The Stranger She Married

But she didn’t. She kept her tongue, hoping Lacey was right about the new man. Wishing that this Matthew Shane could see how much she’d always wanted to win back his love.

Outside, night creatures buzzed and chirped with the deepening shade of the sky. The evening felt like the tepid breath of a watcher, keeping time over the world.

Matt sat by himself and finished the last of his dessert, hardly tasting the summer fruit. He wanted Rachel out here, not hiding in the kitchen as if she wanted no part of him.

He’d sneaked a few peeks at the window, just to see what was keeping her. Lacey and Chloe had gone inside, probably attacking Rachel with girl talk.

Damn. Why couldn’t the only person whom he felt halfway familiar with be here, keeping him anchored, sane? He hadn’t even remembered his brother and stepsister, and that had made dinner even more awkward.

Matt cast one last glance at the kitchen, then stood, walking away from the house. After ambling around a few minutes, he reached a cool expanse of grass overlooking the white-fenced pond. The sky was purple, graced with streaks of faint star white.

He didn’t realize that someone had been following him until he heard a deep voice break the silence.

“The old man wouldn’t believe a word you’ve said about amnesia.”

He turned around to see a tall, dark shape. There was a scraping sound, followed by the flare of a match. Faint light skidded over the face of Matt’s brother, Rick, emphasizing the hidden darkness in the younger man’s gaze.

Rick noticed Matt’s scrutiny. “Cigar?”

“No, thanks.” God, shouldn’t he feel at ease with his own little brother? Shouldn’t there have been memories or some kind of emotional pull to ground him? All Matt knew was that Rick flew planes and generally holed himself up in a cabin just off Lacey’s wooded property.

There was nothing else Matt knew about his own flesh and blood.

Rick cocked an eyebrow in the star-palled light. Not for the first time, Matt noticed that his brother’s hair was the same deep chocolate shade, though Rick wore it a bit longer, scruffier.

The siblings watched the night together, and Matt was positive that they didn’t have a damned thing to say. Rick hadn’t uttered more than ten words tonight, hadn’t even shown much emotion when he welcomed his big brother home.

And then there was his stepsister, Lacey. After jumping into his arms and hugging him near to death, she’d come right out and told him not to worry, that she wasn’t as crazy as Kane’s Crossing made her out to be.

But who was worried?

Rick blew a plume of smoke in the air. The scent of brandy and shaded alley corners overcame Matt, making him think of laced grillwork, neon-lit bar signs shining over midnight streets. New Orleans, the place of his rebirth.

Rick said, “Dad would’ve questioned you up and down about this amnesia, thought you had some angle.”

Was he accusing him of something? Matt turned to him, his dander up. “Let me guess. We don’t have a very good relationship, do we?”

A grim smile flickered over his brother’s lips. “Not after the way you’ve treated your family the past couple of years. And I don’t give much credence to this tragic amnesia story, either.”

Before either of them could fire another verbal shot, the roar of a souped-up engine cut the air, followed by jubilant shouts and horn blasts. Both Matt and Rick turned to the commotion.

A cherry-red Camaro zoomed up their drive. A man dangled out of the passenger-door window, waving a ball cap.

“Mattie!”

Rick asked, “You still have questions about your past, Matt?”

He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the approaching spectacle. “What the hell do you think?”

Rick chuckled and started sauntering away. He said, over his shoulder, “You’re about to get some answers.”

And without even a good-night, Rick left.

Matt started to wonder if he should’ve just stayed in Texas, training horses under his adopted “Matt Jones” name.

As the sports car squealed to a stop outside his home, three bodies tumbled out.

“Mattie!” they all cried in chorus.

He knew he’d regret this, but he approached the car anyway.

Two burly men, attired in tobacco-stained T-shirts, grimy jeans and tractor-logo ball caps flanked a person whom Matt first thought was a young boy. Upon closer inspection, he saw that the third party was actually a tiny woman dressed in tomboy clothing.

“Yee-haw!” cried the female, as she launched herself on Matt. Whiskey fumes washed over his senses as she wrapped her legs around him, smacking a kiss on his cheek.

The other males hefted some liquor bottles out of the car. One said, “We heard ya come back, Mattie! See, I told ya, Sonny, all them rumors are true.”

Without missing a beat, the bigger man—Sonny?—stumbled from the driver’s side of the car to Matt.

“Aw, lookie here, Junior. Mattie finally decided to throw away them hoity-toity business scrubs. Is your neck red, partner?” He slapped Matt on the back, almost knocking him over with the weight of the wild girl hanging all over him.

Matt tried to laugh off this ridiculous situation. Surely the old Matthew didn’t spend time with these people. “Listen, you all. I’m not sure—”

“Duh, Mattie,” said the girl who’d, by now, jumped off of him and grabbed the liquor bottle from Sonny. “It’s us. Remember?”

They must have seen the fill-in-the-blank of his gaze.

Laughter echoed through the night. Sonny knocked on Matt’s head. “Hello in there? Can you believe this, you all? He’s ignoring us!”

Matt’s hackles rose. This was a nightmare. Or a joke. Yeah, that’s it. Rachel had sicced these clowns on him in payment for over two years of her own personal hell.

“All right, you’re the Kane’s Crossing welcoming committee.” He stopped there, noting the trio’s miffed expressions.

The girl hung on his arm. “Come on, Mattie. Now that I’m back from Tennessee, we’re here to catch you up on all those drinking days you’ve lost. Farmer Fred’s got a bonfire going tonight. And there’s a keg there.”

“And college girls,” said Junior.

A swift kick from the girl clamped Junior’s mouth shut. Both Sonny and she muttered, “Damn, Junior.”

Matt was starting to get a really bad feeling about this. “Maybe I need to explain something to you all.”

Rachel’s voice interrupted him. “Junior, Sonny, Mitzi? I thought we’d come to an agreement about this before.”

Matt watched his wife emerge from the house. Watched the way her summer dress flowed around her slim body, clinging to the curves of her waist and breasts. As she patiently waited for Junior and Sonny to remove their caps and lower their heads, something primal and unexplainable shot to life in his soul. Something he’d been missing for years.

Mitzi wasn’t having any of this respect stuff. “Aw, come on. If Mattie stays home, you’ll make him boring. Just like you.”

Matt thought boring sounded like a great idea.