up the kitchen, starting the dishwasher and letting the dogs out one last time. Normally, his three canine companions would stick to his side like glue, following him from room to room. Tonight was different. All three dogs opted to return to the bedroom, to get back into bed with Savannah. He’d felt so lonely after Savannah had left him, that he often found any reason not to be inside the house until he was ready to fall into bed. And he had counted on the dogs to fill some of the void left by his wife.
Now, sitting on the couch in the living room, the only light provided by the three-quarter moon glowing in the purple-black sky, Bruce felt more alone than ever. Having Savannah’s energy back in the house, when he thought to never have it back, had been more of a shock to his system than he had expected. Even though it had felt like the heart had been hollowed out of the house, he supposed he had grown accustomed to it.
He hadn’t discussed the sleeping arrangements with Savannah—he assumed that she understood that they wouldn’t be sharing a bed. He’d turned the second bedroom into a storage room, so his only option was the couch. He had moved his necessary toiletries into the spare bathroom, and that was where he prepared for bed. Wearing only his gray boxer briefs, Bruce lay back on the couch, stuffing two of the couch pillows beneath his head. With a tired sigh, he pulled the blanket draped over the back of the sofa down over his torso. The blanket smelled strongly of wet dog; Bruce pushed the blanket down to cover his groin, and far enough away from his nose not to be distracted by the smell. He’d wash the blanket tomorrow.
Arm behind his head, the cowboy stared up at the vaulted ceiling of the log cabin, his mind racing with “what if” scenarios revolving around Savannah and her missing memories. It was a good long while before he could finally close his eyes and fall into a fitful sleep. But this sleep, as restless as it was, didn’t last long. At first, he thought that he had dreamed the sound of dogs barking in the distance; it wasn’t until he felt a dog licking him on the side of his face and mouth that he began to awaken.
“What?” Bruce asked Murphy as he sat up while at the same time wiping his hand over his mouth to clean away the dog’s saliva.
Murphy disappeared back into the bedroom and joined the other two dogs barking. Bruce stood up, expecting to go tell the dogs to be quiet so they wouldn’t awaken Savannah, but then his wife cried out, the words muffled by the barking.
“Savannah!” Bruce rushed to his wife’s side.
“Can you hear me! Can you hear me!” Savannah was sitting up in bed, crying, her head in her hands. “Why can’t you hear me!”
Bruce switched on the light near the bed, and guided the dogs away from Savannah so he could sit down next to her on the bed.
“Hey.” He made her lift her head so he could see her face. She looked terrified, sweat mingled with tears on her flushed cheeks, her eyes wide.
Still crying, Savannah lurched forward and wrapped her arms around his body. “I was screaming and screaming and screaming and no one could hear me. Not you, not Mom, not Dad. No one.”
Bruce rested his head on the top of hers and let her cry it out on his shoulder. “You’re safe, Savannah. It was just a bad dream.”
After she took a couple of deep, steadying breaths, he leaned back so he could see her face. Bruce brushed the sweat-dampened hair off his wife’s forehead, then held her face gently in his hands and wiped her tears away with his thumbs.
“Please, stop calling me Savannah,” his wife said, her face crumpling as if she were about to start crying again.
Savannah pulled back from him a little; he dropped his hands from her face.
“You only call me Savannah when we fight,” she added when he didn’t respond right away.
It was true—he called her “Beautiful.” He had rarely used her first name during their courtship and their marriage. But for the last year, he’d called her Savannah exclusively.
“All right,” he agreed. What else could he do but agree?
Savannah went to the restroom while he went to the kitchen to get her a glass of water. When he returned, his wife was back in bed surrounded by his traitorous canines.
“Guys, you need to get down,” Bruce said to the dogs. Savannah barely had enough room to sleep.
“No,” Savannah said quickly, almost dribbling her sip of water. “I want them here.”
At this moment, he would have granted Savannah just about anything. He hated to see her cry—it broke his heart when she cried.
He waited while Savannah finished the glass of water; he took the empty glass. “Better?”
She nodded, pulling on a loose thread in the pattern of the comforter. After a minute, she looked up at him. “Where were you?”
Bruce was about to switch off the light again, but straightened instead. He sent Savannah a questioning gaze.
“When I woke up, you weren’t in bed.” Her eyes slid over to the undisturbed pillows and comforter on his side of the bed.
They hadn’t discussed the sleeping arrangement—she hadn’t brought it up and neither had he. Perhaps it was sheer cowardice that had stopped him from broaching the subject; he figured that Savannah would assume that he would be sharing their marital bed as usual. He’d known all along that he intended to sleep on the couch.
Bruce swallowed hard and pushed his hair back off his face. “I think I should sleep on the couch for a while.”
Savannah couldn’t hide the hurt she felt, and he closed his eyes for a split second to block out the pain he could see in her eyes before he continued. “I know this is hard for you, Savannah,”
She had dropped her eyes, but raised them when he used her first name.
“Beautiful,” he corrected. “I’m sorry. I just need a minute to—” he paused, his forehead wrinkled with his own pain “—adjust.”
They said good-night for the second time that night; the three dogs stayed faithfully with Savannah while he returned, alone, to the couch and the smelly blanket. If their first night was any indication of how difficult it was going to be to have Savannah back at Sugar Creek Ranch, it promised to be a tough row to hoe—for the both of them.
“Well, where the hell is she?” Jock Brand demanded. “Why the hell didn’t you bring her with you?”
Bruce arrived at Sugar Creek’s traditional Sunday brunch without Savannah, much to the unabashed displeasure of his father.
As Jock’s eldest of eight children from two marriages, Bruce had learned to ignore most of his father’s bluster and salty language long ago. He leaned down to kiss his stepmother, Lilly, on her soft, light brown cheek, before taking his seat at the long formal dining table.
“I let her sleep in,” Bruce told his father. “She needs the rest.”
He didn’t add that he didn’t want Savannah to feel overwhelmed by his family right off the bat; Sunday brunch was the one time when they converged on the ranch. And when the talk turned to politics, as it often did, yelling and fist-banging on the table were as common a fare as eggs and bacon.
“A hearty breakfast and hard work,” Jock countered loudly. “That’s what she needs.”
Jock never used an “indoor voice,” and his answer for all things was a good breakfast followed by hard work. And Bruce had to acknowledge that his father led by that example. Jock wasn’t a man known for his kindness or his forgiving nature, but he was known for throwing his back into every aspect of his life. Years of working in the harsh elements of Montana were carved into his narrow face by deep wrinkles fanning out from his eyes and crisscrossing his broad forehead. His nose was prominent, strong and slightly crooked, with a hump