One Snowbound Weekend.... Christy Lockhart

God, oh, God, why had she asked? His pain cut through her, and her abdomen constricted.

      “I drove all the way to Chicago, like a lovesick fool.”

      She winced.

      “Arrived just in time for your wedding reception.”

      Her jaw went slack. “My…”

      “Wedding reception. After your marriage to Jack Hague.” Shane’s eyes darkened like a storm in the forest.

      “No,” she protested, disbelief rocketing through her. She wouldn’t have married Jack, even if it was the only thing her father had ever expected of her.

      “Oh, yeah. In a long white gown, diamonds in your ears, huge vases of white flowers everywhere, a band, champagne, a sit-down meal…all the things I wanted to give you and couldn’t. The things that apparently mattered to you, even though you said they didn’t.”

      A headache threatened to split her skull.

      “Six months after you sneaked out of my life. The ink was barely dry on our divorce papers, Angie. It was as if we’d never happened.”

      Maybe he was right; maybe she would have been better off not knowing.

      “Your daddy figured out who I was and escorted me outside. He was kind enough to answer a few questions for me. He explained you really hadn’t come to live in Colorado, that spending the summer with your aunt was something to give you a taste of the real world, nothing more.”

      “No. That’s not true. I came to Colorado to get away, to be an independent woman.”

      “Your father said when you were done playing house with a man who wasn’t your social equal, you called him and begged him to bail you out. You were tired of being broke, tired of being a surrogate mother to my sister.”

      Her head swam. “No. I loved Sarah.”

      “Not only that, but in the generous spirit of the celebration, he wrote out a ten thousand dollar check to ensure I never contacted you again.” His words were short and bitter. “I tore it up and threw the pieces at his feet. Didn’t need money to stay the hell out of your life.” His tone dropped another octave. “It would have cost him more than that to make me speak to you again.”

      “And now I’m back.”

      “And when your memory returns, I’ll have a few questions for you.”

      “Like…?”

      He shoved his hands even deeper into his pockets. To keep them to himself?

      “For starters, are you still married? Are you Angie Hague? Oh, wait, maybe it’d be Angela Hague.”

      She pressed her hand to her temples. “Shane, please…”

      “Does he still have a claim on you? And if he does, why the hell are you sleeping in my bed?”

      Four

      The world reeled and she couldn’t even take a breath. She was in love with Shane, only Shane. The idea of another man touching her, holding her, making love to her…

      “No,” she whispered. Desperately she looked at her left hand. “I’m not wearing a ring.” And there was no indentation where one might have rested.

      “That doesn’t mean anything.”

      “No other man has any claim on me. I never wanted anyone but you.”

      “Stop, Angie. I’ve had enough of your lies.”

      She clutched the aspen leaf.

      “It wasn’t a lie.” He stared at her, long and deep. She scrambled to her unsteady feet, reaching for the couch for support. Blinded by tears, she headed for the door.

      “Where the hell are you going?”

      “I’ve got to know.” She reached the entryway before he did and yanked her jacket and purse from the hook where he’d hung them.

      Dropping to her knees, she jerked open her purse and dumped it upside down.

      In an instant, he was kneeling in front of her, grabbing her shoulders and forcing her to look at him. “Angie…”

      Shrugging off his grip, she dug through the cosmetics, gum wrappers and checkbook, then snatched up her wallet, desperately searching for pieces of her past.

      There were no pictures in her wallet, no snapshots of her and Jack.

      Her fingers trembled as she pulled out her Illinois driver’s license.

      Angela Burton.

      Her name was listed as Angela Burton…her maiden name.

      She let go of a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, then studied her credit cards and checkbook.

      She looked at Shane.

      His eyes were narrowed, and a wary mixture of anger and concern played across green depths.

      “I’m Angela Burton.”

      He curved a hand around her wrist. “So it says.”

      A pain ripped through her and she reached her free hand toward him, tracing her finger down his familiar, yet so different, shadowed cheek.

      A thousand questions swamped her mind. Why was she in Colorado? Why was she at his house? Why did she think they were still in love? How could she have left him?

      She’d never met anyone like him. Tender, protective, arrogant, maddening, passionate, they’d shared dozens of emotions, each time growing a little closer.

      Grief, a sharp, stabbing pain, shot through her. She’d left him, walked out on him in the coldest, most callous way possible. She’d done what his mother and Delilah had done, after swearing she wouldn’t. Angie had betrayed their love, and she didn’t know why.

      No wonder he didn’t like her, didn’t want her. “I’m sorry, Shane, so, so sorry.”

      “For leaving or coming back?”

      “Both.”

      “It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”

      He released her wrist, and she dropped her license. “I’m not married to him.”

      “No?”

      “I’d know it if I were.”

      “Would you? How? How do you know anything, Angie?”

      She looked at him with wide-eyed innocence, something he no longer believed in.

      Protectively, she curled her fingers around the dulled aspen leaf. “If I hadn’t loved you, why would I have kept the only gift you ever gave me?”