Return to Paradise

by Carol Grace

  "For how long?" the young man asked, barely able to contain his irritation.

  She felt the mattress shift. The doctor rose from her bedside. "Can't say, Parker. Don't know what's wrong with her. Or rather, I know what's wrong, irregular heartbeat, burns, bruises, lacerations, low blood pressure. I just don't know what caused it. You found her out in the field. Anything else in sight? Horse? Tent? No idea what she was doing there?"

  "I wasn't looking," the man said. Parker. That was his name. Parker. "I'll have to go back. She couldn't have just dropped there, fallen from outer space."

  "Maybe her spaceship's coming back to get her later.'' The doctor chuckled.

  Her mind spun in circles. Maybe it wasn't a joke. Maybe she was an alien. She certainly felt like one. An alien with the flu.

  "In the meantime she needs plenty of fluids, soft food, lots of rest. I know it sounds like a full-time job, but what can I say? What can I do with her? You found her. I'm afraid you've got her, temporarily at least."

  There was silence in the room except for the clink of medical instruments, a bag being zipped shut. Not a happy silence. The hush that follows an unwelcome pronouncement. A resigned silence. Then footsteps. And she was alone. Without opening her eyes she knew it, felt it, sensed it. And the questions they'd asked reverberated in the room. Who, where, why? The last thing she remembered were the voices in the hall, half spoken, half whispered.

  "Not possible."

  "But what else..."

  "I don't care."

  "Only a few days and maybe..."

  "Worst possible time."

  The next time she woke up it was dark outside the window. A lamp on a tall oak dresser cast a pool of light across the room, illuminating the tall cowboy slouched in a chair opposite her bed. The one who didn't want her there at this worst possible time, who had his hands full without her. She thought of slipping away in the night, perhaps right now. He wouldn't mind. He might even help her leave. She lifted the edge of the blanket.

  "Hey. What're you doing?" He got up out of his chair, unwinding his lanky body to walk to her bed, and reached for a glass on the nightstand. He didn't wait for her to answer his question before he asked another. "Thirsty?"

  She shook her head. Her mouth was parched but she wouldn't take anything from him. Nothing. She was leaving as soon as she could. But before she could swing her legs over the side of the mattress, he sat on the edge of the bed and put one strong arm around her to hoist her up against the headboard. Then he held the glass to her lips and unwillingly she took one tentative sip of the cool water then gulped it so thirstily she could have sworn he rolled his eyes heavenward at her stubborn obstinacy. Or was it just what she thought he would do. Water dribbled down her chin. He set the glass down and mopped her chin, throat and chest with a tissue. She felt her face burn, as well as the trail he made with his fingers. It was not from fever, it was embarrassment. Had she always been a klutz or was it the sickness?

  If she could talk she'd apologize. But the next thing she knew he was spooning yogurt from a carton into her mouth, so soothing to her sore throat it brought tears to her eyes. Or maybe it was being treated like a baby that brought the tears. It was humiliating. Especially knowing how much he didn't want her there. How much he resented her presence. She didn't remember much, but she remembered that. She turned her face toward the window, but he placed his thumb under her chin and firmly turned it back toward him. "Eat," he said. "Doctor's orders." And he pushed another spoonful into her mouth. And another. It suddenly dawned on her she was in the care of a tyrant. A stern-faced, weather-beaten tyrant. The best-looking tyrant she'd ever seen.

  When she'd finished the entire container he propped a pillow under her head and stood. "Anything else?" he asked brusquely, forgetting she couldn't speak. "Oh, yes, the bathroom."

  She shook her head violently, pushed the blankets off the bed and attempted to stand. If she had to crawl on all fours she'd get to the bathroom by herself, even if it was half a mile away. But she never got a chance to try. Before her feet hit the ground he'd picked her up again, like a sack of potatoes this time, and headed out the door and down the hall a few steps.

  She took a deep breath and tried to pound on his back with her fists, but she couldn't make a fist. She had no strength in her hands. Or anywhere.

  "Put.. .me...down," she said. The voice that said those words couldn't be hers. It sounded weak and pitiful. But it startled him so much he put her down at the bathroom door, supporting her by cupping her elbows in his hands.

  "I didn't know you could talk," be said, his face cast in shadows from the overhead hall light fixture.

  "I didn't know I could, either," she admitted in a half whisper. The truth was she had nothing to say. What was the point of talking if you had no name, no past and no future? "I'll just..." She looked at the bathroom door.

  "Do you want me to..."

  "No!" With a burst of energy she pushed the door open and closed it firmly behind her. She braced her arms on the washstand where she stood still and took several deep breaths. Her head pounded and her legs felt like jelly. Dimly she noted a new toothbrush, hand lotion and a stack of clean towels. What was this, a hotel? A guest ranch? A sanitarium for people who'd lost their minds? Along the wall was a huge claw-foot porcelain tub with a damp bath mat hung over the side.

  She drew her eyebrows together and tried to remember. The hot water, the gentle hands that washed her brow, the strong arms that lifted her in and out. Whose? His? When she'd finished doing what she'd come to do, she took a brief glance at the mirror and gasped in horror. The creature that looked back at her was a witch, a woman from a horror movie, her hair standing on end, one eye blackened, an ugly cut across her forehead. She shuddered and opened the door. He was still there, leaning against the wall, waiting for her. He had a way of standing, or sitting, or just looking that betrayed none of the impatience he must feel. None of the resentment she knew he felt. As if he had nothing better to do than wait outside the bathroom. Instead of chastising her for taking so long, he only said, "Ready?" and picked her up without waiting for an answer and put her back in bed.

  Chapter Two

  One week and forty newborn lambs later, all of them healthy and dropped on range pasture, Parker stood on his front porch again, this time watching the latest in the line of cooks disappear over the horizon in his pickup truck. Four of his men rode up on horseback and asked what happened this time.

  Parker ran his hand through his hair. "Damned if I know. I paid that cook twice what he was worth."

  "I thought he was all right," Randy said, reaching down to calm his horse.

  "Hey, Parker, what next? The agency gonna send somebody else?"

  "Tomorrow. Tonight we're on our own. There oughta be some leftovers."

  A third man, the one they called Lefty, frowned. "A man can't live on leftovers," he protested.

  "For one night?" Parker asked. He knew they looked forward to a hearty meal after a hard day on the range, but what was he supposed to do, conjure up a cook out of nowhere? They were hard to come by and the good ones wanted to be closer to town.

  After a few more or less amiable requests for Parker to get a new cook now, the men rode off. This was the most critical time on a sheep ranch and here was Parker, stuck with a sick woman without a memory in his den and no cook in his kitchen.

  To top it off his daughter would be home on Friday for the weekend. A twelve-year-old tomboy should be the least of his problems, but when she was around, she was the most. And now, instead of heading for the pasture, instead of riding out with the men on horseback, feeling the wind in his face, the sun on his back, he turned and went into the house to check on his "guest," the woman he'd thought would be gone by now, out of his den, out of his life. He sighed loudly. When would life be back to normal?

  In the kitchen he made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on white bread and poured a glass of milk, then walked down the hall. He opened the door with one hand, balancing t
he tray in the other. She was staring out the window, her back to him, watching the old dog, the one who was too lame to herd anymore, chase a butterfly.

  She turned slowly and gazed at him with those wide gray eyes and he wondered, as he did every time he walked into the room, if she'd remembered anything about her past. The strain that etched lines around her mouth told him she hadn't. "Lunchtime," he announced, trying to sound more cheerful than he felt.

  "I'm really not..."

  "Hungry, I know, but the doctor said..."

  "I know what he said, 'eat, drink and relax and your memory will come back to you.'" The corner of her mouth turned down at the sight of the sandwich on the tray.

  He set it on her lap anyway. "You don't want me to tell him you're not following orders, do you?" he asked, leaning against the brown-and-yellow plaid wallpaper that covered the den.

  "Did you ask him if I could leave?" she asked.

  "You asked him if you could leave, remember?" He watched her carefully, noticed the way she ran her slender fingers through her dry hair. Wondering if she'd lost her short-term memory, too, wondering if she'd ever recover. More curious about her past than he cared to admit.

  "Yes," she said at last. "And he said I could go when my heartbeat is back to normal and my blood pressure comes up. And you said, 'Good God, when will that be?"'

  Despite the bitterness that tinged her words, he felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. She did a fair imitation of his voice. Actually got the intonation right.

  "I guess it's a toss-up as to who wants me out of here more, you or me," she speculated.

  "Eat your sandwich."

  "I don't want it."

  "I'm sorry it's not something more exciting."

  "So am I." She glanced up at him. "Sorry," she sighed.

  "Forget it."

  "If I knew who I was..."

  "At least you know your name. If that's your necklace I found next to the remains of your tent."

  She picked up the diamond-encrusted gold pendant from the bedside table and turned it over to read the inscription once again. To Christine from MTT. "Do I look like the diamond type to you?" she asked.

  He hesitated for a moment, trying to picture her in something besides the extra-large men's flannel pajamas she was still wearing. A dress maybe, with the pendant hanging on her pale skin, nestled between her breasts. He took a deep breath. "Sure, why not?"

  She shook her head. "You're a terrible liar, you know."

  "A terrible cook and a terrible liar," he said, relieved to have the conversation shift back to himself. "Anything else?"

  Christine gave him a long steady look. Just when he thought she wasn't going to speak again, she said, "Did you give me a bath the night I came here?"

  His spine stiffened against the wall. "I might have," he said carefully. He'd thought—he'd hoped her amnesia would have extended that far. As for him, no such luck. He remembered the touch of her skin, the long bare legs, the contours of her breasts, and he was afraid he might never forget.

  "Well if you didn't, who did?" she asked.

  He shrugged as if it didn't matter, but it did. After years of ignoring women, of telling himself he didn't need one, didn't want one, the image of her in the bath had haunted him every day since. And every night.

  A slight flush tinted her pale cheeks. She knew he'd done it. He knew how vulnerable she'd been, lost and alone and almost unconscious. He wanted to reassure her, tell her he hadn't looked, tell her it didn't mean any more to him than lathering a pedigree sheep before taking it to the Grand National. But he couldn't say that. Because it wasn't exactly true.

  She turned away from him and studied the stitches on the quilt that covered the guest bed. "I'm hoping one of these days I'll wake up and remember everything. And I'll be my old self again. Instead of cranky and ungrateful, I'll be charming and gracious—or maybe that's asking too much."

  Christine waited for his comment, but Parker didn't say anything. Maybe he thought there was no chance of her being anything but what she was. An invalid with no past and no future and hair that resembled deep-fried cotton candy. From time to time she'd catch him looking at her with curiosity and something else she couldn't name. She couldn't help looking back. What woman wouldn't look at a man with his rugged good looks? He had it all, the suntanned skin, the high cheekbones and the deep-set eyes. Maybe all sheep ranchers looked like that. Maybe they all looked like they could lift a two-hundred-pound sheep with one hand and feed an orphaned lamb with the other. Maybe they all had eyes the color of the winter sky and a jaw chiseled out of granite.

  "I called the Department of Missing Persons in Denver," she said with a sideways glance at him. "Your father brought me the portable phone and a phone book."

  "And?" He crossed his arms over his chest.

  "I'm not missing after all. At least, no one's looking for me." She shrugged as if it didn't matter. As if she didn't care that no one even knew she was gone. But the hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach told her she did care.

  "So now what?" he asked

  "They said I should come in in person. Then they could register me and run me through their computer." She managed a crooked smile. "As if I hadn't been run through enough already. But I have to go. I know that. Someday soon."

  "For all you know someone could still be looking for you, your husband, your children," he suggested.

  She shook her head. She drew a quick short breath and a piercing sadness caught her by surprise. "I don't have children. I'd know if I did. And if I did I'd never leave them. I couldn't."

  No children, of that she was sure, but a husband? Who was MTT? She had no idea. She changed the subject. "Did you see the books Doc brought me on amnesia and on lightning?" she asked. "I've been reading up and I want you to know I am going to recover and I am going to get out of your life." She tried to smile, but something went wrong and a tear trickled down her cheek. Damn, she was sick of being sick. Of being waited on, of being pathetic. Of being undressed and bathed by handsome strangers with warm, calloused hands.

  Parker drew his eyebrows together and frowned at her. "There's no hurry," he said.

  "Oh, right. I've been here—what, almost a week?— being waited on by you and your father, taking up your den and your time, lying here like a lump, a lump with no past and no future. Just a present."

  "Maybe you're trying too hard to remember," he said. "Just relax. It'll come to you."

  "What if I don't want it to come to me? Sometimes I'm afraid to remember. Afraid to find out who I was." Afraid to leave here. "Oh, well..." She managed a small smile. "It's not your problem."

  He nodded. "My problem is finding a new cook. The old one just left."

  "Hence the peanut butter sandwich," she said, looking at it balefully.

  "I don't think I've ever heard anyone say 'hence' before."

  "I don't think I've ever said it before, either. Maybe I was an English teacher."

  "Too bad you weren't a cook."

  "You mean you'd hire me?"

  "I don't hire women."

  "Why not?"

  "I've got enough trouble without a woman around the place."

  "Then why did you say that?"

  He crossed his arms over his chest. "Because getting a cook is on my mind. Is that so surprising?"

  She shook her head. Not surprising. But tempting. She was getting well, she needed someplace to go, something to do. But she didn't know where to go or what to do. For some reason she didn't want to go to Denver and present herself at the Department of Missing Persons. The idea of finding out who she was scared her. If she could just buy a little time until she was ready to face the past, whatever it was... "What about just temporarily?" she asked.

  "No," he said firmly, and glanced at the door.

  "I don't blame you. You don't know what I'd do in the kitchen, forget to turn off the oven, forget to put the bay leaf in the osso buco or the grapes in the chicken Veronique, or..."

  "Eat your san
dwich," he said abruptly.

  Dutifully she picked it up and took a bite. He stalked out of the room without another word.

  The day dragged by. She picked up a book on lightning the doctor had brought and learned it could have been worse. Much worse. Her brain could have been fried instead of merely scrambled. She learned that the dizziness, the numbness and the headaches were perfectly normal. She read about people who became shamans and healers after they recovered, and she wondered what she'd become and what she'd been, if anything. She felt restless, and useless.

  When the doctor came that afternoon, Parker's father brought him to her room and stood in the hall while Doc Haller told her her blood pressure was almost normal and her heart rate steady.

  When he left, Parker's father knocked on her door. She looked up as the old man shuffled into the room and stood at the window looking out at the sheep in the shade of the ponderosa pines.

  "The doctor says I'm well... well enough to leave," she said.

  "What ya gonna do?" he asked, turning his head in her direction.

  "I'm... not sure. Go to Denver, I guess, and check in with the Department of Missing Persons. See if they can find out who I am."

  "Maybe your folks will be looking for you."

  "Maybe," she acknowledged, though in her heart she knew no one was looking for her. It made her sad to know that, but it gave her a feeling of freedom, freedom to be whoever and whatever she wanted to be. A freedom so immense it scared the living daylights out of her.

  "You have a job?"

  "I don't know. I suppose I must have...unless…” Unless somebody else supported her. Somebody... like a husband.

  "You want a job?" he asked abruptly.

  "Yes, but who would hire me? I've got no references, no background, nobody to vouch for me." She gulped. "I don't even have any clothes."

  "Suppose we get you some. Suppose you work here."

  She smiled a real smile for the first time since she could remember. Her face felt like it might crack under the strain. "As a cook?" she asked hopefully.