Returning Home (16 page)

Of course she’d known that all along; she’d never forgotten. How could she when no other man could ever come close?

Jeff. She’d made love to him and now it was time to face the fact that she was still hopelessly, blindly, crazy in love with him.

Perhaps she’d always been.

Once again, love hurt. Because she loved him, because she had once again allowed him close, leaving would rip out her heart. Yet she had no choice. With a deep sense of sorrow, she knew it could never be. The child she’d kept from him, the secret of their beautiful baby Alisha, of her birth, her pitifully short life and untimely death, would always stand between them. She’d kept his daughter from him and in doing so kept him from ever knowing the beautiful bundle of joy that had so
briefly flashed into the world. For this, she knew, he would never forgive her. She didn’t blame him—she could hardly forgive herself.

Still, everything had changed. Her world had been rocked on its axis, the stable foundation cracked and splintered, by this wonderful, sexy, rugged man who would always own her heart. Everything had changed, yet nothing had changed.

Sliding out from under Jeff’s arm, Hope knew she would still have to leave town next week—before Jeff remembered his past

She glanced back at him. He slumbered, sprawled out like a big, golden lion after a night on the prowl. She found herself smiling, even as she arched her back to stretch out the unexpected kinks.

With a start, she realized his eyes were open. The tenderness in his emerald gaze unnerved her, yet she could not look away.

“
Co
me here, sunshine.”

The old nickname shattered her. She took a step closer, looking at him, considering. She wondered if he could hear her heart pounding. “Sunshine?” she asked, her voice trembling.

One side of his mouth kicked up in a devastating smile. He held out his hand, the sheet falling back to reveal his broad, tanned chest. “Come here,” he repeated. “We have to talk.”

They were words to strike dread into the heart of any woman, especially after they’d made love. She steeled herself for whatever he had to say, telling herself it was for the best Still, she knew it was going to hurt like hell.

“Okay,” Hope said, holding up a hand, striving to keep her expression casual. “But last night didn’t change anything. We were, er, caught up in the moment Don’t worry, I won’t—”

“It changes everything, because I remember,” Jeff
interrupted, his gaze intent “My past me, you. All of it Everything.”

Hope thought her heart would stop beating. “Everything?”

“Everything. I have my memory back.”

Stunned, knowing she should be glad, though she felt nothing but a numb sort of panic, all Hope could do was stare helplessly. “When?”

He shrugged, boyishly handsome, breathtakingly masculine. Just looking at him broke her heart She looked away. It was time for her to leave, to pack up her car and head back to Dallas. Strange how thinking about this brought a savage ache to her soul.

“I’m whole again,” he said grinning, and he spread his arms, inviting her to walk into them for a hug— to celebrate.

Turning away, aching inside, Hope pretended not to see. “That’s wonderful,” she said, meaning it.

She felt a sudden, irrational urge to flee. With an effort, she controlled it. For some reason, silly, sentimental fool that she was, she wanted to tell him goodbye. Somehow she had to manage it without him knowing exactly what she meant.

“Why won’t you come here?” He looked at her distant expression, and understood in a flash.
4
‘You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

Her reply was nearly inaudible. “Yes.”

Jeff closed his eyes, then opened them, letting her see the stark anguish in them. “Don’t”

Such a simple thing, the power of that word. For a moment she was tempted, sorely tempted, then she remembered the magnitude of her sin against him. “I have to.” It came out in a broken whisper.

She came close enough for him to capture her, his arms like bands of steel around her back. “No, you don’t” His voice was a murmur against her hair. “Stay with me.
You belong here.”

She belonged nowhere, though she couldn’t tell him that. But she wanted him to believe she had a vibrant exciting life waiting for her in Dallas. “I don’t,” she told him. To her surprise she sounded cool and dispassionate. “I have a life in Dallas, a great job, friends.”

As she’d known it would, her words made him pull back, though he still held her, his large fingers biting into her shoulder.

With infinite patience he searched her face. The tenderness and love in his expression brought a hot ache to the back of her throat “Then I’ll go with you. I can live there. Marry me, Hope. Marry me and stay with me forever. I—”

“No.” she said, cutting him off before he could say the words that would shatter her into a million pieces. She must be ruthless, must sever any ties he tried to forge. With all her heart, with every fiber of her being, she wished she could marry him, stay in Dalhart, and bear his children.

It was an impossible dream. The secret she carried would always stand between them. Always. He would hate her if he knew.

And knowing his love, having his love, how could she bear his hate?

Better to do this now, before it went any further. Better to make him hate her now, so she would be free to leave, return to her empty life in Dallas, and mourn the inevitable loss of the only man she would ever love.

“Jeff,” she sighed, wishing she were a better actress. She shifted, moving away from him, both glad and dismayed when he dropped his hands.

Silently
, he waited. Because she couldn’t bear it any longer, she got up and went to the window. She cleared her throat “I can’t marry you. This time we had together was ... nice. It was a pleasant but brief interlude between
old friends.”

Taking care not to look at him, she spread her hands. “Please don’t make more of it than it was. I came here to help you get your memory back. Noth
ing more. You’ve done that and—”

“Tell me you don’t love me.”

She nearly choked. It seemed she was doomed to do nothing but lie to him. Straightening her shoul
ders, she took a deep breath. “I don’t love you.” The words hung between them. Hope wondered if she was the only one who could hear the falseness of them. She wondered, too, how deeply they hurt Jeff and if he would now find it in him to hate her. “Hope—”

“No. Please.” Blinking back tears, Hope squared her shoulders, imposing the iron control on her emo
tions that she had learned during her daughter’s long illness. “Don’t make it worse. I would like you to remember me as your ... friend. Remember me as your old high school sweetheart.”

She wished she could summon up enough strength to boldly meet his eyes, but even she had her limits. “I won’t be coming back this way again.” To her horror, her voice broke. Desperate, she racked her brain for something to say, something that would lighten the moment. “At least until our next high school reunion. Maybe then I could be persuaded—” “Enough,” he shouted, his voice like steel, cold and icy. “You’ve made your point.”

Without another word, he turned his back leaving Hope to stare at him and wonder why victory felt so hollow.

Chapter Eleven

She was lying. She had to be. Unclenching his fists, Jeff tried to calm the rage that still coursed through him at her words. She’d forgotten just how well he knew her. Even with ten years between them, he could hear the lie
in her voice.

She was hiding something, but damned if he knew what it could be. She couldn’t even look him in the eye when she spoke her lies. He wondered if she’d known how her voice trembled, how ghos
tl
y pale she’d gone, how her beautiful eyes shimmered with unshed tears.

He couldn’t lose Hope. He had no intention of letting her go, not when he knew she loved him as deeply and as permanen
tl
y as he loved her. He loved her no matter what secret she was hiding.

The answer was simple—find out the secret. He needed to show her that it didn’t matter, that it couldn’t come between them.

Nothing would come between them ever again.

* * *

How she would bear the drive, confined with him in the cab of his pickup, she didn’t know. But she would survive—she always did, even when she didn’t want to. When she’d prayed for heaven to take her instead of her sweet
little
girl, and Alisha had died anyway, she’d somehow survived. She’d been broken and shattered, but alive. The dark times that had followed were a blur to her now, something she wouldn’t, or couldn’t, bear to remember.

If she could live through that, she could live through anything.

But when Jeff climbed into the truck, his big shoul
ders brushing against hers, she knew a moment of doubt.

With trembling fingers, she buckled her seatbelt

He started the truck and put it into gear. In silence, they bounced along the rutted road.

Hope wished he would turn on the radio. It was so quiet that she could hear his unsteady breaths, quick like her own. She wondered if he could hear her heart thumping loudly in her chest

He drove slowly, carefully negotiating the dirt road.
Before he reached the highway, Jeff slowed the truck to a crawl, then stopped. His face etched in lines of pain, he stared at her, anger warring with hurt in his beautiful green eyes. “What happened to you, Hope?”

Panic fluttering in her breast, Hope averted her eyes. “I ... I don’t know what you mean.”

He sighed, the sound of it filling her with dread. With one hand he gen
tl
y stroked her cheek, the soft move hurting her as much as a blow. “Sunshine, I
know
you are there, somewhere. You may be buried deep, so deep you’ve nearly forgotten, but you are there.”

Hope bit her lip, shaking her head before he even finished speaking. “You’re not making any sense.”

Jeff cursed, the savage sound at odds with his
gentle
touch. “Don’t do this. I want the Hope I used to know, my sunshine, the lighthearted girl who lit up a room by merely entering it I want the Hope who laughed and talked and hugged everyone and every
thing.”

Because she could think of no reply, because his words cut her to the heart, she grimaced and said, “You don’t want much, do you?”

She’d meant it as a joke, but the minute she said the words, she realized he wouldn’t take them that way. He had no way of knowing what life had done to her, how it had beaten her down until all she could do those first few months after Alisha’s death was barely survive. If she didn’t laugh as much, if she didn’t view life with the naive optimism of a teenager, it was because she knew better. She’d lost her daugh
ter and her sunny ou
tl
ook on life at the same time.

But Jeff didn’t know and wouldn’t know—not now, not ever.

“Take me back to your sister’s house,” she said, keeping her tone even and emotionless. No sense in letting him see how much her wounds bled. “I’ve got a long drive before I get home.”

“What is it?” Charlene’s smile faded as she studied her brother’s face.

Jeff hated having to give such good news along with bad, all in the same breath, but he had no choice; he needed Charlene’s help.

“I’ve got my memory back.”

She gasped, “All of it?”

“All of it No gaps, no holes. I remember every
thing.”

With a glad cry she hugged him.

Stepping out of her arms, he held her at arms’ length and looked at her. “Hope is leaving.”

Slowly, Charlene nodded. “I figured that out when she ran past me on her way in.”

“I can’t, that is
...”
He found himself stumbling over the words. “I don’t want her to go.”

Charlene gave him a sad
little
smile. “Me either. I had so hoped
...”

“I love her.” Warily, Jeff waited.

After a moment of stunned silence, Charlene’s face broke out into a bright smile. “You always have,” she reminded him, a hint of teasing in her voice. Her smile faded as she remembered Hope was leaving. “And I could have sworn that she would always love you.”

“She does.” Raking an unsteady hand through his hair, Jeff turned to stare blindly down the hall in the direction of Hope’s room. “She’s got some secret, something she’s not telling me. Whatever it is, she thinks it is enough to keep us apart.”

He could have sworn his sister paled.

“Maybe she just misses her life in Dallas.”

“I even offered to go there with her, to live there.” “I see. What did she say?”

“No. She said no.”

With sad eyes, Charlene watched him. “I won’t deny that I’d rather the two of you lived here, in Dalhart, but if you
two can somehow work it out, I’ll understand if you move.”

Glancing at his watch, Jeff saw that it was nearly noon. Any minute, Hope would come strolling down the hall, suitcases in hand. She would climb in that
little
car of hers and vanish from his life forever.