Not that he didn’t understand the instinct to circle the wagons, to huddle together in a vigil after last night’s shocking news from Detective Gordon. But there was no telling when the police would find out anything more.
Bella. Dear sweet heaven, Bella. Every time he’d closed his eyes, terrifying images of her possible fate seared his eyeballs.
He’d focused instead on putting the house in order as best he could after the police had left. To their credit, the search had been less invasive than he supposed it could have been.
But he felt violated. The nest Bella had created, the house that had been their sanctuary, had been breached by strangers. He didn’t know how to make things feel safe again.
Suddenly, footsteps pounded on the stairs. “Daddy, did you catch the news this morning?” Cele burst into the kitchen. “Quick, turn on the TV—” She switched on the little set Bella had sometimes tuned in while she was cooking.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “Is there something—”
Cele frantically punched buttons on the remote. “Look—they’re showing Mama’s picture. Someone sent it to CNN.”
James moved toward the television set as if in a dream. “Bella,” he murmured, and held out his hand as if he could touch her. “Oh, baby, what happened to you?”
Just then, his phone signaled. James kept his eyes on the screen as he answered it. “Hello?”
“Mr. Parker, it’s Detective Gordon. Your wife’s been found.”
“I’m watching her picture on the screen. I’ve never seen this photo before. Where is she?” he asked Gordon.
“Colorado.”
“Colorado?” he echoed. “Where?”
The detective’s voice was grim. “No one knows.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re checking on it now. The situation is…unusual.”
“But she’s alive, right? Is she okay?”
“At this point, Mr. Parker, you know as much as I do. I’ll get back to you when I have more.” Then the man was gone, leaving James with an empty phone.
And too many questions.
But one course of action he could definitely pursue. “I’m calling your brother,” he said as he gathered a trembling Cele into his arms.
Three hours after Bella’s picture had appeared on CNN, James stood in the kitchen that once was the heart of their home, willing the phone to ring. Palms spread on the tile counter Bella had insisted on learning to lay herself, he curled his fingers, one by one.
“Dad?” His son, Cameron, appeared in the doorway, lanky and as tall as James himself. His mixed-race heritage, African-American and Vietnamese, proclaimed itself in the slant of his near-black eyes, the caramel skin. “Have you talked to Mom yet? Is she okay?”
How could he have for one moment believed that you could love an adopted child less than one of your flesh? Cam was attempting to be cool and grown-up but vulnerability shadowed every line of his frame. His mother, no matter that they shared no genes—his mother was gone, and he needed her here, every bit as much as his diminutive sister, jiggling an impatient foot, did.
Just as James himself. “I’m waiting for a call back.”
Cele leaped to her feet, all coiled fury. “The man who sent in the photo to CNN won’t tell anyone where she is,” she said to her brother.
Cam went soldier-straight. “Has he kidnapped her?” He glanced around. “Where are the cops? Shouldn’t the FBI be here?” His outrage and confusion were palpable.
“Slow down, both of you.” His father-as-commander voice, the one he hadn’t had much use for since Cam graduated from high school. “She’s definitely in Colorado, and Detective Gordon connected me with the local sheriff, who says she’s perfectly safe, that he’s been trying to find out her identity from the beginning, and this is merely a precaution to weed out the kooks. We have to be patient.” The lecture was as much for himself as for them.
“We’re her family. She doesn’t have to be protected from us.”
“Yeah,” Cele said grimly. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” For a second, his eldest was a scared kid.
James swung between his own fury and desperation, between the craving to be alone before he put a fist through a wall and the responsibility he hadn’t been required to wield much lately, to take care of his children.
The father won, if barely. “The sheriff says the man is her doctor and that he needs to talk to me first.”
“Why?” Cele was up and pacing again. “What’s wrong?”
His phone sounded unnaturally loud. Cam clutched it for a second as though he might answer, then handed it to James.
James only just resisted the urge to move somewhere private. “James Parker,” he answered.
“This is Dr. Sam Lincoln. Jane is safe,” an even baritone voice said.
Jane. “That’s not her name.”
“I know—sorry. I’m used to calling her that. The sheriff did tell me, though, that her name is Isabella.”
“Why didn’t she tell you herself? What’s wrong? Let me talk to her.”
“Not until I’m satisfied that you’re really her husband. That you won’t harm her.”
“Harm her? Are you serious? You have no authority to keep my wife from me.”
“Calm down, Mr. Parker. You don’t understand what’s going on.”
“Then you start explaining.”
“Mr. Parker, I understand your anxiety, so I’ll overlook your attitude. For now.”
This man was the key to finding her, so however much his proprietary tone grated on him, James had to get a grip on himself. “What can you tell me about her condition?” Cam and Cele both moved closer.
“She was found on the side of a road, bleeding and unconscious. She had no identification with her.”
“But she’s conscious now?”
“Yes. And healing well, for the most part.”
“I need to see her. Our children do, as well.”
“So you have children. Any of them with dark hair?”
“Our son. Why?” He could feel Cam and Cele’s frustration at hearing only one side of the conversation.
“Are they adopted?”
“What does it matter? And why haven’t you asked Bella that? You said she came out of the coma.” He heard Cele’s gasp.
“She did. And I apologize. I’m new at this screener duty.” Dr. Lincoln paused. “Her physical condition is improving every day. She’s pretty much back to normal except for some lingering soreness.”
“But?”
“She has retrograde amnesia.”
“Amnesia.” Beside him erupted questions. He held up one hand for silence as he struggled to absorb the idea. She hadn’t called or returned home because she couldn’t. His shoulders sagged in relief. “Explain that, exactly.”
“Your wife, if she is your wife, emerged from the coma with no memory of her past.”
“She’s mine. I can prove it. Do you have e-mail?”
“No. Tell me something that isn’t in the photo I took.”
James thought hard. She had a birthmark her children didn’t know about. She wasn’t a prude, but he wasn’t sure she would be comfortable with them present as he described it. “She has funny second toes. Longer than the big toe.”
“Lots of people do.”
“She’s five-foot-nine. Curvy.” Voluptuous, really, but he was uncomfortable talking about her figure with this man. “Her voice is sexy as hell.” Cele’s eyes popped wide, and Cam’s worried expression eased into a grin.
“Any birthmarks?”
You bastard. “Kids, go in the other room. Just for a minute.” They grudgingly complied. “You know she does, and I hate like hell that you’ve looked.”
“I’m her doctor. It’s no big deal.” But something in his tone had James on edge. “Tell me where it is.”
“I would like nothing more than to clean your clock right now.”
Lincoln chuckled. “She’s a hell of a woman. I don’t blame you.�
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James tried to relax, but the Twenty Questions was killing him. “On the inside of her right thigh.” And he’d kissed it a million times.
“Thank you. The sheriff says he’s gotten confirmation, but I just want to be very careful. Would you answer me one question? Where do you live?”
“In Parker’s Ridge, Alabama.”
“The Southern drawl.” Lincoln paused. “Here’s the deal. We don’t know what happened to her because she has no memory of anything before she woke up in the hospital.”
“She doesn’t even recall her family?”
“Nothing at all until night before last, when she had a sudden image of a baby with dark hair in her arms and a man’s hand stroking them both.”
The kids peered around the door, and he waved them in, glancing at Cameron, whom they’d adopted as an infant. Cele had been nearly two when they’d found her. “Our son.” But James was more impatient than ever. “Why can’t I talk to her?”
“Mr. Parker, you have to be patient. I’m her doctor, and her welfare is my only concern.”
“She ought to have her family with her.”
“Unfortunately, that’s not always the case.”
“What?” James was outraged. “You are out of your mind. I’ll track down this number and be there before—”
“Whoa, there.” Another chuckle. “I’ve been said to have a great bedside manner, but you and I might want to start over. Hear me out, please.”
“This better be good.”
A long sigh. “The thing with retrograde amnesia is that pressure doesn’t help. Expectations can do more harm than good. So if you and your children showed up and she didn’t recognize you, it would be traumatic for her and you both, plus it could set back her recovery.”
“But it could trigger her memory.”
“Maybe. You can’t be too careful, however. Especially with someone who wants to remember as badly as she does.”
This was killing him. How did he know the guy was even competent? “Explain your credentials.”
“I was on the staff of Johns Hopkins for six years, board certified in cardiology. Much of what I’m telling you I’ve researched with friends—neurologists and psychiatrists—who are still there.”
“Your hospital doesn’t have them?”
“I wish. Someday, I will.”
“But she’s in your facility?”
“No. We took her to Denver for an MRI, and there’s no permanent brain damage except for the amnesia. Once she regained consciousness, the specialist released her back into my care.”
“So where is she staying?”
“I’ll tell you, but first we have to figure out the best way to handle this for her sake. You can’t just barge in on her.”
Everything in him quivered to do exactly that. “Hand her the phone.”
“She’s not here. She has no idea you called.”
James’s fingers clenched. “You are making me crazy. I want to be with my wife. Our children need her.”
“I can understand how she would inspire such passion,” Lincoln said quietly. “But if you love her that much, you want to do what’s best for her.” He exhaled strongly. “Look, all I’m asking is that you approach this with caution. Come, but don’t tell her who you are at first. Find out if she recognizes you. It’s possible that all the pieces will come together right then, but—”
“But?”
“But if they don’t, it will be hard on all of you. You’ll expect her to react to you the way you’re used to, and she’ll sense that. She’s a sensitive and giving person. To fail you will cause her pain, and she’s already been through a lot.” He paused. “The sheriff told me about her car being found. We knew she’d been injured, but we weren’t sure how.”
“Did they hurt her? Hit her?” James heard his voice going low and brutal. If they’d violated her—
“She’s fine now, I promise. She had some lacerations and some bruising, but she was otherwise not injured except for the head trauma.”
James closed his eyes in relief. He’d stand beside her even if she had been raped, but he could hardly bear to think of his Bella suffering through that sort of trauma.
“It’s highly likely,” the doctor continued, “that she will never remember the attack, and we can serve her best by not focusing on it, either.” After a moment, he spoke again. “Just these couple of weeks of knowing her, I completely understand how you’d like to tear those guys apart. I’m supposed to do no harm, but I’d gladly help you. She’s a remarkable woman.”
“My woman.”
“I got that. Can’t say that I like it, but such is life.”
James felt about seventeen and trying to stake out his territory. But he couldn’t help himself. Every nerve ending was on fire with his need to get to Bella, to shield her. To make everything all right. “What are the chances?” He forced himself to confront the unbearable. “That she’ll ever remember us?”
“Pretty good. If you allow her time and don’t force the issue.”
So that was the nub of it—if he truly wished the best for Bella, he had to fight his natural urges. “I want to be there, however this must be done.”
“If the kids can handle the situation and back off if needed, I think you all should make the trip. There’s a little café in town, nothing much, but the food’s good and filling. When I know you’ve arrived, I’ll bring her over for a meal. If the sight of you jogs her memory, all to the good.”
“And if not?”
“Then we go to Plan B. I don’t know what that is yet. I’ll call my sources and have some suggestions for you by the time you get here.”
“Where exactly are you?” Mentally, he was already on a plane.
“Lucky Draw, Colorado. Nearly to Utah.”
“Never heard of it.” What on earth was she doing that far away? Had she really been planning to leave him?
“Few have. We’re not a ski resort. This is hard country. Old mining towns. Folks who have to fight to survive.”
“I’ll find it.”
They spent a few moments discussing logistics in a calmer fashion, then the doctor chuckled. “You call her Bella?”
“I do,” James said. “It’s my name for her.” Only mine. “Why?”
“I was just thinking that my housekeeper will get a kick out knowing that. She’s Italian, and she kept calling her bella, which is Italian for beauty. It seemed apt, and for a while I wondered if that might be a solution when Jane was auditioning names.”
James found himself smiling. Only Bella, the woman who saw the world differently from anyone he’d ever met, would insist on giving names a trial run.
Then the man’s words sank in. “Your housekeeper? Where is Bella staying?”
“With me.”
“Why?”
“She had nowhere to go, Mr. Parker. No money, no family—”
Every word was a nail in his heart. To think of Bella so alone, hurt and afraid—
“She’s staying in the garage apartment, if that makes you feel any better.”
“Nothing will make me feel better until I can be with her. Bring her back home.”
“That may not happen soon, Mr. Parker. Please understand that.”
He didn’t want to. Everything in James longed to race to her side, hold her tight and steal her away. Watch over her every second and make sure she never suffered again.
She was so far away from him. Mentally and physically. Disheartened, James finished the conversation and hung up, but he was reluctant to set down the phone, his only link to the woman he’d loved most of his life.
He drew himself straight and turned to his children, reminding himself that they were adults, and he didn’t have to sugarcoat anything.
“Your mom doesn’t know she has a family,” he began. “But let’s get packed and go remind her that there are people who love her very much.”
Chapter Nine
“How far is it to his house?” Cele asked as she paced th
e dining area of Lucky Draw’s lone café.
James stood at the window, staring outside. Wishing that he’d been unfair and asked the kids to stay home until he’d had a chance to test the waters.
What if she remembered why she’d left? Blurted out something in front of Cele and Cam? Not that he didn’t deserve the humiliation. But he wanted a chance to explain—
You tried that already and look what happened.
He’d never been this nervous, not the first night they’d made love, not before their wedding—
“Daddy?”
James steeled himself not to bark at her. They were all worried. “What did you ask?”
“I said—”
Just then, Cam snapped to attention. A smile, that goofy one Bella loved, spread over his features. “Mom. It’s Mom—” He sprang into motion.
“Cam, don’t.” Though James understood the impulse.
Cameron’s shoulders sank. “Yeah. I know, I just—”
“Mama,” Cele whispered, and approached her brother’s side, blocking James’s view.
He caught only the merest glimpse of curly hair before Bella passed out of sight.
But his heart knew.
Thank goodness. Oh, thank goodness. He closed his eyes. She’s here. She’s safe. Everything else can be worked out.
A tiny sound from his daughter had him reaching for her, but he could focus on nothing else but the woman walking through the doorway.
Bella. Oh, my love.
The best part was that this was the Bella he’d loved so fiercely, her jeans dirty, her hair windblown. A smile was blooming up out of him. Bella the gardener, the digging-in-the-dirt-makes-me-happy woman who’d made his life a roller-coaster ride of unexpected and offbeat pleasures.
His feet began to move, and his heart raced. “Bella—” Despite his cautions to the kids, he longed to grab her, swing her around as he had so many times. To kiss her until neither of them could breathe, to make love to her for hours—
A small, strangled sound from Cele brought him up short.
And he saw what he should have noticed first thing.
Bella wasn’t smiling.
She was scared. Of them. The family she had once adored.
He glanced at the man beside her.
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