Their Christmas Miracle

Chris’s whiskers brushed her ear as he leaned close. “No need to worry, Lammie. I’ll be right over here at the bar if you need anything,” he murmured, before adding in a louder voice, “Mr Collier, might I interest you in something to eat?”

“Don’t have to ask me twice. I’ll take a giant Scotch, as well.” The other man, who she’d already noted was a younger, less arresting version of her “husband,” rose to his feet. As he headed past, he stopped to offer a warm smile. “I can’t believe it’s really you, Rosalind. Thomas is right—it’s a miracle.”

“Come along, Mr Collier. Let me pour you the best double malt in the Highlands.” Taking him by the elbow, Chris led the man to the far end of the bar.

Leaving the two of them alone.

Cautiously, she slipped into the seat to his right, her hands curling over the ends of the chair arms. Jessica was always complaining that the pub tables lacked sufficient leg room underneath, and now she could see why. Her knees and Collier’s were close enough that if she shifted in just the right way, their knees would touch. As it was, she could feel the proximity through her jeans. She scooted her chair backward another couple of inches, and waited.

“I’m sorry about before,” Collier said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. When I saw you, I couldn’t...” He paused and took a deep breath. “We were told you were dead. That you had most likely drowned in the river.”

River. She squeezed the chair arms as recollections of her nightmares came to mind. Flashes of pitch-black water and air being sucked from her lungs. She had to take a deep breath herself as a reminder the image wasn’t real.

Even so, her voice still came out strangled and hoarse. “Chris told you about my memory?”

“He said you can’t remember anything before the past four months.”

“That’s right. The doctors at the hospital think I suffered a traumatic event that caused my memory to shut itself off.” Traumatic event being the term they settled on after their battery of tests failed to turn up anything else. “You said your wife was in a car accident.”

“There was a bridge collapse and your car—” she noticed he was already using the second person “—was plunged into the River Lochy during a heavy storm.”

Plunging into icy waters certainly qualified as traumatic and would explain her nightmares. Then again, drowning in dreams was also a well-established metaphor, or so she was pretty sure. “I had a broken collarbone,” she said out loud.

“I’m surprised you didn’t break more.”

Again with the second person. “You seem awfully positive I’m her. Your wife, I mean.”

“Because I’d know you anywhere.”

The way Collier looked her in the eye, with both his voice and his expression softening, knocked her off-balance. Here she was groping around in the dark, and he was looking at her with such certainty. Like he’d found a treasure while she was still trying to figure out the map. It left her longing to see what he saw.

“You say you know, but I would be a fool to simply take you at your word.” Or be misled by a pair of stormy blue eyes.

“Trust me, Rosie, the last thing I’d ever call you is a fool. I have photos.” He pulled out a phone and showed her a photograph.

Of her.

If it wasn’t her, it was her perfectly identical twin.

“There are more.” He swiped to another photo, this time a more sophisticated version of the same woman, with her hair in a twist and wearing a stunning black gown.

“The museum fund-raiser last May,” he said. “You looked beautiful in that dress.”

What she looked was unhappy. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

The next picture must have been taken the same evening, only this time her doppelganger was flanked by a woman with flaming red hair and a handsome older man with shaggy graying hair and spectacles.

“Those are your colleagues from the university. Eve Cunningham and Professor Richard Sinclair.”

She couldn’t help noticing the firm way the professor held his arm around her waist.

“You’re not in these photos.” She rubbed her forehead. A throbbing sensation started behind her eye.

“That’s because I took them.”

And they were on his phone. “Is there one of us together?” Anyone could get random photos from any number of sources. It would be harder, although not impossible, to fake a photo of both of them.

“A few.” Seconds later, she was looking at a selfie—and a terrible one at that, with looming faces and the tops of the heads cropped off. No mistaking her face though, right down to the annoying scar across the bridge of her nose.

Unlike the other photographs, their smiles reflected in their eyes.

“We took this two springs ago, when we were in the Lake District,” Thomas told her.

“Two springs ago? Nothing more recent?”

“I’m not much of a selfie taker.”

That was obvious. She studied the photograph closer. “We look happy.”

We. She was starting to believe him. Rosalind Collier. The name sounded strange, but had a comfortable feeling. The way a new outfit felt when it fit properly.

Thomas took back the phone and stared at the photo. “We were,” he said. “Happy. You loved being at our place in Cumbria, away from the city.”

Then why did his voice suddenly sound sad? Why was he staring at the picture with a pensive expression?

“You were supposed to be in Cumbria when you had your accident,” he murmured.

Oh. That was why. A wisp of a thought taunted her, hovering just out of her grasp. Something about ice or rocks, but it slipped back into the blackness before she could be certain.

She was certain of another thought however. “If I was supposed to be in the Lake District, how did I end up here, miles away? Fort William is miles away from Cumbria too. What was I doing there? It doesn’t make sense.”

“No one knows.” He tossed the camera onto the table where it landed with a thunk. “Best theory I can come up with is that you were headed toward Loch Morar. You did some field work there once. You’re a geologist,” he added when she frowned.

“Geomorphological features.” The words popped out of her mouth without her thinking. Thomas’s eyes widened in response.

“Exactly,” he said. “You did a paper on the glacier marks.”

She slipped a step closer to accepting his tale. As it was, the name Rosalind was already taking hold in her brain.

“What we don’t understand,” he said, “is how you got here. We searched for weeks and everyone was certain you’d been washed into the Atlantic. How did you end up here in the northeast corner?”

It would be nice if she could give him an answer. Who was she kidding? She wished she could give herself an answer. “I haven’t a clue. First thing I remember is walking along the motorway and being very, very tired. I didn’t have a clue who I was or what I was doing.”

“You don’t remember crossing an entire country?”

What she remembered was being terrified as she had stood on the hard shoulder shivering in the early morning dew. “I don’t even remember waking up that morning,” she told him. “A truck horn blared at me, and suddenly I was there.” Staring at the trees in a daze. “I was filthy. Disgustingly so.” Having heard she may have plunged into a river helped explain why her clothes had looked like they’d been rolled in a wet ball. “My clothes were torn, and I didn’t have any identification.”

“Dear God,” Thomas whispered. His chair scraped along the floor as he scooted closer. She could feel his eyes on her, waiting for what she would say next.

“I didn’t know what I was going to do. Fortunately, Chris happened to drive by and recognized I needed help. He took me to the hospital, who in turn sent me to another hospital in Wick where they came up with the traumatic amnesia diagnosis.”

Ironic how those memories were crystal clear. From the moment she’d found herself on that road till now, everything that had happened was indelibly imprinted on her brain.

“I don’t understand.” Thomas looked more confused than ever, and she suspected she knew why. “If you were at the hospital, why didn’t they...”

“Look into the missing persons reports?”

“Surely you knew people were looking for you. Surely your friend, Chris, knew?”

“We did.”

“Then...why?”

She paused. When he heard the answer, he wasn’t going to be happy.

“I asked them not to.”

His eyes doubled in size. “What?”

“I didn’t want to be located. Not straight away, anyway.”

“For crying out—” His fist pounded the table with a bang so loud it could be heard on the other side of the room. The noise brought Chris to the end of the bar.

“Everything all right?” he asked.

“It’s okay,” she replied. Collier’s reaction could have been worse. Having flung himself back in his seat, he was washing his hands up and down his face. When he finally lowered them, there was no hiding the angry confusion darkening his eyes.

“Why the hell not?” He spoke through a clenched jaw, clearly trying to hold his temper.

“Because I needed time. To figure out what was going on. To see if my memory came back on its own.”

“I see.” It was hard to decide which was more restrained, his body or his voice. Both were being held tight. “And it never occurred to you that there might be other people whose lives were affected? Who were mourning you?”

“Of course it occurred to me,” she snapped. Though maybe not as much as it should have, she thought guiltily. “But put yourself in my shoes. I couldn’t remember anything—not my name, not how I got hurt. Meanwhile, the doctors are telling me I suffered some kind of horrible trauma. For all I knew, the people I left behind were the cause of that trauma.”

Thomas hissed as though slapped. “I would never...”

“I—” Know, she almost said. Even though instinct said the thought was on target, she held back. “I didn’t remember you.”

“You could have looked. Your disappearance was all over the news, the internet.”

“Have you seen where we are? We’re in the middle of nowhere. It’s not as if we’re in a breaking news zone. I looked for missing persons in Scotland and nothing came up. Which only made me more convinced I might be running away.

“Anyway, I asked Chris and Jessica if it would be okay for me to stay here while I got my head together, and they were kind enough to oblige. I’ve been living upstairs above the restaurant for the past four months.”

“Four months? Dear God.” Giving an anguished sigh, he dragged his fingers through his hair, leaving the slick black locks standing on end.

Guilt turned in her stomach. Maybe she should have forced herself to look harder, but the truth was she’d been scared of what she might find out about her past and about herself. When Chris found her, the single thought in her head, besides fear, had been the words I’m sorry. She’d carried with her a shadow of indefinable guilt that made her wonder if she’d made some kind of horrible mistake.

Now that same shadow had her wanting to run her fingers through his hair and ease his frustration.

“Linus has been dealing with the soap factory since the end of October,” he muttered. “October! We could have brought you home weeks ago. Maddie could have...”

“Maddie?”

Her heart seized up. Maddie was the name she’d chosen when Chris had asked what he should call her. The name had sprung to her tongue without a second thought. It couldn’t be a coincidence Collier was using the same name. “Who is Maddie?”

He turned his face and looked her in the eye. Son of gun if she didn’t hold her breath at the seriousness in his expression. “Maddie,” he said, “is our daughter.”

Rosalind squeaked. She had a daughter? A little girl?

Stunned, she stood up and walked to the window on the back wall, the one next to the set of deer antlers. Chris liked to tell people the giant horns were from a reindeer, but it was embellishment for business’s sake. Scotland didn’t have reindeer outside of Cairngorms. One of the weird facts she seemed to simply know.

She knew about reindeer but not about her own child. Might as well stomp on her heart this moment. It had never occurred to her she might have children.

Oh, sure, she would feel a pull whenever a young child came in to the restaurant, but she assumed every woman of childbearing years experienced the same yearning. She’d never dreamed there was someone out there with half her DNA.

“Would you like to see a photograph?” Thomas asked.

“Yes, please.” Spinning around, she leaned against the windowsill and waited for him to come to her. In case this was a trick, she didn’t want to sound too eager. Although gushing the word please didn’t exactly exude calm.

Nor did Collier’s expression exude deceit.

Rosalind’s hands shook as he handed her the phone. She was beautiful. A pudgy-cheeked angel with brown bobbed hair and Collier’s eyes. The photo showed her standing on a rock in a flower garden in a sunflower-print dress. Her little arms were stretched high over her head, pointing toward the sky.

“Maddie.” Her fingers stroked the screen.

“I took this on her birthday last August.”

Rosalind let out a gasp. She’d missed her daughter’s birthday? “How...how old is she?”

“Five.”

A five-year-old daughter. “I didn’t know,” she said, as if saying the words aloud would chase away the guilt.

What kind of mother forgets her own child? She swiped left through the photo gallery, discovering there was picture after picture of the little girl. Laughing. Posing with a stuffed dog. Feeding pigeons in the park. And then...

She found a photo of her and the girl together.

Taken when neither were paying attention to the camera, they were kneeling in front of a Christmas tree. The little girl, Maddie, had a box on her lap, while she, Rosalind, was reaching around her to straighten the bow. Longing grabbed at Rosalind’s chest.

“I’ve tried my best,” she heard Collier saying, “but she misses her mother. I can only imagine what she’ll do when she sees you tomorrow.”

“Excuse me, when?” Rosaline let the arm holding the phone drop to her side and narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you saying you want me to go back to London with you tonight?”

His eyes widened. “Are you telling me you don’t want to come home?”

“We only just met,” Rosalind said. It was too soon. Granted his story was compelling, but it was still a story. “You expect me to accept what you’re telling me because you have a phone full of photographs?” Photographs of her, she added silently. They terrified her, because they revealed a life about which she knew nothing.

Shaking her head, she said, “I’m not ready.”

She thought about how agitated Collier got when she mentioned not wanting to find herself. It was nothing compared to the look of horror her current answer generated. Seriously, though, wouldn’t she be a fool to go along without some kind of tangible proof? Besides photos, that is. After all, photographs could be manipulated.

“Do you really think I would go through the bother of manipulating photographs and then flying all the way up here just to trick you?” he said when she commented as much. “For God’s sake, I thought you were dead.”

So he kept saying, and if Rosalind were to base the truth solely on his reactions, there’d be no argument.

“Look at it from my point of view. You’re a stranger.” Her conscience winced at the pain that passed across his face. To her, he was a stranger though, and no matter how handsome and persuasive his story may be, she needed to be sensible. “You come in here out of the blue with hugs and photos and expect me to take you at your word when I can’t even remember my own birthday.”

“February the twenty-fourth.”

“Thank you, but you’re missing my point. Would you pick up and leave your safe haven based on a handful of photographs and the word of someone you just met?”

Crossing her arms, she leaned on the sill and waited for her words to sink in. She could see from the way he stepped back that her argument made sense.

“What is it you need?” he asked.

Good question. Answers to what happened to her would be a nice start. “Time,” she told him. “You’re moving too quickly. I know you said I’ve been missing for months, but I need time to wrap my head around everything you’ve told me.” As well as she could anyway. “And I need proof. More proof I mean, beyond the photos in your phone.”

“All right. I’ll have a package sent to you first thing tomorrow. You get email up here, right?”

She couldn’t help but chuckle. “Yes. The restaurant has an email account.”

“All right, then. You want proof, proof you shall get. Anything you need if it will help bring you home.”

With that, she expected to leave. Instead, he moved closer. So close that Rosalind could smell the faint scent of musk on his suit jacket.

“I still can’t believe it’s really you,” he whispered. “I’ve missed you, Rosie.”

He lifted his hand and she tensed thinking he was about to hug her again. The notion wasn’t as off-putting as it should’ve been. Rosalind blamed his eyes. In the shadows, they were like midnight. A woman could get lost in eyes like that if she wasn’t careful.

“Space,” she managed to whisper just as his fingers were about to brush a hair from her temple. “I’m also going to need space so I can truly think.”

Disappointment flashed in his eyes, but he stepped back like a gentleman. “Of course. Take all the time and space you need.”

“Thank you.” She let out her breath. “I appreciate your patience. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to go upstairs and lie down. My head is spinning.”

Once again, Thomas fought the urge to chase her as she rushed away. Patience, he reminded himself. Patience and space. He had to remember how overwhelming his news must feel to her. Hell, it was overwhelming to him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Linus strolling toward him, a glass of amber liquid in hand.

“Here. Figured you might need one,” he said.

Taking the glass, Thomas took a long drink, savoring the burning sensation as the liquor went down his throat.

“McKringle went upstairs to check on Rosalind. I said I would check on you. Conversation go okay?”

“She needs more proof before she’ll believe me,” Thomas told him.

“Smart decision.”

Yeah, it was, and, as she’d said, one he would’ve made himself. Once she read her history, he had no doubt Rosalind would realize he was telling the truth.

Thomas took another sip. “I can’t believe it, Linus.” He might as well be walking in a dream. “How many times did you talk with McDermott about his factory? And she was right down the road.” Dear God... “I didn’t want to stop for dinner.” If not for Linus’s insistence, he would never have learned that Rosie had survived. When he thought how close the miss had been, he felt sick.

“How did she get here? Her car was on the West Coast.” Linus asked. “Did she say? McKringle wouldn’t answer my questions.”

“She doesn’t know,” Thomas said. “She doesn’t remember anything prior to meeting McKringle on the motorway.”

That included him. Thomas wasn’t sure if that was a blessing or a curse. A bit of both, he decided.

So many nights he’d lain awake blaming himself for the accident. She wouldn’t have been at the country house if I hadn’t been such a muleheaded fool.

“And now she’ll be home for Christmas.” He said the words out loud as much for reassurance as anything. “Maddie’s going to be thrilled.”

“What about you?” Linus asked.

That was a silly question. “Of course I’m happy. Don’t be daft.” He drained the last of his drink in one final swallow. McKringle hadn’t undersold; the Scotch was superior.

“I know you’re happy, Thommy-boy.” Thomas winced. He loathed his childhood nickname. “Anyone who saw your face when she walked in would know.”

Thomas still couldn’t believe the moment was real. That an hour ago he’d been a widower, and with one blink of an eye, his family was returned. It was a dream come true.

Making Linus’s question all the more strange. “If you don’t mean happy my wife’s alive, then what do you mean?” he asked.

His brother leaned against a table edge, bringing them eye to eye. It was rare for the youngest Collier to be serious, so the sober expression made Thomas’s pulse pick up. “Are you going to tell her the entire circumstances?” he asked.

“What am I supposed to say? By the way, did I mention I was a lousy husband and that’s the reason you were driving around up north in the first place?”

“You weren’t a lousy—”

But Thomas held up a hand. He knew at whose feet the blame lay.

“We’ve only just got her back, Linus. I’m not ready to lose her again.”

He looked down at his empty glass at the residual ring lining the bottom. Brown could have so many shades to it, he thought. Amber like the Scotch. Grayish brown like mud. Rosalind’s eyes were chocolate with flecks of gold. Darkness dappled with light.

He’d missed those eyes.

“It’s almost Christmas,” he said to his brother. “Would it be so wrong to give Maddie a few weeks of family peace?”

“You’re staying quiet for Maddie’s sake, are you?”

“Okay, for both our sakes,” Thomas replied, his cheeks hot. He should have known Linus would call him on the excuse. “Is that so wrong?”

“No.” His brother shook his head. “No, it isn’t.”

Eventually, Rosalind would remember everything. She’d have to remember, wouldn’t she? McKringle said the doctors were optimistic as to the outcome.

When she did, Thomas would be there to fill in the blanks, warts and all, including the fact she’d gone to the cottage to contemplate their marriage’s future.

In the meantime, the two of them could spend the next few weeks creating new memories. Maybe, with luck, he could show Rosalind that he was willing to change. That he was willing to do whatever it took to make her and Maddie happy again.

Then, maybe, just maybe when Rosalind did remember the past, the problems they’d had wouldn’t matter.

After all, as today proved, bigger miracles had happened.

When Thomas had said he’d give her proof, he hadn’t been kidding. For the next few mornings packages of documents arrived by email. There were articles. Photographs. A copy of their marriage certificate and her birth certificate. In fact, so much information arrived in such a short time, Rosalind wondered if Thomas had a team of employees working with him. Of course, she did her own research too, since she now had names to search online.

For starters Thomas Collier, she learned, was the Collier Soap Company. Part of it, at least. He became president after the death of his father, Preston. Preston had been a busy man, marrying three times and producing Thomas, his brother, Linus, and a half sister, Susan.

When she read about Thomas online, she found herself unsurprised that he was a successful executive. She’d known when she saw him in the pub that he wasn’t an average man. Interestingly, her impression had had little to do with his expensive suit and onyx cuff links.

He would look exceptional in an orange jumpsuit. It was the way he carried himself when he walked across the room. Tall and regal, the way a man who owned the room would walk.

How on earth had she managed to marry him? From what she could tell, she was the daughter of world-renowned geologists. You couldn’t get more removed from Collier’s world. When she asked, Thomas said they met at university. Hard to believe a man like him would have given her a second glance. But he had. She saw the wedding photos that proved it.

By the end the week, she knew enough of her life story to believe Thomas even if she still didn’t remember a thing. Problem was, being trapped in that nebulous knowing-not-knowing zone was worse than not knowing anything at all. Facts and figures answered her questions, but they couldn’t provide the assurance her gut needed to fully commit.