Take Me Away (Southern Bride 6)

Once again, I found myself looking up and down his body. A warm, tingling sensation hit me in the pit of my stomach and I nearly gasped. I hadn’t felt that in a very long time. Truth be told, I didn’t remember when I had felt it last. I knew I had been involved with someone in the past. There was no way I had the dreams I had and felt the longing I did if there hadn’t been someone in my life. I had asked my mother once about my previous relationships, and I saw the pain in her eyes. She told me there had been someone, but that things hadn’t worked out. Her answer felt like a stretch from the truth, yet at the same time, something deep inside me warned not to ask anything else. So, I hadn’t. They either didn’t like the guy I dated before my accident, or he had left me utterly brokenhearted. Or, maybe he was the reason for my memory loss. But that was caused from the accident, so that didn’t make sense.

A movement out of the corner of my eye brought me back to my present situation as the mystery man started to walk once more. He stopped and slowly started to turn around. I quickly dashed behind one of the carts that sold fresh vegetables. The owner of the cart shot me a look, and I simply smiled and said, “Cache.” Lucky for me, he didn’t ask who I was hiding from.

When I peeked through a small slat in the cart, I saw the man still looking. When I got a clear and up-close view of his face, I gasped and jumped back, landing on my ass.

No one bothered to help. After nearly five years of living on this street, most people knew me as the spinster American who had turned down every young gentleman’s invitation to go out because I had given my heart to someone else—someone whom I knew nothing about. They hadn’t known at first that I was fluent in French, so I was privy to all their ponderings about why I was alone and not interested in finding a husband.

I shook my head as I tried to clear the image of the mystery man from my mind. I couldn’t, though. I had seen him before, somewhere in the recesses of my mind, and I knew our paths had crossed. I was positive I had seen this man before. I had known him. Something inside of me screamed that I had known him personally.

When I looked again, he was gone. I quickly stood and rushed over to the flower cart. “Excusez-moi, où, est allè le monsieur?”

The girl behind the cart shrugged and told me that she had no idea where the gentleman had gone.

“Shit!” I whispered as I started walking in the same direction as the man. It was no use, though. He was gone. Suddenly, that same aching feeling of loneliness and heartache I had always experienced in Texas rushed back to me. It nearly caught me off balance as I rubbed my hand over my heart.

“Who are you?” I whispered as I stared out at the crowd. “Who are you?”

Every day for a year after that encounter I looked for him, but I never did see him again. My mystery man. The only man who had made me feel something for the first time in years. The man I was finally able to put a face to in my nightly dreams.Texas — Three Years LaterAs I stepped out of the airport, I breathed in the hot, wet air. “Texas.”

I’d spent the past eight years in France, throwing myself into my passion and into art, advancing far in my career. When I managed to get a curator position at the Louvre in the Department of Paintings, I knew I had reached the tipping point. I wasn’t happy. I missed my family, my friends, and a piece of me always felt empty and unfulfilled, no matter what position was listed on my resume. I was tired of feeling that emptiness, and I knew the only way to fill that void was to go back to Texas. I had ignored it long enough. It was time to move on. Time to beg my parents to finally tell me the truth.

My drive, my passion for art…I finally accepted the fact that I wasn’t advancing the career I was so hell bent on giving a hundred-and-ten percent to; I was running from a past I was afraid to remember.

With a smile on my face, I quickly looked up and down for my friend Saryn Carter. She had moved back to Boerne a few years ago with her little girl, Liliana. We had lost touch after high school but had recently reconnected when she moved back to Boerne after going through a divorce from her first husband. It was nice to have somewhat of a lifeline besides my folks. When Saryn had reached out, I had been so surprised to hear from her. It had taken Herculean strength not to ask her questions about my past, but, like my parents, she had somehow gotten the memo that my past was off limits. At least, a particular part of my past was, one that no one wanted to bring up.