The Bride Said, 'I Did?'. Cathy Thacker Gillen

the living room. She was dressed just as she’d been when she’d gone upstairs. “Lonely already?” This was working out better than he’d hoped. She’d only been up there what—fifteen, twenty minutes?

      “In need of answers.” Dani stopped just short of him. She looked pale, stressed out. And scared. As though the enormity of what had happened to them was finally hitting her, just as it had eventually hit him.

      Beau sat up slowly. “Okay.” He was ready to deal with this, as directly as possible, if she was. “Shoot.” He’d tell her whatever she wanted to know.

      For several tense seconds, Dani stared at Beau incredulously. Her chin tipped defiantly. Some of the color came back into her cheeks. “Enough of the playing around.” Her voice was quiet, subdued, as she searched his face for any hint of duplicity or deceit. “You can’t seriously expect me to believe that you have no idea what happened that night in Mexico, either.”

      “If I did, I wouldn’t be here pressuring you for answers.” With effort Beau kept his voice as neutral as possible. Simmering with a frustration every bit as potent as hers, he frowned, shoved a hand through his hair and looked deep into her amber eyes. “Initially I thought you might have set me up. When I got here and realized pretty quickly that wasn’t the case—you were about as far from gloating as you can get—I hoped you’d at least know how we landed in this predicament. And then enlighten me, either through simple accusation or by just plain blurting it out. But since you don’t appear to remember anything…”

      “I don’t,” Dani said, sighing, appearing dismayed to find he really didn’t know anything.

      “…I’m hoping if we spend time together it’ll all start coming back to us.” Beau scooted over to make room for Dani on the sofa beside him. “’Cause Lord knows I’ve already tried about everything else I can think of to get my memory back. And thus far nothing’s worked.”

      “I’ve racked my brain, too, and I can’t recall much of anything, either,” Dani said.

      It was a peculiar feeling, finding they were both in the same boat. Beau was used to their being completely at odds with each other. To suddenly find they were facing the same dilemma, and such a personal one, to boot…He had a feeling this was about to get more complicated. A lot more complicated. Worse, he wanted to drag her into his arms and kiss her again, reason be damned. He wanted to take her upstairs to bed and make wild passionate love to her and see if that brought anything back. And then, only then, when they’d exhausted themselves, run the gamut of their feelings for each other, deal with this predicament they were in. But that was impossible when she was doing her best to keep her feelings about him and everything else under lock and key.

      Dani clamped her arms in front of her like a shield. “Then I’m really not on an episode of Celebrity Hoaxes.”

      “You really aren’t.” Beau exhaled slowly and continued to study her in the dusky light. “Although how you managed to even think that I’d do something like that to you, no matter how ticked off I was at you, I don’t know.”

      Dani lifted one slender shoulder in a hapless shrug, turned her glance away and began to pace, the last of her denial fading fast. “It was more acceptable than the reality of the two of us being really married and expecting, I guess.” She finally sat down next to him on the sofa, being careful to maintain a good eight or nine inches between them.