Father Found

She remembered the sense of panic, the jolt to her feet off the cushion in the cabin where he’d placed her. Then the surprise she’d experienced at her sudden awareness of the weight she carried. She was pregnant! More panic blossomed out of itself.

Her name! How could she not know her name?

“Whoa!” The captain had put the radio down and caught her arm, urging her to relax. “It’s all right. You’re just in shock. Sit down and put that jacket back on. They’ll warm you up at the hospital and everything will come back to you.”

That had been three weeks ago, and so far, nothing earlier than that moment of surfacing from under water had come back to her.

She sat down awkwardly in the middle of the fragrant grass and listened to the silence. The insects were gone now that it was the second week in October, and all she heard was the rustle of leaves and the steady, staccato sound of Bram’s ax against the firewood. Half a mile out of Paintbrush, a town of four hundred, their four-room cabin was on the city water line, but power was iffy depending upon the elements. The only source of heat was a fieldstone fireplace.

The nights were cool now, and Bram said that soon it would snow. He’d been chopping wood for half an hour.

If she was surprised that she’d forgotten the scenery surrounding this mountain meadow, she was astounded that she’d forgotten her husband. When she’d awakened in the hospital the morning after the accident, the hour so early her room was still in shadows, he was leaning over her bed, a finger to his lips asking her to be quiet.

“I’m taking you home,” he’d whispered.

Now that she looked back on it, she thought it strange that she hadn’t been afraid. She’d looked into his dark brown eyes and seen something there that had reassured her, despite the threatening situation. And the word “home,” when she couldn’t remember where she belonged, had sounded so inviting.

He’d taken her left hand and held it up to her face, pointing to the simple gold band on her third finger. It had shone in the shadows. He’d placed his hand beside it, to show her that he wore a matching ring.

“I know you don’t remember anything,” he’d said. “But I’m your husband. You’re in danger here, and I want to take you to safety.”

The sight of their rings, when she felt so alone, had been a ray of light in her black panic.

Then he’d wrapped her in a blanket, leaped nimbly out the open window and reached in for her.

He was a private detective, he’d told her as they’d driven into the night, and she was a teacher. He’d been working on a case on the Oregon Coast and she’d flown out from their home in northern California to meet him to celebrate his birthday. When it was time for her to return home, they’d left in separate cars, she to drive to Portland and fly home, he to return to work.

He’d been following a small distance behind her on the narrow, winding road along the river, a row of rocks the only protection against the water. He’d seen a car speed out of a side road, then bump the back of her vehicle at high speed. At a low point in the rock wall, the car hit hers again and she went into the river.

Her rescue and resultant amnesia were all over the news.

Bram recognized the car as belonging to the brother of Nicanor Mendez, a trafficker in drugs and women, sent to jail by Bram’s testimony.

Bram had been hired by Mendez’s wife, who’d suspected infidelity. His surveillance had taken him to Mexico, and when he realized what Mendez was doing, he’d called the DEA.

Certain the man’s motive was revenge, and that he’d see the news and be after her again, Bram had spirited her out of the hospital and they’d been in hiding ever since.

The whole scenario had an unreal quality because she could remember none of it. All the personal things she’d had with her at the time had been lost at the bottom of the river with the rental car.

He’d taken her to their home in Pansy Junction, California, hoping familiar surroundings would help her remember. But they hadn’t.

They’d lingered several days for Gusty to rest, but when there’d been two telephone calls with no response on the other end of the line, they’d left stealthily during the night. They’d flown back to Portland, then driven east.

They’d been here ever since in a curious state of suspension. At least, that’s how it seemed to her. He’d suggested they occupy separate bedrooms, since she couldn’t remember having been intimate with him, and they lived as friends in a state of uncertainty.

As she watched him appear with an armload of wood from around the side of the house, she wondered if their marriage had been in trouble before the accident. They were such different people—or so it seemed to her. He was organized and confident with a tendency to order rather than ask.

And she…well, that was hard to say. She knew so little about herself and her abilities. She’d held her own with him, though she tried to accede to his wishes because of the danger and their unique situation. But she suspected she might be someone who’d never been self-confident. It didn’t feel as though that was part of her makeup. She worried about that sometimes, with a baby just five weeks from birth.

What if her memory returned one day and she discovered her marriage had been in trouble? What if she recalled that she’d been about to leave him, or he’d intended to leave her? Then she’d be alone with a baby to support. Then what?

Bram said she’d been a teacher, but with no knowledge of her past, how could she return to her old job, or sell herself and her skills to a new school board? No. She’d have to think of something else.

She could cook. She’d learned that over the past few weeks. It didn’t seem to matter how little the cupboards held, she apparently had a gift for making something delicious out of nothing.

She was also good in the garden. Bram’s friends had planted all kinds of greens, tomatoes, peppers and a veritable field of pumpkins. Then a sudden change of plans had required that they return to the city before Bram and Gusty arrived. Gusty had harvested everything but the pumpkins, which continued to grow.

She’d stashed the vegetables in an old-fashioned root cellar, put up the tomatoes, made green tomato relish with those that hadn’t ripened and pepper slaw with the green and red peppers.

She wondered with a hint of black humor whether she’d been a survivalist at some point in her life. Or been stuck alone somewhere in the wilderness.

“A dandelion for your thoughts.” Bram squatted down beside her in the grass and handed her the woolly weed.

She looked into his face and thought, not for the first time, that he was something special. He was tall and muscular, with a presence of strength that had as much to do with internal toughness as with well-defined pectorals and softball-sized biceps.

He had the rugged good looks of a Bogart or a Bronson, his handsomeness defined by harsh features tempered by that reassuring strength. And a bright smile that came seldom and was always a surprise.

Except for the tendency to be a little overprotective and to consider himself in command of their tiny family, he’d been all kindness and consideration since the moment he’d appeared in her hospital room.

He held the dandelion to her lips. “Make a wish,” he said with a smile, “then blow on it and tell me what you wished for.”

She complied and the cottony wisps flew all around them. Several caught in his side-parted dark hair and she reached up to brush them away. It was strange, she thought, that though she didn’t remember their life together at all, she often felt the need to touch him. She wondered if the baby in her womb remembered him and that somehow translated itself to her as her own need.

“I don’t think I’m supposed to tell you that,” she admonished gently. “Or the wish won’t come true.”

His dark eyes roved her face, clearly looking for something. “You remember that?”

She tossed the dandelion stem onto the grass. “That’s probably one of those things the doctor said I’d remember, like brushing my teeth, or knowing language.” Then something else came to her, unbidden. “Did you know that the word dandelion is from an old French phrase meaning lion’s teeth. Dent de lion?”

He looked surprised. “No, I didn’t.”

“Yes. Because the spiky leaves on the underside of the floret are like the teeth of a lion.” She felt momentarily encouraged by that knowledge, then realized it wasn’t technically a memory. She smiled ruefully. “I wonder what my third-graders thought of that information. I must have bored them to death.”

“I doubt that very much,” he disputed, getting to his feet. Then he reached under her arms from behind her to help her up. “Come on. It’s getting too cool for you to sit on the ground. Ready?”

“Bram, I’m fine,” she insisted, trying to push his hands away. “There won’t be many more days like this, and I’d like to take advantage of it. Did you know that the leaves, roots and flowers are edible, and that they contain calcium and vitamins?”

He ignored her question and her protest and lifted her so that she had no choice but to brace her feet under her as he brought her upright.

“I can’t believe I married you,” she said with a groan of exasperation, “if you pushed me around like this when we were engaged.”

“We were never engaged.” He put an arm around her shoulders and led her toward the cabin. “We went straight from fighting over everything, to being married. And it was your idea, by the way.”

She stopped in her tracks. “Never engaged?” She looked at her ring finger with its simple gold band, then added, “I don’t mean with a diamond, but there must have been a period after you proposed.”

The breeze ruffled his hair as he shook his head. “Well, if you count the three days we waited for our blood tests and marriage license. And—once again—you proposed to me.”

Bram thought the surprise on her face was almost comical. Not flattering to him, of course, but this time in their lives was not about his ego but her survival. So he’d been demanding and cautious and she didn’t always like it, but that was the way it was.