Buch lesen: «Father Found»

Chapter One

She was going to go insane.

Augusta Bishop stood on the cabin’s porch and looked out at the broad green meadow and the evergreen forest beyond, peppered with the crimson and gold of oak and quaking aspen leaves in autumn dress. If she didn’t remember who she was in one minute, she thought, she could not be held responsible for what happened. After more than three weeks of this confusion, she had enough pent-up frustration to cut down the forest with her teeth.

“It’s like being in the womb,” she told herself aloud, rubbing her swollen belly. “An uncertain future stretching out there somewhere, but inside, no past to light the way, just the darkness and the indistinguishable sounds outside.”

Dr. Lane had diagnosed the problem as amnesia. She might remember everything tomorrow, he’d said, or she might never recall more than she did at the moment. She retained all her personal skills and her life knowledge, she just didn’t remember who she was, where she lived or whom she loved. She thought of it as a Life Saver existence: it could sustain her, but there was a giant hole in the middle.

She walked down the porch steps and part of the way across the meadow, remembering her husband’s caution that she not go into the woods.

Her amnesia was the result of an attempt on her life by someone he’d sent to prison, he’d told her, and he’d brought her here to hide in a friend’s summer cabin in the mountains of central Oregon.

She looked around her at the magnificent mountains enclosing them in a cozy little valley and was astonished that her mind could ever forget this beautiful image, no matter what kind of injury she’d sustained.

But when Bram had brought her here just over two weeks ago, she’d been certain she was seeing it for the first time.

“We honeymooned here,” he’d told her in the rich, quiet voice that seemed to soothe her fears. Unfortunately, it also raised new ones, because she didn’t remember him, either.

She’d struggled for weeks to go back as far as her mind would take her, but it refused to go any further than that night three weeks ago when she’d surfaced in the Columbia River, spitting water and wondering what on earth had happened to her. She’d been cold and terrified.

Then the running lights of a boat had appeared and strong male hands had pulled her out of the water.

“What happened?” the man demanded, wrapping her in a jacket. “I saw your car go in! Were you alone?”

It was as though the questions had struck her ear and then bounced off. She wanted to answer, but she couldn’t.

Even as he questioned her, he was on the radio, calling the police. “Astoria police, this is Captain Burgess, pilot boat Rainbow. I just fished a young woman out of the water. Saw her car go in right by the church on the Washington side of the river. Have an ambulance meet me at the Red Lion Marina.”

He turned the boat around and headed not for the near shore, but for the opposite one, where she saw a mound of lights on the other side of a big bridge.

“What’s your name?” he asked her, apparently providing information to the police.

But that was another question that bounced.

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.

“You’re just trying to make me believe that,” she said suspiciously as they walked back toward the cabin. “I would never have proposed to you.”

He took her arm where the ground was uneven. “Why not? You were wild about me.”

She slanted him a suspicious glance. “I was?”

“You were. Followed me all the way to Portland where I was doing surveillance on a divorce case.”

She stopped again, stubbornly folding her arms over her mounded stomach. He stopped with her, his expression one of indulgent impatience.

“One of the first things I asked you when we went to our house in California was how long we’d been married.”

“Right. And I told you eight months.”

“You also told me we didn’t get married because I was pregnant.”

“Right again.” He grinned. “You got pregnant because we got married. Must have happened on our wedding night. I’m good.”

She was trying hard to hold back a smile. “So, I chased you down and proposed to you just because.”

“Yes.”

“I can’t believe I’m like that. I mean, I don’t feel like the kind of woman who’d follow a man five hundred miles and risk rejection by proposing. I don’t think I’m that brave.”

He propelled her gently toward the cabin. “That’s because you don’t remember what it’s like to be in love. It gives you power you can’t imagine if you’ve never experienced it—or can’t recall it.”

“Why did you say yes?” she asked.

He squeezed her shoulders. “Because I was in love, too. And you make the best cookies I’ve ever tasted.”

“Then why didn’t you propose to me?”

“I had, but you’d turned me down.”

They were climbing the porch steps, and through a hanging basket of ivy the sun dappled her face. It was a beautiful peaches-and-cream oval, plumped a little by her pregnancy. In it were wide, deep blue eyes, a small, nicely shaped nose, and an expressive mouth that was now parted in interest. Her hair was deep red, and there was lots of it mounded loosely atop her head. The sunlight made it look molten.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because I’ve been a cop, a soldier, a CIA agent and now a detective, and you said I must have suicidal tendencies to be that reckless. That you wanted a home and children and a husband with a nine-to-five job.”

She thought that all over, frowned as though trying to remember it and finally shook her head. “Well, what changed my mind?”

He pushed the cabin door open and ushered her inside. “I like to think it was my winning personality.”

She teased him with a smile. “No, really,” she said.

He laughed as he picked up the wood he’d dropped onto the porch table and carried it inside. “If that’s not the reason, I guess I don’t really know. You didn’t say. You just asked me to marry you.”

She held the door open for him. “Then we were happy?”

She followed him inside and perched on the arm of the pink-and-green-flowered sofa as he lowered the wood into a copper box. That question concerned him. He wanted the circumstance surrounding the birth of their baby to be perfect. He didn’t want her to worry about anything.

She hadn’t asked that many questions since they’d been here, had mostly occupied herself with preserving the garden’s bounty. In fact, she’d dedicated herself to it as though relieved to have something she obviously understood to occupy her mind.

“Yes, we were,” he assured her, turning to face her. “Why? Don’t you feel happy? Despite the amnesia, of course.”

She looked him in the eye for a long moment and he held her gaze, determined she would read nothing to the contrary there.

She finally shrugged a shoulder and said, almost with apology, “I don’t know what it is. Something makes me feel that this…” She waved a hand between him and herself. “That it isn’t right. That one of us is—” She gave up trying to explain and shook her head. “I’m not sure what I’m trying to say.”

He made an airy stack of three logs, stuffed kindling and rolled-up newspaper in the pocket underneath, then lit it and gave her a quick smile as he reached for the poker.

“You’ve always had good instincts,” he said, giving the top log a slight nudge to open up the air space. “Things aren’t right between us. We’re usually very affectionate and physical and we have a lot of fun together. This having to sleep apart and treat each other like strangers probably seems wrong to you on some level other than memory. We understand why it has to be, but something elemental in you recognizes it as wrong behavior.”

He couldn’t tell if she was encouraged or discouraged by his reply.

She got to her feet and came closer to the fire, spreading her hands out as it began to catch. “And I’m affectionate and physical with you even though you’re always telling me what to do, or getting in the way of what I want to do?”

He replaced the poker. “You appreciate it as my concern for you.”

“That’s the honest truth?”

He avoided her eyes as he put the wrought-iron gate back in place. “Yes, it is.”

“I’m very tolerant.”

“Yes, you are.”

She walked into the kitchen on the other side of the fireplace and shouted back at him, “Coffee?”

“Please,” he replied as a breath that had been caught in his lungs escaped in a soundless sigh.

“What kind of cookies do I make you?” she called as puttering sounds came from the stove.

“Chocolate chip with pecans are my favorite,” he shouted back, turning his back on the small twinge of guilt. “Peanut butter, date bars, this candy thing you call a ‘buckeye’ that’s a peanut butter ball half-dipped in chocolate.”

Her head appeared around the doorway. “How come you’re not fat?”

He went to lean in the doorway to answer. He pointed to her stomach. “Because you also help me burn the calories.”

Her cheeks pinked and she looked just a little flustered. “Insidious of you,” she said. “So I get fat instead of you.”

“You’re always eager to cooperate.”

“Says you.”

“There again,” he said, putting a hand gently to the curve of her stomach, “you bear the evidence.”

He should not have touched her. It shocked both of them—not the shock of surprise, but the electrical charge of a powerful connection.

She’d had a lot to deal with during the past few weeks, and though she’d been very concerned about her memory when he’d taken her to California, the garden had helped relax her when they’d arrived.

But he’d known something had been changing inside her the past few days. She’d been thinking about her place in life as an individual, and about the two of them as a couple. She was worrying about their relationship.

And that worried him.

Her fingers fluttered in the air between them, as though she wanted to touch him but didn’t dare. He caught them in his hand and kissed her knuckles, needing to break this spell.

“I’ll get the coffee,” he said, and walked around her to the coffeemaker.

Though he knew things could not go on forever as they had since he’d taken her from the hospital, he couldn’t help wishing they would. She knew only what he wanted her to know.

But the harder she thought, the more likely she was to remember.

Then she’d know what had really happened.

And that would not be good.