sorry, I—” Rebecca stammered. She sounded lost. Confused. Maybe even a little frightened.
Of him?
Their marriage had not ended well, but he had never, ever given her a reason to fear him. He’d barely even raised his voice when they had arguments, which were few and far between, anyway.
Sure, they sniped at each other when they were tired, just like every other married couple in the world, but they hadn’t fought much. That wasn’t their way. Instead, resentment burned under the surface of their relationship but never emerged, so they’d drifted apart. Their rainbows-and-unicorns promise to each other that they would never let the sun go down on their anger just sort of slipped away into the twilight.
Yet despite everything that had happened, and even with what felt like an uncrossable rift between them, he had still loved her with his whole heart—
Until she’d betrayed him.
She had left him, not the other way around. She was the one who needed to make the first move. To reach out. To apologize.
Their eyes met and locked and he narrowed his gaze on her. There was something peculiar in the way she was looking at him, all glassy-eyed, her pupils dilated. It was almost as if she were looking through him rather than at him, as if she didn’t recognize him.
“I am R-Rebecca.” She sounded as if she wasn’t entirely certain that was true. As if she didn’t know her own name. Her dark red eyebrows lowered, shading her gaze. “But who are you?”
“What?” he asked, his voice rising in tone and pitch. He was thoroughly flummoxed by her question. She may as well just have physically pushed him. Her words had the same effect.
She took yet another step back and raised a protective hand, laying it across her burgeoning midsection.
For the first time since she’d turned around to face him, Tanner’s gaze dropped to her stomach. His breath left his lungs as if he’d been sucker punched.
For a moment, his sight clouded, darkness tunneling his vision as the reality of his world tilted on its axis.
Rebecca was pregnant.
* * *
She knew her first name was Rebecca.
Rebecca Foster was the name she’d been born with and the one she remembered—even if her driver’s license said something else.
She opened her hand and read the words written in black ink on her palm.
Check notes—cell phone.
Filled with both curiosity and anxiety, she glanced at her phone.
Hamilton.
Her name was Rebecca Hamilton.
She closed her eyes for a moment and repeated the name in her mind.
Hamilton. Hamilton.
Rebecca Hamilton.
There was something vaguely familiar about the sound of the name, and the butterflies currently flittering about in her tummy had nothing to do with her growing baby, but that was as far as it went.
She couldn’t claim that name as hers. Nothing in her Swiss-cheese memory gave her that assurance.
According to the notes her best childhood friend, Dawn, had written to help her navigate her way in Serendipity, Rebecca was separated from her husband, Tanner.
Tanner.
Tanner Hamilton.
Her husband.
According to her notes, separated but not divorced.
She didn’t believe in divorce—and she strongly felt that moral principle, the same way she still believed in God. Why she knew this when she couldn’t put names to the faces of those she supposedly knew best confused her even more.
It made no sense to her that she could know some things absolutely and know absolutely nothing about others.
If she didn’t believe in divorce, then why had she left this man—Tanner Hamilton?
She let that name roll around in her head for a moment, but again—nothing. It didn’t matter how hard she tried, her memories would just not come. And trying harder, straining her already overloaded brain to retrieve them, only gave her a migraine.
Rebecca was sure Dawn had explained to her at some point why she was no longer in a relationship with Tanner, but she hadn’t put an explanation in the notes on the phone and Rebecca couldn’t recall a reason. Nor could she remember why Dawn had refused to come with her back to her hometown. She only knew that where Serendipity and Tanner were concerned, she was here on her own.
Everything had been so vague since the accident, but she knew Dawn had been a good friend to her, so she couldn’t dismiss the nagging notion that her best friend did not like her husband, which she remembered from this morning when they’d had a heated discussion over why Rebecca should not return to Serendipity.
Dawn had reminded her that it was she who had stayed by her side the whole time, both in the hospital and afterward, caring for her and doing her best to supply the information Rebecca’s mind refused to provide. At this point, what else could she do but trust that Dawn was telling her the truth?
That, and the fact that she remembered who Dawn was from high school. It was only the recent years that were a complete blank to her.
But while her memories were MIA, her emotions were present and accounted for, almost more than she could handle. Part of her wished she’d never come back, and part of her wanted to run away again even now. She’d never felt more anxious and awkward in her entire life—or at least the part of her life she remembered.
After the hit and run, Rebecca had been in the hospital for two weeks, suffering from a blow to the head, two cracked ribs, a bruised wrist and a broken ankle. Her ankle had required reconstructive surgery which had included metal plates and pins. Dawn had been riding in the passenger seat in the car with her but, thank the good Lord, had only suffered from minor cuts and bruises.
The doctor had told Rebecca it would be a while before she completely recuperated physically. Even a month after the incident, Rebecca still felt achy and sore and had a hard time sleeping. Muscles ached where she didn’t even know she had muscles.
Ha. Amnesia joke. Her lips twitched despite her anxiety.
The biggest, most problematic injury had been her memory, which was now spotty at best and sometimes left her at a complete blank. She remembered how to read but the next day she wouldn’t be able to summarize what it was she’d read. She knew how to drive a car and had a handle on the rules of the road, but if she didn’t have her notes with her and the GPS from her cell phone she’d forget where she was going. And she didn’t even want to think about attempting to cook anything, even though she had a gut feeling she used to be someone who’d enjoyed spending time preparing meals. But now, if
