Читать книгу Their Christmas Miracle - Barbara Wallace, Barbara Wallace - Страница 10

“ROSIE?” THE WORD came out as a hoarse whisper; he could barely speak. Six months. Praying and searching. Mourning.

It couldn’t be her.

Who else would have those brown eyes? Dark and rich, like liquid gemstones. Bee-stung lips. And the scar on the bridge of her nose. The one she always hated and that he loved because it connected the smattering of freckles.

How...? When? A million questions swirled in his head, none of which mattered. Not when a miracle was standing in front of him.

“Rosie.” Wrapping her in his arms, he buried his face in the crook of her neck. She smelled of lemons and sunshine. “Rosie, Rosie, Rosie.” He murmured her name against her skin.

Hands slid up his torso to grip his lapels. He moved to pull her closer, only to have her fists push him away.

He found himself staring into eyes blazing with outrage, confusion and panic. The last one squeezed at his heart.

“Do I know you?” she asked.

Was this some kind of joke? Now he was confused. Why would she pretend? “They told us you were dead. That—that you were swept out to sea.” He reached for her again, only to have her take another step back.

“I’m sorry. I don’t...” She shook her head, her eyes growing moist with tears. “I don’t know...” Pressing a fist to her mouth, she turned and bolted from the room.

“Rosalind!” Thomas started after her, only to have Linus grab his arm. What the hell was his brother doing? He tried to yank his arm free, but Linus had a grip of iron. His brother’s fingers were dug in so tightly they were going to leave bruises. “Let me go!” he snarled. “It’s Rosalind.” If he lost her again...

But Linus held fast, damn him. “Calm down, Thomas. She only looks like Rosalind.”

“No.” Linus was wrong. It was Rosalind. He knew his wife. Why did she run? Did she hate him that much? “I have to talk with her.”

Before he could try and pull free, McKringle barreled his way over. “What’s going on here?” he asked, all his earlier friendliness stripped away. “I don’t know what you lads do wherever you’re from, but here we don’t manhandle waitresses and make them cry.”

Thomas spun around on him. “And what about hiding someone’s wife from him? Are they okay with that here?”

He waited as McKringle’s bushy brows pulled together. “Did you say ‘your wife’?”

“Rosalind Collier.” Where was his phone? Looking around, he found it on the floor by his chair where he snatched it up and quickly began scrolling through its photo collection. “Here,” he said, finding the photo they’d used for the missing person poster. He held the phone so McKringle could see. His hand was shaking. “She went missing this summer when her car went off a bridge near Fort William.”

Wordlessly, McKringle slipped the phone from his hand and held it closer. Thomas could feel his body tensing with each second of silence. Surely, the man knew what he was talking about. Her disappearance had been all over the news, for crying out loud. They weren’t so isolated out here that he couldn’t have seen at least one headline.

“She had a car accident?” the man finally said.

“Yes. Her car plunged into the river.” Thomas didn’t have time for this. His wife was in the other room. He needed to see her. Find out what happened. How she’d ended up out here and why she was pretending he was some kind of stranger. “Please,” he said. Desperation cracked his voice. “They told us she was dead. I have to talk to her. Need to know what happened. She... We have a daughter who needs her.” His control was starting to slip. Six months of pain rose back to the surface in a groan.

“It’s all right, lad. I think you need to sit down.”

McKringle tried to lead him back to the table, but again Thomas broke from the contact. “Dammit, why is everyone trying to keep me from seeing my wife?”

“We don’t know if it is Rosalind,” Linus said. “I think we should hear him out.”

“I promise you she’s not going anywhere,” McKringle said. “But there’re a few things I think you ought to know. Please, Mr Collier. Take a seat. I’ll get you a drink.”

Thomas didn’t want a drink. He wanted his wife, but he allowed himself to be led back to his chair. Something in McKringle’s eyes said he needed to do as the man said.

“Let me ask you a question,” the old man said once they’d all settled in their seats. “Have you ever heard of the term dissociative fugue?”

She couldn’t stop shaking. Hunched over the bathroom sink, her fingers clutching the vanity edge for support, she could feel her legs trembling beneath her.

Rosie. He’d called her Rosie.

She’d always thought that when she met someone from her past, she would know. Instinct would kick loose whatever it was wrapping her brain in blackness and the memories would be set free. But when this man—this stranger—called her Rosie, she’d felt nothing.

Well, not completely nothing. Her heart had practically beat itself out of her chest when he hugged her. But he could have called her Jane or Susan or Philetta for all the name meant.

Maybe he had her confused with someone else. That must be the answer. What woman could forget a man that devastatingly handsome? Those eyes, blue-gray like the northern sea. If she closed her eyes, she saw them clear as day. Surely, such an indelible couldn’t be wiped from her mind.

She looked in the mirror and studied the heart-shaped face that was familiar yet foreign. Dissociative fugue, the doctor at the hospital called it. A type of amnesia brought on by trauma. All she knew was...nothing. Her mind was a void of memories older than a few months.

At first the blankness had terrified her, but lately she’d started to grow comfortable with her empty past. Until the stranger with blue-gray eyes had walked in.

There was knock on the ladies room door. “Lammie?” Chris’s gentle voice sounded on the other side. “You doin’ all right?”

She warmed at the tender nickname, a term Chris used because he said she was a little lost lamb. “I’m fine,” she replied. “A little shaken up, is all.”

Hearing his voice made her feel better. Chris would keep her safe; he’d been keeping her safe since the day she’d stumbled into his headlights.

“Do you feel up to stepping outside? We’d like to have a chat.”

By “we,” she prayed he meant him and his wife, Jessica, not the stranger with the unnervingly warm embrace.

“I’ll be right out,” she told him.

Ignoring how badly her hands were trembling, she retied her ponytail and wiped the smudges from under her eyes. If she did have to face the stranger again, she was going to look composed, dammit. For some reason it was important he see her pulled together.

When she finally opened the door, she found Chris leaning against the bar. “Better, Lammie?” he asked in a low voice. She nodded, and he gave her an encouraging smile.

She didn’t have to look to know who the other half of “we” was. The man’s presence hung in the air.

“This is Thomas Collier,” Chris said, “and his brother, Linus.”

“Like the soap.” The comment was automatic. A bottle of Collier’s lemon soap sat by the sink in the restaurant’s kitchen. Jessica swore by it, and she’d developed an immediate fondness herself.

“That’s right. They’re up from London.”

She looked to her left where both men sat at a nearby table. Both men were far more subdued this time around. The stranger was perched on the edge of his seat, his lanky body resembling a coil fighting not to spring. “Mr Collier’s wife, Rosalind, is missing,” Chris continued. “She disappeared following a car accident. He’s pretty sure she’s you.”

He’d called her Rosie.

Hoping that if she focused hard enough she might conjure up some spark of recognition, she took a better look at her so-called husband. When she’d first approached their table, before the craziness started, she’d thought both men attractive. Upon second take, she amended her opinion. One was attractive. Thomas Collier was handsome as sin. If they were married, she had fantastic taste. Taller and lankier than his companion, he had the kind of features that separately were nondescript but together formed an arresting picture of angles and slopes. And again, there were those eyes. She could almost imagine white caps dotting their blue-gray depths. A slow whorl of awareness unexpectedly twisted through her midsection.

Attraction aside, however, she might as well have been admiring a stranger. “I told him about your condition,” Chris told her.

“And you believe him?” A moot question if ever there was one. Chris wouldn’t have asked her to join them if he didn’t think Collier’s claims had merit.

“Think it’s worth you hearing him out,” Chris said. “Then you can decide for yourself.”

She chewed her lip, unsure what to do. On the one hand, if this man’s story turned out to be true, she’d finally have the answers she’d been seeking. On the other hand, everything she did know would be turned upside down, and while she didn’t know her past, her present was a good one.

“I promise I’ll behave myself,” Collier said. “You have my word I won’t do anything to frighten you again. Please,” he added, gesturing to the seat next to him.

Damn those eyes. How could she say no when they were imploring her?

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.

Except, that was, for Maddie. Every time she saw a photo of the little girl, her heart swelled with longing. Maybe because she hated to see such an adorable creature going without a mother. The reason why, however, didn’t matter. If she went back to London with Thomas, it would be to give that little girl her mother back.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said to Chris and Jessica one night after the dinner rush. “How do I go back and be some man’s wife when I can’t remember him?”

The two of them hadn’t talked again since that night. Having agreed to give her space, Thomas limited his contact to the emails accompanying his daily document delivery. While the notes were friendly and upbeat, often filled with anecdotes relating to that day’s documents, she could read between the lines his eagerness to have her home. Especially when he included the words “We miss you” in the text.

“Who says you have to?” Jessica replied. “Just because you know your name and identity doesn’t mean you have to immediately rush back and start living your former life. You wouldn’t rush a baby into walking, would you?”

“No.” Sighing, she rested her forehead against the heels of her palms. “If only I could remember him. Reading those papers is like reading a book about someone else. I know facts and dates, but I don’t feel real. Does that make sense?”

“You need to give yourself time, sweetheart.” Jessica reached across the table and clasped Rosalind’s hand between her two pudgy ones. For a woman who spent her days working in a kitchen, her skin was soft as silk—Collier’s lavender skin cream. Thomas was everywhere, Rosalind thought. “Eventually, your heart will remember.”

“And if it doesn’t?” What if she never remembered Thomas Collier beyond his soulful eyes and commanding presence?

“Who says you have to stay with him? You start a new life with your little girl,” Jessica replied. “I know you won’t have to worry about your feelings for her.”

Rosalind blushed. She was already in love with the girl from her photos and, at the end of the day, was the best reason for returning to London. “She deserves to have her mother home.”

But Jessica’s argument stuck with her. The older woman was right. There was no reason Rosalind had to stay with Thomas if she couldn’t remember him.

That gave her an idea.

“What do you mean, a ‘trial visit’?”

It was a few nights later and they were walking in the village center, Thomas having shown up unannounced for a visit. Since the restaurant wasn’t busy Chris gave her the evening off so they could talk. It was, Rosalind figured, as good a time as any to share her plan.

Needless to say Thomas hadn’t embraced the idea with enthusiasm.

“I mean exactly what it sounds like,” she replied. “I’ll come to London.”

“You mean home. You’ll come home.”

Rosalind sighed. “No, I mean London. This village is the only home I remember. Surely you can’t expect me to slide back into my old life simply because you’ve sent me a few emails full of facts and dates?”

The way he turned away said that was exactly what he expected. Which led to other questions as to what else he expected.

In keeping with the season, the trees on the common had been wrapped in strands of blue and white lights. A patriotic illuminated forest with branches that danced and sparkled in the wind. It was romantic, magical and no doubt the reason why Rosalind was acutely aware of Thomas’s shoulder moving beside her.

She looked sideways at his silhouette. He wore the same expensive clothes as before and exuded the same command and self-possession, while she wore flannel and boots. Night and day. Top and bottom. Hard to imagine them ever fitting together. They had though. She’d seen the marriage certificate that proved it.

“What about Maddie?” Thomas asked after a moment.

“Maddie is the reason I’m willing to go back at all.” Wouldn’t matter if Rosalind had a zillion doubts, the notion of that child going another day thinking she’d died was intolerable. “She needs her mother.”

“You don’t think I need you?”

“You’re not a little girl.” On the contrary, there was nothing little about him. “And, there’s no guarantee you and I will be able to reconnect. I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep. I’d feel better going in if I knew I had the freedom to...”

“Leave.”

“Yes. I mean, no. I wouldn’t leave Maddie.”

“Just me.”

Did he have to say the words in such a flat voice? It left a guilty knot in her stomach. “The plan sounded much better in my head.” Certainly less callous. She needed to remember that as far as he was concerned, she was the woman he loved. “I don’t mean to imply that I’m not going to try. I’m just...”

“Scared.” The softness in his voice allowed the word to wash over her with relief.

“Terrified,” she replied. Trading the known for the unknown? Who wouldn’t be? “I have no idea what I’m jumping into.”

“So you want an end date in case things don’t work out.”

“More like a potential end date. A point where both of us can step back and reassess. You’ve got to admit it’s not your run-of-the-mill situation.”

“No, it definitely is not.”

Rosalind let out a breath. He understood. This was the only way she could think of to maintain some control.

“How long do you envision this trial visit of yours lasting?”

“Over Christmas and New Year at least,” she said. “I don’t want to do anything until after the New Year. Giving Maddie a happy Christmas is my first priority.”

“Mine too.”

“Then we’re agreed. We’ll spend the next few weeks focused on our daughter and Christmas and see where things stand in January.”

“That gives us three weeks.” It was clear he didn’t like the idea. To his credit, however, he didn’t argue. Their daughter’s Christmas clearly was a priority.

“Twenty-one days,” she replied. “And who knows? Maybe I’ll remember everything as soon as I walk through the front door, and this whole conversation will be moot.” Stranger things had happened, right?

“Have you remembered anything?”

She shook her head. “No. Not really. A few of the photos felt familiar, but I think that was more wishful thinking. I’m sorry.”

The ground crunched beneath their feet. “You have nothing to apologize for, Rosalind.”

But she felt like she did. She felt terrible that she couldn’t remember her family and even more terrible that she wasn’t bouncing with excitement over having found her way home.

“It’s not like I don’t want to remember. I do.” Ever since he’d appeared in the restaurant, she’d been praying for the floodgates to open and erase the blankness. The only response she’d received was her heart pounding with anxiety.

“I believe you, and I’ll try not to push.”

“Thank you.” The tension in her shoulders started to ease.

“But...”

And, tensed right back up again. Stopping beneath a large blue branch, she turned to look him straight on. Her heart was starting to race. “But what?”

“I won’t push about your memory, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try and win you over. You should know that between now and Christmas, I plan on charming the socks off you. You’ll be too enamored by me to even think of leaving.”

“Is that so?” She crossed her arms and did her best to sound unimpressed. Difficult since his cocksure attitude actually was impressive. And charming.

“Oh, most definitely, Mrs Collier.” He upped the charm by saying the moniker with a silky-smooth lilt. “Most definitely. In fact...”

His blue eyes bore into her. Out of the corner of her eye, Rosalind saw him raise his hand making her think he planned to reach out and touch her. She held her breath.

He kept his distance. His stare didn’t waver. “In fact,” he repeated, “I’m going to start tonight.”