Father Found. Muriel Jensen
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as Bram worked on the plumbing. The iffy nature of the shower had been the cabin’s only inconvenience. The water trickled weakly rather than sprayed, and she’d grumbled about it that morning, telling him she longed for a good solid spray against her aching back.
She was touched that he seemed anxious to grant her the wish.
She put more chocolate chips in the batter and, with one hand rubbing her back, folded them in with the other.
Gusty was placing the first pan in the oven when a male voice behind her said in pleased wonderment, “I thought I smelled cookies!”
She turned to find Bram behind her, a wrench in one grubby hand and a rag in the other.
“I’d give you a bite,” she said apologetically, “but they’re too hot.”
“How about a bite of batter?” he asked hopefully.
She shook her head. “Raw eggs can carry salmonella.” She took a few chocolate chips in the tips of her fingers. “Will this do?”
He shrugged. “Better than nothing.” He held his dirty hands away from her as she popped the chips into his mouth.
“How’s the shower coming?” she asked, offering him a sip of her coffee.
“Mmm. Thanks. I’m just about finished. It was mostly lime buildup. I soaked the head in cleaner and I’m about to reconnect it. If it works, you can have a shower after dinner.”
“That sounds wonderful. And the cookies will be cooled by the time you’re finished. If it won’t spoil your dinner.”
“Cookies never spoil anything,” he said over his shoulder as he returned to his task.
He had second helpings of everything at dinner, and while she enjoyed her meal also, she knew she’d probably pay for the pleasure with heartburn during the night.
“It seems you married me for my cooking,” she observed, sipping at a glass of milk while he carried their plates to the sink.
“That,” he said, “and because you were on my mind constantly.”
She wondered about that. “Is that the same as love?”
He scraped the dishes and put them in the dishwasher. Coming back to the table for bowls of leftover dressing and potatoes, he gave her a quizzical look. “I thought so. I’m usually very focused and on track. Until I met you and you consumed my life.”
She had to ask. “Has that been good or bad for you?”
He grinned and headed for the counter with his burden. “Mostly good,” he said.
She laughed lightly. “Mostly?”
She reached for the cauliflower and the rolls, intending to help clear, but his hand came down on her shoulder to hold her in her chair.
“I said I’d clean up.” He took the vegetable and rolls from her, then started to cover everything and put it in the refrigerator.
“Mostly,” he went on as he worked, “because I used to be focused and on track,” he repeated wryly, “and since you came along, I’ve had to adjust to having my attention split between my work and my life.”
“And your life didn’t come first when you were a CIA agent?”
Everything put away, he took the ice cream from the freezer and brought down two bowls. “No.” He answered matter-of-factly, as though he’d accepted it and didn’t particularly regret that now. “Everything about you is secondary to the work. But I was young then and it didn’t matter. The men I worked with became my family.”
“You told me you’d already quit the CIA when we met.”
“Yes.”
He scooped ice cream into the bowls, put the carton away, then brought them to the table, going back for the plate of cookies she’d prepared.
“Then you didn’t quit on my account and don’t resent me for that?”
He raised an eyebrow as he took his chair again. “No. Why?”
“Because,” she said for the second time, “something isn’t right between us.” When he rolled his eyes impatiently, she raised a silencing hand. “I know, I know. You told me it was because I can’t remember, that we’re usually very physical and this celibacy is unnatural. But I think it’s something else.”
SHE PROPPED HER ELBOW on the table and studied him with the disturbing concentration of the innocent. He tried to look back at her with the same innocence.
But he had a feeling she wasn’t buying it.
“How can you be so sure,” he asked, pushing the cookie plate her way, “when you can’t even remember us?”
“It’s something I feel now,” she said, choosing a cookie and taking a dainty bite out of it. She chewed and swallowed. “I feel as though it’s me. There’s something about me that you’re upset with, or displeased with. Did I do something awful?” She studied the cookie in her hand then looked up at him again, her expression reluctant. “Did I have an affair, or something?”
Even a hesitation before he answered the question would have given him a break, but he couldn’t do that to her. “No, you haven’t had an affair. You’ve been a wonderful wife.”
She looked somewhat relieved, though not entirely convinced that there wasn’t a problem between them. “You’re not just saying that because I can’t remember anything?”
“No,” he said firmly. “I’m saying it because it’s true. We have a good, strong marriage. We’re in love.”
“Okay,” she said finally, then finished off her cookie. “You told me you have one sister.”
He nodded. “Lisa. She’s in Kansas where her husband’s a doctor.”
“Is she older than you?”
“Younger by a year and a half. I have three little nieces.”
She spooned ice cream into her mouth. He took advantage of her distraction to eat some of his own before her interrogation began again. She seemed to be marshaling every detail from their conversations over the past three weeks in a new attempt to force the data to help her remember what had gone before. He managed two bites before she continued.
“And your parents are gone?”
“My father died in jail,” he replied briefly, trying not to sound bitter or flip. But it was difficult. He was bitter about them, and he always sounded flip when he tried to pretend that it didn’t matter. “My mother was an alcoholic and finally died of liver failure about ten years ago.”
She looked stunned. He hated that. Then her eyes filled and he was torn between being touched by her sympathy, when she didn’t even remember him, and annoyed with himself for upsetting her.
He reached across the table to catch her hand. “It’s all right. Lisa and I adjusted to it long ago. She got married at sixteen, but to a great guy and they managed to make it work. He got a scholarship, she got a job and they both worked day and night until he finally graduated from medical school. He joined a clinic, and then they had their family.”
“And you joined the army after she got married?”
“I was a cop first, then joined the army.”
She smiled at that, then frowned again, squeezing his hand. “I’m sorry about your parents. I can’t remember mine, but I don’t think I went through anything that awful. You said that I told you they’ve been gone for some time.”
He ran his thumb over her knuckles. “That’s right. You liked your father, but didn’t get along well with your mother. She was sort of a prima donna, I gather.”
She frowned over that and drew her hand back. It occurred to him for the first