Her Forgotten Cowboy

“I was driving, but Dawn was in the car with me when the accident happened. Thankfully, she only received a few bumps and bruises. She stayed by my side in the hospital and has cared for me ever since.”

“Then we owe her for that,” her mother acknowledged begrudgingly. “Although she should have called us and let us know what had happened.”

Tanner didn’t respond, but it was clear he didn’t like Dawn. Rebecca searched her mind for why that might be, but no explanation came to her.

She was an amnesiac, but that didn’t mean she was stupid. Dawn had obviously refused to come with her to Serendipity today, and now Rebecca could see why. There was some kind of rift between her husband and best friend, and she suspected she was the root cause of it. And her mother was right—Dawn should have reached out and let them know Rebecca had been in an accident instead of telling the hospital she was the only person Rebecca had.

Rebecca watched as Mackenzie carefully and methodically set up an entire ranch scene of stuffed animals, all the while humming a joyful tune under her breath. She positioned two horses, a cow, a pig, four goats and what Rebecca thought must be a llama in what Rebecca belatedly realized was with the same organization as Tanner’s ranch. The little girl was brightly chattering away at the animals, making sure they knew they were in the right place and why. Rebecca couldn’t help but smile as her heart warmed toward the preschooler.

Reluctantly, Rebecca turned her attention to the adults in the room.

“How long ago was the accident?” Tanner asked, gesturing to her ankle boot. “Tell us more about it.”

She blinked in confusion and once again consulted the notes on her phone.

“It’s been a month now. I was in the hospital for two weeks, the first of which in the ICU.”

“Two weeks?” Peggy echoed. “Oh my.”

“And your memory? It’s not improved since then?”

“That’s hard for me to gauge,” she pointed out adroitly. “My short-term memory has its moments. I call it Swiss cheese. Sometimes I remember, sometimes I don’t. I am having better success retaining an entire day’s worth of memories, but they don’t always follow me into the next day. I make copious notes about everything, mostly hoping to stimulate the fog in my brain. My long-term memory is completely AWOL ranging back to my early adulthood.”

She paused. There was one question she’d been wanting to ask ever since she’d first encountered her mother at the community center. She had gathered her mom was staying with Tanner and helping with Mackenzie, but was that because—

“Mama?” Her voice was dry and she coughed to dislodge the emotions jamming her throat. “At the community center—I didn’t see—didn’t see—”

She couldn’t finish her sentence as tears once again filled her eyes. At this point she couldn’t seem to stop bawling and sniffling no matter which direction the conversation went. She pressed her palms to her eyes, not wanting to disturb little Mackenzie with a frightening outburst.

Her mother reached for her hand and gently stroked it in both of hers. “Your father passed away several years ago. He had a massive heart attack when he turned fifty.”

“Oh, I—” Rebecca hiccuped and sniffled some more. Tanner stood and reached for a box of tissues. He set the box next to her and pulled a couple out, handing them to her.

“Th-thank you. When I first saw you today,” she said to her mother, “I had this flashback to you and Dad dancing in the kitchen.”

Her mother laughed softly. She’d clearly had time to grieve and the memory was a pleasant one. “Oh, he was always doing that with me, silly man. He’d put a rose between his teeth and tango me from one end of the kitchen to the other.”

Rebecca remained silent for a moment as the information and accompanying emotions washed over her. In her messed-up brain, her father had still been alive and well. To find out he wasn’t—

Tanner cleared his throat. “He walked you down the aisle at our wedding.”

Rebecca’s eyes widened at the sensitivity of this man who was her husband. How could he know how important that would have been to her?

“He did?”

“You bet he did,” her mother said. “I’ve never seen a prouder father than he was when he handed off his only daughter to a man he respected.”

That man was Tanner—the man she’d chosen to separate from.

“You should have seen how nervous Tanner was when he came to your father and me to ask for your hand in marriage,” her mother continued. “It was the cutest thing.”

“Aw. Do you have to call me cute?” Tanner’s cheeks turned red. “Let’s not go quite that far. Babies are cute. Puppies are cute. Cowboys are...rugged,” he finished lamely.

Rebecca and her mom chuckled at his vain attempt to save his ego.

Privately, Rebecca thought Tanner was both rugged and cute. He had the rough skin of someone who spent all his time outdoors and worked with his hands, but the scruff on his face couldn’t quite hide the twin dimples in his cheeks.

She looked back and forth from Tanner to her mother and once again changed the subject. There was so much she needed to know.

“Is Mackenzie...?” Her voice trailed off.

“Your niece,” Tanner answered, sounding surprisingly patient given the circumstances. “My sister’s girl. I’m her temporary guardian right now. If you had stayed—” He choked on the word and didn’t finish his sentence.

They stared at each other for a moment without speaking. His gaze was saying so much, and yet there was nothing she could translate into words. She wondered if there might have been a time in the past when they could communicate that way, able to speak without words. At some point they must have been madly in love with each other. He’d asked her to marry him and she’d accepted, and she couldn’t imagine marrying someone she didn’t love with every fiber of her being.

So what had happened between the I do’s and today?

She wished she remembered what had broken them up. But maybe her brain wasn’t ready to handle that much knowledge yet.

And yet it was the one question she most wanted to ask but was most afraid of voicing.

“So, you don’t remember anything about—what? The last few years?” Mama asked. “You seemed to recognize me right away when we met earlier.”

“Yes, but it wasn’t exactly how you look now. Like I said, I get little flashes of memory sometimes, but they only serve to confuse me. I remembered you and Dad dancing. That’s why I recognized you.”

Once again, she consulted her notes on her phone. “My short-term memory is spotty. It’s getting better every day, but I still occasionally forget things right after hearing or doing them. My amnesia appears to have completely erased several years of my life. The doctor says I will get better with time and that the best way for me to snap out of it is to immerse myself in the life I once knew, what’s most familiar to me.”

“I guess it makes sense then that you remember Dawn, who was your best friend since elementary school, and obviously you recognized your mom. But with me, you came up a complete blank, because I didn’t come on to the scene until later on,” Tanner observed bitterly.

“I’m sorry.” She didn’t know why, but she felt the need to apologize, even though none of this was her fault. But he sounded so hurt that she didn’t remember him.

“Why’d you come back here?” Tanner asked, resentment rising in his tone. “Since you remember Dawn, why didn’t you just stay with her?” She couldn’t blame Tanner for his bitterness. They had been separated, so it was logical for him to ask why she’d search him out. And she only realized as he asked the question that her presence here wasn’t fair to him.

“Because my driver’s license still says Serendipity.”

“And your last name is Hamilton.” It wasn’t a question and Tanner didn’t phrase it that way. He hadn’t said still Hamilton. That made Rebecca more curious than ever as to what their relationship had been like before it had gone wrong.

Her gaze locked with his. “Yes. It does say Hamilton. But the person I remember is Rebecca Foster.”

His brow lowered and his jaw ticked with strain.

“I’m here because this is where I have the best chance of triggering more recent memories, and at this point, I’d do anything to get them back. But I understand this isn’t going to be easy for you. If you want me gone, I’ll leave.”

“Of course you won’t leave,” Mama exclaimed. “You have to stay with us. Let’s not forget you and Tanner are about to have a baby together. Isn’t that right, Tanner?”

Tanner continued to stare at her, his blue eyes sparkling with pain and anger.

Her breath caught in her throat as she waited for him to answer. Her whole world revolved around what he was about to say. If he sent her packing, which he had every right to do, how would she ever remember how things used to be?

But it really was his choice to make. It was his life she was barreling into after months apart, after who knew what had happened to tear them apart in the first place.

He blew out a breath and shook his head, an action that belied his next words.

“Yes, Rebecca. You should stay.”

Chapter Three

Tanner stood in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and sipping from his mug of coffee as he waited for Rebecca to join him.

Because Rebecca had no recent memories and needed someone to look after her, it only made sense that she stay here at the ranch with him and Peggy.

But he didn’t have to like it. In fact, it was ripping him up inside.

He didn’t know what to do with his anger and resentment. It almost seemed unfair to direct his anger toward Rebecca under the circumstances, seeing as she remembered nothing of their lives together, never mind their breakup.

This woman wasn’t the one who’d left him. And yet she was.

Even though they’d been separated and he’d had no real hope of reconciliation, his heart ached deeply that their whole relationship, every good and bad moment they’d experienced together, had just disappeared from her mind.

He had disappeared from her mind.

And now they were going to have a baby.

After everything, if God were gracious, they were finally going to see their dream come true.

Only now this special blessing was arriving in a crazy, broken world that Tanner had no idea how to fix. Not surprisingly, his gut ground with fear when he thought of this baby. Would he or she be healthy? He and Rebecca couldn’t handle another heartbreak like the first one, especially now.

Adding his guardianship of Mackenzie to the mix just made everything that much more confusing—and that much more pressing. They had to figure out how to deal with all of their problems now.

Today, he was showing Rebecca around the ranch. He hoped maybe the familiar setting might trigger something for her. That’s what her doctor had said.

Butterflies flitted around in his stomach. He had no idea why he was nervous. He’d been married to Rebecca near on six years now, even if they’d been separated for most of the last one.

It wasn’t as if they were strangers. But in the oddest way, this almost felt like they were going on a first date. And for some reason, he really wanted to impress her with his ranch.

Their ranch.

He supposed it was because he didn’t know how to act around her now. She was a different person from the woman he’d married, or even the one who had walked out on him six months ago.

He had to get to know this woman if they were going to get anywhere.

“I’m ready to go.”

Tanner’s heart leaped into his throat, hammering madly as he whirled around to see Rebecca enter the kitchen. He’d been so lost in his thoughts he hadn’t heard her approach.

He swallowed hard when he got his first glance at her. She was wearing a cap-sleeved soft green T-shirt, formfitting blue jeans and sensible boots. She’d pulled her sleek auburn hair back into a ponytail and her copper eyes were glowing with anticipation.

One thing hadn’t changed, and that was how beautiful she was to him. She was simply stunning. He couldn’t help the way his heart always responded to her, now today just as it was then, from the day they’d first met.

Even if he didn’t have any idea of the woman she’d become.

“Great,” he said, setting his mug aside. “I’m anxious to show you everything. What would you like to see first?”

Her gaze went blank. “I don’t know. I can’t remember anything about the ranch. I barely know the names of the different kinds of animals, and that’s only because my mind remembers what I learned in kindergarten more than college. Old MacDonald Had a Farm, you know.” She chuckled dryly, but it wasn’t much of a joke. “You’ll have to show me around and explain just what it is you do here. I promise I’ll take good notes.”

He supposed that shouldn’t have surprised him. If she didn’t remember people, she wouldn’t remember places, either. Or animals.

Peggy and her late husband, Casey, had both been schoolteachers and Rebecca had grown up in a house in town.

Becoming a rancher’s wife had been a big adjustment for her, but she’d thrived on it. At least he’d thought she had, at the time. When they’d first married, she’d been excited about every little thing. After she’d plunged into a dark depression and wouldn’t so much as get out of bed, he wasn’t so sure. Maybe he’d never understood his wife at all.

“Let’s start in the barn,” he decided. Earlier that morning, he’d stabled her sorrel quarter horse mare, Calypso, so Rebecca would be able to see her and interact with her. He desperately hoped for a spark of recognition. She and Calypso had been inseparable from the moment he’d bought the horse for her as a wedding gift. Rebecca had ridden out every day after coming home from teaching school and had insisted on caring for the mare herself.

“Chicken coop’s over there,” he said as they walked toward the barn. “You used to gather eggs every morning before you went off to class.”

“Really?” She wrinkled her nose in distaste and he could tell it wasn’t ringing a bell. “I actually picked up eggs from under a chicken?”

He chuckled. “That’s usually how it’s done. Do you remember that you’re a teacher?”

At this question she brightened up a little, her face coloring and her eyes sparkling.

“Middle school math. Try on this for weird and unexplainable. I still know how to do geometry and algebra. Even calculus and higher math. I might be able to go back to teaching at some point, as soon as I learn how to put names with faces again.”

“Right.” A cloud of discouragement formed in his chest. It seemed to him like she remembered everything except him. Was God punishing him for something? Because that’s what it felt like right now.

They entered the barn and he hesitated, waiting to see if she would pick out Calypso from the five horses he’d stabled for his little test.

Rebecca walked from stall to stall, pausing to look at each of the horses. After a moment, she turned back to Tanner.

“They’re all very nice,” she said hesitantly. “I feel like this is all faintly familiar. Do I like riding?”

“Very much,” he assured her. “You used to ride nearly every day. Do you have any idea which horse is yours?”

Her gaze widened and she shook her head.

“One of them is mine?” Her eyes lit with excitement and then darkened with frustration.

His heart dropped into his stomach. This must be incredibly traumatic for her. He couldn’t even begin to imagine the stress she must feel. And here he was selfishly dwelling on his own problems.

“You rode most afternoons after school to wind down and clear your head. I thought you might recognize your mare. This is Calypso.”

He led her to Calypso’s stall and she opened the gate, sliding in next to her mare and running a hand across her neck.

“Hello, Calypso. It’s nice to meet you—again.”

* * *

Rebecca felt just the slightest flash of recognition after Tanner had introduced her to her mare. It was so short she couldn’t grasp on to it and hold it, and she suspected it wouldn’t have happened at all if Tanner hadn’t outright told her which horse hers was.

She grabbed a soft-bristle brush from the wall and groomed Calypso, starting at her neck and working her way down. The act was both soothing and familiar. She hadn’t remembered Calypso, but yet she instinctively knew how to take care of her. Tanner didn’t have to tell her what to do.

“How do you know how to groom Calypso?” he asked. “You didn’t start riding until after we were married. You can’t remember anything about that time, or which horse is yours, but you know how to use a brush to groom Calypso?”

“I can’t answer that,” she said, putting the brush aside and affectionately running her hand down Calypso’s muzzle before exiting the stall.

“There are certain things I know how to do, like driving a car or grooming a horse, but I can’t remember people, or places—or specific animals, evidently. It must be some kind of muscle memory when it comes to doing certain things.”

His gaze narrowed on her and studied her closely. She started to feel like a trained monkey in a circus. In a way, she was no better than that, performing acts she had no idea why she knew how to do but somehow just came naturally to her.

She locked her eyes with his so he’d know she wasn’t lying or perpetrating some kind of elaborate hoax. Amnesia made no sense. The rules were that there were no rules. That was maybe what frustrated her the most.

“Let me show you the goats,” he said. “Maybe they’ll ring a bell for you.”

The goats were up against the front porch and Tanner swept his hat off, waving it around to get the goats to disburse farther from the house. “Your little herd keeps the grass down around the house, so they aren’t completely worthless. I don’t ever have to bring out the mower.”

“I like goats?” She watched a large black-and-white goat butting a much smaller tan one. It appeared to Rebecca like the larger was picking on the younger, and it made her wonder why she would want an animal like that in her yard.

Tanner grinned and nodded. “It was your idea to get them. You had to talk me into them. Mackenzie likes them, too.”

Rebecca had reached the edge of the herd of goats and she hesitated, putting her hands in the front pockets of her jeans so she didn’t have to touch them. They looked kind of mean with their little horns and slit eyes.

“Oh,” she gasped, when one of the goats butted her leg, sending her off-balance. Tanner snaked his arm around her waist with lightning speed, steadying her until she could stand on her own two feet and back away. The bigger her son grew in her womb, the more klutzy and off-center she felt, like one of those penguins in Antarctica.

“It’s okay,” Tanner assured her with a chuckle. “He’s just playing with you.”

“What about that big one over there? It looks to me like he’s picking on the little one.”

“Naw. They’re just playing.”

Tanner had assured her that she liked goats. That he’d bought the herd because she’d asked him to.

And now they scared her and she wasn’t sure she would ever find the guts to interact with them.

Everything frightened her. Would it always be this way?

“I’ve saved the best for last,” Tanner said.

“There’s more?” she asked, hoping he wasn’t going to show her his cows. She didn’t know how it had been in the past, but at the moment, she had zero interest in bovines. They had long tongues and licked their noses, and just—eww.

Now how did she manage to remember such inconsequential facts as those and yet was unable to remember she even had a husband, much less all the history between them? She was so frustrated she wanted to throw something, preferably something breakable.

He led her to the far side of the house where a small fenced pasture lay. Inside were fluffy creatures with long necks and enormous brown eyes.

“Llamas?” she guessed. It was one of those words that just popped out from the back of her mind. She’d probably learned about llamas in elementary school.

Tanner leaned on the gate, but Rebecca held back.

“Close. That was a good guess. These are alpacas. This herd is not only your favorite hobby but your pride and joy.”

“My...hobby? But don’t they spit?” Another useless piece of trivia.

He laughed. His smile lit up his whole expression, softening the stress lines, and Rebecca’s stomach did a little flip. She wished her response was from a glimmer of true recognition, but no. She couldn’t go so far as to call it that.

It was physical chemistry. She could certainly understand why she’d been attracted enough to this cowboy to marry him. Even now, she found herself inexplicably drawn to him, though her brain refused to offer up why. He was handsome, and as he’d mentioned earlier, rugged, in a way that really captivated her.

“Alpacas spit sometimes. Llamas spit more often and they can be mean. Alpacas are for the most part gentle creatures. You use their wool to knit. You love everything about the whole process, from shearing their fleece to knitting hats and mittens for the homeless out of their wool. Do you remember how to knit?”

She nodded. She remembered how to knit, although she didn’t recall knitting for the homeless. And she definitely didn’t remember anything about the alpacas, nor any of the processes needed to turn fleece to knittable wool.

One of the alpacas spotted her and came at her at a dead run. She gasped and stepped back, even though she wasn’t leaning against the gate like Tanner was.

The alpaca screeched to a dead stop just short of the gate and chewed her out with the strangest honking noise she’d ever heard.

Tanner laughed. “They kind of sound like geese, don’t they? Betty here is wondering why you haven’t come to see her in so long.”

“She looks like she needs a haircut,” Rebecca said.

“Yeah. We’ll have to do that soon if we’re going to get you and your mom knitting in time for Christmas.”

“Right.” Rebecca hoped Tanner wasn’t expecting her to do the shearing, although he’d said that was something she’d done in the past.

“A couple of years ago you started competing in agility competitions with the alpacas.”

“Agility?” Not surprisingly, her mind was drawing a complete blank.

“Weaving through stakes, loading and unloading from a trailer, putting their packs on their backs. That sort of thing.”

“I see.” She didn’t, of course.

“You’re really good at it. You’ve won quite a few trophies. I don’t know whether you noticed them or not, but we’ve got them all displayed on the mantel over the fireplace in the living room.”

Rebecca’s throat closed around her breath. Tanner almost sounded proud of her accomplishments.

Then his gaze clouded over and his frown deepened.

“After you left, I almost got rid of the alpacas,” he admitted. “Keeping them around was just more work for me to do, and they reminded me of you on a constant basis. It—it was hard.” He lifted his hat and tunneled his fingers through his blond hair, then replaced his hat and lowered the brim over his eyes.

Another alpaca, this one a spotted brown and white, approached the fence far less aggressively than the first one, and much less vocally, and leaned her head over, close enough for Rebecca to tentatively touch her soft wool.

“I’m glad you didn’t sell them.” Her throat tightened around the words. It was an odd feeling brushing her palm over the alpaca’s soft head. She searched her mind and found nothing regarding the animals, and yet her heart naturally responded to their big brown eyes and enormous eyelashes.

Her baby gave her a good, swift kick in the ribs and she rubbed at the spot where his little heel was.

Tanner’s gaze dropped to her belly. “Does the baby move around a lot?”