The Husband She Can't Remember (Southwest Secrets Series Book 1)

by Tina Cambria

  If it had even happened at all.

  But if it had happened, she needed to let Kyle know. Otherwise, she was straight-up using him for food, shelter, and medical care during her pregnancy. If he was bending over backwards to take care of her, and then it turned out that she was carrying another man’s baby—that didn’t play out fairly in any universe.

  More than two hours of driving from New Loudon to get back to Cottonwood Ridge and she hadn’t figured out how to break the news to Kyle. Because she had to tell him. Even if there was a chance of losing him.

  And she didn’t want to lose him.

  There it was, like a boulder that had landed on her chest, crushing her with the realization that she didn’t want to go on without Kyle in her life. It had been an incredibly lucky break when she’d run into him and even luckier when circumstances had all fallen into place to set them up for romance to blossom.

  Love had grown from a tiny seed once, when they spent a week in Vegas. And it had happened again when they moved in together and she got to know him again. Since she’d fallen in love with him that second time, her feelings had grown even stronger every day.

  When he walked through the door a moment later, a bouquet of daisies in his hand and his face beaming like he was set to hear good news, her heart jumped to her throat. What a good, decent man.

  True, the first week of their relationship could be considered by many folks to be on the sketchy side.

  But he’d stepped right up to take responsibility for everything he’d done. Besides, not every married couple on earth had first met through notarized recommendations of their family, clergy, trusted friends, or the town mayor. There was that little thing—no, make it a big thing—called chemistry and physical attraction.

  And there was no shortage of chemistry or physical attraction between them.

  A picture-perfect package of over six feet of manhood with a sense of humor, caring nature, and likeability inside. A package that had landed in her lap when she hadn’t even known she’d wanted it.

  And now I want to hold on to that package. I don’t know how I could possibly live without Kyle in my life.

  But she couldn’t hold on to him with trickery. Granted, the start to their marriage had been bizarre. Still, if the marriage had a shot to continue, everything going forward had to be based on honesty. Honesty, love, passion, commitment. She wouldn’t settle for anything less.

  And Kyle didn’t deserve anything less.

  He crossed the room and held the flowers out to her. “These daisies aren’t as beautiful as you are, but they’ll have to do for now.”

  “I can’t believe how sweet you are, Kyle.” How was she going to tell him what Walter had claimed? If only she could make that whole scenario go away. Walter had dragged his heels about their relationship for nearly two long years. Why did he have to jump in the fray right now, when she’d finally found a man who truly wanted her?

  And who she wanted more than anything.

  Kyle placed the bouquet on the kitchen counter and then pulled her close to him. “I missed you so much today.” In a flash, his mouth was on hers. Not a chaste kiss, but deep and probing. Hungry and longing.

  A fiery comet shot straight to her lower belly, and she was ready to invite Kyle to set her alive as he’d done last night in the hotel room in Denver.

  She was with the only man she wanted to share that with. Not only did she love the way Kyle could make her feel, she loved everything about the man that he was. If there were rocky times ahead…well, she didn’t care. She couldn’t remember saying their wedding vows, but she was willing to accept the bad with the good. If they encountered difficult days along the way, she would stand by him.

  And yet, every cell in her body that knew the difference between right and wrong was screaming at her that she couldn’t keep Walter’s claim a secret from Kyle.

  Even though when he found out what Walter claimed, Kyle might want nothing more to do with her.

  * * *

  His lips crushing hers, he couldn’t think about anything except making love to Danielle.

  Her doctor had said the pregnancy was progressing normally. That’s what Danielle had texted after her appointment with Dr. Chartoff. So, there was no physical reason why they couldn’t continue to make up for lost time.

  He pulled her even closer, certain that she was now aware of his arousal pressed tightly against her belly. Drawing back from the kiss, he placed a hand on either side of her face. “It doesn’t have to be hard and furious like the other times. You can have it however you want. Slow and delicious. It’s up to you.”

  Was he imagining it, or had she flinched?

  “Maybe you should eat dinner first—” she began.

  “I know you put a lot of work into dinner,” he broke in. “Maybe we can freeze it for another day? I want you so bad right now. Why don’t we order carry-out later?”

  The glow disappeared from her eyes. “You may not want to…after I tell you what happened back in New Loudon.”

  “Not want to—what? Order carry-out?” She wasn’t making sense. Didn’t she realize how desperate he was to touch her, hold her, become one with her?

  Shaking her head, she said, “I think you’d better sit down.”

  She’d texted him that everything had been fine at the doctor’s appointment. No problems with the pregnancy. So, what was she hiding? He hoped nothing had happened with her grandmother.

  “Tell me, Danielle.”

  Her expression was an odd mixture of panic and seasickness. Kyle guided her to the dining table, and they sat down, all thoughts of dinner completely forgotten.

  She gasped for air and quickly heaved her breath out. His first thought was that she was supposed to be at the point in her pregnancy where queasiness and morning sickness were no longer problems.

  Then she grimaced and blurted out, “Walter says he’s the father of the baby.”

  Kyle’s gut clenched, and he was certain that his face had turned three shades of purple. “What the hell? How could that even be possible?”

  She sniffled. “He said it was a couple of days after I returned to New Loudon, and he came over to see me while Leslie was at work. When I told him about my memory problems, he tried to console me. He said that one thing led to another. I mean, that’s what Walter told me. Apparently, the shock of me coming close to getting killed in a car accident made him realize how he really felt about me, and…well, we might have—”

  “Give me a break,” Kyle snarled. “Do you even remember this?”

  She shook her head, and a flood of tears emerged.

  “I thought your amnesia was limited to that period when you left L.A. until you woke up in the ambulance. Now it’s selectively kicking in for other incidents? Such as that little weasel supposedly taking advantage of you a couple of days after a serious car accident?”

  “I don’t think name-calling is going to solve anything.”

  “You’re right. The only way to solve it is to get that damn DNA testing. Find out for certain who the father is. Get that loser—excuse me for the name-calling—get Walter Ferguson off our backs once and for all.”

  “That is the only way to definitively prove who the father is,” Danielle said. Her voice quivered. “But it’s dangerous to do it before the baby’s born.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I asked Leslie about it. The procedure requires inserting a needle into the amniotic fluid inside the uterus. That’s the only way to get a sample of the baby’s DNA before it’s born. And if we get the testing done, there’s a slightly increased chance that I would have a miscarriage afterwards.”

  “Take a chance on losing our baby just because of that guy’s last-ditch effort to steal you from me? No way is that happening.”

  “Kyle, I’m so sorry.”

  “Sorry about what? That you slept with the jerk?” He wasn’t going to believe that anything had happened between Danielle and Walter. Kyle could believe the amnesia had ca
used her to forget about meeting and marrying him and everything else they’d done throughout their week together. But even if she had no memory of being married to another man, would she really have so easily allowed Walter to seduce her? And it was crazy that she’d do that while she was still sore from being banged up by the car’s air bags.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “Walter says he slept with you a couple of days after your car accident. So, where was he for the next four or five weeks before I showed up at Leslie’s door? You and he weren’t rendezvousing on a regular basis, were you?”

  “No, no,” she spluttered, looking horrified. “I’m sure I’d remember that.”

  A sick sensation lapped at his stomach as he caught sight of the bouquet of daisies, now sitting forlornly on the table. They should be in a vase filled with water. Then he couldn’t believe he was concerned about a few cut flowers. An hour before, they’d symbolized the vibrant new start to their intimacy. Now, they signified nothing more than a few objects that had the potential to be beautiful. But instead, they were quickly withering.

  Just like his relationship with Danielle.

  And what about the baby? The baby that had most definitely bound them together. That’s what had convinced her to move in with him, even if she couldn’t remember that they were married.

  What if the baby wasn’t his, after all? He didn’t want to believe it. But Danielle didn’t seem willing to completely rule out the possibility. How could he deal with the uncertainty of not knowing for sure who the baby belonged to?

  “I’ll be back later,” he said, before he stood up to leave the apartment. “This is way too much to take in. I have to think about it for a while.”

  She didn’t try to stop him.

  * * *

  Maybe she should have called Kyle on his cell when he hadn’t returned by ten o’clock that night. Maybe she shouldn’t have let him leave their apartment in such an emotionally unsettled state. Maybe she shouldn’t have sprung such upsetting information on him without laying some sort of foundation.

  Danielle thought about it all evening, while she stared mindlessly at the TV screen, nervously clenching and unclenching her hands.

  What had she done?

  The only man who even came close to showing real love for her had torn out of their home because she might have slept with another man and let him father her child. And she couldn’t honestly blame Kyle. Amnesia or not, she couldn’t come up with any good justification for her to have acquiesced to Walter Ferguson after returning home from L.A.

  The man hadn’t even kissed her in more than two years of so-called dating. So, what kind of man would decide it was finally time to have sex when she was only a couple days beyond a serious car accident where she’d briefly lost consciousness?

  Not a man who truly loved her.

  And even if Walter were that big of a jerk, she had no excuse if she hadn’t rebuffed him. Her head injury had wiped out a week’s worth of memories, but it hadn’t stolen her judgment. Whether she remembered marrying Kyle or not, doing that with Walter at that time was plain wrong on so many levels.

  And why couldn’t she remember it? She’d been struggling so hard to remember her first meeting with Kyle and everything that happened during the week that followed. And finally, every so often a tiny snatch of recollection wafted to the surface of her memory.

  But she wasn’t aware of any lingering amnesia episodes after she’d fully regained consciousness in the ambulance. How could she possibly forget having sex with Walter when she had no problem remembering anything else that had happened since the accident?

  Had it been so traumatic that she’d hidden it as deep as she could in her mind?

  Her throat burned at the thought.

  One way or the other, things were messed up pretty bad. Kyle was the man who had demonstrated genuine love for her. Or at least he had been doing that until Walter tried to pry himself back into the picture.

  And she knew that her head had been so much in the right place when she and Kyle had ended their honeymoon.

  She didn’t remember saying her wedding vows, but if the words for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer had been uttered, she now knew that she believed in what they meant. And she wanted another opportunity to love and cherish Kyle for the rest of their days.

  But she might have squandered her last chance to show Kyle what was truly in her heart. And she was ashamed to face him again.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  After a fitful night’s sleep, Danielle awoke shortly before seven o’clock to the first glimmers of sunrise peeking through the bedroom curtains. The apartment was silent except for the low rumble of the heater.

  Had Kyle come home after she’d fallen asleep? Was he still sleeping in the other bedroom, or had he left for work already?

  Slipping into her robe, she noted that it still managed to cover her growing abdomen. But not for long. A few more weeks and there would be no denying that she’d need to officially make the move to maternity clothing.

  But where would she even be in a few weeks? Kyle might kick her out of the apartment and tell her to let Walter take over responsibility for the baby.

  How had she gotten into such a mess?

  She gingerly opened her bedroom door, not wanting to awaken Kyle if he had come home late and was still asleep. But she immediately saw that the door to his bedroom was ajar. She hurried down the hallway and peeked into the bedroom, confirming that he wasn’t there. And most likely hadn’t slept there either, judging from the totally smooth, unruffled appearance of the bedspread.

  Shuffling dejectedly to the kitchen, she flicked on the light and spotted a note on the counter. She focused on the message: Sleeping at the resort for a while until we sort things out.

  No signature. Definitely no signature signed with love.

  Nothing more than an explanation that her husband didn’t want to live in the same apartment with her anymore. And probably didn’t want to stay married to her anymore either.

  She’d thought all along that she was the one with the final say as to whether she and Kyle stayed together as a couple. He’d been acting as though he were willing to go along with it. If only she agreed. Why had he left it up to her?

  He must have fallen in love with me during our honeymoon.

  A chance meeting, physical attraction, and combustible chemistry had deepened into burgeoning love by the end of that week. Now, she was sure it had happened to her too. But the car accident had wiped away all traces of the experience from her thoughts.

  It wasn’t fair. If only she hadn’t been hit by that car.

  The thought suddenly occurred to her that, considering the force of the collision, she was lucky she hadn’t been injured more severely than she was. She couldn’t remember that one specific week of her life—a truly meaningful week, to be sure—but she still retained all of the memories that made up her identity. She knew her name, where she was born, all the things she’d learned in school.

  And she’d come through the accident with mostly bruises. No broken bones. No internal damage. No loss of the precious baby she’d been carrying inside of her.

  Or had she been carrying the baby inside of her at that time? Could what Walter said be true, and had the baby been conceived with him just a few days after that?

  A decision suddenly formed in her being. Determining the father of the baby no longer mattered to her. At least not so far as influencing who she loved and wanted to be with. That was Kyle, whether he was the baby’s father or not.

  She wasn’t in love with Walter, she’d never been in love with Walter, and she would never be in love with Walter.

  She didn’t care if his upholstery business slip-covered every blessed sofa from Maine to California. His dependable income couldn’t make up for the feelings that were missing. The feelings that only Kyle could elicit with his sense of humor and adventure, his caring gestures, his tender yet powerful lovemaking.

  She’d stumbled on somethi
ng incredibly wonderful, and now she was afraid she’d let it slip away.

  With her thoughts on the baby, she scolded herself for wallowing in self-pity while she should be focusing on the needs of her child. “This baby won’t grow like it should if I don’t eat properly,” she mumbled to herself, heating instant oatmeal and water in the microwave. She opened the fridge to retrieve a grapefruit, placed it on the cutting board, and pulled a knife from the drawer.

  A quick slip of her hand gouged the knife into her left thumb, sending a trickle of blood dripping onto the kitchen counter. She pulled a paper towel from the dispenser and pressed it to the cut to stop the bleeding. After a few moments, it stopped, and she delicately washed the blood away at the sink.

  “Not too bad,” she said aloud to herself, sighing. “Still needs a bandage, though.”

  She was inwardly criticizing herself for being careless when she discovered there were no bandages in the master bathroom. How long had she been living in this apartment and she still hadn’t fully stocked the medicine cabinet?

  Maybe there was a box of bandages in Kyle’s bathroom. When she opened his medicine cabinet, she immediately found a small box of assorted bandage strips, squares, and circles. Reaching for it, her hand brushed a small, travel-sized bottle on the shelf and sent it sailing to the sink. The top flew off, and the bottle’s contents flowed toward the drain.

  Fragrance. An eerily familiar scent of men’s fragrance drifted into her nostrils and, with it, an image abruptly flashed into her consciousness.

  A large bed covered with a snowy comforter. With decorative pillows casually yet purposefully tossed across the top. Rectangular pillows covered in black fabric with a classic Greek key pattern around the edges in gold.

  What had her art history professor in college said about the Greek key pattern?

  Eternity.

  That was it. He’d said it might symbolize eternity. Or eternal love.

  As the musky aroma trailed further into her nostrils, an image of Kyle rushed to the forefront of her thoughts. He was in that room with the comforter and the pillows, smiling at her, popping the cork on a bottle of champagne, saying, “To us!”