Tender Deception: A Novel of Romance

by Beckman, Patti

  She held up the wristwatch, studying it. A shaft of sunlight struck the diamonds and sprinkled a shower of light on her pillow. The watch must have cost a fortune.

  Then she looked at the diamond engagement ring and thought it was worth a ransom.

  She was moved by the honesty of the simple pueblo family who had taken her in. How easy it would have been for Raven’s father to have put all the jewelry in his pocket and then claimed someone else had stripped the valuable items from her before he found her!

  The jewelry couldn’t speak to her in words, but it did tell her one thing very clearly. She must have lived in wealthy circumstances. The man who gave her the engagement ring must be a successful person. It was difficult to use the words “my husband” in her mind. No matter what kind of life they had shared before, no matter how intimate they had been, how their days and nights had been entwined, her husband was now a stranger to her. That was a shocking and desolate truth not easy to face.

  She examined a dinner ring heavy with stones that made it every bit as costly as the engagement ring. Finally, she came to the gold locket. The instant she touched it, a flood of emotions swept over her. It was as if the pendant were a talisman, linking her with an event out of the past that reached deeply into her heart. She could tell at a glance that it was not nearly so expensive as the rings and watch. It was merely gold-filled. The inexpensive gold coating was worn thin on the chain, indicating that she had worn it constantly for many years.

  It was a simple, heart-shaped design, an item that could have been purchased from a discount jewelry chain store. Yet it must have meant a great deal to her.

  She turned it over and read the engraving, “To Lilly With Love. J.”

  She stared at the letter “J” for long, painful moments, groping in the shadows for this person who had been so important in her life. Finally, she snapped the locket open. Two small photographs were contained in the heart-shaped enclosure. One was a young woman with a cloud of blonde hair and deep blue eyes. She looked at the picture seeing a stranger, yet seeing herself. Yes, the picture was of her. She couldn’t understand why she knew this, but she knew. She might have forgotten everything else about herself, but she recognized her own face. The picture told her that she had above-average good looks with a facial structure that had delicate bones, a slender nose, wide mouth. She appeared happy and carefree in the photograph. Her eyes were alight with joy. The woman in the photograph had long eyelashes and well-defined eyebrows under a smooth, broad forehead. Her cheekbones were etched above shadowed cheeks, her jaw line clean, her chin slightly cleft. She appeared quite young in the photograph, but it might have been taken several years ago; it was somewhat faded.

  It gave her an eerie feeling to be staring at her own likeness, yet seeing the face of a stranger.

  What was she like? What kind of person had she been? Did she have good morals—or bad? Was she religious? Had she been wicked? Did she like outdoor sports, or prefer a more sedate life? What kind of education did she have? What were her friends like? Was she an optimist, or did she worry a great deal? Was she healthy, filled with energy, or did she have medical problems? Was she gregarious, shy, extroverted or a private person? Did she skip breakfast, read the comic strips, have a favorite color, drive a car, have bad dreams, sing off-key?

  The questions rose in a sudden, engulfing tide that overwhelmed her. Her heart pounded. Her eyes burned with unshed tears of frustration and bewilderment. She felt very confused. Her thoughts were so jumbled, so chaotic.

  Then she turned her attention to the other photograph in the locket. It was the picture of a young man with brown eyes, unruly blond hair that tumbled over his forehead, and a broad, infectious grin.

  Seeing the two young, smiling faces made her think of the phrase, “Our hearts were young and gay.”

  But the locket was worn and the pictures were faded.

  “Who are you, ‘J’?” she asked the young man’s picture through her tears. “I think I must have loved you a great deal. What part did you play in my life? Are you someone I loved and lost? Did we have a happy love story together, or did it have a sad ending?”

  Was “J” her husband?

  Somehow, she didn’t think so. The man who gave her the costly watch and the expensive rings would not have given her such a modest little locket.

  Staring at the locket brought no answers. It only made her feel sad.

  She turned her attention again to the rings. The swelling in her fingers had gone down so she was able to slip them on. She spread out her left hand, gazing at the engagement and wedding rings. What was her husband like? Did he love her? Did she love him? Was he still living...or was she a widow?

  Only questions. No answers.

  More questions. She had avoided asking herself this question because of the pain involved, but she could not hide from it forever. Did she have children? They would be heartbroken, missing their mother, perhaps by now thinking her dead.

  She was overwhelmed by the multitude of agonizing questions. Her tired brain refused to cope with them any longer. A feeling of indescribable weariness spread through her. She closed her eyes and fell into a deep sleep of mental exhaustion.

  Later that day, she met the other members of the Brownfeather family. Raven’s parents, Dawn and Henry Brownfeather, were shy, dignified people. Their bronze faces were stoic, but their brown eyes showed a kindness and concern for her. She made what seemed a totally inadequate attempt to thank Henry Brownfeather for rescuing her from a horrible death out on the desert, but he gruffly waved aside her thanks. “I did nothin’—just threw you in the truck and brought you home,” he muttered.

  Both Raven’s mother and father spoke with a heavy accent. Raven, however, spoke perfect English.

  Her brother, Luke, who appeared to be a few years younger than Raven, was a handsome, happy-go-lucky young man who grinned and kidded a lot. His eyes sparkled with mischievous highlights. Lilly suspected that he must be the target of many coquettish glances from the young women in the village.

  Lilly found her appetite returning. When Raven brought her supper tray, her mouth watered at the delicious fragrances wafting her way from the bowls.

  “Doctor Glenn said it’s time to take you off mush and gruel and serve you some good, hearty Indian food,” Raven grinned.

  “It smells heavenly,” Lilly said.

  Raven helped her sit up, propping extra pillows behind her, then placed the tray on her lap.

  “There’s garbanzo stew, green chili, Pueblo bread, and rice pudding,” Raven explained. “Be careful with the chili. It has chili peppers. I told Mother to go easy with them, but she’s used to cooking her own way.”

  “Umm. This bread is delicious,” Lilly murmured after her first bite.

  “Yes. We still bake it outdoors in the hornos, the adobe ovens. It just doesn’t taste the same if you make it in a modern stove. I tried baking some in my oven in my apartment in Albuquerque. It was a disaster,” she laughed.

  Lilly gave the dark-haired girl a curious look. Raven seemed at ease in her simple cloth dress and moccasins, and yet at the same time, out of place in these surroundings.

  “You live in Albuquerque?” Lilly asked.

  “Yes. I’m a nurse at a hospital there. I went to college in Albuquerque. Right now, I’m home for a vacation.”

  “Some vacation,” Lilly murmured ruefully. “Having to spend your time nursing me.”

  “But I like taking care of sick people. I have hopes of maybe becoming a doctor some day. So, you see, it’s really been a pleasure being able to help you. I’m just glad I was home when Dad found you.”

  They fell silent for a few moments, then Raven asked, “Have you been able to remember anything about yourself?”

  Lilly shook her head despondently. “Nothing. When I try hard to remember, it’s as if my brain just shuts itself off.”

  “Try not to brood too much. I’ve been reading some of my medical books about amnesia. Like Dr. Glenn told you
, severe stress, a trauma, an ordeal like the one you’ve been through can cause the memory and personality to become temporarily separated from one another.”

  “Are you sure the books say ‘temporary’?” Lilly asked, tears filling her eyes.

  “Sure,” Raven insisted, giving Lilly’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “Your mind is going to heal just as your body will. Give yourself time.”

  “There isn’t much else I can do,” Lilly said sadly. Then she asked, “Why is my voice so hoarse? I don’t think it was always like this. It sounds strange to me.”

  “You had a neck injury, bruises all around your throat. Dr. Glenn thinks your vocal chords sustained injuries. He thinks that will improve too, though your voice may have a permanent huskiness.” Then Raven smiled, “I wouldn’t worry about that, though. It will have a seductive quality that a lot of women will envy. I often wished my voice were more of a contralto rather than up in the soprano range where it is.”

  Lilly didn’t feel like continuing the conversation. The heavy mantle of weariness was spreading over her again.

  Lilly spent the next few days sleeping much of the time. Rest, nourishing food, and the vitamin injections Raven administered daily slowly brought back her strength. By the end of the week, she was able to spend her time in a chair by the window instead of in bed, and she ventured on a slow journey through the rooms of the small pueblo home, holding Raven’s arm for support.

  Her body was healing faster than her facial injuries. At least, it seemed so to her. The soreness when she moved about was almost gone. But still the bandages remained on her face. When the doctor visited her, he treated her facial injuries with medications, then replaced the bandages. Her face continued to hurt and the flesh pulled when she talked or ate. “I had to take some stitches when I first saw you,” Dr. Marshall explained. “You were pretty badly cut up. It will feel better when the stitches come out.”

  He refused to listen to her request to survey the damage herself. “Leave the bandages on,” he ordered sternly. “Wait until things heal up a bit more.”

  But as her strength returned, so did her normal feminine concern for her appearance. Somewhere she had a husband to whom she would return when she got her memory back. She didn’t want to go back to him looking like a freak.

  One evening when she was in her room alone, she searched through a chest of drawers and found a small mirror. With trembling fingers, she pulled adhesive tape free and removed the bandages that swathed her face. She held up the mirror. Her eyes went wide with horror. She heard her own hoarse, choked cry, and she crumpled into a sobbing heap on the floor....

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Lilly, I’m really exasperated with you for disobeying my orders,” Dr. Glenn Marshall said severely. “If you had only waited another week before taking those bandages off, some of the swelling and discoloration would have faded away and things wouldn’t have seemed so bad.”

  Lilly heard the words, but they didn’t register. Since the shock of confronting the disfiguring injuries to her face the night before last, she had sunk into a deep depression. She sat beside the window, staring into space in an almost catatonic state of despair.

  How much kinder it would have been, she now believed, if she had been left to die out in the desert. She now hated Henry Brownfeather for saving her. Perhaps it had been intended for her to die, and this was her punishment for thwarting the fates. At times the gloomy thought assailed her that she had died and this was a kind of purgatory where she could remember nothing of her past life and had been made ugly beyond description.

  She had no desire to eat. Any movement, even so much as lifting a hand, was too much of an effort to bother with. She didn’t feel like talking to anyone. She just wanted to be left alone.

  When she had first regained consciousness and realized the problem she was facing—the loss of memory—she’d had the motivation to fight back. She had been eager to get well, to recover her memory, to find her past life and her family.

  But she no longer had the desire. It would be better for all concerned if she never remembered the past. If she did, how could she go back with a face that was burned and scarred beyond recognition? How could she return to a husband or to the smiling young man in the locket whom she must have loved very much, only to see the horror and revulsion in their eyes when they beheld the grotesque wreckage of her face?

  She sat beside the window with the gold locket clutched in her hand and grieved for the pretty, blue-eyed young woman who smiled innocently from the picture. That young woman had died out on the desert. All that was left was a disfigured robot, a broken doll who had no more purpose in life.

  It was all too much for her. She felt totally overwhelmed. Life was no more than a monstrous joke with no point or purpose, a foolish journey that had no meaning, ending in death and the grave.

  She knew that Raven and Dr. Marshall were talking, but the words meant nothing to her. She shut them out, wanting to hide in the safe, secret corner within herself, closed away from the world.

  Dr. Marshall sighed as he turned to Raven, whose dark eyes were strained with worry. “She’s been like that ever since night before last,” Raven said. “I can’t get her to eat. She won’t talk to us.”

  Marshall nodded. “She’s in a bad state of depression. There’s no getting through to her.”

  “I feel so guilty. I should have watched her more carefully to see that she didn’t take those bandages off.”

  “Don’t go blaming yourself, Raven. She had to find out sooner or later. I was just hoping it would be later, after she’d gotten stronger and the wounds didn’t look so bad. It has been too much of a shock, right on top of everything else she’s been through.”

  Marshall turned to Lilly again. He drew a chair closer to the window, took Lilly’s hands in his and spoke to her again, patiently, gently. “Now I want you to listen to me, Lilly. Yes, your face is pretty much of a mess right now. It’s the truth. You were burned and there are some deep gashes. But it doesn’t mean you’re going to be permanently scarred or disfigured. I have a friend in Albuquerque who is an excellent plastic surgeon. I’ve seen him do miracles with facial injuries that were much worse than yours.”

  For the first time that morning, Lilly allowed herself to pay attention to her surroundings. She found herself listening to Dr. Marshall’s words, permitting them to pass the barricades she had erected in her mind. She frowned and gazed at him suspiciously. “You’re saying that to make me feel better,” she whispered.

  He shook his head. “No, I’m simply telling you the truth. You’re going to need plastic surgery, yes. But the injuries to your face can be repaired, and I can tell you that flatly with no equivocation. Believe me, Lilly. The kind of injuries you have can be repaired by a good plastic surgeon so you won’t have a scar left.”

  Tears began to fill Lilly’s eyes. “If I could be sure...if I could really believe you,” she murmured, a glimmer of light flickering in the darkness. But then a fresh wave of despair engulfed her. “But plastic surgery is terribly expensive. And I have no money. Perhaps my husband could afford it, if I could remember my past life. Judging by my engagement ring, he must be a successful man. But I don’t know when I’ll be able to remember...my mind still feels so confused. And even if I could remember, I couldn’t go to him looking the way I do now—”

  Marshall leaned back in his chair, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “I’m sure my friend would allow you to pay for the surgery later, either after you find your husband or if you get well and can get a job. But there would be hospital expenses, the operating room, medication. I was wondering if you would consider selling your jewelry. The watch alone would bring quite a bit, and the rings appear to be worth a great deal of money. I’m no judge of such things, but we could have them appraised.”

  “I’d forgotten about the jewelry!” Lilly exclaimed. “Certainly I’d be willing to sell it. Everything except—except the little gold locket. I don’t think that would bring much anywa
y. And I’d want to keep my wedding band. But the watch and the diamond and the dinner ring, I would sell them in a minute. What good are they to me now? Do you think your friend would be able to help me? It would take a miracle.”

  “Plastic surgeons perform miracles every day,” Dr. Marshall said confidently. “But first you must get your strength and health back. No more of this sinking into fits of despair and giving up. You must eat and begin to exercise, Lilly. I’m going to prescribe one of the new anti-depressant medications that can help you fight off the depression. But you must get back some of your own fighting spirit, too. There’s a limit to what we doctors can do.”

  * * * * * * *

  “Well,” Raven Brownfeather exclaimed, “today is the big day!” She stood just inside the doorway of the hospital room in her crisp, white nurse’s uniform, holding a huge bouquet of flowers.

  For the moment, Lilly’s chaotic thoughts became centered as her gaze focused on the cluster of blood-red chrysanthemums in Raven’s arms. Her heart filled with warmth at the devotion and kindness Raven had shown her in the past weeks. “They’re beautiful!” she murmured. “But, Raven, you shouldn’t have gone to such an expense.”

  “They’re from the whole Pueblo tribe,” Raven explained. She crossed the room, her crepe soled white shoes whispering on the tile floor. “They’ve made you my adopted sister.” She arranged the flowers in a vase on a table near the window, then turned, smiling. “An occasion like this calls for a celebration with flowers and wine.” She winked mischievously. “I sneaked a bottle of champagne up to this floor. The head nurse is a buddy of mine. She’s cooling it in the refrigerator.” She giggled.

  Lilly had been resting on the hospital bed. Now she sat up. She had awakened early this morning, bathed and dressed in a light cotton dress Raven had lent her. For the past hour, she had been listening to the muted sounds of the hospital, the murmur of nurses passing in the hall, the voice on the hospital intercom calling a doctor’s name, the rattle of breakfast trays. The hopes and fears of the past weeks were culminating in this morning’s drama.