Tall Dark Stranger (Cajun Cowboys Book 1)

by Patricia Watters

  ***

  Four days after Joe's unexpected visit to her parent's house, Anne had still not heard from him. For the moment though, she found herself sitting in the living room while looking across at a doctor friend of the family, who'd been called in to help restore her memory. She hoped that was the case because the sooner she recovered it, the sooner she could fight her parents and convince a judge she and Joe were capable of taking care of their son.

  Sitting adjacent to the doctor on a sofa made for show in an antebellum home, were her mother and father, and on a chair covered in burgundy velvet sat her grandmother, back ramrod straight, hands folded in her lap. Anne almost laughed aloud because the term Joe claimed she'd used in reference to the woman was spot on. Dowager duchess. Even the measured way the woman spoke, with a British accent reeking of landed gentry, told Anne the woman would never be on her side. She'd view Joe the way the others did; a man whose ambition was limited to chasing cows.

  "The father of your child," the doctor started in. "How much of your past with him do you remember?"

  Anne eyed the doctor with wariness, disturbed that his first question was about her and Joe instead of her memories with her family. It came to her that her parents might be using the doctor to build a case, proving she was confused with little memory of recent months, and use the information to keep Joey under their guardianship. With that in mind, she said, "Actually, I remember quite a bit, like going to fais do-dos and rodeos, and going with Joe to a place on the bayou where we used to meet, which triggered other memories."

  "Memories like what?" the doctor asked.

  "Like what couples do when alone. Joe and I have a past together that goes back to high school years, so spending time with him gives me a better chance of restoring my memory than being here." She hoped she sounded credible, when the reality was, she remembered little about her past with Joe except what he told her, along with a few brief moments when something sparked a vivid image, like the smell of lavender triggering a glimpse of being with him in bed..

  "Honey, you grew up here," her mother said. "It just seems there's a better chance of you having a spontaneous recovery if you're here."

  Anne's gaze shifted between her mother and the others in the room. "I don't remember any of you. If not for the flood I'd be married to Joe, we'd be living in the house he bought for me, and we'd have our son with us."

  "You can have all that when your memory comes back," her mother said. "We want you with us not only to protect Joey while you're still confused, but so memories of growing up here will come back and you'll realize we truly care about you, and Joey."

  Anne eyed her mother with impatience. "Joe is far more important to me than hanging around here and hosting a slew of uppity luncheons and fundraiser teas and all that entails, and I want to be with him and he needs to be with his son. It's as simple as that."

  Her grandmother let out a short, "Harrumph," and said, "You are a product of having been raised here, which will carry over into how you raise your son, so you should not set proper protocol aside as unimportant."

  Anne drew in a sharp breath to stem her irritation. "My son doesn't need to know correct etiquette to be a cattle rancher like his father."

  Before her grandmother could respond, Anne's father said to the elderly woman, "Mother, we need to stick to what's important here, which is helping Anne recover her memory."

  Her grandmother glared at Anne's father. "Recovering her memory has little to do with things. Anne's cooked her goose proper this time and it's foolish to pretend otherwise, which is why she and the child belong here until she comes to her senses."

  "That's exactly what we're trying to establish," Anne's father said.

  "I can speak for myself," Anne cut in, deciding to drive one more point home then end this cross-examination, which she viewed as a trap. "I've been in a relationship with Joe since high school and during that time we did things together, planned a future together, and created a child, and I'm still going to marry him no matter how difficult this family makes it."

  When she ended her spiel, her father eyed her steadily and said, "You do know those horse races they have over there are illegal. Is that the kind of environment you want for your son?"

  "What does any of this have to do with my amnesia?" Anne asked, skirting the issue of illegal racing, which she'd address with Joe at a later date.

  "Honey," her mother said, "we're only trying to determine if you're in danger of wandering off with the baby between now and when your memory comes back."

  "I know who I am and where I am," Anne snapped. "I could drive a car if I had one. Actually, I probably do have one since I had a job. Maybe someone here knows where it is."

  "It was submerged in the flood and hauled away for scrap," her father said.

  Anne eyed the man with distrust. "I'm not sure I believe you. I think you and everyone else on this place want to keep me here so you can fill my head with negative things about Joe to turn me against him. And I do intend to spend time with him, maybe ride my horse over there, unless there's a reason to keep me from doing that too." She scanned the faces, her gaze resting on her mother, who motioned with her hand to speak.

  "Of course you can ride Jolie, honey, but maybe the first time you do you should ride her on the track. Later, you could go to Joe's," her mother said in the accommodating voice Anne was becoming used to hearing, a tone aimed at placating a prodigal daughter into breaking things off with a cowboy who descended from a man they considered a Cajun thug.

  "I don't need to ride on the track. I'm capable of riding anywhere Jolie can go, and since I want to talk to Joe right now, you'll have to look after Joey while I'm gone." She stood abruptly, wanting to be out of this house and back with Joe. She needed his assurance that things between them hadn't changed.

  "I have to be at a Junior League meeting in an hour," her mother said.

  "Then you'll have to call and tell them you won't be there. I assume there's someone in the stable to help me locate Jolie's saddle and bridle."

  "Johnny, one of our stable boys is there," her mother said, "but you really shouldn't just go off like this. What if Joey wakes up while you're gone."

  "Then you'll have to figure out what to do. You are his guardian."

  "But you're nursing and we have no formula in the house."

  Anne eyed her mother with aggravation. "You should have thought of that before you took him away from me." She omitted mentioning that Joey had been fed and changed and would sleep for a couple of hours, but she wanted to make it as difficult for her mother and the rest of the family as they were making it for her.

  "Honey, we haven't taken Joey away from you. We're trying to help you."

  "I know exactly what you're doing." Saying nothing more, she turned and stormed out of the room. All she knew was she had to see Joe.

  Letting herself out of the house through the back entry, she crossed the grounds and headed toward the stables. But as she marched alongside the training track, a memory came of riding her mare there, the recollection bringing her slowing to a halt.

  "Anne?"

  She turned to find a young man striding toward her. Johnny, the stable boy, her mother had referred to him, though, like everyone else on the place, he was unfamiliar.

  "They said you were back." Johnny waited, as if for an explanation about something he'd probably not fully understood, and she had no desire to get into it with him.

  "I'm here to ride Jolie. Maybe you could saddle her for me."

  The young man looked at her quizzically, probably because she'd saddled Jolie in the past, but saying nothing more, he turned and headed for the stable.

  As they entered the long corridor in the big building, they were welcomed by the whinnies of several horses. Rolling back the heavy barred door to one of the stalls, Johnny clipped a lead line onto the halter of a black mare with a broad white blaze and four white stockings and led her to the grooming area and tethered her between two posts.

&n
bsp; Anne stroked the mare's muzzle. "While you get her saddle I'll brush her," she said to get around the awkwardness of not recalling where the tack room was or which saddle was Jolie's.

  Picking up a brush she began stroking the smooth coat of the mare, and by the time Johnny returned with a saddle and pad, Anne was ready to be on the horse, away from this place and back with Joe. But because she couldn't remember the last time she rode, she reasoned that she should take Jolie for a lap around the track before venturing across the cane field.

  Once inside the railings of the oblong training track, Anne clicked her tongue and Jolie responded by settling into a running walk that had Anne swaying gently in the saddle. As the mare moved along the track, a vague familiarity began to emerge, images of being in a show ring, of Jolie lifting her front legs high, her animated strides matching the beat of rhythmic music, cheers and applauds of onlookers as she and Jolie made a victory lap around an arena she couldn't place, but knew existed beyond what was in her mind.

  Feeling a rush of excitement that things were actually coming back, she urged Jolie on, and when she did, Jolie extended her stride, her hindquarters settled low, and the mare glided down the track with animation and speed to the plunkety-plunk of hooves beating in rhythm with her eloquently bobbing head. As they moved along the track, another memory surfaced, one of her father standing at the rail urging her on. Anne saw herself younger. Her father was smiling and looking at her with pride, and she was pumped up because he was pleased. It was a time when things between them were good. A time before Joe, she realized.

  At once she headed for the exit gate, wanting to be away from the track and snuff out that memory. It was her past with Joe she needed, not a past that included the people who had taken her son away.

  She left the track and set the mare on a slower pace as she took her around the cane field. Still, it was no time before they arrived at the Broussard property line. As she approached, she saw a gathering of people in front of the barn, men with horses she recognized as Joe's father and brothers, but she didn't see Joe among them. They didn’t see her coming, and a few moments later they mounted their horses and rode off in the opposite direction from where she'd come.

  With the coast clear, she guided Jolie through the low brush dividing the properties and over to Joe's house where she dismounted. After tethering Jolie to a tree, she rushed up the steps to the porch, anxious to see Joe, but on throwing open the door she stopped and stared at a living room stacked high with furniture, including beds and mattresses. She also saw that the kitchen had been gutted, and new kitchen cabinets filled the area. Anxious to find Joe, she went down the hallway and looked into the bedrooms, which were newly painted. She was surprised at how fresh and clean the rooms looked, and how relatively large they were, not large in the way the rooms at her parents' house were large, but adequate for a growing family.

  She had just stepped out onto the front porch when she saw Joe crossing the grounds from the direction of the barn. He didn't see her standing on the porch because his attention was focused on Jolie, but as he approached, he glanced her way and spotted her.

  She stood in expectation, hoping he'd rush up the steps and take her in his arms. Instead, he eyed the Harrison's house in the distance, and said, "Who's lookin' after Joey?"

  "I guess my mother is," Anne replied.

  "You guess? You don't know?"

  "I assume it's my mother. When I found myself trapped in a room while being bombarded with questions by the family, as well as some doctor, I had to get out of there."

  Joe's eyes narrowed in concern. "What were you thinking, leavin' like that? You just gave their attorney ammunition to fire back at us, claimin' you walked out and left Joey."

  Anne wasn't prepared for this caustic reaction from Joe, nor did she feel he had the right to put her on the defensive when he didn't have the facts. "It's not like I left Joey alone. There was a house full of people. But when everyone started asking questions about our relationship, I knew they were setting me up to make a case to keep Joey there and me as well. I also needed to see you. After you walked out of my room the other night without kissing me goodbye, I knew something was wrong."

  "What's wrong is I saw the way you and your family live. It was a pretty sobering experience, and it's stayed with me ever since."

  Anne recalled the troubled look on Joe's face when he stood in the doorway to her bedroom, his gaze taking in everything. Nor did he respond to her attempt to drag him out of his somber mood by putting her arms around his neck. Instead, he'd pulled them away, and although he kissed her, it was only after she insisted, and she realized, with a sinking feeling, that the man she was growing to love again no longer loved her in return. Yet, he was the one who convinced her to leave her confused but secure life with Karen in New Orleans to come here where the pieces of her life would finally fall into place. But if he no longer wanted her in his life and her parents got legal guardianship of Joey, she'd be forced to live with people she despised because of what they were doing. It was a bleak awakening, a harsh return to reality.

  CHAPTER 11

  Holding Joe's gaze as he stood at the bottom of the porch steps looking up at her, Anne said, "I can't believe that simply being in my parent's house for the first time in your life could change your mind-set so drastically. You didn't need to be in there to imagine what it would be like, yet you wanted to marry me before you saw the place. But when you say things have changed, does that mean you don't love me anymore?"

  Joe plodded up the steps, and stopping when he was eye-level to her, he said, "Darlin', I love you and I'll always love you and that won't change. I just don't know if I can marry you. Marriage means makin' vows that'll last till one of us dies, and if we got married I'd spend the rest of my life tryin' to give you what you gave up to marry me so you wouldn't get discontented and want out of the marriage."

  Anne resisted the urge to close the emotional gap between them by putting her arms around Joe's neck, but things with him had definitely cooled, even if he loved her as he claimed. "I still don't know how you've come to that conclusion just by being in my parents' home. I was ready to marry you before I lost my memory, so why should things be different after it returns?"

  "That's the problem," Joe said. "You weren't ready to marry me, even though you were almost five months pregnant. You’d been draggin' your feet for months and I suspected all along it was because of the way your family lives compared to mine, but bein' in the house, it made me finally see things the way they really are."

  Anne peered into eyes that didn't waver. From the moment Joe recognized her at the race track in New Orleans he'd been so sure about things, so confident they should marry as planned, he'd convinced her he was right, even if she had no memory of why she'd wanted to marry him. She'd even gone along with christening Joey and giving him Joe's name in preparation for becoming a family. "I'm not denying there's a huge cultural divide between our families as well as a multi-generational feud showing no sign of letting up, but that doesn't mean I couldn't be happy living in this house with you. As for becoming discontented if we were married, I already feel a strong sense of belonging here."

  "That might be how you feel when you have no memory of your life with your family to compare things with, but once your memory comes back, things'll be different. I think you had pipe dreams when we were together before, buildin' a fantasy world about how it would be with us that had nothin' to do with reality."

  Anne thrust a finger in the direction of the big house. "Just because I was raised over there doesn't mean I can't be happy with whatever we're able to build together right here."

  Joe gave a weary sigh. "You might talk yourself into believin' that right now, but even with both of us workin' to bring in money, we'd never come close to what you grew up with."

  "What I grew up with is irrelevant. I've been there for a week now, and even without any memory of what my life was like before, I know it's not the kind of life I want, and there's nothi
ng I'd leave behind that truly matters."

  "Even your horse?"

  Anne looked to where Jolie stood tied to the tree. "There'd be no reason to leave her behind. You have a stable and stalls and I could pasture and ride her here."

  "Which means you'd bring to our marriage a dowry in the form of a horse that's probably worth more than this house. But after I'm finished fixin' this place up and fightin' for Joey, I won't have enough in my savings to pay so much as a vet's visit, much less all the other expenses a high-end horse like that needs."

  "Then I'll leave Jolie where she is."

  "That's my dilemma. You'd do that and resent me later. You'd never tell me but you'd feel it, and so would I," Joe said, the tone of his voice one of hopeless resolve.

  "I wouldn't resent giving up anything to be with you," Anne said, "not if I truly love you."

  "Do you truly love me, Anne? Do you even know why you once loved me?"

  Anne was uncertain how to respond, so she said what she felt in her heart. "I might not remember our past together but I feel something strong for you, and even if I postponed the wedding for whatever reason, you told me I was in the process of becoming a Catholic and we'd gotten a marriage license, so I loved you enough to go against my family to marry you."

  "That's another thing. Are you sure you didn't decide to marry me just to go against your family? You had serious issues with your father, and the more he tried to keep you away from me the more determined you were to do the opposite."

  Anne couldn't argue with Joe because she'd wondered the same thing, and the reality was, she wouldn't know how she truly felt about him until she got her memory back. Still, she couldn't believe she'd go to the extreme she had just to spite her family. "I may have had issues with my father, but you and I made a child together and I can't imagine doing that unless I truly loved you. A week ago I was so sure about how I once felt I was ready to make love with you again."