The Way Home (6 page)

James found himself smiling. Only Bella, the woman who saw the world differently from anyone he’d ever met, would insist on giving names a trial run.

Then the man’s words sank in. “Your housekeeper? Where is Bella staying?”

“With me.”

“Why?”

“She had nowhere to go, Mr. Parker. No money, no family.”

Every word was a nail in his heart. To think of Bella so alone, hurt and afraid.

“She’s staying in the garage apartment, if that makes you feel any better.”

“Nothing will make me feel better until I can be with her. Bring her back home.”

“That may not happen soon, Mr. Parker. Please understand that.”

He didn’t want to. Everything in James longed to race to her side, hold her tight and steal her away. Watch over her every second and make sure she never suffered again.

She was so far away from him. Mentally and physically. Disheartened, James finished the conversation and hung up, but he was reluctant to release the receiver, his only link to the woman he’d loved most of his life.

He drew himself straight and turned to his children, reminding himself that they were adults, and he didn’t have to sugarcoat anything.

“Your mom doesn’t know she has a family,” he began. “But let’s get packed and go remind her that there are people who love her very much.”

“H
OW FAR IS IT
to his house?” Cele asked as she paced the dining area of Lucky Draw’s lone café.

James stood at the window, staring outside. Wishing that he’d been unfair and asked the kids to stay home until he’d had a chance to test the waters.

What if she remembered why she’d left? Blurted out something in front of Cele and Cam? Not that he didn’t deserve the humiliation. But he wanted a chance to explain.

You tried that already and look what happened.

He’d never been this nervous, not the first night they’d made love, not before their wedding.

“Daddy?”

James steeled himself not to bark at her. They were all worried. “What did you ask?”

“I said—”

Just then, Cam snapped to attention. A smile, that goofy one Bella loved, spread over his features. “Mom. It’s Mom—” He sprang into motion.

“Cam, don’t.” Though James understood the impulse.

Cameron’s shoulders sank. “Yeah. I know, I just—”

“Mama,” Cele whispered, and approached her brother’s side, blocking James’s view.

He caught only the merest glimpse of curly hair before Bella passed out of sight.

But his heart knew.

Thank God. Oh, thank God.
He closed his eyes.
She’s here. She’s safe. Everything else can be worked out.

A tiny sound from his daughter had him reaching for her, but he could focus on nothing else but the woman walking through the doorway.

Bella. Oh, my love.

The best part was that this was the Bella he’d loved so fiercely, her jeans dirty, her hair windblown. A smile was blooming up out of him. Bella the gardener, the digging-in-the-dirt-makes-me-happy woman who’d made his life a roller-coaster ride of unexpected and offbeat pleasures.

His feet began to move, and his heart raced. “Bella—” Despite his cautions to the kids, he longed to grab her, swing her around as he had so many times. To kiss her until neither of them could breathe, to make love to her for hours—

A small, strangled sound from Cele brought him up short.

And he saw what he should have noticed first thing.

Bella wasn’t smiling.

She was scared. Of them. The family she had once adored.

He glanced at the man beside her.

The man shook his head, pity in his eyes.

T
HE THREE PEOPLE
were staring at her so hard that Jane skidded to a stop. Were they her family? The way they zeroed in on her, the tiny blonde with tears on her cheeks, the lanky boy with his heart in his eyes…

Nothing. Not a thing seemed familiar about any of them.

A man stood behind them, tall and strong and handsome, his blue gaze locked on hers as the smile on his face faded.

“I—” She glanced at Sam and knew it was true.

He squeezed her shoulder. “It’s okay.”

She shook her head. “No, it isn’t.” Looked back at them. “I—I’m sorry.” Her voice was a croak, her throat tight with disappointment. “I should—” she switched from one to the next, wishing for something, anything “—I really wanted—”

They were gazing at her with such hope, so much longing. She couldn’t breathe. Had to get away before—

“Forgive me,” she managed to say. She tore her gaze from them, began backing toward the door.

“Jane,” Sam said. “It’s okay.”

But panic had her and wouldn’t let go. “It’s not. I—I thought—” She whirled and ran.

Behind her, she heard voices, pleading. Arguing. She hurried around to the back, desperate to be alone, to think, to breathe.

“Bella.” Not Sam now, she understood.
Him.
Her…husband.

She didn’t turn around. “Why do you call me that?”

“Bella? It’s my name for you. Your full name is Isabella Rosaline Parker. Your maiden name was Grant. But from the beginning, I called you Bella.”

She recalled that second of hesitation when Luisa had first used the term
bella.
This man must be telling the truth, but—

“I don’t…know your name.” A bitter laugh was startled from her. Furiously, she swiped at the tears. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s James. James Cameron Parker.” So kind, his voice, but layered with more. Disappointment. Determination. Some other current she couldn’t really name.

She heard his footsteps and cringed. Faced him.

Pain shadowed his features. She’d married this handsome, well-dressed man? She frowned down at her clothes.

He smiled, a beautiful one. “I’ve seen you like this a thousand times.”

“Like…this?”

He nodded. “You had the most beautiful gardens in town, and you did all the work yourself.”

But one word had caught her. “Had?”

He hesitated. “You’ve been…busy lately.”

There was a lot of misery in that statement. The weight of questions she needed to ask and fears she was afraid to voice crowded her chest.

Sometimes important people from the past can do more harm than good,
Sam had warned her.

“Why?” Then she shook her head. “No, forget that.” She struggled for one deep breath. “The children. They’re…ours?”

“Yes. Cele is twenty-three. Cameron is nineteen.”

“Sam told me I hadn’t borne a child.”

His eyes went dark. “You had miscarriages.”

Plural. She’d lost more than one baby. Her mind went to that dark head.

“So we adopted them. Cele was nearly two. Cam was an infant.”

“The memory,” she murmured. “A baby.”

“You’re remembering things?”

She lifted one shoulder. “Only that one, except for an image of some blue flower—”

“Plumbago. One of your favorites.”

Her hand fluttered. “There’s so much.” Her throat was tight, her head spinning. “I—I don’t know where to start.” Her heart was flopping inside her chest, and her vision was darkening.

“Hey—” Suddenly, he was there, this James, this man she didn’t know. He scooped her up as though she weighed nothing, but she was frightened of the awful feeling in her head and her chest.

“Bella, breathe, baby. Come on, easy now—”

“Sam,” she barely managed to say. “I need Sam.” She attempted to scramble away, but she was so dizzy.

“Put her down.” Sam’s voice. Safety.

The man’s grip tightened. “I didn’t hurt her. She just—”

But his hold was so confining, and she was struggling, crying out, “Sam—”

Blue eyes, anguished.

“Please,” she gasped. “Please let me go.”

He released her abruptly.

And Sam drew her close. She buried her face in his shoulder and trembled.

“I think you’d better go now,” Sam said.

“The hell I will,” the man James replied. Her husband. How could she not remember him? Her children, but they were no longer babies. She’d hurt them, hurt him.

Hurt, hurt, only hurt…

The darkness won.

C
ELE
,
THEIR TOUGH
little Cele, was sobbing in her brother’s arms.

His
tough little Cele, perhaps he should say. Bella hadn’t recognized her any more than him or Cam.

And he’d caused all of this, every bit of the pain. He was the one who’d faltered. Who’d forgotten Bella, the real Bella, long before she’d forgotten him. The pain was crushing. For a second, he wondered if he might be having a heart attack his chest ached so fiercely.

How did it feel when a heart died? If he never got Bella back, he might as well—

Cut the crap. You’re all those kids have now. And you’re used to shouldering heavy loads.

He opened his arms to one heartbroken young woman and a boy trying very hard to be a man. “Come here,” he urged. He caught them close, both of them, though Cam hadn’t accepted a hug in years. He’d been a good dad, he thought, but Bella had been the nurturer, the one to dry tears and talk out broken hearts.

Sorry, kids, but you’re stuck with me. For now,
he corrected. Bella would remember. She had to.

Agony roasted his insides as he recalled the terror on Bella’s face. Never once in their lives together had she feared him. Had any reason to.

And she’d called for that son of a—

Ruthlessly, James made himself relax. The poisoned barb was still there, but he’d survived tough times before, tougher than this.

No, not tougher. He’d had Bella then.

He embraced his children. Lowered his head to theirs. “We knew this could happen,” he began. “But it’s going to be okay, I swear it.”

Cele looked up with tear-stained cheeks. “Will it, Daddy? How can she not remember us? We’re her children. She loves us—”

They were grown now, but they wanted his reassurance, however rocky he felt on the inside. “She does love you,” he said firmly. “This is simply a medical problem, and she’s just not well yet. But she will be.”

“You can’t promise that.” Cameron’s face revealed his yearning to be wrong.

“Your mother will get better.” She had to. “She’s a very strong woman, and you are her world.”

“You are, Daddy, more than us. Everyone knows how in love you two are.”

Please make it true. That years of devotion will win in the end.
“Children are special,” he said. “We’ve got all sorts of weapons in our armory.”

“Like what?” Cam was obviously shaken by the events.

I understand completely, son. Never in my life would I have imagined Bella shrinking from my touch.

He exhaled as he cast his thoughts about. “I hesitate to call this a war…more like a campaign….” His eyebrows rose. “That’s it, exactly. Hearts and minds.”

“What do you mean?”

He smiled, more out of hope than assurance. “There’s a saying about conducting a war by setting out to win over the population rather than by fighting on the battlefield.” He chuckled at their perplexed expressions. “We don’t push to make your mother remember us.”

“What?”

“Nope,” he said, warming to the notion. Any plan was better than the misery of inaction. “We hang around for a while. Make ourselves useful. Let Bella get to know us instead of pressuring her to remember. She loved us once.” He glanced from one to the other. “Why not fall for us all over again?”

“But what if—” Cele had always been his worrier.

“No, Dad’s right. It’s a brilliant plan.” Cam grinned. “What’s not to love about us?”

The ego of youth, James mused. The certainty they’d bred in their children, the understanding that they were fully loved. He drew heart from the notion, and did not doubt that Bella would indeed find herself adoring the children she’d formed.

Him, though—would the man attract her as much as the cocky boy had? Who was he now, and who was she? Had they stayed together out of habit, or was there still something special between them?

He was flat scared, to be honest. When had the magic left? Could they get it back?

Once it had been powerful, all-consuming.

He would make her love him again.

And when she remembers that you blew it?

For a second, James had a moment of uncharacteristic indecision. If he could make Bella fall in love with him once more, would that love survive, should she recall the end?

No time to weaken; his kids were depending on him for answers. “Let’s get some lunch. We have plans to make.” He would keep himself too busy to think about how it had felt to have the one love of his life run into the arms of another man.

J
ANE LAY
in the cool, dim room that had seemed so strange once, now a refuge she sought as eagerly as a man’s embrace.

She pressed her lips together so the moan wouldn’t escape, but she couldn’t still the heart that insisted on racing despite her every effort at calm.

She had run to Sam. Not to
him,
that man. Husband by law but not in her heart. She’d hurt him badly, she could tell. He’d swept her up simply in a move to protect.

But he’d wanted so much from her, more than she could bear to feel.

She was breathing too fast. She tightened her fingers on the bedspread and pondered the yellowed ceiling above. The one little stain her own personal Rorschach test. Focused on its margins, brown fading to yellow, then cream, in no design she could discern.

The bulbs. Think on them, on the gardening you will do tomorrow.
Irises, big Dutch ones, purple as night’s deepest shadows. The buttery streak down each throat.

Her breathing steadied, as did her pulse. She had refused the sedative Sam had prescribed. She’d wanted his comfort, yes, but not his pills. Needed the safe harbor he represented, when her mind had short-circuited after the emotional overload.

That was how Sam had explained it, the dizziness, the near faint. Exactly what he’d worried about, and what she’d demanded, this chance to connect with her past.

But she hadn’t really believed him. How could one not recognize those one held most dear? Wouldn’t their presence get a messenger past the barriers thrown up by her body in the wake of injury? She’d been so certain that the walls were only a papery shell, easily punctured by the arrow that was true love.

Yet the reinforcements had held, despite the siege of a family armed with love and longing even a stranger could feel.

Stranger.
Her last hope crumbled. She was an enigma to everyone, even herself. She sat up suddenly, seeking a stronger posture than cowering flat on her back. She wasn’t yet up to standing, and the desire for a shield had her drawing her knees to her chest, curling her arms around them to protect the frightened creature within.

She wasn’t taking this lying down, damn it.

Gripping her forearms, she turned her head to the side, relieved to see that night had not yet fallen. The day that had begun with so much promise, if such nerves, was not over.

She wasn’t ready to talk to him, the man named James. But she could at least manage a visit with the children.

She lifted an image of each one from the tumble of emotions, the diminutive woman who had looked at her with a girl’s nerves—and a woman’s challenge. That one, her daughter—her
daughter
—would be a tough nut to crack, she thought. She might want her mother, but she would fight for the father she so obviously adored.