His Marriage to Remember - By Kathie DeNosky Page 0,18
he had. No, there was something else going on with her and he intended to find out what it was.
He stood up and, putting on a chambray shirt, began fastening the snaps as he walked out of the bedroom toward the stairs. But as he started down the steps, he paused to stare at the blank space where several pictures had always been. What had happened to them?
When he and Bria got married, the first thing she had done was designate it as the wall where all family photos were to be hung. He had been so tired the night before, he hadn’t noticed them being gone, but he sure as hell noticed it now. Their wedding photo, along with pictures of his brothers and Bria’s family, were conspicuously absent. What else had changed in the past several months? he wondered as he continued to the kitchen.
“Bria, what did you do with all the pictures on the wall by the stairs?”
“I took them down,” she said without further explanation. Her back was to him, but he could tell by the set of her slender shoulders that she still wasn’t happy with him.
Pulling out the chair at the head of the table, he sat down in front of the plate of food she had brought back to the kitchen. “When did you take them down?”
“It’s been a while.”
Sam frowned. Trying to get answers out of her was like trying to pull teeth. “Was there a reason?”
“I thought they would look better somewhere else.” She poured him a fresh cup of coffee and brought it over to the table. “While you eat breakfast I’m going upstairs to make the bed. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
As he watched her leave the room, he decided not to discuss what little bit of memory he had recovered about the baby. Bria wasn’t in the best frame of mind and he didn’t want to upset her further. Besides, if his memory was starting to return, maybe he would remember more details about what happened and have a better idea of how to approach the subject when they did talk.
He picked up his fork and started to take a bite of the scrambled eggs, but thinking about her accusations upstairs caused him to frown. Why didn’t she think he needed her for more than making love?
His appetite suddenly deserting him, he placed the fork back on the plate and picked up his coffee mug. How did she want him to be dependent on her? Why would any woman want a man like that?
Sam shook his head. He wasn’t sure, but hell would freeze over before he became a sorry excuse for a man like his biological father, Joe Rafferty, had been.
Staring over the rim of his cup, Sam rarely thought about his life before he went to live on the Last Chance Ranch. He wasn’t proud of where he came from or what he had done to survive after his mother died, and as Hank always said, the past was history and couldn’t be changed, so it was best not to waste time mulling it over. But occasionally, when he did allow himself to think about his life before entering the foster care system, Sam couldn’t help wondering how he and Nate would have turned out if the authorities hadn’t stepped in after their irresponsible father abandoned them.
Of course, when their mother was alive, their lives hadn’t been all that bad. They had been dirt poor, but Susan Rafferty had never let her sons know it. She had seen to it that they had everything they needed. They hadn’t realized it at the time, but she had paid a high price for that. Working sometimes twelve hours a day, seven day a week, just to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads, she had worked herself into an early grave while their father sat around making excuses why he had to quit his latest job and why he couldn’t find another one.
“Sam, did you hear me?” Bria asked, bringing him out of his introspection and back to the present.
“Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.” Lost in thought, he hadn’t realized she had come back downstairs.
“I asked if you’d like to go for a walk down by the creek after you finish breakfast.” She smiled. “I thought you might like to do some fishing while I read.”
“That sounds pretty good,” he said, nodding. “Anything is better than just sitting around.” He was