weakness never had been his style. But the fact that Bria was witness to his most recent limitations made the whole situation doubly humiliating.
He was supposed to be strong and capable—the man who took care of her, not the other way around. Unless he missed his guess, she was having just as hard of a time seeing him this way as he was of being the husband with some major limitations and no recent memories.
From the time she had come into the ICU to see him the night of the accident, Bria had been aloof, and their conversations, what few they’d had, were awkward at best. Had the fact that he had been hurt caused her to think of him as being inept? Or had she been there to see the bull run him down and was still traumatized by witnessing the accident?
He tried to think, but like everything else that had happened recently, he couldn’t remember. “Bria, could you come here a minute?”
When she walked in from the kitchen, she looked absolutely beautiful. A few strands of auburn hair had escaped the confines of her ponytail and her cheeks were delightfully pink from the heat of cooking supper.
“Is everything all right?” she asked, a look of concern in her pretty green eyes.
“I’m fine.” He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “I was just wondering if you were at the rodeo. Did you see what happened?”
She nodded. “You were…distracted when the bull got loose. But I thought your brothers told you all about that while I was in town this afternoon.”
“They did.” Frowning, he shook his head. “I just can’t believe I was that careless. I’m normally real cautious around the bulls and especially that brindle. He’s as mean as a rattlesnake. Do you know what had my attention just before the accident happened?”
“They didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
He watched her take a deep breath before she looked down at her tightly clasped hands.
“I had just arrived and you were watching me.”
“That doesn’t sound like me. I never let myself get distracted while I’m working with livestock.” He ran his hand over the tension building at the back of his neck. “And normally when you come to one of the rodeos, you get there well before the events start, not when they’re almost over. Why were you running so late?”
“You know how bad traffic can be on I-35.” She glanced over her shoulder into the kitchen. “I really need to check on the spaghetti.”
“We’ll talk about it over supper,” he said, nodding.
When Bria disappeared into the kitchen, he was more confused than ever. Why had he been watching her instead of what he had been doing? And why did she seem so nervous about it? Did she somehow feel responsible for the accident? Was she feeling guilty?
That didn’t make any sense. It was his fault he hadn’t been paying attention, not hers.
When a dull pain suddenly reverberated through his head, Sam groaned and shut his eyes. A vision of Bria standing on the front porch with tears streaming down her face immediately flashed behind his closed eyes, then in a matter of seconds it disappeared along with the headache.
His eyes snapped open. Could that have actually happened during the past several months? A knot formed in the pit of his stomach. In all their years together, he could never remember seeing Bria look so unhappy, so filled with sadness. What could have possibly caused her to look as if her heart was breaking?
Over the past year or two, she had let it be known on more than one occasion that she would like him to be home with her more. But of all their arguments about the time he spent out on the road with the rodeo company, he could never remember her being that miserable. Had things between them escalated to that point? Or had something else happened to cause her such heartache and he just couldn’t remember?
Lost in his disturbing thoughts, it took a moment for Sam to realize Bria was standing beside his chair with her hand on his arm. “Sam, are you all right?”
“I…uh, yeah,” he said, not sure if the image had been a fragment of recovered memory or his imagination working overtime. Taking her by the hand, he pulled her down to sit on his lap. “I’m fine.”
“This isn’t a good idea, Sam.” She placed her hand on his chest as if she intended to get up, then stopped abruptly. “Something is wrong.