, searching her mind frantically for a way to detain him, because that was a goodbye if she ever heard one.

  But no. “Speakin’ of the rest of the family,” Cade said abruptly, “how’s the little mite?”

  “You mean Baby Cade?” She wouldn’t shy away from using her child’s given name, even if he still couldn’t bring himself to. “I’m not one to brag, but he’s getting cuter every day.”

  He gestured toward her purse with his hat, held by its crown. “I’m guessing that means you wouldn’t be caught dead with a picture of him anywhere on you.”

  “Of course I would!” Sara said, flashing an indignant glance up at him before she caught the gleam in his eye. “Oh...you.”

  It was the same way she’d reacted when he’d teased her that very first time. She felt as flushed and flustered as then, too.

  Suddenly, Sara was almost anxious for Cade to leave, so she wouldn’t make even more of a fool of herself—over him.

  “So, can I have a look?” he asked.

  “Oh...sure.” She delved into her pocketbook as, uninvited, he took a seat across from her. She came up with the Mom’s Brag Book album she kept with her and slid it over to him.

  “That’s Baby Cade getting a bath—Sarah Ann was the one who bought him all those bath toys, not me,” she said, pointing. “At least we won’t lack for them when her baby comes along. And that’s him in the cowboy outfit Loren found I don’t know where. Isn’t it cute? It’s got a little cowboy hat and everything. There’s Loren holding him in it. He’ll make a great daddy. And there’s one of Virgil somewhere.... Wait—” She flipped a few pages forward. “There it is. The baby’s asleep on Virg’s chest. Isn’t that just the sweetest thing you’ve ever seen?”

  She glanced up to find Cade had lost his aloofness and was devouring the photos with his gaze, the expression on his face one of such acute longing and aloneness it took her breath away. How often had she felt so herself during the long winter days and nights?

  It was abundantly clear to her how much he had missed them all.

  “Cade.” She flattened her palm on the surface between them. “This is ridiculous, can’t you see that? We miss you—terribly so. All of us, Baby Cade included. O-or maybe it’s me who misses the way you had with hi
m, never doubting you had the power to soothe his fears and dry his tears, even when he was most upset.”

  He set the album aside purposefully, not looking at her. “Are you sure?”

  “Sure—about what?”

  “That it’s me you’re missin’.”

  Her mouth fell open. She snapped it shut. “Yes! Life is so short. Why should you be away from home, from the people you care for and who care for you?”

  “You think I want to be?” He looked at her then, his eyes fierce and intense. “I’m tryin’ to do what’s best for all of us—what’s best for you, Sara.”

  She sat back against the cushioned seat, her coffee cup clasped so tightly between her hands it seemed she’d break it. She stared at him, shaking her head slowly. “I—I have to be honest with you, Cade. I’m not getting any closer to regaining my memory. Your leaving doesn’t seem to have helped.”

  The sun streaming in the window cast his face half in light, half in shadow, which matched the expression on his face, one that mixed gladness with gloom.

  “So the solution is to just give up tryin’?” he asked, his voice low and intense. “’Cause that’s pretty much what would happen if I came back, and we both know it.”

  His fingers clenched into fists on the tabletop as his eyes squeezed shut in almost the same way she had sought to block certain images from her mind’s eye. “We—we just get too caught up in each other. You know that. I mean, even if the situation turned out differently in the end, I was willin’ to betray my own brother over this—this connection we have with each other.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?” Sara countered. “Cade, look at me.”

  He opened his eyes to gaze at her, looking as torn as she’d ever seen him.

  “Whatever I do know, it’s this—a connection such as we have between us, as strong as it is, it doesn’t come along every day. If it won’t be denied, maybe it’s because it can’t be.”

  “Even when it leads a man to brand his touch on a woman’s memory while supposedly in the act of helpin’ her remember another man’s claim on her?” he asked in that brutally honest way he had.

  She could only be as candid in return. “Even then, Cade. I refuse to see the love that’s grown between us as wrong,” she whispered. “I can’t.”

  “I’m not sayin’ it is,” he answered, his own voice hoarse. “But how can it be completely right until you know why you’ve lost your memory?”

  “So we both put our lives on hold while I keep up this futile trying that’s like banging my head up against a wall? I’ll lose my mind for sure, Cade!”

  His gaze was laser-sharp. “And who’s to say that’s not what’s needed to set things right at last?”

  Sara stared at him. Was he right? Did she really need to experience that unmitigated fear again in order to regain her memory? Was that the only way her buried past could be revealed to her, through a shocking, savage exhuming that would leave her just as devastated as when she’d lost it?

  Yet what she stood to lose if she didn’t—the love and respect of this good man, whom she knew waged his own internal battle for courage every day—didn’t bear contemplating.

  She must have courage, too!

  Sara lifted her chin. “If that’s the only way, then yes. And I guess it’s best to get it done with.”

  His features seemed chiseled from stone, except for his eyes, which burned as brightly as gems in the face of an idol. “So we’re right back where we were a month and a half ago,” he said, his tone steeped in finality, “and nothin’s changed.”

  She shook her head slowly, gaze never leaving his. “No, nothing’s changed.”

  He gave a nod. “Then I’ll keep headin’ on up the road for now.”

  Once he’d risen, though, setting his hat on his head, he hesitated. Then, as if he still thought better of making the gesture, Cade stuck out his hand to her.

  Sara took it, unable to even think of doing anything different, and it was as forceful and magnetic as ever, that connection between them, as the warmth of his hand crept up her arm through her very bones and straight to her heart.

  Too soon, he released her, and was gone.

  The ensuing cold enveloped her, just as it had that first night when she’d thought he meant to leave her. He hadn’t then, and in her mind she could tell herself that while he’d left now, it wouldn’t be for forever.

  Yet would they be doomed always to be separated by this one point of contention between them? In the scheme of things, it was such an absurd argument! Silly, really.

  Really. It doesn’t seem silly to me.

  Sara stiffened as a jolt of pure fear shot up her spinal cord like electricity through a live wire. No, it wasn’t silly! The matter was dead serious—almost one of life and death. And one, she knew in a flash she couldn’t let happen again.

  Sara was out of her seat in a trice and headed for the front of the restaurant, her portfolio banging painfully against her hip. She tore out the door, gaze scouring the parking lot for his dual-wheeled pickup, but there was no sign of it, or Cade.

  Where had he gone? He couldn’t leave! She wouldn’t let him, not this time, not without saying what she needed to say.

  Perhaps he’d gone back to his room. Dashing inside again, Sara very nearly attacked the desk clerk. “Cade McGivern,” she panted. “Can you tell me what room he’s in?”

  “Well, he was in room 293,” she said, riffling through a stack of receipts. “Just paid his bill, said he’d leave the key in the room since he had a few things to take care of before—”

  “Thank you!” She was already on her way out the door.

  What a sight she must be! Sara thought, her long skirt catching between her legs as she ran in the unfamiliar boots, the portfolio an albatross on her shoulder.

  At least she was able to find Room 293 with little difficulty. She pounded on the door.

  “Cade? Cade!” She had to catch her breath or she’d pass out. “Are you in there? It’s me, Sara.”

  She tried the knob and the door opened. Stumbling inside, Sara searched the room frantically, but the situation was clear: he was gone.

  She bent her head as her portfolio slid to the carpet and she pressed both hands to her mouth to stifle a sob of despair. Oh, had she blown her one and only chance at—

  Destiny. Sara’s head shot up. He’d said he was going for a ride on Destiny before loading him into the trailer.

  Sara whirled, prepared to run for her life. She came up short, however, at the sight of a man standing in the doorway, his silhouette outlined by the morning sun streaming in behind him.

  “Cade!”

  In two strides he had caught her in his arms, holding her in a crushing embrace.

  “When I went back to the restaurant you’d already left,” he whispered raggedly into her hair. “I thought you were gone for good—”

  “No, I came looking for you—”

  “—and I thought, just my luck, runnin’ into you and then missin’ by only a minute telling you how I feel—”

  “So.” Sara lifted her head, taking his face between her hands. “Is that what you believe? Was this just a coincidence today, us running into each other here?”

  “What would you call it?” he asked, low.

  “You know how I feel, Cade, and I can’t do it any longer.” She stepped away from him, and never had she seen such bleakness in a man’s eyes. But she had to be strong.

  “Meanin’?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry, Cade. I can’t keep focusing on recovering this forgotten past of mine. I can’t chase after my fate any more than you can run from yours. I won’t do it, not anymore. I won’t let what I don’t know keep me from believing in what I do. And what I believe in is this—” she gestured between them “—this bond, this force, this love
that connects us. And you said it yourself, Cade. Such love requires you to forge through the doubts and fears, not knowing the future but trusting you’ll be able to face it—together.”

  A tear fell to her cheek and she swiped it away as she would a pesky fly. She would not cry!

  “Don’t you see? It’s not about me and Greg any longer. Whatever life we had together, that’s what was. Now is our time, Cade, and nothing can change the way I feel about you—that I won’t forget you, couldn’t forget you, and would never forsake our love. And if you can’t believe that, if you can’t believe in the rightness of our love and that it’s meant to be...well, then, maybe you’re right, and i-it isn’t.”

  Another tear, another mad swipe at her eyes. “But not because of me. You’re the one who’s giving up on us, not me. Because I know I can’t change the fate I’ve been handed, and that fate is, I love you, Cade McGivern! With all my heart. If that doesn’t fit into your grand scheme of things, then that’s just too bad!”

  She’d wanted to be logical, convincing. Her words, though, were tumbling out in a hodgepodge, helped not a bit by the tears she still tried to stifle. But it was just too important to her! He was too important to her.

  “I’m not leaving—you’re not leaving,” she continued, “until we work this out, even if it takes the rest of our lives!”

  No, she wouldn’t let him go without putting up the fight of her life. But his stubbornness was legend. She could see the hard, cold determination in his eyes, and she wondered suddenly if, truly, their love wasn’t meant to be, or that it was all a delusion of hers born out of desperation not to face her past.

  Then Cade spoke.

  “So you think it’s too bad you can’t stop loving me, do you? Well, let me tell you somethin’. I can’t walk away from you either, woman, even if it’s for both our good. The short of it is, I don’t have a choice. Whatever brought us together it’s sure enough given us this chance together.”

  Pushing back the tail of his jacket, he set his hands on his hips with a short nod. “I’ve had some time to think, and you’re right. Love like that requires you to forge through the doubts and fears, not knowing the future but trusting you’ll be able to face it, together.”