Forgotten Honeymoon (Best Friends Wedding Series)

by Beverly Farr

  FORGOTTEN HONEYMOON

  by Beverly Farr

  Copyright 2012 Beverly Farr Giroux

  Smashwords Edition

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Rita Toews www.yourebookcover.com

  Cover image by: wavebreakmedia ltd /Shutterstock.com

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  Kelly Rawlins yawned and tried to roll over to go back to sleep. Her covers wouldn’t cooperate. “Stupid flannel,” she muttered.

  A husky voice teased, “This is a surprise. I never thought you’d be the satin and lace type.”

  Lips brushed her ear.

  Kelly frowned, not wanting to let go of the dream, but then it was gone.

  She blinked, completely awake now. She wasn’t at home in her four poster bed. Alarmed by the strange surroundings, she tried to sit up, but she couldn’t move.

  “It’s okay,” a calm female voice said and touched her arm.

  Her eyes focused on blue scrubs. A nurse. She wasn’t strapped down; her bedding was just tucked around her tightly. There was a tube in her arm and blinking machinery over to one side of her bed. “Where am I?” Her voice sounded scratchy. Her chest hurt with every breath.

  “You’re in the hospital,” the woman explained gently. “You were in a car accident. You’ve been unconscious.”

  Unconscious? That would account for the disturbing dreams that floated just behind her awareness. Something was terribly wrong, but she didn’t know what it was. She had to go somewhere. She had to tell someone something.

  Kelly’s head ached. “Did anyone die?”

  “No, your car slid into a tree.”

  “Am I okay?” The minute the question was out of her mouth, she felt foolish. Of course she wasn’t okay, she was in a hospital.

  The nurse didn’t seem to think she was an idiot. “You’re fine. You bruised your ribs and got a big bump on your forehead, but other than that, you’re doing well. Be glad you were wearing a seat belt.”

  Her father appeared in the doorway. She’d never seen him look so disheveled. His clothes were wrinkled. He hadn’t shaved. A big man, normally jovial, he watched her anxiously, unsmiling.

  “Looks like I got you out of bed,” she joked.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” he said hoarsely, and gave her a gentle hug. “I was so worried.”

  “Careful with the I.V.,” the nurse reminded.

  Kelly held him tight. He felt so big and strong and comforting. “Have you told Mom?” she asked.

  He leaned back and shook his head. “Not yet. The doctors thought it would be better not to. I told her you were spending the night at the studio.”

  Kelly recognized the fear in his eyes. After her mother’s last heart attack, both she and her father were careful not to upset her. “Good,” she said. Each word was difficult with the tightness in her chest. “Glad I woke up.”

  He smiled down at her. “Me, too.”

  How she loved him. She squeezed his hand with her left one. Her ring finger was bare. That was strange. She only took off her engagement ring when she was working, and she always put it back on. Her head throbbed at the thought. “Where’s Nigel?”

  He frowned. “Why?”

  “Doesn’t he know I’m here?”

  His brow wrinkled with concern. “No, sweetheart. You told me you never wanted me to mention his name again.”

  That didn’t make sense. “What happened?”

  “You had a fight.”

  A fight? Impossible. She and Nigel never fought. Confused, she asked, “When? I don’t remember a fight.”

  “Friday.”

  Friday? “What day is it?”

  “Tuesday.” He looked at his watch. “No, it’s Wednesday now.”

  The words had no meaning. “It can’t be --” she protested. “I was just at my studio, I was working late --” But if that were the case, she’d still be there, instead of in the hospital. “What day is it? What calendar day.”

  “March 20th.”

  Good heavens. March already? “How long was I unconscious?”

  “Seventeen hours,” the nurse answered.

  With increasing concern, she said, “But, I can’t remember anything since February.” She remembered Valentine’s Day. Nigel had proposed. They’d been making wedding plans. She remembered working on some projects, but it was definitely not March.

  The nurse smoothed her sheet. “That’s perfectly normal. After a head injury, many people lose a little memory. But it usually comes back eventually.”

  Eventually? That wasn’t encouraging. Kelly wanted to remember it all, right now. “I want to see Nigel,” she said with rising panic. “I have to talk to Nigel.” Whatever was wrong, she wanted to make it right.

  “Shh.” Her father patted her hand. “If you want to talk to Nigel, I’ll get him.”

  Within an hour, her fiancé Nigel stood in the doorway of her private room. Tall and lean, with his dark shoulder length hair pulled back into a neat little pony tail, he held a huge bouquet of red roses. “Hi,” he said hesitantly, his dark eyes clouded with worry.

  Normally her heart jumped at the sight of him, but today she was too agitated to feel anything. The crash must have scrambled her emotions as well as her wits.

  “Babe, I’m so sorry,” he said, his British accent sounding more pronounced.

  She dutifully turned her cheek for his kiss, feeling a twinge of guilt. If she was going to dream about someone kissing her, shouldn’t Nigel be her dream lover?

  “I hear we had a fight,” she said quietly.

  His eyes were clouded. “You don’t remember?”

  “No.” She searched his face, hoping it would prompt her memory. “Was it a bad fight, or just pre-wedding nerves?”

  He smiled suddenly and seemed to relax. “It was nothing,” he said reassuringly. “It’s not even worth talking about. You were right, I was wrong, and I’ll never do it again.”

  “Do what?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Trust me.” He smiled. “I don’t want to tell you and make you mad again. Let’s just say I’ve learned from my mistake.”

  A mistake? Was that what was worrying her? “I don’t know what’s going on.” How could she have forgotten weeks of her life?

  “What’s going on is that I love you,” he said smoothly. “What’s going on is that we’re getting married in June. What’s going on is that I’m going to make you the happiest woman in the world.”

  He reached down, took her hand and brought it to his lips for a kiss. />
  She sighed. He made it sound so simple, but something was still wrong.

  “You’re in pain,” he said. “You need to heal. You’ll feel better after some sleep.”

  Sleep? She’d been unconscious; she didn’t need any more sleep. Tears filled her eyes. “I want to remember.”

  The nurse said, “Try not to worry about it. Give your brain a rest.”

  Kelly took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Maybe they were right. She was too confused right now and her head and her chest hurt.

  All she knew was that she loved Nigel. He was the man she was going to marry.

  She trusted that everything would be okay.

  But she still wanted to remember.

  CHAPTER ONE

  TWO MONTHS LATER

  Kelly sat outside on a bench with her best friend Brenda. They ate lunch together once every other week. Since Kelly’s schedule was more flexible than Brenda’s, they usually ate at the park near the bank where Brenda worked.

  The day was glorious: sunny and breezy. Kelly looked up at the bright blue sky, grateful that she could wear a tank top and a short drawstring cotton skirt instead of the black pants and tailored shirt that Brenda had to wear. Brenda might be more successful financially, but Kelly never wanted a corporate job -- it would be much too confining. She liked being her own boss.

  Brenda took a bite of her chicken sandwich. “Didn’t you bring anything to eat?”

  “No, nothing sounded good.” She wrinkled her nose. “I think I’m coming down with something. I don’t have a fever, but my stomach’s been sour for days and I don’t have any energy.”

  “I hate being sick in the summer,” Brenda commiserated. “At least in the winter, it seems appropriate to feel lousy, but not on such a nice day.” She sipped from her water bottle. “You should see a doctor. You don’t want be sick on your wedding day.”

  “No, that would be terrible.” She and Nigel were getting married in three weeks. “The last thing I want to do is barf on the minister when he says, ‘Do you take this man?’”

  Brenda laughed, then her eyes narrowed. “Are you pregnant?”

  Kelly snorted. “No. You have to have sex to get pregnant.”

  “You’re not sleeping with Nigel?”

  “No. We’re waiting.” Kelly smiled wryly at the look on her friend’s face. “Not that Nigel isn’t impatient sometimes, but he respects my desire for a white wedding.” Since her car accident, he’d been particularly gentle with her while her ribs were healing.

  Brenda looked at her thoughtfully. “Are you still a virgin?”

  “You make it sound like there’s something wrong with that.”

  “No. I’m just surprised. I guess out of the three amigas, you were the only one to keep the vow.”

  Kelly had forgotten that. In sixth grade, she, Brenda and Tiffany had made a vow to stay virgins until their wedding night. They’d also planned to stay best friends forever and all live on the same street when they were married so their kids could play together. Over the years, she and Brenda had stayed in touch, but Tiffany had flitted in and out of their lives. She’d moved back to Dallas recently, and for old-time’s-sake, Kelly had asked her to be one of her bridesmaids. Brenda was going to be her maid of honor.

  “Three amigas,” she mused. “That was a long time ago. We were all so different. Tiffany was Miss Popular, you were the --”

  “Geek,” Brenda supplied.

  Kelly smiled. “I was going to say ‘The Brain.’”

  “Thanks.” Brenda opened a small bag of potato chips.

  “And I was the weirdo.”

  “No. You were ‘the artist.’”

  The artist who hadn’t figured out what to do with all her creative energies, yet. She hadn’t discovered until college that she was a potter at heart. She didn’t make a great living, now, but at least she could support herself.

  “Well, good for you,” Brenda said with a sigh. “I wish I had waited.”

  Kelly didn’t comment. She’d never tell her friend, but Brenda’s experiences were part of the reason why she’d held out so long. Brenda had been chunky through all of grade school and most of high school. Not fat, but dumpy, and no one had asked her out. Then in her senior year, she’d grown four inches and slimmed down to a willowy size eight. Suddenly she was in high demand. Kelly tried to tell her friend to slow down and be careful, but she hadn’t. She’d gotten pregnant, her boyfriend convinced her to have an abortion, and once that was over, the jerk dumped her.

  It was a cautionary tale that Kelly had taken to heart. Since then Brenda had a series of boyfriends, none of them worth much. Her current flame was a very handsome attorney named Steven -- he was married, but claimed to be separated. Brenda had already broken up with him and taken him back twice.

  Kelly wished Brenda could find someone like Nigel -- someone fun who would adore her and treat her right.

  Sometimes Kelly felt awkward, discussing her wedding plans, knowing that her friend had a lousy love life. But to her credit, Brenda wasn’t bitter. She genuinely wished her well.

  To change the subject, Kelly asked, “Can I have some of those?” She was suddenly hungry, and the potato chips were tempting.

  “Sure. Help yourself.”

  Kelly ate one, then frowned. “Nope. That doesn’t taste right, either, and I usually love chips. It’s weird.”

  “Are you craving pickles and ice-cream?”

  “Very funny,” Kelly said, then stopped cold.

  The car accident.

  The three weeks she couldn’t completely remember.

  What if she had slept with Nigel?

  Was she pregnant?

  Her mind raced. At first her memory loss had been frightening. She’d spent days going through her emails and text messages, talking to her friends and family, trying to figure out what she’d missed. She was able to roughly reconstruct all but the last few days. Apparently she’d had an argument with Nigel Friday morning, lost her phone and gone dancing with her friends that night.

  At that point, there was little information. Her best guess was that she’d spent a few days at her studio, hibernating, until the car accident on Tuesday morning.

  But even with all her detective work, there were large gaps of time unaccounted for.

  “Are you okay?” Brenda asked with concern. “You look like you’re going to pass out.”

  “I don’t know,” Kelly said honestly. “I’m thinking about my memory loss. What if I am pregnant?”“

  “Wouldn’t Nigel have said something, if you’d had sex?”

  “Maybe that’s why we fought.” She tried to remember what he’d said at the hospital. You were right. I was wrong, and I’ll never do it again. “There was something he didn’t want to tell me because he didn’t want me to get mad again.” She bit her lip, considering. “What did I tell you that night we went dancing?”

  Brenda shook her head. “I can’t remember specifics. I was mad at Steven, and not paying too much attention to you. Sorry.”

  “I wish I could remember,” Kelly said. Bits of memory had come back, but most of early March was still a blur. It was infuriating.

  Brenda shrugged. “We didn’t talk a lot, except to agree that all men were swine. We drank a bit, danced a bit. Then Lars showed up and took you home.” Her eyes widened. “Hey, what about Lars?”

  “What about him?” Lars Henderson was a Vice President at Rawlins Lighting, her father’s company. He was good looking in a Viking way, tall and blonde with broad shoulders, but he wasn’t her type. He was too quiet. Too predictable. She’d bet he’d never done a spontaneous thing in his life. He probably slept in his suit and tie.

  “Maybe you and he --?” Brenda let her voice trail off.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I may have had a crush on him in high school --”

  “We all did,” Brenda interrupted. “He was absolutely gorgeous -- with those piercing blue eyes -- like something out of Norse Mythology. I remember you drew a pictu
re of him that you carried around in your notebook for weeks -- who was he supposed to be?”

  Kelly blushed. “Thor, but that is ancient history. I was young and silly and it didn’t mean anything. The truth is that we’re just friends; that’s all we’ve ever been. He has never looked at me in a romantic or flirtatious way. He’s always polite, but he has never made a single approach. Never.”

  “You don’t think he’s gay, do you?”

  “No. Just not interested in me.”

  “Too bad. He would make a great baby daddy. You would have a big, beautiful baby.”

  Kelly laughed. “This is crazy. I don’t even know that I am pregnant.”

  “There’s an easy way to find out. The drug store by the bank sells pregnancy tests.” Brenda rolled her eyes. “Don’t ask.” She looked at her watch. “Oops, late again. I’ve got to get back before someone decides to fire me.” She gave Kelly a hug. “It’s probably nothing more than the flu. But call me, if you need me.”

  “I will,” Kelly promised.

  Afterwards, she stopped at the drug store and purchased a pregnancy test, just to rule out the possibility.

  She knew she was probably over-reacting; Brenda had babies on her brain. But there were the missing three weeks that she still couldn’t remember completely, so technically, there was a slight possibility that she might be pregnant.

  Back in February, Nigel had been pressuring her, saying “We’re engaged now. Why do we need to wait? Does a few weeks matter?”

  Had she given in?

  But she was getting ahead of herself. There was no real proof yet, just suspicions.

  Please, God, she thought as she headed into the bathroom. I’m not ready to be a mother.

  An hour later, she stared at the little white plastic test monitor in dismay. She had her proof.

  She was pregnant.

  So she had slept with Nigel.

  Had she regretted it? They must have argued, and after her memory loss, he hadn’t wanted to remind her that they’d gone all the way. He hadn’t wanted to upset her plans for a white wedding. Her heart softened at the thought.