His Lost and Found Family

by Sarah M. Anderson

  He could...he could convince her that she was wrong. He could make her think that she couldn’t trust her own mind. He could make himself look like a better man—at the expense of her mental health.

  No, he couldn’t do that. Not to her.

  Still, he tried to sidestep the heart of the matter. She was already upset—and that was something the doctors had said he needed to avoid. He didn’t want to make it worse.

  “I came back,” he told her. “I came back for you.”

  She gasped again. “You—you really did leave me?” When he didn’t answer, she demanded, “For how long?”

  “Skye...”

  “For how long, Jacob Holt?”

  There was no way to sidestep this. His only choice was to go straight ahead. “For about ten months.”

  “To New York?”

  “To Bahrain.”

  That, apparently, was too much. Suddenly, Skye was out of his arms and out of the bed. “You left me for ten months to go to Bahrain?”

  “Skye...” he said in what he hoped was a calming voice.

  “No—don’t Skye me.” She dropped her head in her hands. “Oh, God—I do remember. I remember everything.” Then she was hurrying to the bathroom before he could get the damned covers off.

  “Skye, wait!” he called as the door shut behind her. He made it to the door, but it was locked. Damn. “Skye, listen—things are different now.”

  “Did you even know about Grace?” came the muffled cry from the bathroom. “Did you even know about her before you showed up here?”

  “No. I didn’t hear from you for months. You didn’t tell me.”

  “Oh, God...”

  “Skye,” he pleaded. “I’m trying. I came back for you. I’m taking care of you. I’m renting a house in Royal, Texas, for crying out loud—and you know how much I hate this damn town. I mean, I’m even considering taking the ranch house from my folks so that you and Grace can stay here because I know that’s what you want, dammit.”

  “But I...I threw my ring away. Did I want a divorce? Oh, God—I did, didn’t I?” This was followed by more crying.

  “Skye—please, babe. Yes, I came home to find divorce papers waiting for me. But that’s not what I want and I’ve spent the last couple of weeks doing everything I can to show you that you—you and Grace—come first in my life.”

  He rested his head against the door. This was where he’d come to in his life—talking to a bathroom door while naked. “I wanted things to be different, too. Better. I didn’t want things to end like they did. You’ve got to believe me, babe.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me carry on like we were still in love?”

  “Because we are still in love,” Jake insisted. “I love you. Nothing has changed that, Skye. Not divorce papers, not amnesia—not anything.”

  There was no response.

  He tried the knob again. Still locked. He could break down the door, but somehow he didn’t think that was the best way to keep her calm right now.

  “I didn’t tell you because the doctor told me not to upset you. He said you had to remember it on your own. Well, now you have. I’m not hiding anything from you, Skye. We have a child now. We can make this work. I love you and I love Grace. We have the family you always wanted. Don’t throw that away, Skye.”

  “Even if I want to stay in Royal?”

  Jake swallowed. What the hell. He was already living in Royal, after all. “Even if you want to stay in Royal.” He heard her sniff. “Skye, come back to bed. Things will seem better in the morning, I promise.”

  The door opened—but just a crack. “Will you still love me? Tomorrow?”

  “I will still love you always,” he promised, knowing the words were true. “I couldn’t stop even if I tried.”

  She gave him a teary smile. “Okay. We’ll talk tomorrow, right?”

  “Absolutely. Anything you want. But come to bed now, okay? The doctor would string me up by my toes if he knew I was letting you get this upset.”

  She nodded and opened the door. Jake walked her to the bed and tucked her in, then slid in next to her.

  They lay together in the silence for a long time.

  Neither of them slept.

  * * *

  Jake spent the next two days doing everything except throwing himself at Skye’s feet and begging for forgiveness. And there were a few times when he considered that to be his best option.

  Skye’s memory was returning in fits and starts. “Were you in Venezuela for six months?” she asked at one point.

  “Yes.” This was a kind of hell, having her pass judgment on all his past sins all over again. “You came down for a few weeks, but you didn’t like it there, so you came back.”

  Because that was all he could do right now—be completely honest about the past. It was clear that she was going to recover most, if not all, of those memories and the last thing he wanted to do was undermine her trust in him a second time.

  “Right. I hated Venezuela,” she replied. “Are you going to take another job like that? Like Bahrain? Where you’re gone for months and months at a time?”

  “No,” he promised her. “I don’t want to leave you or Grace for that long. That was the mistake I made last time. I won’t make it again.”

  Every time they had a variation on this conversation, Skye would nod her head and say, “Okay,” and that would be it for another hour or so, until she got another piece of the puzzle and wanted to know where it fit.

  They went to see Grace. Lark was home the second day and could clearly tell that something was off, but she didn’t say anything.

  Desperate to avoid having their dirty laundry aired to Lark, Jake focused on Grace with a laser-like intensity. He fixed the bottles and changed the diapers and did everything he could think of to show Skye how devoted he was. When his mother showed up with all the presents that Skye had received at the baby shower, Jake even sat there and acted as interested as he could as they showed him everything. There was only so much enthusiasm he could muster for onesies, but he tried, dammit. He tried for Skye.

  They hadn’t made love again, but that was okay. Skye was still sleeping in bed with him and there, under the cover of darkness, she began to talk to him.

  “I still feel like I’m missing things,” she said. “I don’t—I don’t have Grace, you know? I don’t remember being pregnant. I don’t know if it was an easy pregnancy or a hard one or anything.”

  “It’ll come back,” he told her. “And if it doesn’t, we’ll have to have another baby so you can remember it.”

  She hugged him. “You’d have another baby with me?”

  “Of course. We’re a family, after all. I’m in this for the long haul, no matter what.”

  “Oh, Jake—I don’t want a divorce,” she told him. “I just want you.”

  “Then I’m yours.”

  Which was all very good and well.

  Except for one thing.

  He had a job interview on Monday.

  Twelve

  Skye’s head was still a mess—but she was starting to set things to rights again.

  She’d remembered most of how it had gone bad—Jake had kept taking longer and longer jobs away from home, but he didn’t want to come back to Royal. Skye remembered feeling trapped and abandoned and those memories were hard.

  But they were softened by the Jake she had by her side right now—the man who helped her with her exercises and cooked her meals and played with their daughter. The man who talked about moving out into his parents’ ranch home so Grace would have wide open spaces in which to grow up, just down the way from where Keaton and Lark would live. The man who talked of having another baby, once they got Grace home and she was stronger.

  Sometimes, it was hard t
o reconcile the two versions of Jake that were fighting for space in her head.

  So, when Monday came and he said he had to do something for work and he was just going drop her off at Lark’s, she did her level best not to worry about it. “You’re not flying out to Siberia or anything, right?” she half joked.

  “Nope. Just a phone call,” he assured her as he walked in with her.

  Lark wasn’t there—it was just Keaton. Skye tried not to feel nervous about that—after all, this was not the same Keaton who’d never liked her or her family. This was the Keaton who loved Lark and made her happy and took care of Grace as if she were his own.

  “Ready for some tummy time?” Keaton asked Skye. “I think Miss Grace is ready to play with her mommy.”

  “I’ll be back in a couple of hours, okay?” Jake said as he kissed Grace’s head. “You have fun with her,” he added as he kissed Skye goodbye.

  Keaton laid Grace down on the activity mat and waited patiently for Skye to get down on the ground, too. “You want some lunch?” he asked.

  “Sure,” she said, although as far as she could tell, Lark had been doing all the meals. She wasn’t sure if Keaton could actually cook or not.

  “How have you been doing?” Keaton asked from the kitchen.

  “Better. I’m starting to remember things,” she told him as Grace made her little grunting noise. Skye put her hand on Grace’s back and felt the baby’s muscles working. “You can do it, sweetie,” she told the baby. “Stronger every day. Mommy has tummy time, too, you know.”

  Grace made a cooing noise.

  “Really?” Keaton said, the surprise in his voice obvious. “You’re getting stuff back?”

  Skye mentally smacked herself in the head. What was she doing, telling that to Keaton? She really didn’t want to have this conversation with him. If Lark were here, she might be open with her sister. But she still hadn’t figured out how to interact with Keaton outside of talking about the baby. “Yes.”

  Keaton came to the doorway and looked down at her. “And you and Jake...you’re cool?”

  “Yes,” she said again, trying to turn her attention back to Grace. The baby was stretching her arms out, which made her look like a Super Baby in training.

  “Wow. Okay.” Keaton scratched his head. “Well, that’s...” He looked at her and paused. “That’s great. Really glad to hear it.”

  There it was again, that feeling that people were holding out on her. But it wasn’t as if Skye were having this conversation with Lark. This was Keaton, and she was not comfortable with him. “Yes,” she said. “It’s great.”

  She swallowed. Keaton knew something but he didn’t appear to be in any hurry to tell her. Maybe she could...find something out? Because she was so tired of knowing she was missing something. She was stronger now.

  “It’s not like he’s not going to fly to Siberia or anything,” she added, doing a decent impression of calm. “I’m not worried.”

  Keaton’s eyebrows were almost up to his hairline. “Oh, okay. So...yeah. Well, that’s good.”

  She frowned. That was not an informative response. She picked up Grace and laid the little girl on her chest. For a moment, she forgot about trying to figure out what she didn’t know because what she knew, right now, was that this was her little girl and together they were getting stronger. She could feel Grace’s little heartbeat fluttering against hers.

  But she wanted to know what she was missing because it seemed important. It was her future, wasn’t it? And Jake had said the past didn’t matter, not compared to what would happen in the future.

  “I know he said...” She paused. “Shoot. I can’t remember where he said his next job was?”

  Keaton rubbed the back of his neck, looking uncomfortable. “He told you?”

  “Yes, of course.” She hoped it came out sounding confident. “We don’t have secrets.”

  “Well...” Keaton sighed. “I’m glad you’re okay with it. I didn’t think that being gone three weeks out of the month was the best thing, but Lark and I are happy to help out when he’s gone.” He smiled encouragingly.

  Was that what Jake was doing—interviewing for a job that would take him away for three weeks of the month? “Oh, yeah—that’ll be great. We’re still working out the details,” she said, feeling stupid.

  Because they weren’t working the details out at all. Jake was still putting work ahead of her—her and Grace.

  No, it wasn’t ten months in Bahrain or even three months in New York—but only seeing him one week out of the month? How was she supposed to take care of Grace by herself? She couldn’t bear to leave Grace here at Keaton and Lark’s for much longer. She’d been focused on getting stronger so they could bring Grace home—together.

  Skye wanted her family, damn it. She wanted the people she loved most—Jake and Grace and the other babies they’d talked about having together—all under one roof, living side by side, day in and day out.

  And what if they did have another baby? What then? Would Skye be doing the pregnancy alone—again? Would she be delivering the baby alone—again?

  Because why? Because Jake was out on yet another damned job, talking about how this job would lead to bigger and better things? Things that would slowly erode at the amount of time he was home until they were going almost a year without laying eyes on each other—again?

  Skye held Grace tight to avoid looking at Keaton. A buzzer went off in the kitchen and he left the room.

  What was she going to do now? Skye’s mind raced. She had gotten most of her memory back, but she still didn’t remember large chunks of the last ten months.

  Jake loved her. He’d said it—shown it—time and time again.

  But...

  Did he love her enough to actually stay in Royal with her? Was she more important than the job?

  She didn’t know.

  But she sure as hell was going to find out.

  * * *

  “Great,” Carl said. “Thanks for your time today, Jake. We’ve been most impressed with your previous work.”

  Jake smiled into the web camera and tried not to notice how it distorted his grin into a bucktoothed nightmare. “If you have any other questions about how I can adapt the technology to your specific needs, just let me know.”

  “Great,” Carl said again. He seemed to have a limited vocabulary in this regard. “We’ll let you know our decision within the week.”

  The video call ended. By and large, the interview had gone well. Great, even, as Carl would say.

  Would Jake actually take the job?

  This was his company. This was what he did. And because he wanted to make sure that the job was done well, he’d always insisted on doing it himself instead of farming it out to employees. When Texas Sky did a job, the technology and production would be as promised or better.

  He sat there, staring at the computer screen. In four years, he’d created a company worth millions of dollars by sheer dint of the sweat of his brow. He was his company and the prospect of giving up control of it—any of it—was hard for him to swallow.

  But then, giving up any time with Skye and Grace was even harder for him to swallow.

  He’d made this bed by insisting that he was the only one who could do his work. But did it really have to be that way?

  After all, if he was the one who did everything—bid all the jobs, did all the on-site work—how much could his company grow? He’d always be doing one job at a time. Sure, the jobs paid well, but...

  But what if he wanted to expand? Take on more jobs? Build his clientele?

  He could hire out. He could expand now, not at some undetermined point in the future. He could do most of his work out of the office, not on-site. He could keep his company and keep his family.

  The enormity of this realization stunne
d him. All he had to do was...let go.

  Let go of it all. The control he insisted on having to run his business. Let go of the grudges that kept him from admitting that maybe his family had changed.

  That maybe, just maybe, he’d changed.

  What better way to show Skye that he had put her first than to do this for her—for them?

  The more he thought about it, the better this idea seemed. There was only one hitch in the whole plan—Skye’s family. Jake knew the Holts would be happy if he stayed, and Lark would, as well. But Tyrone and Vera Taylor?

  Jake should try to talk to the Taylors. He didn’t have any illusion that it would go well, not after Skye’s descriptions of their behavior at the baby shower. But if he could somehow smooth things out between Tyrone and Vera Taylor and Skye—well, wasn’t that what Skye wanted?

  Jake was on the verge of calling Tyrone Taylor when the doorbell rang. What now? he thought with a growl.

  He threw open the door to find a deliveryman standing on the stoop. “Afternoon,” he said. “Need a signature.” He held out an overnight envelope addressed to Skye Taylor.

  Taylor?

  Jake signed and took the envelope. He stared at it after the delivery van had driven off. Why was Skye getting overnight packages from...?

  He stared at the return address. From Matthews Private Investigations in Houston? What the hell? What did she want with a PI?

  Questions swarmed around him like bees. When had she hired the PI? Why? Was she having him investigated? Or his family? Was she looking for ammo in the Taylor/Holt feud? And how had he gotten this address?

  The alarm on his phone chimed—he had to go pick up Skye.

  He tucked the envelope under his arm and grabbed his keys.

  Only one way to find out—that was to ask her.

  * * *

  He could tell something was wrong from the moment he walked into Lark’s house.

  Oh, everything looked okay. Skye was in the recliner with a sleeping Grace against her chest. Keaton was on his laptop. Soft classical music filled the air. “Hey,” he said to Keaton.