“What the hell are you talking about? Of course you’re enough for me. I love you, damn it.”
“Do you? Or do you love the me I used to be?”
Rafe blinked hard in surprise. All the things that had been niggling at the edges of his comfort zone suddenly made sense—all the comments she’d been making over the past week about how great things were now, all the times he’d wanted to talk about the past and she changed the subject.
As if she needed to drive home her point, she continued. “I love you just the way you are now. I don’t need the Rafe from the past. I don’t need to remember anything about him, because I want the man you are today. Can’t you do the same for me?”
“It’s easy to say you don’t need to remember when you can remember anything you want.” His words were soft, but had underpinnings of cold, hard steel.
“You remember me from the past.”
“But I don’t remember everything. I can’t go forward until I reach back and retrieve all my past. You’re the only one who can help me do that. Go with me.”
Tears shone in her eyes. “Rafe, please—”
He grasped her shoulders. “I don’t understand what you’re afraid of, Emma. How can I separate the two of you? Part of you is the past. I loved you six and a half years ago for who you were then, and I love you today for who you are now.”
“Then don’t ask me to go to Houston.”
Rafe couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He felt betrayed on the most basic level—as if he didn’t know this woman at all. “Why don’t you want me to have my memories?”
She pressed her lips together.
“You’ve helped me all along,” he pointed out.
“Not because I wanted to.”
His head jerked as if she’d slapped him, but that’s exactly how he felt. “I thought you loved me.”
“I do.”
“No, you don’t. If you loved me, you’d want me whole. If for no other reason than it’s what I want.”
Her voice held a thin edge of desperation. “Why is the past so important? The past doesn’t matter. It can’t be changed. Only today matters, and tomorrow. We didn’t have any tomorrows until you came back to Memphis. Now we do. Are you going to throw that away just so you can remember the name of a dog you had when you were ten years old?”
Rafe read straight through her words to the fear seething beneath. “You’re afraid I don’t love you, that I’m going to leave you.”
Her eyes widened. “If you loved me, I’d be enough for you. Me. Now. The way I am.”
He knew exactly what her fear meant. It was what he’d been fighting against ever since he found her, what he thought he’d conquered. “You still don’t trust me.”
“I...I love you, Rafe.”
She couldn’t even lie about it.
“What’s love without trust? About as substantial as the wind.”
“Please—”
“Go with me to Houston.”
She pressed her lips together and searched his face. “If I go, I might lose you.”
His eyes narrowed. “What the hell do you mean by that?”
“I mean that if you recall your past, you’ll return to reporting. Then one day you’ll go some place like Nicaragua again. And you might—”
He threw up his hands. “I’m not going back to reporting. I’ve told you and Jay and Ham over and over again. I’m not going to turn my back on Southern Yesteryears, and I’m not going to turn my back on you.”
Sadness filled her eyes. “I saw you at the newspaper, Rafe. You remembered all the good times, how exciting it was, and you wanted it again.”
Her words felt like a knife in his heart. She didn’t believe him. He could talk until his throat gave out, assuring her he wasn’t going to leave her, but she still wouldn’t believe him. As he’d told her on the porch that night—he couldn’t prove he wouldn’t hurt her in the future. He could only show her. But that’s what he’d been trying to do for over a month.
It all came down to trust. If she didn’t trust him now, she probably never would.
“If you don’t go to Houston with me, you’ll definitely lose me.” His statement was deliberately harsh, deliberately final. He needed to shock her into realizing how much this meant to their future happiness. If she couldn’t trust him, there’d be no future at all, so they might as well end it now.
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“We’re about to recommit our lives to each other, but I need a commitment from you right now. I need to know you trust me so much you’d fly to the moon in a spaceship I built with my own hands. I need to know you love me enough to stand by me no matter what the future brings. Even if I decided to go back to reporting, which I won’t, I need to know you’ll be there beside me, wanting what I want. Haven’t I given you what you want? Have I made one single decision without you? Have I at any time tried to take control of your life or Gabe’s?”
She looked away.
He took a deep breath. “Go to Houston with me tomorrow, Emma. Please.”
Emma’s world whirled around her, but inside she was utterly still, utterly dead. How could this be happening? How could she have found Rafe after all these years, only to lose him again so soon?
She needed more time—time to make him love her enough. But time was the one thing she didn’t have.
She was damned if she went and damned if she stayed.
If she went, she knew with dreadful certainty he’d eventually return to reporting—no matter what he said. She’d been there. She’d seen the longing on his face. He’d put himself into the kind of situation like the one in Nicaragua—the kind of situation that would probably kill him.
If she didn’t go, he’d leave her now.
But at least he’d be alive. At least she’d know he shared the same planet she did. At least there would be hope.
“Stay with me,” she pleaded one last time. “Your parents will be here in two weeks. Won’t that be soon enough?”
Rafe closed his eyes in a grimace of pain. After a long, agonizing moment, his dark eyes finally refocused on her face. In their dark depths, she couldn’t find the smallest shred of hope for any future.
“I’ll send someone to move my things.” He stepped woodenly off the porch.
“Rafe, wait! Where are you going?”
“Home,” he said. “To Houston.”
The words cut deep. “Why? You can’t get your memories back without me.”
“Apparently the magic I thought I had with you was just an illusion. If I can create one, I can create another.” He dug his keys out of his pocket. “Tell Gabe I’ll call him tomorrow.”
Chapter Twelve
Emma watched the clock on the computer screen tick off another minute. That made ninety-seven since, like a wounded animal, she’d retreated to her lair. To the place where she was comfortable, where she was in control.
She thought she’d be able to lose herself in work, but she hadn’t gotten further than turning on the computer.
Rafe was gone.
The phrase echoed over and over in her empty mind, but her brain had yet to comprehend the message.
Maybe it just couldn’t accept the fact that she would never hear him call her querida, never kiss his smiling lips, never run her hands down the rough skin of his back, never feel him inside her. Never again.
She sobbed, her throat so choked it barely admitted enough air to stay alive.
No! If she gave in to the despair, she’d be crying for days, weeks, a lifetime. Better to bury the agony deep inside where it couldn’t surface. That’s how she’d survived before. It would work again. Eventually.
All she had to do was—
“Mom? Dad? You up here?”
Gabe’s call made Emma start. He was here for his nighttime story? Already?
Her hands flew to her face. Both felt clammy, cold. Thank God she hadn’t been crying. She would never be able to give her son a believable explanation for tears.
/> Gabe pushed open the apartment door. His gaze fell on her, then scanned the room. “Hi. Where’s Dad?”
“He’s...gone.”
“Where?”
“He...Houston. He went home.” No! her mind screamed. His home was here.
“To see Gramma and Grampa? He promised to take me next time he went. Did you know they have a pool right in their own backyard?”
Emma nodded.
“When’s he gonna be back?”
Hope speared through Emma. Of course Rafe would return for Gabe. He’d never give up seeing his son.
If you don’t go to Houston with me now, you’ll definitely lose me.
His words slammed into her soul, dashing the brief flare of hope and raising her pain to unbearable levels. It surged through her like a tidal wave of acid, eating her alive.
“Mom? You okay?” Gabe laid an uncertain hand on her knee.
Emma opened her eyes. She hadn’t heard him cross the room. Taking a deep breath, she hugged him. “I’ll live.”
Unfortunately.
“When’s Dad going to be home?” Gabe repeated.
I’ll send someone to move my things.
Images played through her mind. Signing divorce papers... again. Long days and nights when Gabe was spending custody time with his father. And worse, seeing Rafe when he came to pick up Gabe, having to talk to him and pretend she didn’t still love him.
You’ll never have to worry about us getting divorced, son. Because we never will.
“Mom?”
She focused on her son. “I don’t know, honey. He said he’ll call you tomorrow. Have you had your bath?”
Gabe shook his head. “I wanted to ask Dad something first.”
“You’d better go take one. It’s almost bedtime.” She added hopefully, “You want me to help?”
Gabe rolled his eyes and turned toward the door. “Jeez, Mom.”
She sighed regretfully, then called after him. “Be careful going down the stairs.”
“Trust me, okay?”
He closed the door with more enthusiasm than finesse, but Emma barely noticed that or his footsteps clomping down the outside stairs.
Trust me, okay?
Is that what her son thought? That she didn’t trust him?
Gabe’s words were an echo of Rafe’s. So much so, she had to ask herself a difficult question. Was it true? Was she so far gone that she couldn’t even trust her own son?
No, that was ridiculous. Gabe was only five years old, for goodness’ sake, and the issue here was a fall off a few steps, not a potential helicopter crash.
What’s the difference?
Emma’s eyes focused on the picture of Rafe as an angel, and she realized she’d been staring at it. It was as if he was speaking to her.
What was the difference? she asked herself. Gabe could be killed falling off a few steps, depending on how he landed. Anything could happen.
Her hands gripped the arms of the chair as those words echoed in her mind. Anything could happen.
Of course it could. Why hadn’t she realized that before?
She was worried about Rafe dying alone in some jungle, but he could be killed in a car accident on the way to the airport.
With a monumental effort, she tamped down the panic making her long to race for her car and follow him, to make sure he arrived safely.
But she couldn’t wrap Rafe up in a cocoon of safety any more than she could protect Gabe from every little bump in the sidewalk. Even if she could, neither of them would want her to. All they required was for her to be there to kiss away the pain when something happened.
She’d accepted that fact about Gabe as soon as he learned to walk. Why did she think that Rafe, a grown man, was any different?
No matter how much he teased her, she wasn’t Rafe’s guardian angel. She couldn’t keep him from harm twenty-four hours a day. No matter where he chose to go, or what he chose to do, he was on his own. Just like Gabe was.
How could she offer Rafe any less than she offered Gabe?
When it came right down to it, everyone was on their own. All a person could hope for was someone to help them along the way, to love them, to hold them, to kiss away the pain if they ran into one of the bumps on the sidewalk of life.
Overwhelmed by her insight, Emma leaned back.
She’d told Rafe all they had was today and tomorrow, but that was only half true. All they had was today, right now, this minute. They weren’t guaranteed anything more.
Hadn’t she learned that when she’d thought Rafe had died? After she’d finally accepted he was gone, she’d longed to see him again for just a minute, just long enough to tell him she loved him.
Now here she was, throwing away what could turn out to be a lifetime with him. And why? Because she was afraid she’d lose him again, afraid she wouldn’t have him for all her tomorrows.
Afraid. That was it in a nutshell.
He’d said she still didn’t trust him, but that wasn’t true. It was life she didn’t trust.
Well, life could take all its tomorrows and stuff them down its throat. She wanted Rafe in her arms, and she wanted him now.
Yes, he might return to the newspaper, and he might someday be killed doing his job. But that was true whether he was a reporter for the Commercial Appeal or editor of Southern Yesteryears . She wasn’t going to throw away today just because she was afraid life would take him away tomorrow.
If you loved me, you’d want me whole.
Of course she loved him, and though she truly didn’t care if he never got another memory, he cared.
How selfish she’d been, worrying that he didn’t love her for the woman she was now. Never once had she considered that if she loved him for the man he was, she’d want to give him what he needed so badly.
He’d given her what she needed. He believed in her, relied on her, trusted her. He’d let her be herself, let her choose what to do with her life, now she wouldn’t let him choose what to do with his.
Selfish. Selfish. Selfish.
Well, her selfishness was officially over. From now on, the only thing she’d be selfish about would be wanting to spend all the time she could with Rafe. She’d never be ashamed of wanting him.
Emma scooted the chair closer to the desk and pulled the telephone book out of a drawer to look up the airline with a hub in Memphis. Surely an airline with so many flights would have another one to Houston tonight.
The airline representative told her she’d just missed the last one. The one Rafe was probably on. The next flight to Houston took off at nine the next morning.
She booked a seat.
With a final bump, the plane started its sharp ascent into the skies over Memphis. The last rays of the dying sun hit Rafe in the face as he watched the streetlights of Memphis blink on in the growing darkness. The downtown buildings jutted from the bluffs along the Mississippi, and the two bridges across the river looked like scenery from a toy train set.
The plane banked, cutting off his view.
He felt a sudden wrenching, as if he were literally ripped from the city below, as if the connection he’d finally found after so many years of wandering blindly around in his own empty mind had suddenly snapped.
But that had happened two hours ago, when Emma refused to give him back his life.
How could he have been so blind? He’d believed her completely. He’d been so sure she loved him, so certain she wanted what was best for him.
What he didn’t understand was how she could’ve had such a profound effect on him—being the catalyst that brought back his memories—when she didn’t want to do it. When all she cared about was making sure he loved her for the woman she was now.
What kind of thinking was that?
How could he not love her? Compared with the girl he remembered, Emma was much more mature, much more of a woman. She was beautiful, sweet, a wonderful mother, a loving daughter and an insatiable lover. What man in his right mind wouldn’t prefer that over an insecure
girl who’d basically wanted to be rescued from an abusive father?
Rafe smothered a groan as he realized the path his thoughts were taking. He still loved her. Knowing she didn’t trust him, knowing she only wanted what was best for herself.
Yet...how could he blame her for being selfish? She hadn’t had anyone to lean on, all of her life, except for the brief months they’d been together years ago. She’d learned to be defensive, to take care of herself—because nobody else had been taking care of her.
Sylvia was a gracious lady, but not a strong one. Not strong enough to stand up to a monster of a husband.
But Emma was strong. Strong enough to raise their son on her own. Strong enough to survive in a harsh world. Strong enough to help him recall his past, even though it scared her to death.
How could he not love her?
The question echoed in his heart, which told him that not loving her was impossible. He’d love her whether they were together or apart, whether he had his memories or not.
So it came down to one simple question: which was more important, Emma or his past?
He didn’t even have to think. Emma was more important to him than anything else in the world, with the possible exception of Gabe. He’d lost her once. Now he’d do anything to keep her in his life, including giving up part of his.
What were memories compared to her? They couldn’t keep him warm at night. They couldn’t kiss him or hold him or love him. The past wasn’t what was going to make him whole. Emma was what made him complete. She was the other half of his soul. The piece of him that had been missing for over six years.
She was right. The past didn’t matter. What mattered was that they were together for the rest of their lives.
And he was speeding away from her at five hundred miles an hour.
Rafe threw his head back against the narrow seat with a grimace as a sudden realization hit him.
This was their first fight since they’d recommitted themselves to each another and what had he done? Cut bait and run.
He’d done exactly what Emma had been afraid of all along. She believed men didn’t have what it took to stick around, that the only way they could operate was “their way or the highway.” The men in her life had solved their problems by controlling her, by forcing her to their way of thinking.
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