Читать книгу A Wedding To Remember - Joanna Sims - Страница 11

Chapter Four

During the first week that Savannah was back at the ranch, Bruce watched her slowly, day by day, reclaim their log cabin as her own. She had unearthed their framed wedding pictures in one of the drawers in the living room and put them back in their original spot on the fireplace mantel. One of her antique bud vases, a least favorite that she had left behind, was back on the kitchen windowsill with a sprig of wildflowers soaking in the morning sun. The more his wife settled back into their marital home, the more accustomed to sharing the space Bruce became.

He was becoming accustomed to having Savannah’s toothbrush, face creams, perfumes and deodorant on the bathroom counter next to his small array of toiletries; he was becoming accustomed to the sound of music playing when he arrived home. It was good to have music back in the house.

“Smells good in here.” Bruce hung his cowboy hat on the hook inside of the door.

Today his wife was in the mood for Fleetwood Mac.

Savannah appeared from the kitchen, surprised by his early arrival.

“I wasn’t expecting you until later,” she said with a small smile, wiping her hands on a dish towel.

Bruce walked the whole way to her side; he had been trying to open up more to Savannah. She had, understandably, pulled away from him once she began to live the truth of their separation, even when her brain wouldn’t remember. So they stood, rather awkwardly, a foot apart, without kissing each other in greeting as they always had.

“I decided to knock off a little early today.” He leaned down to pet Hound Dog, who was now glued to Savannah’s side.

She nodded wordlessly, her smile not completely reaching her eyes.

“What’s cooking?”

Now her smile widened. “Guess!”

Bruce played along, looking upward in thought. “It’s not... Buffalo Pockets?”

Beef, assorted vegetables and seasonings baked in foil pockets. One of his favorite meals—easy, hardy, but so damn good.

“I wanted to say thank-you—for helping me with the garden.” Savannah turned to walk back to the kitchen.

Hound Dog left him and followed behind her.

He wasn’t sure how to respond. How many times had he looked out at that garden feeling guilty about letting the elements and the wild animals have their way with it? Savannah had loved that garden, and it was one way, a petty way, to strike back at her.

“I’m gonna clean up,” Bruce told her. “For dinner.”

On the way into the bedroom, the bedroom he hadn’t slept in since Savannah’s return, he picked up a pair of socks and a pair of boots—she had never been able to get her clothes in the hamper or her shoes back in the closet. She often just left her clothes where she stripped out of them; it had always annoyed him, and perhaps it still did, but not with the same force as before. How many times had he missed her jeans on the floor after she left? Many times.

What Savannah lacked in housekeeping motivation, she made up for tenfold when it came to cooking. Man, had he missed his wife’s cooking, and he told her so.

The good smells emanating from the kitchen had gotten him to speed up his shower, get dressed quick, so he could take his seat at their kitchen table. While Savannah had been gone, this table had been used as a catchall for the mail and any junk he accumulated in his pockets during his workday.

“I love cooking for you.” Savannah smiled at him sweetly as she collected his empty plate.

“That was one hell of a good meal, Beautiful.” He leaned back, feeling stuffed after two heaping servings. Bruce had been subsisting on frozen meals for a year. Yes, he could have had dinner at the main house, but his father’s loud and consistent disapproval over his divorce had deterred him pretty quickly.

“I hope you left some room for dessert,” Savannah said as she carried their dishes the short distance to the kitchen. “Lilly and I stopped off at the bakery on the way home.”

Bruce followed her to the kitchen, his hands full with as many items as he could carry. Jock had never once helped wife one or wife two in the kitchen, but Bruce had always considered it to be part of marriage. It had always been those little things, like Savannah cooking while he did the dishes, that had made him want to be a married man. And for a while there, he had managed to have a perfect marriage, to the perfect woman for him. For a while there, he had managed to marry his best friend.

“All I have to do is pop them in the oven.” Savannah held up a plate of raspberry chocolate turnovers, freshly made from his favorite bakery.

Bruce filled the sink with water and soap and set the dishes in the hot, sudsy water to soak. He wiped his hands off on a dish towel, his mouth watering for the tangy, sweet dessert, but his stomach needed a little extra room before the next course.

He smiled his thank-you. “You know what I love.”

Bruce saw a pretty flush of color on his wife’s cheeks before she turned away to put the plate on the counter. “Should I heat the oven now? Or wait?”

It had been such a long time since he wanted to pull Savannah into his arms and kiss her. But, oh, how he wanted to kiss her right at that moment. The kindness of her gesture, the sweet blush on her cheeks that spoke of her ability to have a reaction to being in close quarters with him. He felt her attraction for him, just as strong as when they were first married. And in turn, his body, his mind, his heart, were all reacting.

“You up for a walk?” he asked her, not at all sure that she would accept. Nothing was certain with Savannah. With a nod to the plate of pastries, he added, “I need to make some room for at least three of those.”

Walking after dinner had been one of their marriage staples; they both loved to walk in the evening with the dogs, hoping to catch a colorful sunset. Even the rain hadn’t deterred their evening routine; they had just grabbed raincoats and gone.

Bruce held the door open for his wife, and then grabbed his hat off the rack as he stepped out onto the porch. As usual, the dogs happily mobbed Savannah, who greeted them as if she hadn’t seen them in days, not just an hour.

“Which way?” she asked at the bottom of the steps.

“Cook’s choice.”

They headed toward the west, toward the setting sun and toward one of the many pastures where some of the herd of black Angus were lying down after a day of grazing. They would have held hands—they always had—but this time, she didn’t reach for his hand, and he couldn’t bring himself to reach for hers.

Silently, they walked together, side by side, until they reached the pasture fence. With a sigh, Savannah leaned on the fence to admire the view. Perhaps he was biased—most likely he was—but Sugar Creek Ranch was heaven on Earth. A landscape seemingly touched by God’s hand, it featured flat pastureland abutted by an expanse of gently rolling hills leading up to the base of royal Montana mountains far off in the distance. Tall grass on the hills swayed, almost imperceptibly, in a calm breeze floating across the hills, and the soft echo of the water flowing over rocks in the wide stream that crossed the ranch like a snake uncurling itself. It was the kind of landscape that would inspire painters like Winslow Homer or Georgia O’Keeffe to unroll their blank canvases and take out their brushes.

“I never get tired of this,” Savannah mused. “It never gets old.”

“For me, either.”

There was much that he resented about his father—Jock was harsh, cold at times and unable to admit wrongdoing or express regret—but he’d gotten it right when he’d bought this land. And though maybe Bruce hadn’t gotten everything right in his own life, either, he knew, as he admired his wife’s profile in the early-evening light, that he had gotten it right when he married Savannah.

“I need to go back, I think.”

“You okay?”

She nodded, her arms now crossed in front of her body as she turned away from the view. “I suddenly feel so tired. It’s been a long day.”

“You overdid it.” Bruce fell in beside her. “Cooking me dinner.”

A shake of her head. “No. That was fun. It’s not that. It’s that I seem to be going from one appointment to the next to the next now. I can go years without so much as a cold, and yet now, it seems, that’s all I’m doing.”

Bruce whistled for the dogs playing in the pasture to follow them back to the house.

“Your limp is less noticeable,” he told her. “Already.”

The bruises on her face had faded to a light yellow and a faint green, a sign of healing, but her speech was still affected, a little slurred and slushy, and as far as he knew, Savannah hadn’t had any memories, not even flashes, of the last several years. All of her childhood memories, the memories of her young adulthood, and even the early years of their marriage were still, thankfully, intact. But Savannah still did not have recent memories about the darkest period of their marriage.

“Don’t get me wrong—I’m grateful for the help.” She ascended the stairs, holding on to the railing, much more slowly than she had descended. “I just wish I didn’t need the help.”

* * *

The first time she mustered the nerve to drive herself into town after she was cleared to drive by her neurologist, Savannah decided to meet her friends from work at one of their favorite spots on Main Street.

“How are you?” her friend Maria, a speech-language pathologist at the elementary school where Savannah had worked before the accident, asked after the waitress took their orders.