Her Forgotten Cowboy

by Deb Kastner

  “Are you sure you’re not pushing yourself too hard, Rebecca? You were just in a life-changing accident a few months ago.”

  She frowned and studied his expression. His words hadn’t come out as overbearing and he didn’t sound like he was trying to talk her out of anything. He was just anxious.

  “You don’t think it’s a good idea to start my own business? I don’t know why, but the thought of being an entrepreneur appeals to me. I bought a few books on my e-reader and am researching all the details of how to go into business for myself.”

  He gave a low whistle.

  “What?”

  “I’m impressed, is all. You aren’t letting your amnesia hold you back anymore. I always knew you had a strong will. I’m happy to see you didn’t lose it in the accident.”

  “So that’s a good thing, then?”

  He reached across the table and grabbed her hand. “Not good, Rebecca. Great. I’m 100 percent behind you on whatever dreams you want to chase, as long as—”

  He couldn’t finish his sentence. He brushed a hand across his jaw, refusing to continue.

  He didn’t have to. Rebecca could see it in his eyes.

  As long as she didn’t leave him again.

  Chapter Twelve

  Tanner leaned his shoulder on the doorjamb between the kitchen and the dining room and watched his wife work. It had been two weeks since they’d had the discussion about her opening her own business. She had several business and accounting books stacked on the table, as well as a number of government forms she’d filled out and needed to go over with her lawyer before officially hanging out her Mighty Math Tutoring sign on the community boards at the high school and middle school.

  Not that she really needed to advertise. Word of mouth was by far the best form of advertising, and it was free. All they’d had to do was mention to Jo Spencer at Cup O’ Jo’s Café that she was looking for students and she’d already gotten a deluge of phone calls from eager parents and students.

  Of course, the baby would come first. She intended to take six weeks off just to enjoy their son before she started working as a tutor, but she wanted to have all her ducks in a row so that when the time came to open her business, all she’d have to do was turn the proverbial sign from Closed to Open.

  That was his Rebecca. Planning every aspect so there was nothing left to chance.

  Tanner smiled, seeing her so happy. There was a glow about her that only partly had to do with her pregnancy. Anything that made Rebecca’s heart warm automatically made Tanner’s heart do the same.

  At the moment, she was clicking through a financial program on her laptop and filling numbers in the boxes. She was totally focused on her spreadsheet.

  He desperately wanted to swing her chair around and kiss her. Those feelings reminded him of when they’d first started dating in their early twenties.

  He approached her from behind and rubbed her shoulders, which were tense from stooping over her computer. “How’s my entrepreneur feeling today?”

  She nearly jumped out of her seat at his touch.

  “You scared ten years off my life,” she said, stretching her neck from side to side to relieve the muscle strain. “I was starting to feel a little sleepy and was getting ready to take a break, maybe a little catnap, but now you’ve got my adrenaline going again. You move so quietly you should come with a warning bell around your neck.”

  “Sorry. I figured you knew I was there. I didn’t realize you were so lost in thought.”

  She leaned back and smiled at him. “Just enjoying crunching all my numbers for my new business.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “Only a math geek would say something like that.” He kissed the top of her head affectionately.

  “I beg your pardon?” she teased.

  “Kidding, not kidding,” he replied, his grin widening as he bobbed his eyebrows. “As it happens, I have a thing for math geeks.”

  “I guess that’s a good thing, then, since you married one.”

  Their eyes met and held, her gaze sparkling with mirth—and something else. Tanner swallowed hard.

  “And our future football player? How’s he doing today? Still moving around a lot in there?”

  His question had been light but earnest, and her gaze changed from joy to perplexity and she shook her head slightly as if in confusion.

  He lowered his brow. “What?”

  “It’s probably nothing.”

  “No, you don’t get to do that. You can’t close up on me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  He sounded desperate even to his own ears. But he knew firsthand how easy a relationship went from some small burr under the saddle to an enormous infection even the best medicine couldn’t fix.

  He remembered that impassable ravine that had once formed between them, and he would do whatever it took to make sure that never happened again.

  He would gently pick the burr out now.

  “It’s just that you ask me about the baby moving several times every day, even though nothing’s really changed. I’m having trouble moving. I feel like a beached whale. But our son is doing fine, and I’m beginning to get paranoid every time you ask about our baby. What are you not telling me?”

  He suddenly felt woozy and was unable to catch a breath. His knees buckling, and his gaze tunneling, he scrambled for the chair next to Rebecca and just barely crashed into the seat without falling to the floor.

  She reached for his arm. “Are you okay?”

  He forced a breath in to his lungs and then let it out slowly. “I’m fine.”

  Then he jammed both hands back through his thick blond hair and modified his statement. “No, Rebecca, I’m not fine. I’ve—we’ve—been putting off this conversation for far too long. Your memory appears to be returning in bits and pieces, and to be honest, I’ve been walking around dreading the moment when you remember everything again.”

  “Because I left you?” she asked gently. “And you’re afraid that whatever it was that broke us apart the first time will do so again?”

  “Yes,” he said, but he was shaking his head even as the word came out of his mouth. “No. I mean, obviously, that’s important. But there is—so much more. I—I warn you—this is going to hurt. That was one of the reasons I kept putting off talking about it—I wasn’t sure you were physically and emotionally up to hearing it. But that’s not the only reason, or even the major one. The larger obstacle, I’m ashamed to say, is that I’m being selfish. I need you to stay with me, especially now that we have Mackenzie and the new baby coming.”

  “And you think if I know—whatever it is you’re about to tell me, I’m going to leave, the same way I did the first time?”

  He scoffed and shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “If you’re going to be completely honest, then I will be, as well. There have been mornings recently when I’ve woken up and I feel like I have a dark, heavy cloud settled over me. It’s hard for me to move.”

  Tanner lowered his head and groaned.

  “Tell me something,” Rebecca said, scooting her chair until she was facing him and then tipping up his chin until their eyes met. “The relationship we have now, the one we’ve been building here together—is it real? Because to me, it feels like we’re a family. That we’re successfully working toward regaining a husband-and-wife relationship.”

  He swallowed twice through a dry throat. “Me, too. Better even than I imagined it might be when we stood at the altar and you took—”

  “I took what?” she asked curiously.

  “I was going to say, my name, but now you don’t remember yourself as Rebecca Hamilton, only as Rebecca Foster.”

  “That’s not exactly true,” she admitted. “It’s like how I was telling you about waking up with feelings I don’t know how to categorize. But there’s been more than that. I think my memories ar
e returning, Tanner. Just tiny bits here and there at this point and I don’t have everything I need to give them context, but I’m starting to be able to piece some things together. I don’t know if it is my memory coming back, or just me settling into my role here as your wife, but I do think of myself as Rebecca Hamilton.”

  Tears pricked at his eyes. It had meant the world to him when she’d elected to take his name the day they were married. That she’d done so again right now made his heart warm beyond measure.

  If only he didn’t have to ruin it with his next words.

  “We need to talk about the baby,” he said, deciding that putting it off any longer was just going to cause both of them further pain.

  Rebecca put a protective hand over her belly and rubbed at the sudden rounded bump that rose up to meet it. She smiled softly. “This kid thinks my rib is a swing set. I can’t even imagine how active he is going to be. We’re going to be running all over chasing after him. I picture him climbing bookcases and sliding down the stairs headfirst while we chase along behind.”

  “You’ll never know how good it is to hear that. Can I—?”

  She reached for his hand and put his palm down next to her left ribs. Sure enough, his son—their son—was doing jumping jacks in her womb.

  Thank you, Jesus.

  “Be straight with me,” Rebecca urged. “Why is it that you keep asking me if our son is active? At first I thought it was just a daddy thing—you wanting your son to be good at sports or whatever—although personally, I have to admit I’m rooting for math geek or student body president.”

  He knew she was trying to lighten the moment, but she didn’t yet understand the gravity of what he was about to say and he just couldn’t bring himself to crack a smile.

  “So if it isn’t our son’s amazing football career you’re encouraging, or that you’re sure he’s going to find the cure for cancer, what did you want to talk to me about?”

  Tanner stared at her for a moment, his eyes wide with confusion, before he finally realized she’d mistakenly believed that when he’d said they needed to talk about the baby, he was speaking about the child currently in her womb and not the one they’d lost.

  “There was—” His voice cracked and he coughed to dislodge the emotions in his throat. “There was another baby, Rebecca. We had another child together. A daughter.”

  “We had a—a—?” She pushed back from the table, away from him, her gaze instantly filling with tears. “I don’t understand. What do you mean we had a daughter? What happened to her?”

  “She—she was stillborn. We lost her at seven months.”

  “That can’t be true,” she said, vigorously shaking her head as her face turned an alarming shade of red. “I would remember that!”

  He didn’t blame her for being angry. It wasn’t directed at him—yet. It was only a matter of time, though, before she did turn her anger upon him.

  It had taken him at least a year to come to grips with losing their child. Of being angry with God for allowing it to happen, so much so that at one point he’d felt as if his faith had been ripped out of him along with his heart.

  What good did it do to be the protector and provider of his family if he couldn’t even save his daughter, if he couldn’t reach his wife before she’d disappeared down the deep, dark hole of depression?

  And now, to have to revisit it all—he’d thought he’d come to grips with everything, but his grief had never really completely disappeared. He’d just managed to tuck most of it away in the back of his heart, only for it to reemerge now.

  “That doesn’t even make any sense,” she continued when he didn’t answer her—because he didn’t have an answer for her.

  “Some things in life simply don’t have a rational answer, sweetheart,” he murmured. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from all this, it’s that in those moments, we have to let God take the reins. We will never know why our precious daughter was taken from us—at least until we see our Lord in Heaven. But now He’s given us Mackenzie. Not as a replacement for our daughter, but as another child to love.”

  She rubbed her temples with her fingers and then pinched the bridge of her nose so hard she left a mark. “I still don’t get it. This isn’t the Middle Ages, and I was at a hospital, right? Lots of babies are born healthy at seven months. Even if their little lungs need a bit more time to develop, they have NICUs full of special equipment. Even if our baby—if she—was born premature, why didn’t she live?” She was almost shouting now.

  He tried to reach for her hand but she snatched it away and tucked both hands over her belly.

  Tanner’s heart was being sliced apart shred by painful shred. “Our daughter—we named her Faith Rebecca Hamilton—had already passed away in the womb. The doctor said she’d been gone for days by the time you went into labor. There was truly nothing the doctors and nurses could have done to save her.”

  To his surprise, Rebecca looked him straight in the eye. “Tell me about her. Everything you remember.”

  “You want me to—?” He swiped a hand down his face to clear away the moisture. He wasn’t certain he could do this.

  She nodded. “I need to know.”

  “She was beautiful. Amazing. Ten perfectly formed tiny fingers and ten tiny toes. She had—she had the cutest little button nose you ever did see. Just like on her five-month ultrasound. She had a tuft of auburn hair just like yours.

  “We didn’t know what was wrong at first.” Tanner frowned as he remembered the way the doctor had avoided his questions. “The doctor didn’t say anything for a long time. He handed Faith off to a nurse, who quickly wrapped her in a blanket. At first I thought she was just swaddling our daughter, and I remember holding my breath, waiting to hear the baby give her first precious wail.

  “But that didn’t happen. And it didn’t look to me like the nurse was trying to do very much to help the baby breathe. She just stared down at her as she held her. Everything seemed like it was in slow motion.

  “I started to feel like something was up and stared closely at the doctor’s expression. He wouldn’t look at me, but just went on about his business. That’s when I knew for sure something was wrong.”

  He ran a hand down his jaw. “I think you figured it out before I did. You were so exhausted after your hours of labor, but you kept yelling, ‘Where’s my baby? What’s wrong with my baby?’” A frustrated growl emerged from the back of his throat. “Your voice...those words...they haunt me to this day.”

  Rebecca sniffled and dabbed at her tears with the back of one hand, while simultaneously reaching out for his hand with the other.

  “We took turns holding her for the longest time. The nurses said we could have all the time we needed to say goodbye. It was so hard to let her go.”

  He squeezed her hand, wondering how to continue, because from that moment onward everything in their lives had tanked. He now realized he’d made Rebecca’s depression worse by not believing depression was even a real thing. He had dealt with his grief in a different way—by working nonstop.

  “You weren’t able to bounce back from that tragedy,” he said. “You became very depressed and stayed in bed all day. You wouldn’t eat anything and lost a lot of weight.”

  “That part, I remember. Well, not all of it. But sometimes when I wake up in the morning I experience flashbacks that I assume must be what depression feels like. I don’t ever want to go back to that horrible place.”

  “Me, neither. I was so frustrated.”

  “With me?”

  “Partially. But mostly with myself. I couldn’t figure out how to help you. Nothing I did seemed to work. I couldn’t reach you, and you wanted to have nothing to do with me.”

  “So you did—what?”

  “Dealt with my grief in my own way. Worked from sunup to well after sundown. Tried not to bother you. Slept on the couch.”
r />   “Hmm. And then at some point I decided I’d had enough and I left?”

  He nodded soberly. “Eventually you must have started getting better, but by that time we were living completely separate lives. We never talked or tried to work anything out. I didn’t know what was going on with you, and you didn’t tell me. Instead, I came home one evening and found you gone. No note or anything.”

  “And that’s the end of the story?”

  “No. You called me once, but I was so hurt and so bitter I hung up on you. I think you were going to tell me you were pregnant with our son. I didn’t see or hear from you again until you showed up at the auction in Serendipity.”

  Rebecca sighed heavily. “That’s a lot to take in.”

  “I know. I hope this doesn’t send you spiraling backward. But I couldn’t put off telling you any longer.”

  “No. We needed to have this conversation,” she agreed. “But now that we have, I think we’ve hit a brick wall.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means,” Rebecca said, hiccuping a sob between short breaths, “we have some big decisions to make. Like where do we go from here?”

  * * *

  “I’m sorry, Tanner. I—I’ve got to get out of here for a bit. I need some fresh air and some time to think.”

  He let out a breath and nodded, his unblinking gaze full of pain. “I understand.”

  Rebecca couldn’t remain in the kitchen any longer. She couldn’t watch the broken expression on Tanner’s face any longer and know that—at least partially—she had been the one to put it there. His presence was just too painful for her to bear.

  And it must be so much worse for him. She couldn’t imagine how he could stand to be in the same room with her after everything that had happened.

  Not after what she’d done to him. She couldn’t even meet his gaze, she was so ashamed of her actions. He was clearly feeling her betrayal all over again, while she was trying to wrap her head around everything that had led up to their separation as if for the first time.