Behind the mask, her smile was frail, her eyelids slipping downward from exhaustion.
“I’d better let you get some rest.” The sound of Bruce’s voice made her fight to open her eyes.
When he tried to let go of her hand, she held on, moving her thumb over the empty spot where his wedding band should be.
“Ring?” Her voice was so raspy from having a trachea tube down her throat.
Again, an odd expression flashed in Bruce’s sapphire-blue eyes as he glanced down at the ring finger of his left hand.
“It’s at home.”
“My...ring?”
“I have it,” Bruce told her after he dropped a quick kiss on her forehead. “I have your wedding ring.”
* * *
Retrograde amnesia secondary to traumatic brain injury and stroke. Bottom line, according to Savannah’s neurologist: Savannah had lost large swaths of her memory. With time and patience, some, or even all, of her memories could return. Until then...
“What are you suggesting that I do, Carol?” Bruce asked his mother-in-law in a lowered voice. “Move her back to the ranch?”
“We’ve all tried to talk her into coming home with us, but she wants to be with her husband.” Carol’s eyes were wide with concern. “She wants to be with you.”
Bruce held up his left hand to show Carol his wedding ring. “All she’s been talking about for the last two days is getting back into her own bed.”
Savannah had been moved to a regular hospital room soon after she had regained consciousness. Her appetite was healthy, she was laughing and talking. Her speech was still a little slurred from the dysarthria, her right hand was a little weak after the ministroke she had sustained, and of course, there was the memory loss. But even with all that, the doctors were getting ready to discharge her and continue with her care as an outpatient. Considering her near-death experience, Savannah was making a quick recovery.
“I know it. I know it.” Carol’s brows furrowed worriedly. “It’s gonna break her sweet heart when she finds out the truth.”
They had all hoped that Savannah’s memory would return on its own; none of them, including him, wanted to be the one to bring her up to speed on her failed marriage. But her discharge date was barreling toward them with no sign that she had any inkling that they were a signature away from being divorced.
Carol seemed to have something on her mind that she had been skirting ever since he had arrived at the hospital. He had a feeling he knew exactly what his mother-in-law was thinking.
“Would it be such a horrible thing if Savannah moved back to Sugar Creek with you?” she asked him after a couple of silent moments.
Bruce knew it was only a matter of time before Carol asked this question. It was a question that had crossed his own mind a time or two. But it wasn’t that simple. Savannah hadn’t lived at the ranch with him for a long while. And although he hadn’t changed much since she had left, she didn’t have clothing or personal items at the ranch.
“Maybe this could be a second chance for the two of you,” Carol added.
Carol had always wanted their marriage to work, and had always advocated for spending their attorneys’ fees on more marriage counseling.
“You still love her. Even after all that’s happened.” His mother-in-law looked up into his face hopefully. “Don’t you?”
“I’ll always love her,” he admitted because it was true. And even as angry as he had been with Savannah after all of the fighting and money wasted on attorneys fees, seeing her unconscious in critical care slammed home the truth for him: he still loved her.
Carol’s eyes welled with tears. She put her hands on his arm. “And she loves you.”
Savannah did love him. Again. It felt bizarre to walk into her hospital room and be greeted with that sweet, welcoming smile he’d first fallen in love with, her hazel-green eyes filled with love and her arms outstretched for a hug. In an odd twist of fate, Savannah was back to being the woman he had married. In an odd twist of fate, Savannah was back in his life.
“Now,” Bruce reminded Carol. “She loves me now. What happens when her memory comes back and she remembers that she doesn’t love me anymore?”
* * *
“I just want to go home,” Savannah complained to her husband. “I’m so tired of being here. All night long, people are barging into my room, taking my blood pressure, pumping me full of fluids! How can they expect anyone to get better in this place if they won’t let us sleep? I’m exhausted, and it’s all their fault.”
When Bruce arrived at the hospital after giving directions to his crew of cowboys at the ranch, Savannah was sitting up in a chair next to her bed.
“Can’t you bust me out of this place? I want to sleep in my own bed, with my own pillows.” His wife pointed to the small, rectangle pillow on the hospital bed. “That horrible thing is a brick disguised as a pillow.”
Every time he came to see Savannah in the hospital, she said something that made him laugh. Perhaps that was one of the initial qualities he had liked about her the first time he’d really taken notice of her. She was funny—funnier than any female he’d ever known. And although they had gone to school together virtually all of their lives, they hadn’t moved in the same cliques. Savannah had been on the honor roll and sang in the choir and was heavily involved with the school paper and the Beta Club for high achievers.
He’d been the captain of the football team, the popular kid, who happened to be going steady with Kerri Mahoney, the head of the cheerleading squad. He could barely remember seeing her in the halls at school when, as a junior at Montana University conducting research for a bachelor’s thesis, Savannah came out to Sugar Creek Ranch looking to study the grazing patterns of their cows. He would never forget how she looked that day—so serious with her round-rimmed glasses, loaded down with an overstuffed computer bag, and the ivory skin of her face devoid of makeup. Savannah hadn’t been the least bit interested in him. All of her focus was on his cattle. It had been a rare blow to his ego.
“Let’s get you out of this room. Go for a walk.”
With one hand, Savannah held on to the rolling stand that held her IV drip, and with the other hand, she held on to his arm. He had to cut his stride in half to make sure that he didn’t push her to go faster than her body could handle.
“I feel a breeze on my left butt cheek,” Savannah told him. “Take a peek back there for me, will you, and make sure my altogether is altogether covered.”
Bruce smiled as he ducked his head back to check out her posterior parts. “You’re good.”
Halfway down the hall, the pallor of Savannah’s oval face turned pasty-white. She swayed against him, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
“Whoa—we’ve gone far enough for today.”
She didn’t put up a fight when he helped her make a U-turn so he could take her back to her room. He didn’t want to wear her out completely; he still needed to have a serious talk with Savannah. Her doctors were ready to discharge her, and she was ready to leave. If she still wanted to go home to Sugar Creek after he told her the truth about the divorce, he was willing to take her back to the ranch with him. But she had to know the truth. It was her right to know.
He’d already discussed the best way to tell Savannah about the divorce with her doctors and her family. They all agreed that he could tell her privately, but that Carol and John would be on standby in case Savannah needed their emotional support. Bruce had never dreaded a conversation like he dreaded the one he was about to have with his wife. He didn’t want to hurt her—even when he had been at his