The Second Chance
“The aneurysm has affected your memory,” he said slowly, carefully.
Her memory? The weight of that word hit her hard. “How so?”
“You’ve forgotten the past five years.”
His words slammed into her, adding a push to that merry-go-round feel in her head. “Five years? Gone. And we know each other?”
Even as her world spiraled, the confusion faded as the logical answer came together—his lack of a medical coat, his familiarity...and the wedding band.
Face somber, Chuck rested his hands on her shoulders, holding her gaze with his. “We more than know each other. I’m your husband.”
* * *
The horrified expression on Shana’s face was damn near insulting. Her gaze shot to his wedding band, then back up to his eyes.
Color drained from her already pale face. She sagged back down into the hospital bed, her blond hair splashing across the pillow. He wanted to protect her, to find some way to wrestle their problems into submission. Not that he’d ever had much luck with that. He needed to put aside his own feelings and focus on her. Focus on keeping her calm—and making the most of this time to heal the rift between them.
Shana thumbed her own bare ring finger. “Married? To each other?”
“For almost four years. Your jewelry was taken off when you were admitted to the hospital.” He tapped her ring finger lightly, the softness of her skin so familiar—and seductive. Even in the middle of the worst crisis of his life.
She had a beauty and fire that rocked even a hospital gown.
“You’re my husband? I... Why... What happened? This is, um, overwhelming.”
“I realize it’s a lot to absorb.” He pulled a chair closer and sat, taking both of her hands in his. “The doctor said the memory loss could be temporary.”
“Or it could be permanent.” She didn’t pull away, but she did look at their clasped hands with confusion. “How long have we known each other?”
Those soft blue eyes turned hawkish, reading him like an X-ray machine. He nodded, clearing his throat. Determined to deliver objective facts. To not make this worse.
“We met nearly five years ago.” He watched her closely to gauge her reaction. He felt like he knew her so well, but also not at all.
How much of the essence of Shana would still exist with the memory loss?
Questions flooded his mind with too many potential futures to absorb at once.
“So my amnesia starts from right before I met you?” she said slowly, suspicion filling her eyes.
She was too astute. It seemed her private investigator skills were as honed as ever.
“It appears so,” he said, treading carefully through this discussion that was full of land mines. “I don’t expect you to take my word for anything. Talk to my family, talk to your mother, whatever you need to do to feel reassured.”
“You have family nearby?”
“I do. A large family. My mother and some of my siblings live in Anchorage, except for my brother, who’s closer to Juneau.” He shared the details carefully, watching for signs of recollection. Her amnesia could disappear at any moment and she would go back to tossing him out on his ass. “My mother recently remarried and her new husband has an even larger family, mostly local, too.”
“A big family is a blessing.” Her blue eyes shone with a pain he recognized.
Learning of her father’s hidden second family had wounded Shana deeply as a teen. She had three half siblings she’d never met. Her father’s betrayal had cut so deeply that Shana still had trouble trusting. Chuck knew he needed to keep that in mind now more than ever. If he made a misstep, this could go so very wrong.
But he couldn’t let her go, especially not now.
He would do what was necessary to protect Shana, and their unborn baby.
There’d been a time when they talked of having at least four children. Life had a different plan for them.
“Considering my family and Mom’s new husband’s family have been business enemies for decades, we weren’t sure about the blessing part at first. Family reunions are dicey, but it’s starting to shake out.”
“So you and I are happily married?”
Now, there was a loaded question. “We had our problems like any other couple,” he hedged.
The last thing he wanted to lead with was their hellish fight right before her aneurysm, a fight that had her hauling his clothes from the closet as she told him to move out. But the doctor had said to answer honestly. He could offer up part of their issues without tipping his hand. “We had been going through fertility treatments to start a family, and that put a strain on us.”
“But we were committed enough that we wanted a child together.”
“Want a child. Present tense.” He very much intended to be a full-time father to their child. If this pregnancy went well, Chuck would do everything in his power to be there for his kid.
“You have to realize I’m overwhelmed by all of this.” She threaded her fingers through her long, honeyed hair, over her ear, her eyes widening. “Amnesia? It’s something we all know about, but I never imagined it could actually happen to me.”
“Of course. It’s a lot. Take your time. I’m here for you, whatever you need, and I’m not going anywhere.”
“Thank you—” She frowned, pressing her temples.
“People call me Chuck,” he reminded her. “Or Charles.”
“What did I call you?”
The last time they’d been together, she’d called him a list of names better left unsaid right now. “You called me Chuck.”
“Thank you, Chuck.”
The way her voice wrapped around his name sounded as familiar as ever.
A tap sounded on the door. “Hello?”
A recognizable voice called out an instant before the door opened to the youngest of his siblings—Alayna.
The shiest of them all, she entered hesitantly. There’d been a time as a child when she was as talkative as the rest of them, but then she’d changed. Withdrawn. Telling her to leave would be like plucking wings off a butterfly.
But he’d hoped to keep his family out of this situation a little while longer until he could explain the amnesia to them. Alayna had a quiet way of slipping past people’s defenses. While the family probably hadn’t noticed she’d left, the staff here likely had been charmed and unaware she was supposed to be anywhere but here.
Hell, even he couldn’t find it in himself to be mad at her for caring so much.
Alayna rushed to Shana’s bedside and hugged her gently. “Thank goodness you’re awake. I’ve been so worried.”
Shana stared over his sister’s shoulder with wide, surprised eyes. “Uh, hello, thank you.”
Stepping back, Alayna sank into a chair. “I’m so relieved you’re awake, and healthy, and the baby’s okay. It’s a miracle.”
How the hell had she heard the news? And damn, he needed to say something quickly before—
Shana’s surprised look shifted to outright stunned.
“The baby?”
Two
A baby?
Panic and confusion rocked Shana, the young woman’s voice still ringing in her ears. She had a child as well as a husband? Her hand slid to her stomach, still flat. Surely there must be some kind of mistake.
Unless they meant a child that had already been born.
“We have a child?” Shana asked, her mind spinning. “How old? You say the child’s okay. Did something happen when I had the aneurysm? Was I driving a car or holding—?”
“Nothing like that.” He looked sideways at Alayna, who appeared even more confused than Shana felt.
Slack-jawed, the young woman—late teens, perhaps?—glanced back and forth between them. “I don’t understand—”
Chuck placed a silencing hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Shana, I’d hoped to share this more carefully, but here goes. You’re eight weeks pregnant.”
Air whooshed from her lungs. Her ears rang. She could barely wrap her brain around this latest shock. “It’s... I...um, I don’t know what to say.”
The young woman tugged on her overlong sweater nervously, tears welling in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to... Well, I’m just so sorry.”
Chuck slung an arm around her shoulders and gave her a comforting squeeze even though his eyes broadcast frustration. “Meet my sister.” He turned to the younger woman. “Alayna, Shana’s suffering from temporary amnesia and has forgotten about the past five years. You couldn’t have known. Although I’m curious as hell how you heard about the pregnancy.”
Alayna chewed her already short fingernails. “I thought... Oh my. I’m sorry. I was walking by the nurses’ station and overheard them talking about things for shift change... I’m really sorry.”
Chuck pulled a tight smile. “It’s going to be okay, kiddo. Shana just has some gaps in her memory. It’ll all sort out.”
Shana wished she could be as confident about that. She’d thought about being a mom someday, but this was too much too fast. Not that it seemed she had any choice in the matter. Her life was on warp speed.
Her father had wrecked her mother’s life. Shana had always known when it was her time to be a parent, the decision would have to be made slowly and carefully. If she and Chuck had been trying for a child, then their marriage must have been solid.
So why didn’t she feel like the love-at-first-sight lightning bolt had hit her? Lust maybe, but not love.
“Shana, I’m really sorry to have confused you or made things more difficult.” Fidgeting, Alayna ducked out from under her brother’s arm and stood. “I’ll just leave, and we can talk another time when things are less, well, confusing. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
Or rather, she hoped it would be. Shana exhaled hard, unsure how she felt about carrying a child she couldn’t recall conceiving versus there being a child already in the picture, a child she also wouldn’t have remembered giving birth to.
Alayna held up a hand. “I really do apologize.” She backed away. “I love you to pieces, Shana.”
Standing, Chuck cupped Alayna’s shoulder. “If you could get coffee for me I would appreciate it.” He pulled a twenty out of his wallet. “Get something for yourself, too. Thanks, kiddo.”
Once the door closed, Shana pushed herself up to sit straighter in the bed, unsure when she’d sunk into a slouch.
Chuck rubbed the back of his neck, frustration in his eyes. “I apologize for not managing the news better.”
“How could you have predicted any of this? No one could.” An understatement.
“You’re being too understanding.” He sank back in the chair by her bed.
“Well, I do have some questions.” Even thinking about the possibilities sent a fresh wave of panic through her, but not knowing was worse. “The child is yours, right?”
“Absolutely yes,” he said without hesitation. “The baby is mine. And no, we don’t have any other children.”
She hadn’t even considered that. But what else didn’t she know? Five years was a long time to make significant memories. Life-changing memories.
“You said we’d struggled with fertility.” She chewed her fingernail. “There’s just so much to learn about what’s happened over the past five years.”
And her brain was on overload, weighing every nugget of information before she trusted the latest revelation. Even well-meaning people had private agendas. And she also knew how easily a person could be misled by someone smooth at lying. Her father had taught her that lesson too painfully.
“Then we won’t press any further today.” He covered her hand with his and held tight. “I would really feel more comfortable if we called the doctors back in and let them check you over or give us more guidance.”
His touch felt...familiar somehow. Strong, yet careful all at once.
She couldn’t deny the wisdom in his words. “I just want to know one more thing for now.”
He grinned—the first time she’d seen him smile, or remembered seeing him smile—and it shone from his eyes, setting her senses buzzing.
He was sheer magnetism personified.
“Like I have the option of arguing with you?”
She couldn’t help but smile back. “Apparently you do know me well. Better than I know myself at the moment, which brings me to my question. What’s my last name? Or rather, what’s your last name? Did I keep my maiden name?”
His smile faded and he clasped her hand, the left one without a wedding ring. “You took my surname. It’s Mikkelson.”
Surprise spread through her. “As in the oil family Mikkelsons?”
“Yes, the same.” He nodded.
There was a wariness to him she couldn’t quite understand. Maybe people befriended him for his money. That would have never crossed her mind. Still, a lot of things made more sense now.
“No wonder I have this private room. Your parents own Mikkelson Oil.” She pressed her fingers to the headache starting again.
“It’s not Mikkelson Oil anymore. My father passed away nearly three years ago. My mother recently married the head of Steele Oil—widower Jack Steele—merging the two companies into Alaska Oil Barons, Inc.”
For what should be big news, he didn’t look all that happy about it.
“I’m sorry about your father.” She squeezed his hand and a shiver of electricity passed between them, like static popping through her.
His thumb stroked along the inside of her wrist over her speeding pulse. “Thank you. He was fond of you.”
“I wish I remembered that.”
“Me too.”
Awareness increased until the static between them was like a meteor shower. Beautiful...but something she feared could leave her scorched.
The door opened again with a call at the same time. “Dr. Gibson here.”
Chuck cleared his throat and stepped back. “He’s your ob-gyn.”
Dr. Gibson entered, wheeling a machine of some sort, with a nurse trailing behind. “I hear the two of you were going to have a discussion.”
Chuck nodded. “I’ve told Shana I’m her husband, and she knows about the baby.”
“How are you feeling?” Dr. Gibson stopped beside her bed.
“Overwhelmed. A little woozy. But mostly just confused.”
“That’s understandable,” he said with a kind bedside manner that must have been reassuring during all the fertility treatments Chuck had mentioned. “The nurse is going to check your blood pressure, and then we’re going to do an ultrasound. We’ll go as slowly as you need us to.”
Shana’s heart skipped a beat. So much was happening so quickly she wanted to tell them all to slow down, to stop altogether. But life didn’t work that way. She had to face the present. “No need to wait. I want to know as much as I can.”
“Ask anything you like, and I’ll do my best to answer,” Dr. Gibson said. “Are you all right with Mr. Mikkelson staying in the room? I understand these are rather unusual circumstances.”
Shana looked at Chuck. He was her husband. Everyone here knew that. And this was his child. As strange as it felt to have him in the room, he had a right to be here. The past day must have been hellish for him with her health scare. “Of course he can stay.”
“Thank you.” Chuck took her hand in his, his touch strong and confident.
Those green eyes of his held her, reminding her again of a changeable rolling sea. She could so easily dive in, immerse herself in him.
Lose herself.
And that made him dangerous.
Her first priority right now was deciphering who she was.
She couldn’t afford to let down her guard around the one man she should be able to trust with her life.
* * *
The next day, as Chuck checked Shana out of the hospital, he was still reeling from seeing that ultrasound.
Snow gathered on the ground. The blacktop parking lot looked more like a field than a place for cars. But he, too, felt like he’d fallen away from the present moment.
He recalled instead a different moment. The first time Shana had announced a pregnancy. The promise and hope of that moment. So different than this one.
He had fantasized about a future with Shana and a kid on the way, but in no realm had his fantasies played out this way. They’d watched ultrasounds together in the past, but they had given up on ever seeing one again.
And now, Chuck was preparing to take his pregnant wife home.
A wife who didn’t remember him.
He stepped out of the hospital and into the crisp morning air, an orderly wheeling Shana beside Chuck. His personal staffer had brought around his Escalade, the exhaust puffing clouds into the cold. The snow was pristine after yesterday’s storm, piles on the side of the roads from snowplows clearing the way.
As the driver opened the passenger door and left the engine running for Chuck to drive, Chuck held out his hand for his wife. His pregnant wife.
The ultrasound had made this so real.
There was a baby in the mix of this insane time in his life—the merger, the long hours, the amnesia, and a second chance with Shana he didn’t want to waste.
Growing up, he’d dreamed of having a perfect marriage like his parents. That wasn’t going to happen. He and Shana had too much water under the bridge, and for too long.
But Chuck had never failed at anything in his life. He didn’t want his marriage to be the first. Which meant he needed to use this time together to win over his wife.
* * *
Shana spent much of the drive back home in a state of shock, mixed with wary hope that surely her memory would be jogged by something. Soon.
So far, no luck.
The streets leading away from the hospital had markers of familiarity, but her mind whirred. Her memory of the main highway was five years out of date.
Five years.
Such a significant amount of time. She tried to conjure up a holiday, an image of her wedding day. Tried to imagine where she might have tied the knot. Wondered who her best friend was.
But no memories pounded against her mind’s eye. Just an ultrasound image and a cyclone of questions.
Questions that hammered harder at her chest as they pulled up to their house. Her home. The home she shared with Chuck, heir to an oil empire and sexy as hell in a Stetson. Chuck had told her that her mother would be going straight from the airport to their house. There had been some delays with her flight.
And as they turned the corner, Shana took in the mammoth structure, eyes moving past the snow-covered arbor to the chimney puffing gray smoke rings against the iced sky. So many rooms, so many memories that refused to materialize. Had they picked this place out together? Had she determined which trees should be placed where?
The automatic security gate slid back to reveal a clear view of the massive two-story house with a French country charm. More of that wary hope filled her as she studied the home and grounds. Would she recognize any of it? Whitewashed brick and porches. So many porches on every floor, enclosed and open, as if there was enough space to accommodate any season.
Beautiful, but unfamiliar.
She’d grown up with security, in a cute ranch-style home made of brick. Her mother had worked at the local air force base as a nurse. Her father had always claimed he was short of money. She’d heard her parents fight about it. Sometimes the words were distinguishable, most of the time not. But in the words that had trickled through, her mom had accused him of having a drinking problem. Another time she’d questioned him about a gambling addiction, even other women. The possibility of him supporting a whole second family had never come up, so far as Shana had known.
Who would suspect that?
God, trust was tough, but right now she wasn’t in a position to walk away. She didn’t even know who she was.
And if this pregnancy lasted, she wanted to give her child a chance at a loving home and family.
She shook off the past. She hated dwelling on such negative notions and letting her father have real estate in her brain. He didn’t deserve so much as a passing thought. Instead, she focused on the house where, according to Chuck, she’d lived for nearly four years.
The property seemed to be about five acres. In addition to the mansion, the grounds had a small barn and a five-car garage. High-end cars lined the driveway, snow billowing down on them. The counselor had encouraged her to have a controlled meeting of the family as early as Shana could agree to it. Shana had replied that the tension of wondering was worse.
So Chuck’s family was here, waiting for her arrival.
If only the curtain would rise, revealing her past. This was a magnificent place set against the mountain range. Would she feel more at peace when she saw the decor? Would she recognize her influence in the home?
Modern French provincial was her style. A promising omen.
“Did we decorate together, or did you leave it all to me?”
“We chose artwork together, but the rest is all you.” His face was angular in the glow from the dash. With the sun setting early, the headlights cast stripes ahead as he neared their home, passing a frozen pond.
“Were you okay with that?”
“Completely. We blended both of our tastes where it mattered to me. For example, I had some antlers from a hunting trip with my father that I wanted to keep, and you honored that wish in a thoughtful way.”
“How so?”
He parked under a portico, the vehicle still running, heat pumping. “You incorporated them into a massive chandelier with candles over our dining room table. It’s a great tribute to my dad.”
The nostalgia in his voice drew her closer.
“I wish I could remember having met him.” Or remember any of the past five years with Chuck. She swallowed, frustrated at the void. The not knowing.
Chuck stroked her hair back from her face. “Losing him was hard on all of us. For you, too.”
Her hand gravitated to his jaw and she let herself test the bristly feel of him under the guise of offering comfort. “You’re named for him.”
“You remember?” He looked up sharply, those attentive eyes causing her cheeks to heat.
“Not the way you mean. It’s more of a guess that feels right.” She couldn’t miss the wariness in his eyes, something that hinted he would rather she didn’t remember. A shiver rippled through her and she pulled her hand away. “Although I don’t have a clue who each of those cars belongs to.”
He pointed to the first car. “That’s my mother’s. She wanted to see you in the hospital, but I didn’t want you overwhelmed with new faces.”
Was that true? Or did his family not like her and that’s why only his younger sister had been around?
Either way, he’d been right to keep them away from the hospital, because with Shana’s memory of the past five years still a no-show, she was starting to panic over going into her house emotionally blind to re-meet so many people who already knew her.
Maybe having them come over hadn’t been such a great idea after all.
But now it was too late to go back.
As the thick door swung open and she stepped through, a sheer mass of humanity greeted her. When Chuck said he had a big family, she hadn’t fully comprehended what that meant.
Her eyes flicked as she tried to take in all these new—and yet not new—people and this house at the same time. A tall blonde woman with a baby on her hip leaned against the iron railing of the staircase, her smile warm and welcoming. A cluster of people stood on the white-and-brown-dappled fur rug, crowding around the plush chairs.
Chuck pronounced their names as they moved, but Shana’s head throbbed at all the information. She tried to imagine picking out the furniture with the man who held her steady as she pushed through a barrage of people.
People who seemed genuinely concerned for her. People who felt like strangers.
They moved further into the house, her hand reaching out to touch the wall as they turned from the entry hall into the dining room. Her eyes scanned the long wooden table flanked by eight large chairs. It held a table setting for two.
A snapshot of daily life.
Bouquets of fresh flowers and tall candles ran down the table’s spine. A familiar touch—a tradition from her mother. She’d brought that here, to her life as a married woman.