you don’t want to. But I never asked you to quit work completely. All I wanted was for you to cut back on your time away from the ranch and let your wranglers handle things on the road, while you managed it all from here. Which you and I both know you could do.” She shook her head. “But that doesn’t make me as angry as your deception.”
“Bria, I’ve never deceived you,” he insisted, feeling as if his world was starting to crumble around him. “The only thing I’m guilty of is not telling you that I regained my memory.”
“That’s splitting hairs and you know it, Sam. Your failure to tell me that you remembered what’s happened during the past six months is just the same as lying to me.” She walked over to where her purse hung on the hook beside the door. Taking it down, she rummaged inside for a moment, then withdrew the keys to her SUV. “I’m going back to Dallas, Sam. The divorce papers are in the upstairs guest bedroom with some of my things. Please sign them and drop them in the mail at your earliest convenience.”
“What about your clothes?” he asked as a feeling of déjà vu swept through him. He was watching her walk away from him again and there was nothing he could do or say to stop her. The only difference between this time and three months ago was that there wouldn’t be a second chance.
“If you feel like it, you can ship them to me or throw them away.” She shook her head as she opened the door. “It really doesn’t matter anymore.”
“You’re my wife. We need to talk about this.”
She stopped. “You’ve never really talked with me, Sam. Why would you start now?”
“What that’s supposed to mean?” he asked, frowning.
“We’ve been together for five years and married for three,” she said, sounding resigned. “And in all that time, you’ve never told me about your childhood, your parents or why you ended up in the care of Hank Calvert at the Last Chance Ranch.” She smiled sadly. “I loved you so much, there wasn’t anything you could tell me that I wouldn’t have understood. But you obviously didn’t trust me or my feelings for you enough to give me that opportunity.” She bit her lower lip a moment to keep it from trembling. “You wouldn’t even talk to me about the loss of our baby. So why would you talk to me about the breakup of our marriage?”
Before he could think of something—anything—to say to get Bria to stay and work things out between them, she opened the back door and walked out of the house and out of his life. And this time he knew it was forever.
* * *
When his brother arrived two hours later, Sam sat at the kitchen table, staring into the cup of coffee Bria had poured for his breakfast. It was as cold as the feeling that had filled his soul when he watched her leave a second time.
How could everything have taken such a bad turn in such a short amount of time? he wondered. And how could a man hurt so much inside without dying?
“I didn’t see Bria’s truck parked outside,” Nate said as he walked into the house. “Has she already left for her day of shopping or whatever it is women do when they head for town?”
Sam grunted. “Your guess is as good as mine. I don’t know what she’s doing right now.”
“I can see you’re in a good mood,” Nate said sarcastically. “What’s got your shorts in a wad this morning?”
Sam narrowed his eyes on his younger brother. “How much trouble was it to get Bria to stay with me until my memory returned?”
To Nate’s credit he didn’t act as if he didn’t understand what Sam was talking about. Instead, he pulled out a chair and sat down across the table from him.
“It really wasn’t all that hard.” His brother shook his head. “She wanted to do whatever she could to help you recover from the accident.”
“We would have both been better off if she hadn’t bothered and just gone on back to her new life in Dallas.” He gave his brother a pointed look. “It would have been easier on all concerned.”
“How the hell do you figure that?” Nate asked, frowning. “You couldn’t remember that the two of you were having trouble and you wouldn’t have believed me or any of the guys if we had told