Chapter 3

He had slept a little after lunch and now he was sitting in the library, trying in vain to read a book. Somehow he couldn't concentrate on anything and he heard his father talk with a woman in the hallway. They were talking loud enough for him to overhear every word.

"Hola Victoria, it's nice of you to visit Diego when you're so busy at the tavern." His father said.

"Of course, I need to look for Diego," the woman replied. "He's always there for me too, Don Alejandro. How is he? I heard that he has lost his memory?"

"Yes, he doesn't remember anything about his past. Today he asked me about his mother."

"It must be scary, not being able to remember one's past."

"Yes, it's scary, but not only for Diego, Victoria."

"What do you mean by that, Don Alejandro? "

"I always thought that I knew my son, but somehow he's a stranger now. And I am starting to think that I never really knew him. And that I never saw his true self after he returned from Spain."

"That sounds really scary, Don Alejandro. But how can he be different? He's still Diego even if he has lost his memory."

"I can't explain, Victoria. You'll see for yourself when you meet him. He's in the library if you want to see him. I have to go to the stables now to look for the new foal. Do you want me to introduce you to Diego first?"

The woman laughed a little. "Why would you introduce me? I've known Diego all my life. That's about the silliest thing I have heard. Don't let me keep you, Don Alejandro. I know my way around."

He heard the woman's light steps come closer and he rose from his seat to greet her. He didn't know who to expect, but her sight had him speechless. His heart was beating fast when he saw the stunning woman enter the library.

"Excuse me my staring, Senorita. You must be Victoria. I heard you talk with my father in the hallway. You are the most very beautiful woman, I have ever seen," he took her hand and kissed it. "Are we engaged?"

Victoria only stared at him. "No, we aren't," she stuttered.

"I wish we were. Even if I don't remember you, I can't believe any man wouldn't want to marry you at first sight."

Victoria gaped at him. "I don't know what to say, Diego. You and I are just friends. And besides that, there is another man in my life."

"That's too bad. It that the reason we aren't married?" Victoria looked at him scared, but he wasn't finished yet. "Then why aren't you married yet? You say there is another man, but why didn't he marry you? Who is he? Did you only meet him recently?" Victoria couldn't stand his questions anymore.

"Please excuse me, Diego, but I have to go now."

He realized that he had shocked her somehow. "I'm sorry, Senorita, I didn't want to upset you." He looked at her and deep inside he knew that he loved her with all his heart.

"I think I didn't start this conversation very well. Will you please forgive me?" He took her hand and placed another kiss on it. For a moment they looked straight into each others eyes, before Victoria turned her eyes away. She wanted to leave, but he didn't let go of her hand. "You didn't answer my question, Senorita. Will you forgive me?"

"I will, if you let me go now." Victoria's voice trembled and he could see that she was very nervous.

"No, you can't go yet," he stopped her. He was still holding her hand and he kissed it once more. Even if his mind had forgotten her, his body hadn't. He knew the smell of her skin, the taste of her lips. Without releasing her hand, he drew her into his arms and kissed her. She put her hands on his chest, trying to push him away. But then her initial resistance to his unexpected kiss melted away as soon as her body remembered too and her arms found their way around his neck. "You!" she exclaimed, looking him into the eyes. He couldn't stop kissing her, now that she responded to his kiss. "I could never forget my love for you, Victoria," he whispered.

He remembered the feeling of having her in his arms, the warmth of her soft body under his hands. And he remembered kissing her before. He knew without thinking how to hold her and how she loved to be touched.

"We should get married soon," he said softly, as she started to moan under his kisses. "I don't know why we haven't yet, but we will redeem that as soon as possible."

Her arms around his neck felt too good, just where they belonged. But his suit was somehow more confining than expected. He needed her in his arms and he wasn't willing to let go. There was this overwhelming love for her that made him kiss her breathless.

When he kissed her, pictures and memories started to appear in his mind. He was wearing black and she was lying in his arms while her white blouse turned red from her blood. He had wanted to help her, but she had urged him to leave. He had never felt that scared and helpless before.

Somehow other memories came up on his mind where he was holding her in his arms or kissing her hand, but all were overlaid with the feeling of danger that made him leave much earlier than he wished. He saw her putting her his ring on her finger, smiling happily at him. More and more memories came back to him, all centered around the woman in his arms. How she smiled at him when he was wearing black or was angry with him while he wasn't.

The pictures were flooding him and his head started to spin again. Releasing her, he tried to cope with it. He swayed a little and put one hand to his forehand. Victoria looked at him concerned.

"Diego, are you alright?"

"I need a minute, Victoria. I'm starting to remember. There are so many memories. So much information." He sat down on the couch, pulling her with him, still holding her hand. For some minutes he leaned back, closing his eyes, trying to make sense of his memories. He was Diego, but he was Zorro too. It was as if his life was given back to him. Relieved he breathed in heavily.

"Are you feeling better now? What do you remember?" Victoria asked when opened his eyes again.

"You! I remember you, Victoria! Who you are, who I am; my whole life centers around you!" He was now Diego again who looked at her with a happy smile and caressed her cheek tenderly. He had gotten back his name and his self.

Victoria noticed the change in him and looked at him questioningly. "Holding you in my arms made me remember the most important moments in my life. I will need some time to sort it all out, but I think I'll be whole again. The doctor said that strong emotions may trigger the memory and now I know what he meant. There's no one else I have so strong feelings for than for you."

"So you're Diego again?" Victoria asked him. "You were so different when you didn't remember me. Did you really mean that about loving me at first sight?"

"Yes, it was the same feeling I had on the day I met you after my return from Spain. You are the woman of my dreams." Victoria began to blush when Diego looked at her lovingly.

"What are you going to do now?"

"For a time I didn't have any memory of my past and it helped me to see everything from a different angle. I don't want to go back to this life as Diego and Zorro, always hiding myself. I think it was a mistake to have it going on for so long. What I said to you earlier was the truth, I have always loved you and I want us to get married without wasting any more time. Do you think you can love me even when I'm not wearing black?"

Victoria smiled at Diego. "You should have believed me when I told you that I'm in love with the man and not with the legend." She bent over to him, putting her hand on his cheek and kissed him.

"But how can we get married without making the alcalde suspicious?" Victoria inquired concerned.

"I'll tell him that my illness has convinced me to tell you of my love and you agreed, since you had a secret crush on me too and are tired of waiting for Zorro. And I can offer you much more than an outlaw."

"Do you think the alcalde will buy it? What if he doesn't?" Victoria wasn't convinced yet.

"Victoria, this time without memory made me realize what really matters in life. That's having you as my wife. And I don't want to live a life on hold anymore. If we wait for a change, we may never be together. We have to get married now and have a life together before it's too late. We need to risk it and no longer live in fear. Don't you want that too?"

"Yes, I do, but I'm afraid," Victoria confessed. "This is all going so fast for me. I never expected the day to turn out like this. I came here to visit a sick friend and now everything is different. You actually scared me when you greeted me as if you hadn't seen me before."

"I'm sorry, Victoria, I didn't want to scare you. I wasn't an act. I only said what was on my mind and what I felt. When I woke up yesterday, I didn't know anything about myself. Felipe tried to explain my life to me and I realized that it was a total mess. I wasn't aware of the restrictions I had put on myself to keep my secret identity and so blew my cover inadvertently. Not only with you, but also with my father. You should have seen him this morning when I played with one of his swords because I was frustrated." Diego chuckled at the memory. "I didn't even understand why he was gaping at my sword skills."

Turning serious again, Diego took hold of both of her hands and looked at her intensely. "Can you live with a short engagement, Victoria? Marry me on Saturday next week? I think a week is the shortest time between reading the banns and the wedding. How much time do you need for your wedding preparations?"

"Diego, I could never find Zorro, because you hid him too well under the mask of Diego, but I now I can see him in you. It is good you made up your mind and there is nothing I want more than to share my life with you. I won't need more than a week to dust off my wedding gown that I have ready ever since you asked me."

Diego's father interrupted their kissing when he entered the library. "Hrrmph!" Alejandro made himself heard. "Diego, Victoria! What's going on here?"

"Victoria has just helped me to regain my memory," Diego smiled, a little annoyed by the interruption. Diego kept an arm around Victoria's waist and looked at his father challenging. "She has also agreed to marry me in about a week, after I have spoken to the padre."

Diego had thought his father would be surprised again, but he didn't react as expected. His father only nodded as if it was the confirmation he had been waiting for. "So you have finally decided to marry your lady, Diego? Or should I rather say Zorro?"

"You're not surprised, Father?" Diego asked.

"Not after your little show with the sword this morning. It made me take a closer look at you and the differences were visible. You walked and moved differently from the Diego I saw the last years. There is only one man I know who moves with such grace and self confidence and that is Zorro. Seeing you here with Victoria is all I needed to know."

Z Z Z

"Hola, Don Diego," the alcalde greeted him when he entered the tavern. "Your father told me you were ill. Are you feeling better again?"

"Yes, I'm fine now." Diego smiled. "I hit my head somehow and lost my memory, but now it's back."

"I heard you and Senorita Escalante are engaged? Is that true?" de Soto inquired curiously.

Diego smiled broadly, "Yes, it's true alcalde. You can congratulate us. When I was ill and couldn't remember my past, I began to see some things differently. I have always loved Victoria, but I never dared to ask her. When I told her I loved her, she confessed that she loved me too and she agreed to become my wife."

"And what about Zorro?"

"Victoria may never love me as much as Zorro, but as long as she feels some love for me I can live with it." Diego was serious. "And an outlaw can never compete with a de la Vega," he added almost arrogantly.

De Soto looked at him surprised. "You have changed, Don Diego!" Diego was almost getting used to creating surprised reactions from others by whatever he did or said.

"Losing one's memory is almost like dying and makes a man think about his life. You should think about that too, De Soto. Have you given your life a thought recently?" Diego questioned him.

"Here you are in this pueblo that you despise, wasting your life, trying to catch an outlaw you will never get. Years have passed now, since you came here and nothing has changed. You are hated by the citizens and have no true friends, eating all you meals alone. Is that really the life you want to live? How you want to be remembered? It's not too late for you to change it, by either becoming a different alcalde or by returning home to Spain to your family."

De Soto looked impressed by Diego's speech and Diego could see that he had somehow hit the mark with the alcalde. "You have changed really profoundly, Don Diego. And you have given me something to think about. You may be right and it's time for a change not only for you."

Diego looked around in the tavern and saw Victoria coming towards him. "There you are, my dear," he smiled. He stretched out his hand to reach for her hand that she gave him happily. Holding her hand with a tight grip, Diego led her out the tavern. "Padre Benitez is waiting for us. He will read the bans tomorrow, but he wants to talk with us about the wedding next week."

"I can hardly await it," Victoria beamed at him.

Hand in hand they walked across the plaza to the church.

Z Z Z

There were some more delays to the wedding, not only that Victoria's brothers and some of Diego's relatives protested that they wouldn't be able to attend on such a short notice, the padre rose some objections too. It would put the marriage into a bad light, hinting a scandal, if they insisted on a fast wedding when there wasn't really a need. Grudgingly they had agreed to marry in a month, the earliest day all parties consented to.

It gave them time to prepare everything for the big day he had been waiting for so long. Diego's father insisted on arranging the wedding party and inviting all the guests he was expected to host as a member of the de la Vega family.

Giving Diego's suggestion a thought, it took the alcalde less than a month to make his decision about his own future. After arranging everything for his successor, de Soto left with a ship to Spain, not attending Diego's and Victoria's wedding.

Diego was wearing a black suit and he thought that Victoria had never looked so wonderful as that moment when her brother led her down the aisle in her wedding gown.

"I love you, Victoria," he whispered, before he kissed his wife the first time, "and nothing can take that away from me."

The End