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.