Return to Paradise

by Carol Grace

  "Sarah," she said. "Is something wrong? How did you find me?" She pulled herself up against the headboard and Parker's face creased into a worried frown. "You did?" Christine held her hand over the mouthpiece. "She's fine," she whispered, and Parker breathed a sigh of relief.

  "Yes, he's planning to see you, I think tomorrow." She looked up inquiringly and Parker nodded.

  "At noon," he mouthed.

  "Tomorrow at noon," she repeated. "How's that?" She paused.

  "No, Sarah," Christine said. "I can't come. I've got.. .things I have to do. You remember I told you I have to find out about my past." She listened to Sarah talk about school for a few more minutes then she finally hung up.

  Parker stood at the side of the bed. "How did she find you?" he asked.

  "Rang your room and then when no one answered, the operator rang mine." Christine straightened the straps on her dress. "I'm not sure why she called. Just to check with you, I guess." She looked at Parker and felt him slipping away from her, physically and emotionally. If the phone hadn't rung, what would have happened? Would she have made love to Parker?

  She wanted to desperately. Since the first time she'd seen him, felt his hands on her bruised body. Felt safe in his arms. But how could she make love with Parker, not knowing who she was or who MTT was? What if she was involved with someone else? What if she wasn't? Then she could have had one more night as a woman whose life had started in the middle of a sheep pasture, who only knew one thing for sure—she'd fallen in love with a rancher. At least she would have had one night to remember. This way she had nothing.

  Nothing? What about cool mornings in the meadow with the dew still on the grass? The smell of coffee in the kitchen. The sound of laughter coming from the bunkhouse. The sight of Parker on his horse. The touch of his lips, his hands on her bare back. Yes, she had something to remember. Things she'd never forget.

  He was pacing back and forth in front of the window. "Want me to come with you in the morning, wherever you're going?" he asked.

  "Oh, no. I've already disrupted your life enough. I have the address of the Department of Missing Persons. So," she said brightly, "it looks like you're finally rid of me."

  He stopped pacing and looked at her with narrowed eyes. "That sounds like goodbye."

  She pressed her hand against her heart as if she could stop it from aching. "I suppose it is."

  "Is that the way you want it?" he asked, his voice hardened into steel.

  "It's not what I want, it's the way it is," she explained calmly. Then suddenly she blurted, all her frustration coming to the surface, "We have no future, you and I. Whatever there is between us would last one night. It would have been a one-night stand. Maybe you thought that's what I wanted." Maybe because that was what she wanted. "But what would happen after that? You'd go back to a life you love. But what have I got waiting for me?" Her voice broke. "I don't know."

  He took a step backward, his jaw tightened. She knew he couldn't deny it. After tonight he'd return to his ranch and his family. He wouldn't give her a second thought. But she'd be hooked forever on Parker Robinson. No matter what she found out tomorrow, she knew he was the only man in her life. And he didn't want her in his life.

  "When you find out," he said at last, "let me know."

  "I'll do that," she said stiffly.

  "Good night," he said, moving through the connecting door and closing it firmly behind him. Actually it was a cross between slamming and closing firmly.

  The next morning Parker insisted on giving her a ride to the department. Numbly, she accepted. On their way through the lobby they passed a well-dressed woman on her way in. She stopped short and shrieked.

  "Christine Austin! I can't believe my eyes."

  Christine stopped and stared. The woman, a total stranger to her, threw her arms around Christine and kissed the air somewhere around Christine's ear. "What on earth are you doing here?" she demanded.

  Before Christine could think up some kind of reasonable answer, the woman looked her up and down, taking in her Western-style checked shirt, jeans and shoes. "Don't tell me you're with the sheepherders?" She laughed merrily at the very idea. "The place is crawling with them, you know."

  "I know," Christine murmured.

  "So how was the camping trip? I take it you found the place all right?"

  "Yes, yes," Christine said with a sideways glance at Parker.

  The woman followed Christine's gaze and gave Parker a curious look. There was a brief awkward silence during which Christine should have introduced them, but couldn't. Then the woman continued.

  "You look great," she told Christine. "You needed to get away from everything. After what you went through..."

  Christine fought off the urge to ask what had she been through and simply nodded. "It's good seeing you again," she murmured, then edged her way toward the double doors with Parker at her side.

  "Keep in touch," the woman called. "I'll tell everyone you're back."

  Outside the glass double doors of the hotel, Christine stopped cold and faced Parker. "The past is catching up with me," she said, biting her lower lip.

  He nodded, looking at her as if he'd never seen her before. She wrapped her arms around her waist, filled with an unbearable sadness. Unwilling to go forward, and unable to go backward, she just stood there, her gaze locked with Parker's. It was the end, and it was the beginning. Whatever happened, nothing would ever be the same. And they both knew it.

  Chapter Eight

  Parker drove slowly down a winding street with large houses set on wide, well-landscaped lots. He was looking for number 732 Canyon Street, the address listed in the phone book for Christine Austin. After the woman left and they'd finally recovered their senses that morning and returned to the hotel lobby, he and Christine went through the listings for Austin in Denver and found her there.

  He glanced at her, but she had her face pressed to the window looking for what he presumed was her house. "There...there it is," she stammered, pointing to a three-story stone house at the end of the street.

  He pulled up in front of the house and before he could get out, she'd jerked the car door open and was standing on the curb.

  "Thanks for everything," she said, meeting his gaze only briefly before she turned and strode up the walk.

  "Wait a minute," he called through the open window. But she didn't even turn around. She'd heard him, but she didn't look back. Was that the way it ended, with uncertainty and doubt, with nothing resolved? He sat in his car until she'd found a key under the mat, unlocked the door and disappeared into the house. Then he slowly drove away. Who was in there waiting for her? Who was there to take care of her, buy her clothes, eat the food she cooked? He would never know.

  Like a ball of yarn unraveling, Christine's memory was coming back to her now, faster and faster, pell-mell, whether she liked it or not. As she walked up the cement path, staring at the pale gray stone house, she wondered if someone might wave from a window or come bursting out the front door to greet her. But no one did.

  She stood on the front porch for a long moment, then reached without thinking for the key under the mat and unlocked the door. She knew Parker was still there, waiting and watching from the street. But she also knew he was not a part of her life anymore, any more than she was part of his.

  She stepped over a pile of unopened mail into a cool, tiled foyer. Ignoring the mountain of correspondence, she continued to the living room with its stone fireplace and upholstered wing-backed chairs. In one corner there was a large library table stacked with presents of various shapes and sizes wrapped in silver and white. Wedding presents. Her wedding presents. But she wasn't married. She glanced at a card tucked under a white ribbon. "Christine and Michael."

  Michael. There was no face to go with the name. Only feelings. Anger, shame and humiliation crowded together in her mind. She turned her back on the beautiful boxes and walked like a sleepwalker to the dining room, barely noticing the long cherry wood table with a vase of
wilted flowers in the center. The kitchen was filled with gourmet cookware and shelves of cookbooks. The smell of cinnamon and spice hung faintly in the air. The windows looked out on a well-tended garden. Roses climbed the back fence. All strange and yet strangely familiar.

  She took a jar of herbs from a shelf and inhaled the pungent smell. Scenes of dinner parties, memories of mixing, blending and baking in this room all came flooding back. Happy memories. She continued her wandering, up the stairs to her bedroom. Soft peach and pale green on the walls and on the bed a soft, flowered comforter. A desk with stationery, a stack of unfinished thank-you notes. A bookcase filled with volumes of poetry, short stories and literary classics.

  She sat on the edge of the bed and stared out the window at the purple clematis climbing a trellis in the garden. Who was Christine Austin and what did she do besides cook and write notes and read? Why hadn't she gotten married? She didn't want to know, but she had to know. She walked to her desk and touched the playback button on the answering machine. So many messages, so many voices. And from them she pieced together a person—her; a life—hers.

  Her mother was sorry, her friends were sorry. Sorry to hear the wedding was called off. They didn't say who'd called it off, but Christine knew. Arid suddenly she knew why. She didn't blame Michael. Who would want to marry a woman who couldn't have children?

  The scene in the doctor's office came rushing back to her as if it was yesterday instead of a week before the wedding. The smell of antiseptic. X rays. Test results. The words "irreparable fallopian tube damage" and the humiliation. No wonder she'd clung to her amnesia, unwilling to face the past. She almost wished she'd never recovered her memory. As if not knowing would make it not so.

  She'd never forget the look on Michael's face when she told him. The shock and the sorrow. Of course there were other possibilities. Other ways to make a baby. Donors or surrogates, but all were fraught with problems. And Michael had enough problems to deal with already. His family. His business. This was the last straw. She didn't blame him. Even now, standing at her desk, looking at a picture of his handsome face, she knew he'd had no choice.

  Michael Taylor Thomas IV was expected to produce Michael Taylor Thomas V. Who would be expected to step into his father's shoes at the firm as Michael had. But she had choices. Adoption was one of them. Someday. She would find a way. Because she wanted kids. More than anything. She'd always wanted them. Michael knew that and yet when she told him he could only think of himself and his obligation. Not to her, but to his family. It was only natural with a family like his, she told herself. He would find someone else, someone whose fertility was intact. And she.. .she would do what she had to do.

  She picked up the telephone. Made a few calls. Only to people who sounded genuinely worried. Her mother, a few friends, the hospital where she volunteered. Told them all she'd been vacationing at a ranch.

  "One of those places where you dress up like a cowboy and drive the cattle to Montana?" her mother inquired.

  "No, Mother. It was a sheep ranch in the middle of a valley. But I did help out some, cooking, gardening, riding."

  "How did you find it?" her mother asked.

  Christine rubbed her head. "I left my car, oh... my car. Yes, anyway I left it at the entrance to this campground and I hiked in with my tent and backpack and stumbled onto private property, only I didn't know it." The memories were flooding back as she talked.

  "You must give me the name of the ranch," her mother said. "Someone at the Garden Club the other day was looking for a place like that to stay, where they take guests and she can feel at one with the soil and nature."

  Christine smiled. "I will. When I unpack and get back to normal." Whatever that was. Was it normal to do nothing but volunteer work, social engagements and wedding preparations? If so, what happened when the wedding was called off and the round of parties that filled her calendar were no longer appealing?

  "Are you...have you spoken to Michael?" her mother asked hesitantly.

  "Not yet. I just got back. I'm just sorry it had to end like that."

  "Maybe it isn't over," her mother suggested hopefully.

  "It is over," Christine said firmly.

  "I was afraid you'd say that. Well, we'll talk about it at lunch. Thursday?" she asked.

  "Fine."

  For the next few days she wandered restlessly through the house, picturing Parker at the hotel, surrounded by old friends, too busy to think of her. She must get busy, too, so she wouldn't think of him. But busy doing what? She had no job. She lived off a trust fund established by her grandfather.

  She wrote a check to Parker and sent it to the ranch to cover all the money he'd lent her. She enclosed a brief note saying her memory was coming back. That she'd found friends and family and thanked him very much for his help. She didn't tell him she'd been left at the altar, didn't mention her infertility or her frivolous lifestyle.

  Compared to raising sheep, her activities seemed useless and shallow. She was glad he couldn't see her attending board meetings or lunching with friends. The one thing she was proud of was her volunteer work in the pediatrics wing of the local hospital. She wouldn't mind if he saw her in her pink smock reading stories to preschoolers, rocking AIDS babies or feeding preemies.

  That Thursday, after having lunch with her mother, she returned home to find a message from Sarah on her machine. Immediately she called her back.

  "Sarah," she said, "how did you find me?"

  "My dad told me your last name so I looked it up in the phone book. Where do you live anyway?"

  Christine smiled at the sound of the girl's voice. "I live on Canyon Road right here in Denver. I have a house and a car and even a mother... and I've got my memory back."

  "That is so-oo cool. I can't wait to hear all about it. Come and see me this weekend."

  How like her to command instead of ask, Christine thought. "You're not going home for the weekend?"

  "No, cuz it's our spring festival. I have to be here. I'm in the chorus and we're singing. Come Friday after school. I get out at three-thirty."

  "Okay. I'm looking forward to seeing you."

  "I thought you'd forgotten me," Sarah said, suddenly sober.

  "Of course I didn't. But it took me a while to... to get readjusted." As if she'd ever be readjusted to this strange life.

  "My dad thought so, too."

  "He thought I'd forgotten you?"

  "He thinks you've forgotten him."

  "But I sent him some money and wrote him a note."

  "He read it to me. It didn't say very much."

  Christine looked out her bedroom window across the treetops. What did he expect? That she'd pour out her heart, tell him how much she missed him, how much she loved him? She wasn't that far gone. She still had a little pride.

  "You're not married, are you?" Sarah asked.

  "No, I'm not."

  "Good. See ya." And she hung up.

  Before Sarah's spring festival Christine went back to her old hairdresser who shook her head in despair when she ran her comb through Christine's hair.

  With her hair turned into a halo of professionally trimmed curls and wearing a pearl gray hand-knit sweater that matched her mid-calf-length skirt Christine drove to the school. Behind the gates were spacious lawns and attractive brick buildings. At the office she asked for Sarah.

  "Are you here for parents' day?" the woman asked Christine after she'd placed a brief phone call to Sarah's dorm.

  Christine paused. "No, I'm here to see a friend." Before she could wonder why Sarah hadn't told her it was parents' day, the girl came flying across the campus and threw herself into Christine's arms.

  "I'm so glad to see you," Sarah said breathlessly. "Christine Austin," she said, her bright eyes looking her up and down. "You've got a last name now and some nice new clothes. Did you ever find out how old you are?"

  "I'm thirty-one. Doesn't that seem old?"

  "Uh-uh. It's just right." Sarah grabbed her hand and led her on
a tour of the campus.

  "This is a beautiful place," Christine noted as they walked past a grove of aspen trees toward the sports complex.

  Sarah wrinkled her nose. "You think so?" she asked. "I'd rather be home."

  "Well, summer vacation isn't far off, is it?"

  "Three weeks. But I'm not coming back in the fall," Sarah said with the determined tone Christine remembered so well.

  "Does your father know that?" Christine asked, pausing to look into Sarah's blue eyes.

  "I've told him, but he doesn't believe me." She tilted her head. "I was hoping you'd talk to him."

  "Talk to him? I don't think I'll have a chance to talk to him."

  "Yes, you will. At dinner tonight. He's coming for parents' weekend. You're allowed two guests. For your mom and dad." She shrugged. "You're not my mom, but..."

  "Wait a minute," Christine said, her heart hammering at the idea of seeing Parker. "If you brought me here to talk your dad into letting you move home, it's not going to work. What makes you think he'll listen to me?"

  "Cuz he likes you."

  "Sarah."

  "And he misses you."

  Christine took Sarah by the shoulders. "He doesn't miss me. I was only there a few weeks. You wish he missed me, maybe I wish he did, too, but he doesn't."

  "Okay," Sarah agreed, to humor her. "But tonight you'll see. I'm going to ask him. Come on." She tugged at Christine's hand. "You have to see my dorm. My roommate wants to meet you. She's got a stepmother, too."

  After she'd toured the dorms and met Sarah's friends, and shadows crossed the wide, well-kept lawns, Christine formed an excuse in her mind, and prepared to leave before it was too late. But it was too late. Parker was already briskly striding around the corner of the administration building as they were coming toward him. Before she ran into him, Christine stopped abruptly. Parker stopped dead in his tracks and stared at Christine as if he'd seen a ghost. He was dressed in city clothes, tailored slacks, a striped tie and a jacket. From the shocked look on his face, it was clear he didn't know she'd be there.