“Please,” he cut in, his blue eyes continuing to convey that vulnerability she never would have associated with her husband. “I realize when I left we were talking about separating, but I hope I can stay here for a while. I need…” His voice trailed off into silence.
“Of course,” she said to fill the awkwardness that had descended. There would be time later to discuss what had happened between them right before he’d gone on his last assignment, to talk about what he had gone through the past two-and-a-half years. “Blake has grown a lot. He’s going to be tall like you. In fact, he’s the spitting image of you.”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” Dane said with a lopsided grin that she’d often thought of as cocky, but not now.
“And Mandy will be so excited when she realizes that it was you in the foyer.” Zoey paused to catch her breath. “She just didn’t recognize you. She was so young when you…disappeared.”
A soft expression entered his eyes. “She looks like you. She’s beautiful.”
Zoey peered away. There was so much she needed to tell him, so much she needed to understand. “There’s something else.”
He straightened, one brow arching.
“We have another daughter, Tara. She was born seven months after you—” Zoey paused for a few seconds, having almost said died “—left.”
“Another daughter?”
The wonder in his voice tore at Zoey’s defenses. Tears burned her eyes. She’d shed so many that first year Dane had been gone. How could there possibly be any left?
“Yes, that’s one of the reasons I came back to Sweetwater.” And the fact I hated living in Dallas, lost in the crowd of people with no family there as support. She remembered the struggle to pull herself together after Dane had disappeared. For years her life had revolved around him until she wasn’t even sure there had been a Zoey Witherspoon, a person independent from her husband. She didn’t want to get tangled up in that kind of pain ever again.
“So much has changed. I can’t believe I have three…” Silence snatched the rest of his sentence.
Zoey waited for Dane to continue. She needed him to tell her more, to share with her what he was feeling, thinking. He surged to his feet and began to pace as though he were an animal confined to a small cage and checking out his domain.
That was the Dane she was used to—the man who shut her out of his life, who kept secrets from her because of his job in the DEA, who was driven by a restless energy. Please, Heavenly Father, help me to be strong.
Zoey leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and clasping her hands together. “Does your boss know you’re alive?”
“Yes.”
Shocked by his answer, Zoey asked in a voice laden with budding anger, “Why didn’t Carl let me know you were?”
“I told him not to. I wanted to be the one to tell you face to face. I didn’t think it was something that should be handled over the phone or by a stranger appearing at your door. Too impersonal.”
“What are your plans, Dane?”
He stopped his pacing, tension coming off him in waves. “Would you believe I don’t have any plans at the moment?”
That was hard to believe because her husband had always been so focused. “How about your job at the DEA?”
He raked his hand through his short hair. “I don’t know. Carl told me to take some time off and we’d talk when I’ve fully recovered. He encouraged me to get reacquainted with my family.”
That surprised Zoey. In the past his boss had always demanded one hundred percent from Dane. To Carl, family had always been second, and he’d expected the people who worked for him to feel the same way. Again she was reminded of all the problems they’d had before Dane’s disappearance. But that wasn’t important right now. Dane’s recovery and reappearance was all that counted at the moment.
“Do you have a spare bed I can use?”
His question reinforced the barrier that had been slowly building up between them before he’d left for South America. She supposed it was a good idea not to share the same bedroom. He hadn’t come right out and said it, but his meaning had been clear. They weren’t the same two people as they had been when they had married. It wouldn’t be fair to either one to put that kind of strain on their fragile relationship. “I don’t have a spare bed, but the couch in the den makes up into a comfortable one.”
“Thanks. I wasn’t looking forward to staying in a motel.” He took a step toward her. “I want to get to know you, Blake, Mandy…and Tara all over again. There are still parts of my life that are fuzzy, but I’ve been told being home will help.”
She rose, the reality of their situation beginning to sink in. So much had happened in the past few years to both of them. The gulf between them at that moment seemed extremely wide. “Let me go talk with the children, tell them you’re alive, then I’ll bring them in here.”
He peered down at his clothes as though checking to make sure he looked all right. The black pants and gray knit shirt hung off his frame. “Carl had someone buy these for me. He told me I’d fill them out in no time.”
“Are you hungry?” Zoey gestured toward the kitchen. “I can fix you something to eat.”
“Maybe later. I want to see the children.”
Yes, first her children. How was she going to explain Dane’s reappearance to them? “I won’t be long.”
A wry grin erased the worry in his expression. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She returned his smile. “Are you sure you don’t want something to eat? It’s no trouble.”
“I don’t think I could eat right now.”
Zoey looked at the lean lines of his face, the pallor beneath his tanned features, a tic that twitched in his jawline, and wanted to insist he eat something. He’d never liked her fussing over him in the past. She kept her mouth shut and headed toward the kitchen.
When she entered the room, her mother glanced up, concern carved into her expression. “Honey, is everything okay?” She lifted Tara from her high chair.
“Mandy, why don’t you go in the den and watch TV with Blake for a few moments?”
After her daughter disappeared, Zoey turned to her mother, who held Tara in her arms. Her youngest played with her mother’s dangling earring. “Mom, that stranger at the door was Dane.”
Stunned, Emma sucked in a deep breath, her eyes round. “No!”
Zoey nodded. “He lost his memory when his plane crashed. Some Indians saved him. Until recently he hadn’t remembered who he was.”
Her mother shifted Tara to her other arm, burying her face in the toddler’s hair. “But the government was sure he had died.”
“The government made a mistake.”
Emma moved toward Zoey. “Oh, honey.” She took her into her arms with Tara between them. “What are you going to do?”
“Pick up the pieces of our marriage and start over. I need to tell Blake and Mandy now that their dad has returned from the dead.”
“Do you want my help?”
Her mother had supported Zoey through some tough times after Dane had disappeared. Zoey moved back to her hometown because she’d realized she couldn’t do it alone. After three months in Dallas trying to support her family financially and emotionally, she’d finally admitted she’d needed help and turned to her family and the Lord. She never regretted that choice. But right now she knew she had to do this alone, as so many things in the past few years.
“Just