Return to Paradise by Carol Grace

Author:Carol Grace
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: amnesia, ranch, lightning, single dad, lost bride
Publisher: Carol Grace

Chapter Seven

For the next week Christine studiously avoided Parker. It wasn't really hard because it was clear he was avoiding her. She cooked, and in between cooking she gardened, she rode old Cindy to the duck pond and back and tried not to think about the future. The future without Parker, without the ranch. Instead she memorized the view from the front porch, of green pastures and purple mountains in the distance. Of grazing sheep and cloudless skies. She inhaled great gulps of fresh mountain air and vowed never to forget this interlude in her life no matter what lay ahead of her. Or what happened before she came there.

It was easy to be philosophical during the day when she was busy. But at night after she'd loaded the dishwasher and hung the cast-iron skillets and copper-bottomed saucepans back on the rack in the kitchen, it was a different matter. She went to her room and tried not to ask herself what if. What if she went to the Department of Missing Persons and nobody was missing her? What if she wandered around looking for herself and never found a clue as to who she was? What if she couldn't get on the bus again and simply wandered around Clear Creek? What if she never saw Parker again, never saw Sarah, either? Never returned to see the ranch under a warm summer sun, with the lambs frolicking on the new grass, and never saw it under a blanket of fresh snow?

When the new cook came she allowed herself two days to show him around, from the kitchen to the bunkhouse to the garden. But by the second day he was whipping up a huge batch of chili and a pan of corn-bread with one hand and a mountain of tapioca with the other and she realized with a pang she wasn't needed there anymore. After dinner she swallowed her pride and asked Parker for a ride to town the next day. He said sure, and disappeared into his office.

She knew he was relieved to have her go. She saw it in his eyes, heard it in his voice. There was no need to say any more. So when he knocked on the door to her room later that evening she was surprised. He stepped inside and looked around. She hoped he was pleased to see she'd left it exactly the way she'd found it by removing the vase of wildflowers, folding away the colorful afghan and packing her clothes in a small bag Parker had loaned her the last time she'd tried to leave. Or maybe he didn't notice.

He noticed. Parker felt a growing emptiness in the house and she wasn't even gone yet. He also felt guilty at forcing her to leave. Guilty and worried. He was worried she'd wander around Denver not knowing where to go or what to do. The same worries he'd had the last time she'd tried to leave. Only worse. Last time he barely knew her, this time he'd grown accustomed to having her around.

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