Fatal Flashback

“Really?” He raised an eyebrow. “You think I’d let you drive in your condition?”

“I’m feeling better. Besides—” she nodded toward his Jeep “—you probably have a cold pack in there for my head, right?”

“For starters, the road to the nearest medical facility is that way.” He pointed across the parking lot toward a nearly invisible dirt road leading into the desert to the north. “And second, you’ll be coming with me to park headquarters in Panther Junction after we go to the clinic.”

“Why?” Somehow she managed to look both helplessly lost and irritated at the same time.

“Because it’s illegal to carry a firearm in this park without a permit unless you’re in law enforcement.”

“So, what? You’re going to arrest me after I almost drowned?” Sparks flared in her brown eyes.

“No.” Logan sucked in a slow breath, searching for the tattered shreds of his patience. “I’m going to bring you in for questioning. Unless you’ve got a Texas-approved license to carry somewhere in there, too.”

She inhaled sharply, eyes widening. Nervous? But why? “I’m sure there’s a good reason for the gun.” She dug inside her blazer pocket, her brow furrowing when her fingers came away empty. “I have a holster.”

“Maybe. But we’ll let the chief ranger decide.”

She closed and locked her car door and then took the arm he offered, cold fingers clutching his elbow, and he escorted her to the Jeep.

He helped her into the passenger seat and handed her a thick gauze pad from a first-aid kit. “Press this to the wound, and here’s an ice pack for the swelling.”

Ashley took the gauze, wincing as she touched it to the injury. A wave of pity washed through him. The ride to Terlingua over that washboard dirt road was going to hurt.

She sat silently in the passenger seat, a hand pressed to her eyes, as he did his best to steer around the lumpiest sections of the road.

They’d been driving for maybe thirty minutes when headlights appeared in the rearview mirror, two tiny orbs bouncing in the distance.

Ashley craned her head over her shoulder. “Somebody else uses this road?”

“Yeah...once in a while.” He frowned. The lights were growing bigger much faster than they should be. Usually only Terlingua locals and lost tourists used this road, and neither was foolish enough to go that fast.

Only a few minutes passed before the other vehicle was nearly on their tail, its headlights glaring off the dashboard and mirrors so brightly he had to squint. A truck, judging by the height of the lights.

Better to let them pass than get into an accident out here. He slowed the Jeep, driving closer to the side to allow the truck space to pass. “Impatient driver. Going to break an axle at this rate.”

Impatient and reckless—couldn’t they see this was an NPS vehicle? He’d be sure to get the plate number and call it in.

But the truck didn’t pass. Instead it veered to the right with them and accelerated.

“What...?” Logan muttered. “Hold on!”

The driver was going to ram them.

TWO

Ashley scrabbled to find the handle inside the door as Logan jerked the steering wheel to the left. The Jeep swerved, its tires slipping on the loose dirt. Behind them, the truck eased off the gas long enough to follow them into the center of the road.

Could it be whoever had attacked her at the river coming back to finish the job? She shivered, clutching the door handle hard enough her fingers hurt.

The truck shot forward again, bumping the rear of the Jeep as Logan accelerated. Not hard enough to release the air bags, but enough to whip her forward and lock her seat belt. She grimaced as her head smacked back into the seat.

Logan’s jaw clenched as he cranked the steering wheel to the left, trying to move the Jeep out of the way. He yanked a handheld radio out from its holder and tossed it onto her lap. “Call the dispatcher.”

She fumbled for the call button, holding the radio to her mouth, but it slipped out of her fingers as the Jeep jostled and bounced over the rough edge of the road.

“Hold on,” Logan said again as he slammed down the gas pedal.

Headlights filled the cabin as the truck pummeled into their bumper again. Logan grunted as he struggled to keep control of the steering wheel and Ashley clung to her seat as the Jeep careened toward cactuses and brush growing on the side of the road.

They rolled to a stop in a sea of prickly pears and spiky grasses. She let out a little sigh of relief as the truck swerved past them.

Until it stopped fifty feet ahead. Both doors opened. Whoever was getting out wasn’t coming to lend them a hand.

Logan gestured at the Jeep’s floorboard as he drew his gun. “Get down.”

She swallowed, sliding a hand toward her seat belt to unbuckle it, but at that moment more headlights appeared in the distance. This time, from the opposite direction.

Ahead of them, the truck’s doors slammed shut and its engine roared back to life. A second later it barreled away toward Terlingua in a cloud of dirt stained red by its taillights.

Logan flipped on the interior cab light. “You okay?” His brows pulled together in concern.

She took a couple of deep breaths, trying to slow her pounding heart, and nodded. “But I didn’t get the plates.” She retrieved the radio from her feet and handed it to him.

“It’s okay,” he said after calling in the incident. “Still a few miles to Terlingua. Maybe local police can get there in time.”

He coaxed the Jeep out of the loose sand and back onto the packed road. When they passed the oncoming car a few minutes later, Logan flagged down the driver, but the man, a Terlingua resident, hadn’t caught the truck’s plates, either.

The vast Texas sky was full of stars by the time they reached the medical clinic. Ashley’s head was swimming. A memory had come back as they’d jostled along on the road—the bumps had reminded her of tractor rides and apple-picking with her parents and brother. More childhood memories had seeped in after that one, filling her with relief.

Then that truck had showed up to ram them.

After what had just happened, it was a good thing Logan wanted to take her back to park headquarters. Plus, she hadn’t found anything in her car other than a suit jacket and her purse. Big Bend National Park was remote—it seemed unlikely she would travel all the way out here without any luggage. But where was she staying?

And, more pressing, who was after her?

After a nurse took her to a private room, she rummaged through her handbag to see what else it contained besides the wallet. There wasn’t much. A tube of lipstick. Hand sanitizer. A couple of pens. She pulled out the wallet and stared at the driver’s license.

Washington, DC. Was that where she lived? The city name felt right. Comfortable.

But the license hadn’t been issued to Ashley Thompson... Why? Were all her hunches and instincts wrong? She shivered, tucking the license back into its slot and pulling out the piece of paper sticking out of the next one.

A photograph.

She stared for several long minutes at the picture. It was a man, maybe college-aged, with short, dark hair and hazel eyes. A relative? Maybe her brother? The photo was well worn around the edges, as if she had handled it and carried it with her for some time.

Why did looking at him make her stomach clench into a tight knot?

Logan was pacing back and forth in the lobby when the clinic’s only doctor escorted her back out. The ranger’s dark green eyes locked onto her as she stepped into the room, and Ashley’s breath unaccountably hitched. She hadn’t seen him clearly before, what with the setting sun and her throbbing head, but in this lighting, it was obvious the man was in his element as a park ranger. Clean-shaven, tanned, sandy-brown hair. Just over six feet tall, she guessed, and at peak fitness. Every movement came with easy confidence.

She turned away from his speculative gaze. Maybe he didn’t believe her about the memory loss. Maybe he thought she was trying to cover something up.

Thankfully he turned to the doctor, giving Ashley the chance to get her thoughts back under better regulation before she had to speak.

“How is she?” Logan asked.

“Her skull’s intact and the wound itself should heal up nicely. Based on the symptoms she’s described, I’d say she’s sustained a level two, possibly level three, concussion. The good news is the CT scan is clean—no internal hemorrhaging. She needs to take it easy for several days until her symptoms are gone, and more specifically, she’ll need to be monitored closely for the next twenty-four hours.”

Several days? Ashley resisted the urge to frown. She had no idea why she was in Texas—how, exactly, was she supposed to lie around and relax?

Logan nodded, eyeing her thoughtfully. “And her memory loss?”

“Retrograde amnesia—limited to events prior to the injury. But given her lucidity now and her other test results, I’d say the prognosis for a full recovery is good. I expect she’ll start getting her memories back anytime now, the older ones first. Childhood through adolescence typically come back first, followed by more recent events. You may be able to help the recovery with exposure to memory triggers. But,” he said to Ashley, “whatever happened right before the trauma might not come back at all if your brain lost it from short-term memory.”

She nodded. “Well, hopefully that won’t be the case. I’d like to know what happened to me.”

“Of course. At least you’ve found yourself in good hands with Ranger Everett.”

Ashley thanked him and followed Logan outside, hoping he hadn’t noticed the heat creeping into her cheeks at the doctor’s comment. Especially since he couldn’t be the only attractive man she’d ever been around in her life.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

She climbed up into the passenger seat, avoiding the hand he offered. “Better. My head isn’t pounding anymore and things aren’t quite so fuzzy.”

“Do you remember anything about coming to Big Bend?”

She shook her head. “It’s like there’s a blank spot in my mind and, beyond that, a lot of vague impressions rather than certainties.”

“That’s to be expected, I guess.” He steered the Jeep toward the main road into the park. “It’ll take us an hour to get back to Panther Junction. Try to get some rest and we’ll find a place for you to sleep once we’re finished.”

Sleep seemed out of the question, but Ashley was glad for an excuse to stop talking. He hadn’t asked her any more personal questions, but she could almost hear them on the tip of his tongue. What else did you find in the purse? Why did you come to Texas? What secrets are you keeping?

Thinking about it made her brain hurt. Logan hadn’t said anything more about what had happened to her, either, but given the incident with the truck, it seemed obvious someone was after her. Probably the same someone who had hit her in the head. But who? And why? There had to be some reason she was carrying a gun. Hopefully her memories would come back before whoever it was returned to finish the job.

Ashley was out cold by the time Logan pulled into park headquarters in Panther Junction. She didn’t even stir as he turned off the engine. He sat watching her for a moment under one of the few motion-activated lights in the parking lot.

Something about her seemed familiar... Maybe her mannerisms. Or the shape of her eyes. Or the way she spoke. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, or how he could possibly have met her before.

How had she ended up in the Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River? Wearing a business suit, no less. She had been barefoot all night, so he could only guess she’d lost her shoes in the river. Judging by the outfit, he assumed they would have been heels, the worst possible choice for a trip to the desert.

And the gun. Why the gun? The way Ashley had pulled it out and trained it on him was evidence enough she knew about weapons. Those actions came from physical memory, created by years of experience.

What worried him most was that incident with the truck. Her head injury and the fall into the river could have been an accident. The unidentified set of tracks along the river’s edge might have been coincidence. But the truck? No doubts there. The driver had intended to run them off the road. If that other vehicle hadn’t scared them off, he hated to think what might’ve happened. And since Terlingua police hadn’t been able to find anything, there were no suspects to question.

What kind of trouble was Ashley in?

Even though Big Bend shared several hundred miles of border with Mexico, its vast, empty deserts and rugged mountains prevented far more criminal activity than the rangers could. More visitors got into trouble from dehydration than anything else. In fact, Logan couldn’t even remember the last attempted homicide.

He frowned. The answers appeared to be locked away in that woman’s mind, inaccessible. Maybe the chief ranger and the park superintendent would have better success.

“Ashley—” he nudged her shoulder “—we’re here.”

She sat up, rubbing her eyes, and then stumbled blearily beside him to the park office, waiting as he unlocked the door. By now it was after ten o’clock at night and the place was dark and empty inside. Logan flipped on a light and left Ashley in a chair near the receptionist’s desk while he telephoned Chief Ranger Ed Chambers and Superintendent Dick Barclay.

Housing for the staff assigned to Panther Junction was a short walk from headquarters, so they only waited a few minutes before the others arrived.

Ed Chambers stepped in first. Tall, with graying hair and a face lined from years working outside, the chief looked like a quintessential career ranger. And he was exceptionally good at what he did—Logan could only hope that one day his career record would be half as accomplished as Ed’s. Until then, he was grateful to have his mentorship, friendship and guidance.

The superintendent, on the other hand, stuck out like a sore thumb. He had only been stationed at Big Bend for the past six months and Logan expected him to throw in the towel any day now. But Dr. Barclay—as he insisted on being called—still kept showing up every day to make Logan’s life a little more difficult.

“Dr. Barclay. Ed,” Logan greeted them. “Here’s the woman I told you about.”

To Logan’s surprise the superintendent strode over to Ashley and extended his hand. “Ms. Watson, I’m so sorry to hear you were involved in an accident.”

Ashley blinked up at him like a pale-faced snowy owl. “You...you’ve met me?” she stammered.

Barclay turned surprised eyes on Logan, as if all the confusion was his fault. “Excuse us, Ms. Watson. We’ll be right back.”

Logan and Ed followed him across the room, where the superintendent dropped his voice to a whisper. “Everett, what happened to her?”

He shrugged. “Head trauma, concussion, memory loss. We’re not sure of the full extent.” He went on to explain how he had found her beside the river. “I brought her here because she was armed without a permit. And obviously I couldn’t drop her off at a motel somewhere.”

Ed clapped him on the shoulder, a glint in his eyes. “You did the right thing, bringing her here.”

Logan couldn’t shake the feeling that Ed was laughing at his expense. He pressed his lips together, waiting for the punchline. “What? What is it?”

“She’s a new ranger, Everett,” Barclay snapped. “She arrived from El Paso this afternoon.”

“A new r-ranger?” he spluttered. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“Unique case. This hire didn’t go through the normal channels—ordered by someone at the Department of the Interior. You don’t need to know all the details.”

“So, what about the gun?” He looked from Ed to Barclay. “No permit. She wasn’t in uniform—”

“It’s not important.” Barclay cut him off with a shake of his head. He held out his hand expectantly toward Logan, who pulled Ashley’s gun from his belt and gave it to the superintendent. “I’ll talk to her about it. Everett, see to it she gets some rest and, when she’s recovered, you can begin her training.”

A pit opened in his stomach. “But surely I’m not the right one for that job. What about Rogers or Evanston?”

“You’re the only one for the job right now, because you’re the one she knows. Now quit arguing.”

“Of course, sir.” He bit his tongue as the superintendent walked back to Ashley.

Why him? He turned to Ed for help. Of all people, Ed knew what he’d gone through. How he wasn’t ready to train anyone yet, not after the way he had failed the last ranger he’d trained. It had only been three months.

And Sam Thompson had been a natural outdoorsman in top physical condition. He had absorbed everything Logan had taught him like a sponge taking in water. Or so Logan had thought until the day the search-and-rescue team had found what was left of Sam’s body baking in the June sun, a half mile off the Dodson Trail. Cause of death?

Dehydration.

So much for being a good instructor.

The worst part? That place in his gut, where intuition lived, had told him something wasn’t right, that Sam was taking too long on his patrol. It was Sam’s first time on the high Chisos trails alone, and Logan had almost called in a search team that afternoon when it grew late.

But he had talked himself out of it. Sam is a good ranger. He can take care of himself. He’ll be back anytime now.

By the time the SAR team was mobilized the next day, it was too late.

Somehow, Sam had gotten lost and ended up down Juniper Canyon and onto the Outer Rim in the open desert. Death by dehydration had probably come within a matter of hours. The fine line between life and death was even thinner when summer arrived in the desert.

Ed clapped him on the shoulder in his annoyingly brisk and cheerful way. “It’s time to get back out there, Logan. You’re good at this job and you’ve been blaming yourself way too long. Sam’s death wasn’t your fault.”

“Ed...” He ran a hand through his hair. “If I couldn’t keep him alive, with all his experience, how am I going to protect her?” He gestured to Ashley, her disheveled business suit glaringly out of place in the bright lights of headquarters.

“Protect her?” Ed’s brows pinched together. “She’s a law-enforcement ranger. You don’t have to protect her.”

Wrong word. Why had he said that? Probably because she looked so vulnerable, helpless even, sitting over there talking to the superintendent.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean ‘protect.’ Of course she can take care of herself. I meant... It’s the desert here and...” His voice trailed away as he struggled to decide exactly what he did mean.

“It’s okay, Logan. I think I understand.” Ed’s expression was far too perceptive.

“Stop looking at me like that.” Logan tugged at his suddenly uncomfortable shirt collar. “Whatever you’re thinking, it isn’t true.”

“I’m thinking you’d better show her to her quarters. And I’m thinking maybe you’re finally ready to forget Erin Doyle.”

“I let her go a long time ago.”

Ed’s smirk showed he wasn’t convinced. “Right.” He clapped Logan on the shoulder again. “Let me know if you need anything.”

THREE

Ashley’s head clouded over again as she waited for Logan to finish talking to the chief ranger. She wanted to get into bed, sleep for the next fifty years and wake up when everything was back to normal. Whatever “normal” was.

Ms. Watson, the superintendent had called her. It matched her driver’s license, but not that vague impression she’d had earlier that her last name was Thompson. Was she keeping her real last name a secret for some reason?

But how on earth did she get a job here as a ranger without her real name? And why would she even want to work here in the first place? She couldn’t remember any details about her old job, or life for that matter, but she was pretty sure it didn’t have anything to do with roughing it out in the desert.

She rubbed absently at one of her arms, realizing her sleeve was still full of sand. Her clothes were dry now, but her hair was a tangled mess and nothing sounded better than a hot shower and a bed.

Logan glanced at her from across the room, his expression a mixture of confusion and concern. Finally the chief ranger clapped him on the shoulder and the flicker of emotion was replaced by a smile as he approached.

“I guess I should call you Ranger Watson now.”

“Apparently so.” She ignored the way her stomach curdled. The whole thing felt like a lie and she hated hiding the truth, whatever the truth was. Especially when she had no idea why. But the superintendent had asked to talk to her when she was ready to return to duty. Maybe he had some answers. “It’s okay if you want to keep calling me Ashley instead.”

He smiled. “Ashley, it is. And please call me Logan. Only people who don’t like me use my last name.”

“I doubt there’s anyone who doesn’t like you.” She would have to add warm, considerate and easygoing to her mental description of him.

“You might be surprised.” He held out his hand to help her up. “Come on, I’ll walk you home.”

She hesitated for a fraction of a second but, deciding it would be better not to embarrass him, took his hand. The sudden warmth of his skin on hers sent an electric jolt through her stomach and she swayed ever so slightly.

“Steady?” He still held her hand.

Her cheeks burned. “Yes.” She pulled away the second he let go.

“Sure you don’t want to take my arm?”

She swallowed. “No, thank you. I’ll be fine.” She had to be fine, because she wasn’t going to let herself keep clinging to him, not when he affected her so unreasonably.

Logan opened the door and she followed him out into the dark, starlit night. They walked around to the back of the building and along a path toward a cluster of homes.

“It’s all government housing,” Logan said. “I’m sure you’ve heard all this before, but residence in the park is mandatory for rangers. Apparently you already checked in at Panther Junction earlier today and you were given a housing assignment.”

Something Ashley had no recollection of... Yet another memory lost in the black swirl of her mind. To fend off the panic, she asked, “Do all the rangers live here?”

“No. There are residences at Castolon and Rio Grande Village, too, down by the river.”

She followed him into a section of single homes at the west end of the complex. The Chisos Mountains loomed like jagged black teeth over the rooftops. Warm light issued from a few of the houses they passed, but the rest of the street was dark. “Aren’t there any streetlights?”

“No. The park is trying to eliminate light pollution, and this street is being renovated.” He waved at the dark houses beyond hers. “Those are mostly empty—that’s why they’re so dark.”

“Sounds cozy.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll get neighbors soon enough.”

She fished the key ring out of her pocket, happy to find she had a key that turned in the lock. Finding the light switch inside the door, she flipped it and stepped over the threshold. Nothing looked familiar, but at least the collection of luggage was promising. Maybe she’d find some clues as to why she was there.

“Recognize anything?” Logan leaned against the inside of the door frame, arms folded casually across his chest, watching her with those pensive green eyes.

She shook her head.

“Well, I’ll leave you to get settled. You should have some groceries in the fridge, compliments of Sandy, the receptionist. Sure you don’t need anything else right now?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll be back to check on you in an hour. Doctor’s orders.”

She grimaced. “Guess sleep isn’t on the schedule for tonight.”