Knowing Thad was his own was like seeing him for the first time. He was caught up in the wonder of it.
After Thad hit a home run, Dan hugged him hard and didn’t let go. “I love you, son,” he said, holding him by the shoulders and looking him in the eye.
“Heck, I know that, Dad,” Thad said, shrugging out of his hold. “You don’t have to get all mushy.”
“Right. Sorry.” He turned his faded green-and-yellow DEKALB cap backward and threw himself into the game.
When Tom took a turn at bat they gave him a handicap by being one-handed outfielders. He got to third base anyway; he’d always been a great ballplayer.
“When are we gonna swim?” Autumn begged. She’d tired of the ball game quickly and sat on the side of the field with Gil.
Dan glanced over. They’d put her off most of the afternoon. “How about after this inning we cool off in the pool before supper?”
The others agreed.
Autumn squealed as the boys carried the bats and gloves to the garage. “Yippee! Who’s gonna play mermaid with me?”
“Isn’t it Bram’s turn to play mermaid?” Dan asked.
Bram groaned and Jori elbowed him in the ribs. A tussle broke out and they chased each other into the house.
Dressed in suits and carrying towels, the family re-united on the deck. The sun had warmed the water, but it was still refreshing. Gil and Tom watched from the shaded portion of the deck.
“Watch me!” Autumn cried repeatedly, jumping in and swimming back to the ladder.
Lorrie seated herself on the side with the sun warming her back, and watched her daughter’s antics. Dan indulged Autumn, pretending surprise when she jumped in and splashed him ten times in a row.
The boys started their favorite whirlpool game, circling the perimeter so fast that water splashed over the sides through the deck. Usually by the time they were finished, the pool needed a couple of feet added. Autumn hated the game, because she couldn’t keep her head above the turbulence and ended up sitting on the side.
Dan let them continue a while and then called, “Come on, fellas. Let’s go throw some supper together.”
“Aw!”
“Oh, man!”
The three of them groaned, but Dan herded them out through the gate.
“There’s cold chicken and a couple of melons,” Lorrie offered.
“Gotcha.” Dan disappeared after the boys.
Lorrie enjoyed the sun a while longer, lazily watching Autumn jump and splash. Finally, she knew the guys would have the food ready, and she urged Autumn out of the water and toward the front.
A car door slammed and Lorrie rounded the corner, skirting the unfamiliar silver Nissan parked in the drive. She towel-dried her hair and slung the damp towel over her shoulder as they approached the back door.
A feminine squeal erupted from the kitchen. Mother and daughter exchanged a perplexed glance and Autumn ran forward and yanked the door open. Lorrie followed.
And stopped dead in her tracks just inside.
A young woman with short black hair had her pale arms around Dan’s neck, holding him to her for a full-fledged mouth-to-mouth, eyes-closed kiss! Dan, still dressed in his trunks with his hair finger-slicked back, held his hands aloft without touching her.
Bram and Jori had never stood so close together without jostling or arguing. They, too, stared, dishes and silverware forgotten in their hands.
Thad had turned from the counter and watched the encounter with his brows knotted in the middle of his forehead.
A feeling like nothing Lorrie had ever known welled up inside her at the sight of her husband kissing another woman. Staring, she moved a little closer to see if Dan’s eyes were closed, too.
The slender woman drew back and framed Dan’s face in her palms. “Oh, Buzz!” she squealed.
To his credit, Dan’s fingers went to her wrists and pulled her hands from his face. A blush Lorrie had seldom seen darkened his tan considerably.
“Daddy?” Autumn questioned.
Dan turned to Lorrie and his daughter and immediately backed away from the affectionate young woman.
Lorrie said nothing. She hadn’t spoken his name since he’d told her the truth and neither name came naturally to her lips.
The dark-haired woman turned wide brown eyes on Lorrie, then glanced around at the rest of her audience. “Hi, guys.”
She stood uncomfortably beside Dan, obviously expecting a reaction and looking as if she wanted to climb Dan’s frame. Impatiently, she straightened her posture and absently combed her fingers through the wispy hair on her neck.
“I’m Cedra.” She stepped forward and reached for Lorrie’s hand. “Cedra Chaney. I’m a friend of Buzz’s,” she said with a soft drawl. She moved back beside Dan as if she didn’t want to get too far away. Her short haircut gave her a pixie-ish appearance, cute and endearing in a bold sort of way. Her black eyeliner meticulously created turned-up cat-eyes at the outer corners, a look Lorrie could never have achieved or pulled off. “I was beside myself when he disappeared. Just this week, I traced him to the hospital in Trousdale and talked with Dr. Vance.” Lorrie met Dan’s eyes briefly, his registering as much confusion as Lorrie figured hers must.
This girl thought Dan was Tom—no big surprise.
Cedra turned her attention back to Dan. “I had to tell him I was your wife before he’d tell me you couldn’t remember anything, and that your family came and identified you as Daniel Beckett. He gave me your address and phone number. I couldn’t call, I’m sorry. I ran over my phone and haven’t gotten a new one yet. I was in a hurry to see you.” She frowned worriedly at Lorrie and then at Dan. “Oh crap. You’re not—married, are you?”
“Cedra—” Dan began.
She stared at him wide-eyed and bewildered. “Do you remember me?”
“Sit down,” he said, kindly, gesturing to a wooden chair.
“No, just tell me.”
“I’m not who you think I am,” he explained. “You must have known my brother—”
“Supper ready?” The voice came from the family room, and they all turned to see Tom and Gil come through the doorway and stop.
Cedra Chaney’s dark brown eyes opened wide in disbelief. She stared at Tom and then back to Dan and looked back again. From her pale face and shocked expression, Lorraine worried that she might faint. But the girl was obviously made of sterner stuff than she’d given her credit for, and accepted the mirror image of the man she’d just kissed silly with a shake of her head. “You’re Buzz?”
Everyone stared at Tom. Did he know this girl? Would seeing her provoke his memory?
“You know me?” Tom asked.
She glanced from one brother to another. “Were you living in Missouri and Tennessee the last couple of years?”
“Wasn’t him,” Tom said with a nod at his brother. “Must be me."
Cedra gave Dan an apologetic glance, hurried over to Tom and slid her arm beneath his good one. “I’m Cedra.”
“Hi,” Tom said and studied her face near his shoulder.
“Thad, get another plate,” Dan instructed. Just like that, Cedra was invited for supper. What else could he have done? The kids were hungry, the food was ready. Lorrie had been too surprised to think of it herself.
“Run on up and put on dry clothes, sweetie, ” Lorrie told Autumn. Seconds later, she hurried into their bathroom and pulled her suit off and dried her cold skin. Grabbing a comb, she ran it through her tangled hair and dabbed on a little lipstick.
“Suddenly everyone’s dressing for dinner.” Dan’s voice from the bedroom startled her. She pulled a towel around herself and padded across the carpet to her chest of drawers.
“Can’t sit around the table in our wet suits with company here.”
“You didn’t mind me inviting her?” Dan questioned.
“There really wasn’t much choice,” she replied, slipping into her underclothes, a pair of shorts and a T-shirt as they spoke. “She obviously knows Tom and was
relieved to see that he was all right.”
“Very relieved.” She heard the sound of Dan’s jeans zipping and turned.
He stood in front of his bureau, sliding his phone into his pocket and looked up. Lorrie stepped over and used the corner of her damp towel to rub away the fuchsia lipstick smeared across his lips. Their eyes met.
Lorrie lowered the towel. It had been a good many years since either of them had kissed another person. “Was she a good kisser?”
The comer of his mouth quirked up in amusement. “She’s all right.”
She stuffed the towel into his hands and left the room.
Lorraine’s reaction to that mistaken kiss pleased Dan in a big way. She was jealous.
Cedra was the main attraction at dinner. She seated herself beside Tom and babied him, placing food on his plate, cutting his chicken. “You poor thing,” she said with her lips pooched out in an absurd fashion. “Now that I’m here, you won’t have to want for anything.”
Tom’s expression didn’t exactly reveal horror at the idea, and the sexual implication was blatant. Even the boys elbowed one another and grinned. Gil ate his supper without looking up.
“So, where are you from?” Lorraine asked Cedra in an attempt at polite conversation.
“We were living in Clarksville,” she replied. “We have an apartment with a deck and a pool.” She turned back to Tom. “Do you remember the pool, baby?” She batted her long black lashes.
“I don’t remember anything,” Tom answered.
Displeasure furrowed her brow. “Oh. Well, it’s on Jenkins Avenue. You work at Nick’s Cycle Emporium and I tend bar at Rocking Em’s. We hang out there on the weekends, you know, play sand volleyball and darts and all that.”
Dan tried not to raise his eyebrows at this revelation of his brother’s life. It all sounded so alien. His father never even looked up.
“That’s just been for about the last year and a half,” she explained. “You said you’d been in Missouri before that.”
“What did he do at the Cycle Emporium?” Dan couldn’t resist asking.
“Buzz does custom bikes. Awesome work. Ever seen his Harley?”
Dan couldn’t help the surprise he felt. Tom working on cycles! That was too ironic! “Yeah, it’s in the tractor barn, looking like it went through a trash compactor."
“Oh, you poor baby!” Cedra patted Tom’s arm. “It meant so much to you.”
Tom shrugged offhandedly, as if he didn’t remember the Harley having any special meaning.
She snuggled up and kissed the underside of his jaw. “When your arm’s all better you can fix your bike. I’ll help you. I'll do whatever you need—run for parts, hand you stuff. Won’t that be great?”
The children had finished their food, but sat listening in rapt attention.
“Why don’t you kids go watch TV until bedtime,” Lorraine suggested.
Jori stood and picked up his plate. “We’ll help with the dishes.”
“Yeah,” agreed Bram who had never in his lifetime agreed with his brother on anything that Lorrie could remember. The two of them normally fought over whose night it was to do dishes.
She cocked a brow at her sons, letting them know they weren’t putting anything over on her. “I’ll do the dishes tonight. You watch a movie. Find something on Prime suitable for Autumn,” she warned.
“Big Hero Six!” Autumn squealed and jumped from her seat.
The boys exchanged “not again” looks, but knowing better than to grumble in front of their guest, the four excused themselves and headed for the family room. Thad had his phone out his pocket before he’d left the kitchen, but she let it go.
Lorraine made a pot of coffee and poured it into mugs for the adults seated around the table.
“Look, what’s the deal here, anyway?” Cedra finally said with exasperation. “I’ve been living with this guy—” she gestured to Tom “—for a year, thinking he’s Buzz Turner. One day he doesn’t come home, I call the police, and after weeks, I finally get a lead at a hospital a couple hundred miles away, and I find out he’s been identified as Daniel Beckett and brought here.”
The Beckett family stared into their coffee mugs.
“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” she pleaded.
At last Dan spoke up. “He left home fourteen years ago. We hadn’t seen him again until Dr. Vance called. He doesn’t remember who he is right now, so he can’t say why he was living as Buzz Turner.”
“Turner’s your ma’s maiden name,” Gil said, finally speaking.
“But he is going to remember, right?” Cedra demanded. “He will remember who I am?” She turned and blinked up into Tom’s eyes, tears spiking her lashes. “I want you to remember that you love me, Buzz.”
Dan noted the tears that came to Lorraine’s eyes at Cedra’s despair. She sympathized with her frustration. No matter who this woman was, she loved Tom, and was as confused by this situation as everyone else.
At least Dan didn’t have to feel responsible for Cedra’s heartache along with all the other guilt he was shouldering right now. Whatever Tom had been and done while he was gone was his own concern. And the accident was merely that—an accident. This new complication was not Dan’s doing or his problem.
“It’s as hard for me as it is for all of you,” Tom said finally. “It’s terrible to wake up inside a body I don’t recognize, shave a face I’ve never seen before and meet people who say I should know them. You don’t have to feel so damned insulted that I don’t know who you are. I don’t know who I am!” He thumped his chest with his fist and stood.
That was the first time he’d spoken of his own frustration, though Dan had known it was there. Had Tom shared these feelings with his counselor in the city?
“I’m sorry,” Cedra said, standing beside him. “I am sorry. I was being selfish.” She put her arms around him and laid her head on his chest, careful of his arm trapped between them.
Dan half expected Tom to push her away or stomp from the room. Instead, he rested his hand on her shoulder.
“What do you want me to call you?” she asked.
“Call me Buzz,” he said with a sigh. “That’s who I am to you. One name is as good as the next to me.”
Dan avoided looking at Lorraine.
“It’s going to be all right,” their guest said. “I'll stay as long as it takes. Em gave me as much time as I needed away from my job. I’m going to be here for you.”
Over her head, Tom looked at Dan. Dan looked at Gil, then finally over at Lorraine. She’d been running a finger around the rim of her cup, but she stopped and her eyes met Dan’s.
Dan read the tired expression on her face without her speaking a word: Crap. What next?
Chapter Seven
Lorrie put the last glass in the dishwasher and turned to Cedra, the only person left in the kitchen. She’d obviously been distressed over Tom’s disappearance. Her relief at finding him alive must have been diminished by his memory loss. Lorrie couldn’t help but sympathize. “There’s an extra twin bed in Autumn’s room. You’re welcome to sleep there.”
Cedra’s round, dark eyes reflected her frustration. She’d been sleeping with Tom for the past year, but he could hardly be expected to share a bed with a woman he didn’t remember.
Besides, Lorraine thought, Tom slept on the sofa bed in the family room and that meant come morning the kids could wander in to flip on the TV.
“I can’t go to sleep too early—what’s your name?"
“Call me Lorrie. You won’t bother her getting into bed after she’s asleep. Autumn can usually sleep through anything. But she does wake up early.”
“I can sleep through anything, too, so she won’t bother me in the morning. I work late nights, you know, so I’m used to sleeping in.”
Lorrie nodded. “Why don’t you come up with me while I tuck her in? That way you’ll know your way around. The bathroom’s in the hall. I’ll warn the boys to keep it picked up.”
; “I have a couple of suitcases,” Cedra mentioned.
“Let me call Thad.” Lorrie put Autumn to bed and showed Cedra the towel cupboard in the bathroom.
Cedra slid a pint of Wild Turkey from her suitcase. “Join me?”
Lorrie couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a drink.
“Don’t you corn-fed girls let your hair down once in a while?” she asked with a challenging grin.
“Seriously?” She gave Cedra a sideways glance. “Corn-fed?”
“Was that offensive?”
Lorrie shook it off. She didn’t think she’d sleep anytime soon herself. Perhaps a drink and a little conversation were just what she needed. She didn’t want Cedra to think she was unfriendly. “Maybe one,” she agreed.
She mixed her drink liberally with water and ice and the two of them sat on the lower deck near the pool.
Cedra lit a cigarette and the smoke wafted away in the darkening sky. “Orchards, huh? All those trees I saw driving in belong to you guys?”
Lorrie nodded. “All ours.”
“They’re so small. Not at all what I’d have pictured. You know, you always think of people climbing ladders to pick apples."
“Many of them are dwarf hybrids. Others are pruned to stay close to the ground like that.”
“The branches full of apples hang to the ground,” Cedra said.
“Um-hm. Makes for easy picking. We need step stools only for the very top branches.”
“Must take a lot of work to get than all picked.”
“We hire help,” Lorrie agreed. “We’ve all been out there with canvas bags. Your—” she wasn’t sure what to call him “—Buzz and his dad have been sorting.”
Cedra drew on her cigarette until the end glowed orange in the dark. “So this is what the good life that the Nebraska billboards advertise is all about.”
The breeze lifted Lorrie’s hair from her forehead. “I don’t know how much of an example we are. Most of the population is in the cities. I have a sister in Omaha, and her life is nothing like mine. She’s an actuary for a huge insurance company.”
“Have a lot of family, do you?”
A Husband By Any Other Name Page 9
