“I have to protect my son.”
Letter to Reader
Title Page
Dedication
Books by Martha Shields
About the Author
Letter to Reader
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve Copyright
“I have to protect my son.”
His black eyes burned like coal. “You think I’m going to hurt Gabe?”
Emma steeled herself. She’d hoped she could get rid of Rafe so she could think, so she wouldn’t have to tell him—yet—about Gabe. She’d wanted to protect her son at least another day.
But now she had to tell him. She had to get it over with. Get everything out in the open.
“You’ve already hurt him, by leaving him when he was inside me. By going off on a dangerous assignment, even when I begged you not to go. Your work was more important to you than me.” She blinked back the tears stinging her eyes. “More important than your child.”
Rafe’s dark face went white. “My...child?”
“He’s yours, Rafe. Gabe is your son.”
Dear Reader,
In May 2000 Silhouette Romance will commemorate its twentieth anniversary! This line has always celebrated the essence of true love in a manner that blends classic themes and the challenges of romance in today’s world into a reassuring, fulfilling novel. From the enchantment of first love to the wonder of second chance, a Silhouette Romance novel demonstrates the power of genuine emotion and the breathless connection that develops between a man and a woman as they discover each other. And this month’s stellar selections are quintessential Silhouette Romance stories!
If you’ve been following LOVING THE BOSS, you’ll be amazed when mysterious Rex Barrington III is unmasked in I Married the Boss! by Laura Anthony. In this month’s FABULOUS FATHERS offering by Donna Clayton, a woman discovers His Ten-Year-Old Secret. And opposites attract in The Rancher and the Heiress, the third of Susan Meier’s TEXAS FAMILY TIES miniseries.
WRANGLERS & LACE returns with Julianna Morris’s The Marriage Stampede. In this appealing story, a cowgirl butts heads—and hearts—with a bachelor bent on staying that way. Sally Carleen unveils the first book in her exciting duo ON THE WAY TO A WEDDING... with the tale of a twin mistaken for an M.D.’s Bride in Waiting! It’s both a blessing and a dilemma for a single mother when she’s confronted with an amnesiac Husband Found, this month’s FAMILY MATTERS title by Martha Shields.
Enjoy the timeless power of Romance this month, and every month—you won’t be disappointed!
Mary-Theresa Hussey
Senior Editor, Silhouette Romance
Please address questions and book requests to:
Silhouette Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave, P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
HUSBAND FOUND
Martha Shields
To my sister, Nona.
Though we fought like cats and dogs,
you never got tired of my stories.
Books by Martha Shields
Silhouette Romance.
*Home Is Where Hank Is #1287
*And Cowboy Makes Three #1317
*The Million-Dollar Cowboy #1346
Husband Found #1377
* Cowboys to the Rescue
MARTHA SHIELDS
grew up telling stories to her sister to pass the time on the long drives to their grandparents’ house. Since she’s never been able to stop dreaming up characters, she’s thrilled to share her stories with a wider audience. Martha lives in Memphis, Tennessee, with her husband, teenage daughter and a cairn “terror” who keeps trying to live up to his Toto ancestry. Martha has a master’s degree in journalism and works at a local university, where her job includes graphic design.
Dear Reader,
I’m happy to bring you one of the books in this special FAMILY MATTERS series. Families, after all, are the bedrock of our society. The firm foundation of family ties gives us the confidence and strength to build happy, healthy lives.
Even when time brings changes—when parents or grandparents or spouses are gone—their love, their teaching, their strength live on. Years later we can still hear them talking to us. We still rely on the advice they gave. We can still feel their love.
In Husband Found, Emma Lockwood thinks she has lost the husband she still loves. In the intervening years, she has worked hard to build a solid family life for her fatherless son. Then the husband she thought dead reappears, shaking the foundation of her life and forcing her to redefine her family once again.
I hope you enjoy Emma and Rafe’s story. I also hope you enjoy your own family as much as I do mine. I could not wish you any greater happiness.
Love,
Chapter One
Emma Lockwood caught sight of herself in a mirror as she entered the lobby of the extended-stay motel in east Memphis.
She looked as nervous as she felt. The high spots of color on her cheeks could be explained by too much blush, but the chewed-off lipstick was a dead giveaway. Better freshen up. She didn’t need to look desperate for this job.
She balanced her portfolio on a narrow table, then dug her lipstick out of her purse.
Night-time graphics jobs didn’t grow on trees in Memphis, so when she’d seen the ad in the Commercial Appeal, she’d mailed in her résumé and had been called for an interview. She just hoped this guy’s idea of “flexible hours” were the same as hers.
After reapplying her lipstick and dropping it back in her purse, Emma straightened the jacket of her dark red suit. What she looked like shouldn’t matter. It was the samples of work in her portfolio that counted. Still, it couldn’t hurt to look her best.
She had confidence she could get this job if she wanted it. And she did—as long as the job was legitimate and this guy wasn’t some weirdo.
David Johnson. She glanced at the name her mother had written on the notepaper.
Memories flooded through her like they always did when the name Johnson popped up. Bittersweet memories. Memories of three short months in her life when she’d been wonderfully, gloriously, completely happy.
Without thinking, Emma’s hand touched the ring hidden beneath her blouse. A class ring from the University of Texas, which had served as her wedding ring for the month she’d been Mrs. Rafe Johnson. She could still—
With an impatient huff, Emma pulled her hand away from her chest and shoved the memories aside. She couldn’t get emotional every time she heard the name Johnson. If the pages and pages of them in the Memphis phone book were any indication, it was one of the most common names in America.
She needed to focus on this interview so she could earn enough money for a new roof.
Resolutely she picked up her portfolio and asked the desk clerk for directions to the conference room where the interview would be conducted.
A minute later, she knocked on the door. “Mr. Johnson?”
“Come in,” a gravelly voice bade.
Emma straightened her jacket one last time and opened the door to see a man rising from a chair at the other end of a small conference table. She walked forward, extending her hand. “Mr. Johnson, I’m Emma Lockwood. I hope I’m not too early. Your message said—”
Both Emma and her words stopped abruptly as the dark-haired man straightened and extended his hand.
She gasped.
It couldn’t be.
They’d only been together th
ree months, and married only a few hours before he left, but she knew his face as well as she knew her son’s. Because it was the same one—from the black hair to the black eyes; from the thin, slightly prominent nose to the cleft in the chin. The only differences were the jagged scar running from the corner of this man’s left eye down to his blunt jaw and the fine web of wrinkles around his mouth, as if he’d endured too much pain.
It was as if thinking about him had conjured his ghost. She couldn’t seem to catch a breath, and her vision narrowed to a tunnel connecting their eyes. “Rafe?”
His eyes widened with a stricken expression. “Do I know you?”
His voice was different—deeper, with the quality of a brook running over stones—but her soul knew the sound.
That same brook roared in her ears. Her purse and portfolio fell from her numb hands, and she took two staggering steps toward him before her world turned black.
Rafe caught the woman before she sank to the floor, though in the process he rammed his hip into the corner of the table, sending pain knifing down his bum leg. He hooked an arm under her knees and lifted her, ignoring the pain as he always did.
Stunned, all he could do was stare.
She’d used his first name, a name he hadn’t gone by in years.
Was it possible he knew her? Her pale face, with its small, pert nose, wide mouth and slanted eyes weren’t familiar. But then, who had he recognized in the six years since he’d been back? Not even his own parents.
Without warning, a picture popped into his head.
He stood on the bank of the Mississippi River, his arms around a younger version of this same woman.
Smiling shyly, she handed him a folded piece of notebook paper
“Is this my Thanksgiving present?” he teased, releasing his hold on her to open the paper.
She wrinkled her nose. “You’re leaving me for four whole days to eat turkey with your parents all the way down in Houston. Why would I reward you?” She gave a tiny shrug. “This is just a doodle, courtesy of the snoozefest in Dr. Hoffman’s class.”
He opened it and burst into laughter. She’d drawn him as his archangel namesake, complete with white robe and wings. A prominent heart on his chest bore the letters EKG.
Rafe drew a finger down her nose. “How many times have I told you I’m no angel?”
“I know you’re not perfect, but you’re my guardian angel,” she said breathlessly. “So I drew you with broken wings.”
The vision cleared. Paralyzed by shock, Rafe couldn’t breathe, though his heart was pounding like a heavy metal drummer on speed.
A memory. It had to be.
A door in his mind had opened for a few, brief seconds, then slammed shut so soundly he couldn’t even tell where the door was, much less open it again.
Then the significance of the memory hit him. This woman must be the one who had drawn the picture they’d found clenched in his hand when his almost-dead body had been pulled out of a tree by men in a remote Nicaraguan village. The picture he’d carried for six years. The one that even now had a permanent place in his wallet. The only tangible link to his past.
Staggered by the implications, he focused his eyes on the woman he held. Her honey-gold hair spilled over his arm. Her delicate features were ashen. Who was she? What had she been to him? Girlfriend? Lover? The easy way he remembered touching her suggested intimacy.
He remembered. That in itself was a miracle.
Noticing her head was thrown back at an odd angle, he walked to the couch—his gait more uneven than usual—and laid her down as carefully as if she were a ticking bomb.
But that’s exactly what she was. Just touching her had already felt like an explosion What would happen when she talked to him?
Rafe stood abruptly and limped to the other end of the room, his mind in turmoil.
He’d wakened in a hellhole of a Nicaraguan village six years ago and spent nineteen months in constant pain from the wounds that wouldn’t heal, in constant torment from not knowing who he was or where he came from. It was as if his mind had been wiped clean. Oh, he knew how to talk and how to feed and dress himself. He could write, read and speak two languages. But all of his personal information was gone, as if he were a baby starting fresh.
He hadn’t even recognized his father when Edward Johnson finally found him and carried him home to Houston. He didn’t recognize his mother, his two brothers or his sister, his grandparents, his friends. They’d all taken turns telling him about his life—what he’d liked to eat, pranks he’d pulled, his childhood accomplishments, articles he’d written. They’d even shown him pictures.
But the “memories” they’d instilled in his head didn’t feel like this. They weren’t three dimensional. They didn’t include sounds and smells.
Rafe turned and drove both hands back through his hair as he gazed at the lovely, utterly still woman on the couch.
Those memories hadn’t included her.
Why? And what would happen if he touched her again?
Slowly, as if drawn by a fire whose warmth he hadn’t felt in eons, he approached her. He pulled over a chair from the conference table and sat. And stared.
He’d waited, hoped, prayed, begged God for this day. Now he wasn’t sure he was ready for it. Half of him wanted to shake her awake and demand to know what she knew. The other half wanted to run screaming from the room.
Which was stupid. He’d hoped this would happen. It’s why he’d returned to Memphis. This was where he’d lived before he took the assignment to Nicaragua. Since he couldn’t find his past in Houston where he grew up, he hoped Memphis was where the answers would be.
But would he like the answers to all of his questions?
He might, if this woman had anything to do with them.
Leaning his elbows on his knees, he slowly extended a finger toward her smooth, pale cheek. He wanted to touch her again, but not to see if she would conjure more memories. He wanted to see if her skin was as soft as it looked—like the petals of the gardenia flowers in his mother’s garden.
As he reached for her, he caught sight of his trembling hand. The ugly red scars across the back stopped him cold. He was an aberration, a freak, scarred on the inside and out. Half a man with half a mind.
No wonder she’d fainted. Like Beauty when she saw the Beast.
The thought of being the monster in the fairy tale cut him like a freshly sharpened knife. To stave off the painful notion, he concentrated on the beauty stretched out before him.
What was her name again?
Emma. Emma Lockwood.
He let the syllables echo around his brain. He thought they struck a familiar chord, but he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t wishful thinking.
Before he could talk himself out of it again, he drew a finger down the cool velvet of her cheek.
Her eyes were like a cat’s, slanted and green with tiny flecks of gold. They regarded him with an awe that robbed him of breath.
“Emma,” he whispered.
“Kiss me,” she demanded, standing on tiptoe.
Her warm mouth wasn’t a finger’s width away, but he prolonged the moment by drawing a finger down her cheek
He sat back abruptly, his heart pounding.
He’d done this before. The memory seared across his soul, leaving him yearning for more, yet breathless with fear.
The doctors were wrong. They said that after this long, the chances of him regaining his memories were next to nil, but he’d refused to accept their prognosis. Knowing it would take something drastic to help him, he’d moved back to Memphis.
Well, he was here, and he’d evidently found what he came to find. So what the hell was he supposed to do now?
Emma woke suddenly, feeling sick and disoriented.
Her eyes flew open. Where was she? Why was she lying on a couch staring up a strange wall, at a ceiling she didn’t recognize?
She turned her head, and memory flooded back.
Rafe. Was it really him? Here? Ali
ve?
No, it couldn’t be. Rafe died in Nicaragua six and half years ago.
The man who called himself David Johnson was bent over, picking something up, so his face was hidden. Then he straightened and placed her purse on the conference table, giving her his profile.
Her artist’s eye recognized the details as if it was yesterday that she’d studied him out of love and a need to draw his dark, handsome face. The slight bump at the top of his nose that gave him a predatory look. The utter straightness of his coal-black hair. The square jaw.
How could he be here? How was it possible? Rafe was dead. Blown to pieces in a helicopter crash in God-knows-where Nicaragua. She’d seen the headlines. She’d talked to his parents.
“Rafe?”
Though she’d whispered the word, his head shot up, and he turned to face her, his dark eyes unreadable. “Yes?”
His response left no doubt. It was him.
“But...you’re dead.” She shook her head, but it didn’t clear away his image. He was as solid as ever. “I must be dreaming.”
“No.” He took a limping step toward her. “You fainted.”
Emma slowly pushed herself to a sitting position. She felt as if she weighed a ton. The hand she pressed against her spinning head felt cold, clammy. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t, either. You walked in, said my name, then passed out.” He stepped closer and asked, “Are you all right?”
All right? She was hallucinating that her dead husband was standing right in front of her. “How could you be here?”
Husband Found Page 1