A Christmas Baby Surprise: Reclaimed by the Rancher

by Catherine Mann

  She was beautiful and the warmth of her love for Thomas pulled at him. For the first time since she had woken up from the coma, she looked at ease. She looked almost happy. If he were being honest with himself, it was the first time she had looked truly happy in months.

  A pang of guilt welled in his chest. Porter wanted to do anything—give anything—for her to stay like that. For her to be happy with him again. And she deserved it. Relationships hadn’t always been kind to her.

  When they’d first started dating four and a half years ago, she had recently left an emotionally abusive boyfriend. He had controlled all aspects of her life, telling her who she could and couldn’t see. He’d shown up to check in on her. Slowly isolating her so she would have no one to turn to for help.

  That was one of the reasons she didn’t have friends around to help now. She’d told him it had been hard to make friends after that experience. Possibly that was why she was struggling so much to trust him now.

  He couldn’t blame her for feeling that way.

  Five years ago, she’d tried to take charge of her life when she’d left the boyfriend. But the abuse hadn’t stopped. He’d stalked her. Only the restraining order had given Alaina her life back.

  And even after all she’d been through, Porter admired the hell out of that. Her capacity to still love, to still believe in people. It was one of the things that had drawn him to her.

  And tonight, he saw that spirit, that beautiful resilient spirit fill the room. A pang of guilt flooded him for not telling her about their marital struggles, but damn it, he couldn’t shake the sense he would lose her altogether if he did that. He would do whatever it took to get his family back. He would make sure she had no wants or desires not satisfied.

  How had it taken such a terrible accident for him to appreciate how important his family was to him? Shouldn’t he have realized all of this on his own, without the fear of almost losing this chance to have a family he of his own?

  She must have felt his eyes on her, because she abruptly looked up and met his stare, and the relaxed expression on her face faded. “Porter?”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “What good is a night nanny if you don’t let her work?”

  “I’ve already missed out on a month of his life. I want him to bond with me.”

  “You shouldn’t push yourself.”

  “I’m an adult. I know my limits,” she said with a tight, bristly tone. Thomas squirmed and whined. She brought him to her shoulder like a natural, patting his back and tapping the rocking chair into motion. “Do you?”

  He chuckled drily. “Now that sounds like the wife I remember. Yes, I’m a workaholic.” He gave her a sideways smile. “But you taught me to slow down and admire art.”

  “That’s a nice thing to say.” She patted Thomas’s back faster, and still he fussed and squirmed, kicking his casted foot.

  “Here, pass him to me.” Porter walked deeper into the room, his arms outstretched.

  Hurt and irritation flashed in her blue eyes, but she handed over the baby, anyway. “Sure. I want him to be comfortable.”

  “Alaina,” he said, taking the baby and cradling him like a football, while massaging his little leg above the cast, “you aren’t expected to know everything any more than I am. We’re a team here and together we’ll get it all covered.”

  She nodded once, shoving up from the rocker. “I know. It’s just difficult feeling like I bring so little to the table right now.”

  “You told me once that marriage isn’t always fifty-fifty. The pendulum swings back and forth.” His mind drifted back to when she’d spoken those words.

  She’d been so angry. He’d come home with a cast on his wrist, fresh out of the emergency room because he’d fallen off a scaffold while inspecting a work site. He’d broken his wrist, but he hadn’t wanted to worry her. She’d made it clear she should have been called and included, allowed to help him and drive him home. She’d wanted to tend him and he’d wanted to get to change clothes to go back to work...

  He damn well wouldn’t let his job interfere with repairing his family now.

  Porter felt Thomas drift off to sleep again, his body relaxing. Later he would tell Alaina the baby hadn’t been hungry. His leg had been aching from the weight of the cast and the surgery. Alaina felt insecure enough right now. “Let’s pass over the nursery monitor to the woman paid to stay awake.”

  “Sure, but I’m not tired. Maybe it has something to do with that month-long nap I took.”

  He stifled a laugh to keep from waking the baby, glad that she could joke about their ordeal. He set Thomas in his crib again, stroking the baby’s head for a few seconds before turning the monitor back on. Porter nodded to the door and walked into the hall. The night nanny, Mrs. Marks, poked her head out of her bedroom, waved with her puzzle book and ducked into the nursery.

  Porter held out a hand to his wife. “Want to see the beach view from the balcony? It was too foggy at supper time to enjoy much. The Christmas lights along the yachts will be more visible now.”

  “Yachts?”

  He winced. From the beginning, she hadn’t been comfortable with some parts of their wealthy lifestyle. She’d grown up with hardworking parents who ran a beach food cart in North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Their business had paid the bills, but hadn’t provided much in the way of extras. What would she say when he told her one of those yachts anchored off the shore was theirs?

  “Forget it. You should rest even if you can’t sleep.”

  “I can make decisions for myself,” she said with blue fire in her eyes. “Show me the lights.”

  “Right this way,” he said, once again extending his hand to her. Gingerly, she took it, but her grip was loose, as if she was ready to tear away from him at any moment.

  Porter led them down the stairs, guided by the muted twinkle of Christmas lights that were twined with garland and wrapped around the banister.

  There was an audible silence that followed them, but Porter tried to focus on the fact that she had chosen to come with him instead of retreating to the privacy of her room. It was a good sign.

  They reached the stairway landing where the sleek black baby grand piano stood beneath one of Porter’s favorite portraits: Alaina in her wedding gown. Her hair had been curled in loose waves that framed her face and the lace wedding gown accentuated her slender figure. She had looked like a princess that day. And it was Porter’s renewed intention to make sure he treated her like royalty so she would want to stay once her memory came back. So the good now would overshadow the bad then. That she could forgive and move forward with him and Thomas, building a future.

  And if her memory didn’t return? He still needed to convince her to stay and build that life with him and their son. Family was everything and he refused to lose his.

  Alaina squeezed his hand as they passed in front of the portrait. He watched her gaze lock on the photograph. She didn’t say anything for several minutes, and he didn’t push her as they strode out onto the patio that overlooked the Atlantic.

  Rebuilding his family was a game of growing trust. And she deserved to raise questions without him dumping information on her. He wanted to give her the space she needed to realize she belonged here.

  “Tell me about our wedding.” The words came out almost like a prayer. Soft. Earnest.

  “There’s a photo album around the house somewhere. And plenty of extra pictures on the computer.”

  “But here’s the bridal portrait, and it doesn’t tell me anything. Not really. I feel a disconnect with the person in the pictures you’ve already shown me. Maybe if you tell me, then I will recognize the emotions of the moment.”

  “Maybe?” His heart hammered.

  “Men don’t get all emotional about weddings.”

  He considered her for a moment. She dropped his hand a
nd moved to the piano bench. She sat with her back against the keys, eyes fixed across the room and on the ocean. The Christmas lights from the yachts illuminated the edges of her face, framing her in an otherworldly glow. Damn. She was gorgeous, even when she was stormy. He wanted her in his bed now as much as he ever had. But he wanted to put his family back together even more, and he had to remain focused on the end goal.

  Quietly he offered, “I was happy the day we married.”

  It was true. He had been so entranced by her sense of the world, by the family they could make together, that he hadn’t been able to marry her quickly enough. They’d started trying for children right away. His mother had told him that he and Alaina should take time to cement their relationship. He hadn’t given much thought to that—until now.

  “How long had we known each other?” Her eyes searched his. He could feel her trying to grasp hold of the past. Of who they were.

  “We met a year prior. We were engaged for four months of that.”

  She slid over on the bench and motioned for him to sit next to her. He sat sideways so he could look at her directly.

  “Why the rush?”

  “We loved each other, knew it was right. Why wait?”

  “I wasn’t pregnant?”

  “No, you weren’t. We were never able to conceive.”

  It had been no one’s fault. And they had Thomas now. They had taken in a child who desperately needed a home and stability. And somehow, that seemed to soften the animosity they had felt. They’d agreed to a temporary truce and now he planned to make them a permanent family.

  “I hate being dependent on you for all my memories.” Her eyes were shining with frustration. But, Porter realized, the frustration wasn’t entirely directed at him.

  He gently lifted a wisp of hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear. “Then tell me what your dream wedding day would be like and that will be our wedding memory.”

  Her eyes went whimsical, a smile pushing dimples into her cheeks. “I would want to get married at a museum, or some historic site on the grounds, but with a preacher there.”

  Porter nodded to encourage her. “What else?”

  “I think I would want a vintage gown and you in an old-school tuxedo, tails perhaps. And if I could dream big—sky’s the limit—I would want flowers, so many flowers, all different colors. Southern flowers, magnolias and azaleas, too.”

  A long sigh escaped her lips, and she turned in her seat to face him.

  “And the reception?”

  “A band, so people could enjoy themselves. A buffet meal so people could eat or dance or talk, whatever they wish. I would want there to be children there, activities and a tent where they could play, sitters on hand. How does all of that sound?”

  “Very close to the wedding we planned.” He took her hand in his and ran his thumb over her silk-smooth palm.

  “Planned?”

  He shrugged. “My mother put in her two cents, your friends put in theirs. Weddings get complicated and we both let them have their way to get things moving so we could start our life together. To be truthful, I just remember you and how beautiful you looked and how damn lucky I was to have convinced you to marry me.”

  More memories hit him, about how later she’d come to resent not having stood her ground to have the wedding of her dreams. Her insistence that her style and wishes got pushed aside by his mother and wedding planners.

  She inched toward him on the bench, resting a hand on his knee. Her touch made his blood surge hot beneath his skin. Damn. He wanted to take her in his arms. Wanted to taste her kiss. To taste her—over and over until they both stopped thinking and remembering.

  “That’s lovely, what you just said and the way you described the feelings. I wish I recalled even a part of that.” The murmur leaped from her lips as her eyes searched his face. There was intrigue there, sure. Attraction, definitely.

  “You will. Someday.”

  Another deep sigh. “And if I don’t?”

  “Then we’ll keep taking things a day at a time and looking to the future. Marriage isn’t perfect, Alaina. You’ve forgotten the arguments and disagreements, too. So perhaps it’s a trade-off, getting to start over with a clean slate.”

  Alaina shook her head, but didn’t pull away. Her fingers continued to trace light circles on his knee. “Amnesia is a horrible illness, not some trade-off. I would gratefully welcome one bad memory now from those years, just to open the door. To see our life together.”

  “What if that one memory made you stop loving me because you couldn’t recall the rest?”

  He wanted this fresh start for their family so badly. He needed it down to his core. And he was afraid that if she recalled any of the past year, she’d pack up and be out of his life the way she’d intended to do before the accident.

  “I don’t mean to be harsh, but I can’t remember falling in love with you. So how is that a point?”

  He threw her a playful wink. “I guess I’ll just have to help you fall in love with me again.”

  She didn’t smile back, her gaze narrowing with intensity. “So do you still love me?”

  “Of course I do,” he said automatically because that’s what she needed to hear.

  But from the look in her eyes, he could tell that on some level, behind the amnesia, she sensed the truth.

  This wasn’t about loving or not loving each other. After all, they hadn’t spoken those words to each other in over a year. This second chance was about finally building the family he’d always wanted and doing whatever it took to make that happen.

  * * *

  Alaina leaned against the door frame of Porter’s home office, making the most of the moment to study him unobserved. Much like as he’d watched her last night in the nursery. She’d been more moved by the way he’d looked at her, almost as if he was thinking the words he never spoke. Words about loving her.

  Why was it so important to hear that from him when she didn’t know how she felt about him? When she couldn’t remember meeting him, marrying him—falling for him? And some men weren’t overly demonstrative.

  What about him?

  She searched for clues as she watched him work at his computer, seated behind an oversize desk. He wore casual clothes, jeans and a polo shirt, his watch the only cue to his wealth. She liked that about him, how if she’d met him on the street she wouldn’t have guessed he had all these houses—and a closet as big as some apartments.

  She also liked the artwork on the wall behind him. Nice choice. It fit him more than a lot of things in this elaborate vacation place. She wondered if she’d picked it out for him.

  He wore thick black-framed glasses as he typed, something she hadn’t noticed before. There was so much about him she didn’t know. So much to learn and on the one hand, some would say she had all the time in the world. But she felt an urgency to settle her life, for Thomas’s sake.

  And she couldn’t ignore how much it touched her heart to see her son snoozing in a bassinet beside Porter’s leather office chair. That he’d made arrangements to watch the baby while working spoke volumes. She could see that Porter wanted to be a good father, that he wanted to be active in his son’s upbringing. She wanted to trust her impressions of him and accept that she had an amazing life. She wanted to quit worrying about the past she couldn’t remember.

  And yet she couldn’t dismiss the sense that she should be wary of assuming everything was as it seemed.

  Porter glanced up, as if sensing her gaze. He tucked his reading glasses on top of his head, his eyes were full of awareness from their almost kiss earlier.

  Even if she couldn’t remember what they’d had, she could swear she felt all those shared kisses in their past on some level. Did he have regrets about them as a couple? Was that the unsettled feeling she sensed in him?

/>   Had he appreciated what they had?

  “Alaina,” he said softly, rocking back in his chair. “I’ve got this. Easy. He’s sleeping. Go relax. Take a walk on the beach. Read a book.”

  Or stay with Porter and be tempted even more? How long would she be able to resist?

  Not long.

  She backed out of the door. “Sure, thanks. I’ll have my cell phone with me. Don’t hesitate to call if you need me to come back for him. I want to be with him whenever he’s awake.”

  She’d missed so much already. Oh, God, she was going to start crying if she kept thinking about it.

  Her emotions were swinging from desire for her stranger of a husband to grief over all she’d lost. She needed to get herself under control or she would be a nervous wreck. Thomas didn’t need to have all those negative feelings around him. Maybe Porter was right about her taking time to decompress for a while.

  With determined strides she moved toward the kitchen, scarfed down some toast and tea, and contemplated the events of her past twenty-four hours.

  A whirlwind didn’t even begin to cover it.

  Glancing around the open space, she couldn’t help but feel the decor looked as if it had been directly lifted from a catalog. Everything was gorgeous—stainless steel appliances with rustic wooden accent bowls—but it all felt too...put together.

  Was this the kind of woman she had become over the past five years?

  Unable to suppress her need for more answers, Alaina began to explore the house. Their house, she reminded herself. This was supposedly all hers, too, even if it felt alien in comparison to her more Spartan upbringing. She needed to learn to be comfortable here again.

  Porter had made it clear that he wanted her to relax. To take time for herself. And while that was sweet, she wasn’t entirely sure she enjoyed being forced into downtime. She had lost so much of her life that downtime intimidated her.

  But she had to admit she admired Porter’s dedication to Thomas. It was endearing. He had found a way to integrate work and family. And that trait was sexy as hell.

  She searched for more signs of encouragement regarding their life, but the rest of the house mirrored the kitchen. It was also well put together. So manicured and manufactured. She couldn’t seem to find a trace of her artistic side at all.