A Rancher To Remember

“Are you putting off plans for me?” Sawyer asked.

“Hmm?”

“You’re checking your phone,” he said. “If you have stuff to do, I don’t want to keep you here. I know my uncle is worried about me, but I can handle the girls for a while—”

“No, no,” she said quickly. “I’m fine. It’s nothing.”

He didn’t believe that. He might not remember Olivia, but he knew what tension looked like, and she had tension written all over her. It was brought out by baseball and phone calls, apparently.

“I’m not as helpless as I look,” he said, and he made a point of not touching the bandage on his head.

“I don’t think you’re helpless,” she said.

“Sure, you do.” He fixed her with a direct look. “And I might not have my memory, but I’m okay. I don’t want to be your obligation here.”

“Sawyer, you have a brain injury. You might have all the best of intentions, but you need a little looking after. Sorry to break it to you.”

A faint smile tickled at the corners of her lips, and he thought he saw some friendly teasing in that gaze. Maybe it wasn’t so terrible to be spending a few days with this woman. They’d been friends once, apparently, and he could tell what he must have seen in her before. She was likeable.

When she looked at him like that, he was reminded again of that fragment of memory—the woman in the black coat, how he had put his hand out to touch her. She turned...and he couldn’t remember more than that. Except this time, he recalled snow on the ground—mucky, wet, dirty snow on the edge of a sidewalk. Nothing else. It was frustrating having these little shards of memory that didn’t connect. He needed to find where they fit in.

And he had already tried doing that sitting inside.

“Okay, so even if I am recovering here, it doesn’t mean we have to sit in the house and stare at each other. You want to get out for a bit? I have a feeling Lloyd is going to be a while.”

“I have that same feeling,” she agreed. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well, my uncle doesn’t want me helping out on the ranch until my memory’s back. So maybe we could start out where I used to work—at the barn maybe.” He looked down at his rough, calloused hands. “You said I used to work a lot, right?”

“You did,” she agreed. “It might jog a few memories.”

Bella and Lizzie looked up at them, and Olivia glanced around the kitchen. “We should bring something for the girls. What do they snack on?”

“Um...” Yeah, and he’d just been saying he could take care of things on his own. “I’m not sure.”

Olivia opened a cupboard, looked through the contents and then moved on to the next.

“Yesterday they each had a sippy cup around this time of day. Lloyd got it for them,” he added.

Olivia went to the fridge and opened it. “Ta-da.” She pulled out two cups, both filled with milk. The toddlers beelined toward her, holding their hands out for the milk, and she gave them the cups. The girls started to drink. Bella spun in a circle as she slurped on the rubber mouthpiece, and Lizzie sat down to drink.

“Cereal?” Sawyer asked, pulling a box of Cheerios out of a bottom cupboard.

“Put some into a baggie,” Olivia said.

“I don’t know where to find those...”

The next few minutes were spent putting a toddler-friendly snack together and piling everything into a diaper bag that Sawyer did know the location of. It turned out that there weren’t baggies, but there were plastic containers, and soon enough they were heading out the side door, each of them carrying a child in their arms, and the diaper bag slung over Sawyer’s shoulder. He glanced back at Olivia, and shot her a smile. It felt good having her here with him—a little less lonely. Or was he just responding to being with a beautiful woman? Here’s hoping he wasn’t that shallow.

They headed down the gravel drive toward a winding road. It was downhill from there toward the barn—Sawyer had stared at it all morning, trying to tease some memories free. A young blue jay squawked at them from high in a tree.

“Birdie,” Bella said.

“Yeah, that’s right.” He smiled down at his daughter, then glanced over at Olivia. “So, tell me about you and me. What should I remember?”

“You’re older than me by about two years, so we didn’t run in the same circles,” she said. “But you liked to eat in the diner where I was working, and one night you were the only guy in there. And we started talking. Turned out, we both liked the same movies.”

“And rest is history?” he said wryly.

“I guess so. We got along. I mean, we didn’t have a lot in common. You were a ranch hand, and I was a recent high school grad, saving up to go to college for nursing. You were ready to spend the rest of your life here while I was pretty determined to get out of town. Your girlfriend had already graduated a year before, and after she worked for a year, she left for college. I think she was going to travel a bit first. Anyway, before she left, she dumped you. That was at the same time I was graduating. So when we met, you were a bit heartbroken.”

“Ouch...” he murmured, but he didn’t feel it. It just seemed like the appropriate thing to say. This was like listening to a story about other people. He couldn’t remember any of it.

“We just...clicked,” she said. “We cheered each other up.”

“So, what did we do together?” he asked.

“Oh, we went to movies, ate out, went to the local fair...that kind of thing. I was your date at some family event, but that was just because your great aunt had been overly attached to your ex-girlfriend, so you needed some distraction.” She laughed softly. “She wasn’t overly attached to me...”

“So I have a great aunt?” he asked.

“You did. She passed away, I think.”

Their boots crunched over the gravel, and Bella started to wriggle in his arms, so he set her down and let her walk. Olivia followed his lead and put Lizzie down, too.

“And you came back to see me...” He looked over at her, and some color tinted Olivia’s cheeks.

“I came back for my own reasons. Seeing you was...a bonus.”

“Ah.” Sawyer pushed his hands into his pockets. “You aren’t going to tell me, are you?”

“Tell you what?” Her gaze flickered toward him.

“What was really between us,” he said.

Olivia sighed. “I’m being honest. We were friends. All friendships have different balances between them, I suppose.”

“And ours?” he prodded.

“Like I said, your girlfriend left you for college,” she said. “And I was going to do the same thing. I had plans to get my education and I didn’t want a life here in Beaut. We both knew that a romantic relationship between us couldn’t go anywhere.”

“So there was some history between us...something more than just friendship,” he clarified.

“You ended up marrying my best friend,” she replied. “That’s the history that matters.”

“I agree, but you and I stayed in touch, it seems.”

“I came to the wedding,” Olivia replied. “I was the maid of honor. But after that, I...gave you two space.”

“So, we didn’t manage to hold on to that friendship after all,” he said. Why was she being evasive here? He could sense that there was something more she didn’t want to tell him.

“No,” she said.

He nodded. Apparently, he’d had his own life with his wife. It seemed strange that they’d just lose touch like that, and a little sad they’d lost a friendship that had mattered to them very much. What wasn’t she telling him? “So, why did you come back? Why did you show up here?”

“Because—” Olivia cast him an apologetic look. “I came back to see my brother. I have to patch things together with him one way or another, and he’s really bitter toward me. I’d hoped that you might be able to help me with that...but obviously, you have your own stuff to deal with right now.”

They both paused as the toddlers got distracted with a stick. She wasn’t here for him, exactly. That might explain the tension he sensed in her earlier.

“Maybe I can still help,” he offered.

“No.” Her voice firmed. “You need to get your memory back. Don’t worry about me. I’ll sort it out.”

“I guess I’m not much use right now,” he admitted.

“Not for this,” she said. “Just focus on getting better.”

The barn wasn’t far away now, and Sawyer’s gaze swept across the cow-dotted field, over the corral that held a couple of horses. Was this familiar? He dug about inside his head, looking for something, some sense of connection at the very least...but there was nothing.

“Horsey!” Lizzie said, pointing. She hopped up and down. “Daddy! Horsey!”

“She must like horses,” Olivia said. “Should we take them over to get a closer look?”

“Yeah, sure.”

But his mind wasn’t on his daughter’s delight. He was wondering why he felt some strange sense of connectedness with Olivia, and had felt nothing when Lloyd had shown him pictures of his dead wife. What did that say about him? Had Sawyer been a good husband? Had he harbored feelings for another woman? He didn’t like that thought. He might not remember anything, but he did have a sense of right and wrong.

Who was I?

And would he be proud of who he was once he figured that out?

They headed down a straight road that led to the barn. There were no workers around that Sawyer could see, and the lowing of cattle that came on the grass-scented breeze was oddly soothing to his system. He sucked in a deep breath, feeling the muscles in his shoulders relax.

Bella came over to Sawyer and held up her hands. He picked her up and she settled against his shoulder, one tiny hand planted on the back of his neck. Lizzie came running up, too, but Olivia swept her up into her arms and made an exaggerated surprised face.

“What happened there?” Olivia asked Lizzie. “Did I get you?”

Lizzie laughed, and Sawyer couldn’t help but smile. He’d known these toddlers for all of two days that he could remember, but he was already attached. Sawyer led the way over to the corral.

The largest of the two horses ambled over toward them, pushing his nose into Sawyer’s chest, snuffling against his pocket.

“I didn’t think to bring a treat,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at Olivia.

“All we have in the bag is Cheerios and cheese cubes,” Olivia said with a low laugh.

“Horsey...” Bella breathed, and then she put a hand on the horse’s long nose.

The horse pulled back, shaking his head, and moved over toward Olivia. She took a step back.

“Sorry, buddy,” she said.

The horse ambled off again, and Sawyer felt all of his own tension seeping away. Bella clearly loved horses, but it looked like he did, too. There was something about those rippling muscles, the shining coats, the smell of dust and sweat and the tang of manure...

“Num-nums,” Lizzie said, patting Olivia’s shoulder. “Num-nums.”

“I think she wants her snack.”

Sawyer passed her the diaper bag, and she squatted down, put Lizzie on the ground and opened the bag. Lizzie looked into the depth and pulled out a plastic container of cheese cubes. Olivia opened it for her and she reached in and came out with a single cube between two chubby fingers.

“Mmm. That looks good,” Olivia murmured.

“Num-nums!” Bella said, launching herself downward.

“Whoa!” Her motion caught Sawyer by surprise, and he almost dropped the girl before he was able to get a grip on her wriggling body. He managed to deposit her on the ground right side up. Bella headed straight for the cheese cubes. Such trust—the kid hadn’t even paused to appreciate that she hadn’t landed on her head.

Olivia held the container out toward Bella. Sawyer was glad that Olivia was here to think of things like snacks. Maybe he needed more help around here than he thought.

“Lizzie?” Olivia stood up, and Sawyer looked around, scanning for the girl. She was gone...and both of their gazes swung toward the corral.

Somehow, the toddler slipped away in those few heartbeats when her sister had the attention, and little Lizzie with her ruffled curls and little pink running shoes stood in the center of the corral, her face tipped upward in rapture as she stared up at the massive stallion.

Sawyer’s heart thudded to a stop.

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