The Forgetful Fiancée Read online

  "I know it's hard, I know, baby," he soothed. "We'll work everything out."

  "I want to remember," she sobbed. "I want to know how I got from there to here. God knows I love you, Kevin, but…but…"

  "You can't imagine why you wanted to move here," he said, completing her thought.

  "It's just so different."

  "You haven't even given it a chance. Try it for a while."

  "I will. I never meant to imply I would go back on my word. Obviously I made a promise to you, and I intend to keep it. You'll just have to endure my little…fits of adjustment."

  A spear of guilt stabbed Kevin straight through the heart. He never should have let Debra talk him into this lie. But if he told Tara the truth now, she would turn tail for Chicago faster than a spooked rabbit. At least he could have a couple of weeks with her first, some memories to draw on during the long Colorado winter nights to come.

  She stopped crying after a few more minutes, much to his relief. But he still held her. With her new, softer curves, she felt better than ever in his arms. His groin tightened at the memory of their lovemaking.

  Her mind must have been traveling along similar corridors, because she asked, "Kevin, how long has it been since we made love?"

  "Way too long." That much, at least, was the sincerest truth.

  "How fast can we remedy that situation?"

  His breathing came faster. "Darling, as fast as I can haul this car home."

  Tara might have forgotten a lot of things, but one thing she did remember was how good she and Kevin were together. They'd dated for three years – two of which she could remember – and during that time their ardent desire for each other had never dulled with time and familiarity.

  As Kevin pulled his car into the driveway of a natural wood house on the outskirts of town, Tara's anticipation grew. Surely, once she was in his arms, things would become clear again. She'd always found such comfort in Kevin's lovemaking, as well as excitement.

  She gave the modern house, nestled in a grove of birch, a cursory inspection as Kevin unfastened the baby's car seat restraints. It suited him, she decided, and it was far more appealing to her than she would have hoped. She'd always loved contemporary design. In fact, she was known for her daring, almost futuristic concepts when it came to her own design work. But this house had a warmth about it, too, something very inviting.

  Kevin handed Andrew to Tara, and she took him with a naturalness she wouldn't have dreamed of before. "What do you think?" Kevin asked.

  "Nice, very nice," she said with a smile. "But I'm more interested in the interior. Of the bedroom."

  Kevin almost broke his neck getting to the front porch and unlocking the door.

  Tara paid little attention to the inside of the house. Her body was primed, and all she could think about was shucking her clothes – and his – and slaking her desire. She was always like this when it came to Kevin and sex. She had tunnel vision. That was probably how she'd ended up pregnant, she reflected. She'd forgotten birth control one too many times.

  Kevin led her to a nursery. Tara absorbed the impression of ducks – lots of cute ducks – as she laid Andrew in the crib. Someone, probably Debra, had prepared for Andrew's arrival.

  Deprived of his mother's arms, he fretted a bit.

  "What's wrong with him?" Kevin asked, sounding unnaturally alarmed.

  "Nothing, as far as I know." Tara rubbed Andrew's stomach and murmured soothingly to him. Almost instantly he quieted, closed his eyes, and slept again. Then she turned and hooked her arms around Kevin's trim waist. "C'mon, let's get this show on the road," she said, nibbling his neck the way she knew drove him crazy. "I can't guarantee how long Andrew will sleep."

  Kevin scooped her up in his arms. "You don't have to ask twice."

  In the master bedroom, Kevin wasted no time in removing Tara's clothes, kissing every part of her body as he bared it. She felt a moment of embarrassment as she wondered how he felt about her new, fuller figure. Kevin, sensing her self-doubt, pulled her to him and enveloped her in a full-body hug. "You look beautiful. Motherhood has softened your sharp corners."

  "I had sharp corners?"

  Kevin rubbed her back, letting one hand slip down to cup her bottom. "You know what I mean. You could gain or lose a hundred pounds and I'd still love your body."

  That was the closest Kevin had ever come to saying "I love you" since she'd awakened in the hospital. He used to say it all the time. Now he seemed sort of reluctant to show his feelings. What had changed – besides her body – in the past year?

  Chapter Four

  Kevin's hand ventured between Tara's legs, and she forgot her worries as a surge of white-hot longing shot through her body. He'd always been able to do this – make her mindless with passion even with the most casual of touches.

  "Mmm, my legs won't hold up much longer." She was amazed at how breathless her voice sounded.

  "I'll hold you." His breath tickled her as he probed and caressed.

  "I'm weak," she pleaded. "I'm debilitated. You're torturing me."

  "Okay, I'll stop."

  "No!"

  He chuckled as he continued his sensual assault. It must have been a very long time since they'd made love, she deduced. Why else would she be so…so… She amazed herself, and maybe him, by reaching a climax. "Oh, that wasn't fair. That was too fast."

  He laughed softly again, the sound giving her pleasurable goose bumps. "Then we'll just have to do it all again, won't we?" He swung her up and onto the bed, then took his time removing his own clothes.

  "You've got more muscles," she observed as he bared his chest and a six-pack of abs.

  "I chop a lot of wood." He didn't tell her that chopping wood was his method of choice for clearing his mind – of her. He'd produced enough logs for ten years' worth of winter nights.

  He let her stare at him for a few moments. The approval in her green eyes made him even more excited than he already was. She wasn't the only one who might reach peak performance before it was desirable.

  She held out her hand to him. "Lie with me, Kevin. I – I need you."

  He joined her in bed, wondering if she'd been about to say she loved him. If only she did. If only she hadn't had to force herself to come to Hardyville.

  He gently kissed her face, the hollow of her throat, the inside of her arm, and between her breasts – all the places guaranteed to drive her wild. And when she'd heated up again, he kissed her mouth with an almost savage intensity before entering her.

  He moved inside her, his own desires building to an almost unbearable peak until they overflowed. A raging bonfire exploded inside him. Moments later, as he lay spent and damp against her, she put her hands on either side of his face and kissed him, the kiss as gentle and loving as his had been rough and demanding. Surely she still loved him. She must. She'd been really angry the night they'd broken up, and rightfully so, but he couldn't believe that one argument would negate the foundation of trust and love they'd built before then.

  As they lay together in a cocoon of intimacy, Tara sighed deeply. This was good, really good. But sex by itself wasn't enough to make a marriage work – she'd heard that from countless sources. She would have to carve a place for herself, cultivate a life of purpose apart from wife and mother. But what could she possibly find to do here in the wilderness that would fulfill her? Start a mail-order homemade soap business? Raise rabbits? Get a job selling paint at the hardware store?

  The possibilities made her shiver with distaste.

  "Cold?" Kevin asked, drawing the covers over her bare torso.

  She was about to answer when a baby's cry startled her. It came from a small speaker on the nightstand – a baby monitor, she realized, a thoughtful touch. Debra's, or Kevin's?

  Tara groaned. "I don't suppose you'd like to check on your son, find out what the trouble is?"

  Kevin grew tense beside her. "I wouldn't know what to do. You and I have hardly seen each other in the past few months. I – I haven't real
ly spent any time with Andrew alone since he was born."

  "Well, you'd better start learning, Daddy-boy," she said playfully, although tension bloomed inside her chest. Surely Kevin wasn't going to turn out to be one of those macho fathers who thought taking care of children was women's work.

  Tara all but dragged Kevin with her to check on Andrew. Now that her mind was clearer, she took a good look at the nursery. Fussy, fussy, fussy, with yellow ducks and blue elephants everywhere. But it was well equipped, with everything she would need to care for an infant, and for that she was grateful.

  Aunt Debra's work, no doubt.

  "Ah, just as I suspected," she said after a quick diaper check. "He needs a change. You do know how to change a diaper, right?"

  "I'm not very good at it. I'll watch you do this one. Then the next one's mine."

  "That seems fair."

  He watched dutifully as Tara went through the now routine task, wiping, powdering, and taping on the new diaper. "Seems easy enough. Will he go back to sleep now?"

  "I doubt it. Getting close to feeding time."

  "Okay. I need to make a phone call." And just like that, Kevin disappeared upstairs.

  Tara sighed. What was wrong with Kevin? She'd never known him to be tentative or wishy-washy about anything. Did he just plain not like kids? Or was he resentful of being trapped into marriage by an unplanned pregnancy? If that was the case, she couldn't go through with the wedding. She could not bind herself to a man whose resentment for his wife and child might well turn to something worse. She had been telling herself she loved him, but could she truly love a man who didn't put his own offspring first?

  * * *

  It took Kevin a couple of minutes after he reached his home office before he stopped trembling. It was a baby, just a baby. But nothing had ever scared him like his own son.

  Get a grip, he ordered himself. There was no reason to believe he could not learn to competently, responsibly care for his own child. But then he started thinking of the hundreds of things that could go wrong.

  He hadn't anticipated such a visceral response to the baby, and such a confusion of feelings. He couldn't help but love Andrew, a tiny human being that he and Tara had created together. But he was also terrified.

  The fear was a result of the events in Chicago – he was smart enough to figure that out. His last day on the force had forever changed him. Before then, he'd liked children, had even participated in some programs to help underprivileged kids. Afterward, though, the sheer miracle of a child's life…and the tragedy of her death…had hit Kevin with the force of a wrecking ball.

  He hadn't told Tara about that day's tragedy. She might have heard about it on the news, but she wouldn't have known he was involved. He'd been too close to it, too wrapped up in his sins to confide in anyone, even her. His lack of honesty had cost him the relationship, he realized now. They'd broken up that same day.

  He would just have to find the strength to bury his fears, he realized. And meanwhile, he needed to find out what Tara's actual plans had been when she'd come to Hardyville. He didn't want any harm to come to her business in Chicago as a result of this little game he was playing.

  He found her partner's phone number and called her, relieved to get her right away. "Cindy? It's Kevin Rayburn, Tara's…friend."

  "Thank God! I've been trying to get Tara on her cell phone. Has something happened?"

  "Her car was stolen," Kevin said. "She also…she's okay, don't worry, but she can't exactly remember how she got to Hardyville."

  "You mean she has amnesia? What about Andrew?"

  After calming Cindy down and explaining everything, he asked her to rearrange Tara's appointments and make sure her bills were paid on time. Tara was going to be furious with him as it was. No need for him to wreck her business or her credit rating while he was lying to her.

  "I'll give you a week to come clean with her," Cindy finally said. "But only because I think what you guys had is worth salvaging. And because Andrew needs a father. But you do right by Tara, or you'll answer to me."

  Chapter Five

  Tara's strength came back more quickly than she would have thought possible, and she fell into a comfortable routine. She got up early with Kevin, they made breakfast together, and he left for work. Then she fed the baby, bathed him, dressed him, all tasks she had once imagined to be drudgery. But everything was fun with Andrew. She delighted in each smile, each wiggle, each time she caught him looking at something with a baby's awe.

  While the baby napped, which he did a lot, she tackled the decor of her new home, eradicating Kevin's ugly bachelor theme. Kevin had told her she could do whatever she wanted, so she went hog-wild.

  "What's this?" Kevin asked one evening when he got home from work.

  "Berber carpet." Tara realized she should have at least warned him. "Stain-resistant – very important when you have kids."

  "What happened to my sofa?"

  "It's in your office." She bit her lip, wondering if she'd gone too far buying the sage-green sofa and matching chair, and the sage-and-clay striped love seat. Were the colors too girly? They would play in Chicago, but how about Hardyville?

  Kevin sat in the chair. He bounced experimentally, then leaned back and nodded with satisfaction. "Okay. What's for dinner?"

  She breathed a sigh of relief. "I started a pot of chili." Most evenings, she and Kevin cooked dinner together. He'd turned into a good cook over the past year, probably out of necessity. No human being could endure the greasy food at the Hole-In-Your-Shoe Saloon seven nights a week.

  "I'll make some corn bread to go with it."

  She smiled, then waited, as she did every evening, for him to ask about his son. If she was away from Andrew for even a few minutes, he was the first thing she asked about when she returned. But Kevin didn't, and it bothered her. A lot. There was something not quite normal about Kevin's attitude toward Andrew, but she couldn't figure out what it was. He seemed interested in the baby whenever they were in the same room, sometimes watching him like a hawk. But he wouldn't touch Andrew unless it was forced on him.

  While Kevin changed out of his uniform, Andrew woke from his nap. Tara fed him then put him in a Snugli while she worked on the stock for the chili. Kevin, freshly showered and smelling like soap and clean clothes, entered the kitchen and started on corn bread batter.

  "Debra thinks we should have the wedding reception at the VFW Hall," Tara said. "I thought we should have it here at the house. The weather will be nice, so we can spill out onto the deck. And of course, Cindy should play the music."

  Kevin froze. "Cindy and her violin?"

  "And maybe a couple of her chamber music friends. Not a good idea?"

  "First off, the whole town will come to the wedding, whether we invite them or not, and the house isn't big enough. Second, they'll expect beer and barbecue and some real lively foot-stompin' music."

  "Then they'll just have to be crowded and disappointed." But a second later she asked, "Is that how everybody does weddings here?"

  "Yup."

  She sighed. "Oh, all right. I don't want everyone to think I'm putting on airs."

  She grabbed the jar of chili powder from the spice rack and realized it was empty. "Shoot, we're out of chili powder. I'm going to run down to Debra's and borrow some." She put Andrew in his playpen then grabbed her jacket from the hook by the garage door.

  A look of alarm crossed Kevin's face. "You're taking Andrew with you, right?"

  She looked at Kevin like he was crazy. "I'll be gone ten minutes. It would take me longer than that just to get him ready."

  "Then I'll go," Kevin said.

  "I haven't been out of the house all day," she said, picking up his car keys from where he'd left them on the counter. "I could use the fresh air."

  "In that case, why don't all three of us go. In fact, let's bag the chili. I'll take us out to Wild Bill's for pizza."

  She nailed him with a penetrating stare. "I'll be ten minutes." Then she turne
d and headed for the garage door.

  "Wait!"

  She stopped, turned. "What is it?" Before he could answer, she realized the problem. Kevin did not want to stay with Andrew. "Do you find your own son so repugnant?"

  "God, Tara, it's not that."

  "It is that. You won't even touch him. I've been trying to deny it, but any fool can see the truth. You despise being a father. You're trying to do your duty, but you wish I'd never gotten pregnant."

  "No, you've got it wrong."

  But she'd worked herself up into a state, and she wasn't backing down. "Well, I won't have it. I won't be a burden to any man, not even you, Kevin. I guess I should have taken you at your word when you said you never wanted children."

  They both stood there for a few moments, shocked at the words Tara had just spoken. And Tara realized that something from the previous year had broken through the barrier in her memory. The night she'd gone to tell Kevin she was pregnant. He'd passionately vowed that he would never bring a child into the world. And she'd left his apartment without telling him of her condition.

  Other memories rushed through the crack in the dam created by the first. Then it all fell into place.

  Kevin knew just by the look in Tara's eyes that she remembered. Watching the emotions that played across her face was like reading her thoughts – and boy, was he in trouble.

  "I can explain," he said quickly.

  "Like hell you can. You lied to me. You and your aunt and, for all I know, the whole godforsaken town."

  "I had a good reason."

  "It couldn't possibly be good enough. I trusted you. Now you've destroyed that trust, and nothing can bring it back."

  Kevin couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You want to talk about trust? And honesty? Oh, yeah, there's a good one. You were pregnant with my child, and you didn't even tell me about it."

  That took away some of her steam. "You didn't want children, a fact you made abundantly clear the night we broke up. I made the decision to have the baby alone for your sake, not mine."