The Texan's Surprise Return

“I’m the only one they took from our caravan, as far as I know. I have zero recall for the actual event or anything leading up to it.” He fidgeted with his hands, then shifted his weight and gripped the back of the chair. “Can we sit down?”

“Oh, yes.” She went around him to the opposite side of the farm table and sat in a chair. “Sorry. You must be exhausted. You said your sight was damaged. Does it affect your balance?”

Again, a simple nod. His gaze traveled the room, covering every area but where she sat. During the early years, talking had been so easy for them. Then the miscarriage created a shift in their relationship, and each negative pregnancy test had driven them farther apart. Looking back, she knew she had been as much to blame as he was.

Avoiding each other, they’d become strangers living in the same house, but that wasn’t even close to the feeling she had now. Now they were true strangers.

They were also parents.

She studied his face, tossing a few words around. Hey, guess what? You know that whole can’t-have-kids thing? Well, our prayers were answered and now you have three sons. Welcome home to a wife you don’t remember and babies you didn’t know existed.

It would be nice if they could have one normal conversation first. How exactly did one have normal conversations with someone who had been dead for the last two years? She didn’t know, so she asked the first question that came to mind. “So, what do you remember?”

After what seemed like an hour of silence, Xavier cleared his throat. “I can’t remember anything leading up to the attack in Colombia. Before that? Everything is fuzzy, mixed with the false memories they beat into me when they thought I was Pedro Sandoval. I don’t know which are real and which are made up.” He finally looked at her, his eyes desperate as his gaze searched her face.

“I do remember more about you now,” he said. “Last night I had a memory about you stealing my fries, but I didn’t have the words to tell you.”

“Really?” The nervous giggle took over again. She covered her mouth.

“It’s all right. I like your giggle. I do have a few images of you. But it’s like watching videos of someone else. There are holes. Actually, more like craters.” He reached across the table, then moved his hand back.

Little touches used to come so easily and naturally for them. Now she didn’t know what to do. Last night was surreal, like a twisted painting out of a dream. Everything in her responded to him. But they were strangers.

She didn’t trust that he was here, within reach. “What else do you remember?” She leaned closer.

He grinned. “I had a dream last night. You were wearing a long dress the color of sunset. But not dancing with me.” He narrowed his eyes. “By the end of the evening you were mine.” He looked down as if searching for something he’d lost.

“That was homecoming our junior year. When you finally got the nerve to ask me out.” She leaned forward. “Do you remember our senior prom?”

He hesitated and twisted his lips to the left. “No.”

She bit back the disappointment. None of this was going to be easy. Not wanting him to feel guilty, she kept her gaze on the oversize cinnamon roll she had put on her plate. The weight of their silence pushed her shoulders down.

“Tell me,” he said. “Maybe it will help.”

“We had our first fight on the way to senior prom. You told me you were enlisting. I wanted you to enroll in the local community college with me. Later that night they played one of my favorite oldies,‘Faithfully.’ You sang it to me in front of everyone.” Then he had promised to never leave her.

He nodded as if he remembered.

“We played it at our wedding.” She sat up. Her heart kicked up a notch. Did he remember?

She waited for more, but he kept his head down and the silence lingered. Disappointment pushed hard on her chest. He didn’t have any of their memories.

“So…” Looking out the window, he avoided eye contact. “What’s the deal with all the Christmas lights?” He finally turned to her with a half grin. “It’s not even Thanksgiving yet.”

“I could have Christmas decorations year-round, but no one lets me.” She tried to laugh as if she had no worries. “With Elijah and Jazz getting remarried, I thought it would be a great time to pull out all the lights and wreaths.” She shrugged. “No Christmas tree or any of that, but the lights. They’re my favorite. It just makes everything glittery and enchanted.”

He nodded and went back to staring at his food, but not eating. Her fingers curled around a glass of orange juice, Selena fought back the urge to reach out and touch him. “It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything.”

“It’s there, somewhere. The first memory I regained was the ranch. After digging I found the location. Nothing fit, so I thought I’d come here and see what I could find out. Belle De La Rosa was the only name I had.”

“And you found all of us.”

“Yeah. Names are coming to me. I remember my nieces. Belle tells me that Elijah has a daughter.”

She bit her lip. Now. Tell him now.

Crossing his forearms on the table, he leaned forward. “It’s your turn to tell me something. What have you been doing while I was gone? A beautiful woman like you had to be dating once you were single.”

For a moment, she froze. “No. No. I was a widow. Not that I had time.” Would this man with the blank stare have cared if she had gone on a date? “Now that you’re here at the ranch, what are your plans?”

“I have a list of specialists for my eyes and brain issues. I’ll find out what’s physical and what might be psychological. It’s gone untreated so long, but the doctors in Colombia say there’s a chance I can regain my sight with therapy. And, now that I’m home, my memory might fully recover, too.”

He rolled his shoulders and dropped his head as if all the words had been too much.

“I don’t remember anything, but I have this feeling there’s a job unfinished in Colombia and I need to complete it as soon as I figure out what it is. I was assigned to protect someone. I don’t know who I was working for. There’s something missing, and I’m going to find out.”

“You never told me anything about your missions. All I knew was you worked for an intense private security company. I didn’t even know you were in Colombia until…” She shrugged. “But everyone in your group was killed.”

He closed his eyes. “It doesn’t stop the fact that I have this driving need to return. There’s something compelling me to finish. I can’t remember what it was, but I can’t rest. I need to heal enough to go back. You don’t know anything at all about my last job?”

Her spine stiffened. “Nothing.” How could he even think of leaving again? Her mouth opened, but then closed again.

“Tell me about your life while I was…away.”

Lifting her head, she made eye contact with her husband, the father of her children. “I’m on the city council now and working with the chamber of commerce to plan a new Christmas event. I run the office for our company, Saltwater Cowboys. Keeping those guys organized is a full-time job. And I help Belle with the paperwork for the ranch.” What she wanted to say was that she was keeping his life together for their boys. “With the death of your father, the ownership of the ranch is shaky. I’m not sure how your returning will affect everything.”

She was making a mess of this.

“Saltwater Cowboys?”

“It’s the business you started with Elijah and a friend Miguel. At first the focus was on charter fishing trips. You added large tourist boats for dolphin watching. They had closed Pier Nineteen, so we bought that property with the goal to restore it. Which we’ve done successfully.” Her throat closed and she bit her lip. The burn in her eyes surprised her. “You’d be so proud of Elijah. It was hard losing you, and I worried about him drinking again, but he’s been so strong. It’s because of him I’ve been able to give most of my time to my sons. Our boys.”

Head tilted, he blinked. “We have kids? That doesn’t sound… I don’t remember anything about us having children.” His eyes darted across her face, as if he was scanning it for information.

“You didn’t know. We made several attempts. When the last one showed a negative result, you decided to take the job in Colombia. A month after you left, I was sick. I thought it was stress. I went in and found out I was pregnant. The first reading had been false. Spotting isn’t unusual.”

“But you said ‘boys.’ As in plural. Twins?”

She shook her head. “Triplets. We have three sons, Sawyer, Finn and Oliver. They’re twenty-two months old. They’ll be two in January. January 19. The last fertility treatment worked.” The horror in his eyes burned her and made her want to cry.

She managed a smile. “You’re a father.”

Chapter Four (#ue0c7ecc3-2169-5d69-8b8a-38ca39e89d87)

He blinked. Her face blurred, and the buzzing grew louder in his head. “Father?” Babies. Three sons. “Where are they?” He stood, but the world tilted. Resting his hands on his knees, he lowered his head and breathed in deep.

Selena jumped up from her chair, but she stopped short of touching him when he held his hand up, palm out. “They’re here. Belle and my dad have them in the barn. She has some off-season orphaned baby goats. Your horses are out there, too.”