to see you again. Our marriage was a fling and a mistake.
I never loved you.
Angie.
The brutal coldness of the words sliced into her heart. “It’s not true,” she whispered, her voice shaking with unshed emotion.
How could she have done this to him? Why would she do this to him? It couldn’t have been that she’d fallen out of love with him, not with the emotion still swelling in her soul.
“I loved you then,” she said. “I love you now.”
Shane said nothing.
There had to be an explanation, and now, more than ever, she was desperate to know what had happened to the five years erased by an accident.
“Did we have a fight? Is that why I wrote this?” she asked softly, the words breaking on a sob.
“No.” He turned to face her. “I went to work. We’d made love….”
His gaze skimmed up and down her body, and she felt it like a caress. A blush colored her face as recognition flared into need.
“Being with you made me late for work. I didn’t mind. You’d almost convinced me to call in sick and stay in bed with you.”
“Did you wish you had?”
“At first.”
“And now?”
“If you didn’t love me, I’d rather you left. Like cauterizing a wound. Hurts like hell in the beginning. Less painful in the end.”
“Did you come after me?”
“Yeah. But not at first. About a month after the divorce was final, I was out with Slade Birmingham.” Beside Shane, the fire devoured the dried wood, hissing and crackling.
“I had a few to drink. Before that I’d refused to grab the bottle like my old man used to do.” He jammed his hands into his front pockets. His eyes, electrified by the fire, burned into hers. “That night, Angie, the pain caught up with me. It was my birthday, the anniversary of my mom walking out.”
Oh, God, oh, God, why had she asked? His pain cut through her, and her abdomen constricted.
“I drove all the way to Chicago, like a lovesick fool.”
She winced.
“Arrived just in time for your wedding reception.”
Her jaw went slack. “My…”
“Wedding reception. After your marriage to Jack Hague.” Shane’s eyes darkened like a storm in the forest.
“No,” she protested, disbelief rocketing through her. She wouldn’t have married Jack, even if it was the only thing her father had ever expected of her.
“Oh, yeah. In a long white gown, diamonds in your ears, huge vases of white flowers everywhere, a band, champagne, a sit-down meal…all the things I wanted to give you and couldn’t. The things that apparently mattered to you, even though you said they didn’t.”
A headache threatened to split her skull.
“Six months after you sneaked out of my life. The ink was barely dry on our divorce papers, Angie. It was as if we’d never happened.”
Maybe he was right; maybe she would have been better off not knowing.
“Your daddy figured out who I was and escorted me outside. He was kind enough to answer a few questions for me. He explained you really hadn’t come to live in Colorado, that spending the summer with your aunt was something to give you a taste of the real world, nothing more.”
“No. That’s not true. I came to Colorado to get away, to be an independent woman.”
“Your father said when you were done playing house with a man who wasn’t your social equal, you called him and begged him to bail you out. You were tired of being broke, tired of being a surrogate mother to my sister.”
Her head swam. “No. I loved Sarah.”
“Not only that, but in the generous spirit of the celebration, he wrote out a ten thousand dollar check to ensure I never contacted you again.” His words were short and bitter. “I tore it up and threw the pieces at his feet. Didn’t need money to stay the hell out of your life.” His tone dropped another octave. “It would have cost him more than that to make me speak to you again.”
“And now I’m back.”
“And when your memory returns, I’ll have a few questions for you.”
“Like…?”
He shoved his hands even deeper into his pockets. To keep them to himself?
“For starters, are you still married? Are you Angie Hague? Oh, wait, maybe it’d be Angela Hague.”
She pressed her hand to her temples. “Shane, please…”
“Does he still have a claim on you? And if he does, why the hell are you sleeping in my bed?”
Four
The world reeled and she couldn’t even take a breath. She was in love with Shane, only Shane. The idea of another man touching her, holding her, making love to her…
“No,” she whispered. Desperately she looked at her left hand. “I’m not wearing a ring.” And there was no indentation where one might have rested.
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“No other man has any claim on me. I never wanted anyone but you.”
“Stop, Angie. I’ve had enough of your lies.”
She clutched the aspen leaf.
“It wasn’t a lie.” He stared at her, long and deep. She scrambled to her unsteady feet, reaching for the couch for support. Blinded by tears, she headed for the door.
“Where the hell are you going?”
“I’ve got to know.” She reached the entryway before he did and yanked her jacket and purse from the hook where he’d hung them.
Dropping to her knees, she jerked open her purse and dumped it upside down.
In an instant, he was kneeling in front of her, grabbing her shoulders and forcing her to look at him. “Angie…”
Shrugging off his grip, she dug through the cosmetics, gum wrappers and checkbook, then snatched up her wallet, desperately searching for pieces of her past.
There were no pictures in her wallet, no snapshots of her and Jack.
Her fingers trembled as she pulled out her Illinois driver’s license.
Angela
