currently felt.
Tanner gestured toward the community green, where many of the townsfolk had already spread out picnic blankets and were happily lunching together. It was becoming more crowded by the moment as the auction started to wind down.
“We aren’t going to get any privacy here,” he said. “This isn’t the kind of conversation I want my neighbors to overhear.”
“You’re right. Besides, none of us has a picnic basket, anyway,” Peggy pointed out. “I hadn’t planned to bid on anyone today. Shall we go back to the ranch where we can talk in private?”
“The ranch?” Rebecca echoed.
We live on a ranch? Like with cows?
Dawn had told Rebecca she was a schoolteacher. Middle school math, although she was trained to teach anything from middle school through college. She remembered numbers and equations, and that had sounded good and right to her. It was instinctual. Numbers were solid. They didn’t change.
But a ranch?
Talk about feeling way, way out of her comfort zone. She couldn’t believe she would actually choose to marry a cowboy.
“Rebecca, did you drive here?” her mother asked, concern flashing across her gaze. And it was no wonder. An amnesiac driving a car was a frightening thought, indeed.
Rebecca shook her head. “I used a car service.”
“Super. Then you can ride back to the ranch with me. I’m living out there with Tanner now to help take care of the little one,” she said by way of explanation. “And soon now it will be two little ones. How exciting.”
Tanner’s gaze met Rebecca’s for a moment, and she doubted exciting would be a word either one of them would use right now. But her mother didn’t appear to notice and continued speaking.
“Tanner, you take Mackenzie with you in your truck and we’ll meet you back at the ranch.”
Back at the ranch.
A place she didn’t remember, but which she had evidently once called home.
How could God do this to them?
Tanner gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white. He was trying to control his breathing so he didn’t scare Mackenzie, but it wasn’t easy to do. The air was coming in gasps and burning his lungs.
How could God let this happen to one family? It was almost more than he could bear.
He felt as if he were on some kind of nightmarish merry-go-round and he didn’t know how to get off. He’d been half expecting to be served with legal documents soon, since his communication with Rebecca had been completely cut off—which he now regretted and for which he privately admitted at least partial responsibility. If he hadn’t hung up when she’d reached out to him...
Instead of acting like a rational, mature adult, he’d let his anger, ego and pride get the best of him.
And now this.
Now he knew why she hadn’t returned his phone calls and texts. She’d been in the hospital recovering from a horrible car crash.
She—and their baby. He still wasn’t certain what to do with the knowledge that they were expecting a child.
At the moment, all he could do was feel perplexed.
And amazed.
No matter what their past, it gutted him that Rebecca had been injured, could even have been killed. Thank God He’d taken care of them and things hadn’t been worse than they were now.
Rebecca still suffering from the many physical injuries she’d sustained—and their unborn child somehow still safe in her womb.
Oh, dear Lord. Their baby.
And Rebecca’s apparent amnesia—
What was he supposed to do about that? It was all so surreal. He didn’t think things like that happened in real life. That was the stuff of television detective shows.
He pulled his truck up next to the ranch house and let Mackenzie out of her car seat in the back of the dual cab. He couldn’t help but smile when she wrapped her trusting little arms around his neck so he could help her out of the vehicle.
The moment her little feet hit the ground, she squealed and went straight toward the herd of goats, her favorite ranch animal in all the world, she’d told him on multiple occasions. She held her hands out wide as if to hug the nearest goat. She giggled hysterically when one of the larger goats grabbed ahold of the hem of her shirt in its mouth and tugged.
The silly goats got into everything and drove Tanner crazy, but at least they kept the grass around the house under control.
It had been Rebecca’s idea to get the herd in the first place. Like Mackenzie, Rebecca also loved those mischievous animals and often saved the dinner scraps for them—or at least, she’d used to, before she’d left him.
Before the accident that took her memory away.
Minutes later, Peggy arrived with Rebecca. For the longest time, the three of them stood in front of the house without speaking, watching Mackenzie play with the herd of goats.
Rebecca looked around wide-eyed, her expression filled with almost childlike wonder as she took in the scene—Mackenzie playing with the goats, and the chickens clucking in their coop, reminding Tanner that they hadn’t yet gotten their midday meal. Tanner’s small herd of horses milled about in a nearby pasture, and another small pasture on the other side of the ranch house contained Rebecca’s most beloved small herd of alpacas.
After visiting a wool festival and getting to meet live alpacas, she had gotten this crazy idea into her head that she wanted alpacas of her own. She’d done her research and then presented her idea to Tanner. He’d never been able to deny her anything, so before he knew it, they were proud owners of a half-dozen alpacas, which she’d carefully grown in numbers. Rebecca would gather their wool and spin it, often spending her evenings knitting by the fire in the winter and out on the front porch in the spring and on mild summer nights.
He watched her expression when her gaze landed on the alpacas, feeling as if his heart stopped beating as he waited and hoped for even the smallest sign of recognition. But to his surprise, her face tightened with strain. Her lips pressed together tightly and her brow furrowed over her nose. She brushed her hair back, only to have the locks fall forward again a moment later.
Peggy’s gaze met Tanner’s and she gave him a brief nod. She’d noticed Rebecca’s odd reaction, too.
“Let’s go inside and get comfortable, and then we can chat,” Peggy suggested airily, as if they had invited a good friend over—a guest, and not her daughter and his wife. “Rebecca, do you prefer coffee or tea?”
Coffee, Tanner thought. He used to tease her that
