A Very Maverick Christmas

“Something like that, although that day is long past. Did you ever wonder why they tell you coffee will stunt your growth when you’re young, and then when you get older it’ll make you manly?”

She laughed again. “No, sorry. Wrong gender.”

His head tipped a little, a laugh escaped him, then he leaned toward her a bit, his eyes dancing. “The things your gender has spared you. What will you have? My treat, and the sky’s the limit.”

She looked up at the menu hanging over the counter. “I’ll have the mocha cinnamon latte,” she decided, then nearly patted her own back for finding it so easy to order. So natural. Some things didn’t feel at all natural to her anymore. So maybe her previous self had liked that kind of coffee?

Pointless question.

Braden called the waitress over. “Candy? When you have a sec?”

She returned her attention to Braden as he ordered for them, adding a couple of blueberry muffins. “I hope you like them,” he said to her as the waitress walked away.

“I do,” she admitted. Then a thought occurred to her. He’d called the waitress by name. “Do you know everyone in town?”

“Certainly not you,” he said lightly. Then more seriously, “No, I don’t know everyone. We’ve had a lot of new people come to help with the floods and other things.”

“And you’re very busy at the ranch?” Keep asking questions, don’t give him a chance to pry.

“These days, yes. My brothers are busy with their personal lives. They have their own businesses and families to take care of these days. Can’t say I blame them.”

Her smile came easily. “Me neither. Which is how you came to be wrestling with barbed wire?”

He grinned. “Exactly. And wrestling is a good term for it. Are you ready for our winter?”

The change of subject seemed abrupt, but at least she could answer truthfully. “I love winter.”

“Maybe not winters here so much. We get dang cold. Where’d you come from?”

“New England.” Which was truthful insofar as it went. “Part of what drew me out here was the idea of snow-capped mountains. Real mountains. And Lissa Roarke’s blog, of course. Though I gather she’s now Lissa Christensen.” Julie had learned from local gossip that Lissa had married her own Rust Creek cowboy, Sheriff Gage Christensen, a few months after her arrival in town last year.

“I never had much time to read her blog,” he said, leaning back as the waitress, Candy, served them. He thanked her. “I hope she didn’t make us seem overly romantic.”

“Depends on what you mean by romance. I just knew I wanted mountains and snow, and this place sounded friendly.”

“Do you ski?”

She blinked. A blank wall answered that question. “Not really,” she hedged.

“Most people who like snow do. Just asking. I don’t have a lot of time for it, myself, but if I can arrange it, I like cross-country. I don’t need a slope and don’t have to risk permanent disability.”

He was cute, she thought, and he made it so easy to laugh. She wanted to keep her guard up, but she was beginning to feel safe with him. For now, at least. Growing warm, she slipped the coat off her shoulders and reached for her coffee.

“Want me to cut the muffins up?” he asked.

“It might make it easier.”

Again that twinkle in his eyes. “Depends on who’s eating and where.” But he unwrapped the flatware that was rolled in the napkin and cut the two muffins into bite-size pieces. Crumbs tumbled all over the plate, but he didn’t seem concerned.

“That’s an interesting necklace you’re wearing,” he said, pushing the plate toward her in invitation. “It looks old.”

“It is,” she admitted. She at least knew something about it for certain. “It’s an heirloom.” She reached for a piece of muffin and pulled a napkin out of the dispenser to place it on, while she tensed for the next question.

“It’s nice to have something like that,” he said, picking a piece of muffin for himself. “I like things that pass down through the generations. They create a great sense of connection.”

A cowboy philosopher, she thought, and wondered what he’d think if he knew that necklace was her only connection. Probably find an excuse to head back to his ranch and pretend they’d never met.

She picked up her coffee, nearly hiding behind it, wondering why she was so ashamed of her amnesia. It wasn’t some kind of personal failing. She’d been severely injured, probably in some awful accident, and should just be grateful to be alive. Why did she feel so embarrassed by it?

Because she wasn’t normal. She wasn’t anything approaching normal. Missing a limb was more normal than missing your entire past, and most people would probably think she was making it up, or crazy in some way. That was the problem. Her dirty little secret.

“I’ve never experienced winter in New England,” he said when he’d swallowed more muffin and coffee. “I wonder how it compares.”

“I can’t answer. This is my first time here.”

Again that devastating grin came to his face. “Maybe we should track the weather this winter and compare the two places. Betcha we get colder.”

Remembering the last winter, she felt a smile play around her mouth. “I wouldn’t be so sure. We got pretty darn cold last winter. Colder than normal, though.” She knew that because she’d heard it countless times.

“Then maybe we beat you in the snow department.” When she didn’t answer immediately, he winked. “Say, aren’t you willing to get into an argument about whose home has the worst winter?”

“You might have better luck with your brothers.”

He laughed with pure pleasure. “Good one. Points for you.”

She felt her cheeks warm at his approval. Maybe this would become easier.

“You seem thick as thieves with Vanessa.”

“She’s great. She and Mallory and Cecelia and Callie. They’ve all been wonderful to me. And I just adore little Lily.”

“She’s easy to adore, although I suppose I should defend the Traub honor and claim that for Noelle.”

“She’s adorable, too.”

“I just hope she doesn’t grow up quite as mouthy as Lily. That girl! Whatever pops into her head comes out of her mouth. I actually like it. Caleb does too except for when it seems to bother Mallory.”

“She’ll grow out of it. I kind of like knowing where I stand with her.”

“Until she tries some matchmaking.”

Julie’s cheeks flamed. “That was a little awkward.”

“Actually, it might have been a good idea.”

Julie froze. The urge to flee warred with the urge to stand her ground and not look like a fool by running.

“People do need friends,” he said as if he didn’t notice her reaction. Maybe he hadn’t. “So, that kind of ended the awkwardness. Then she was so cute when she couldn’t say that word.”

“She was,” Julie said around a thick tongue.

“I guess I shouldn’t have brought it up.” He looked out the window. “Winona Cobbs keeps saying we’re going to get a heckuva blizzard soon. One to remember. I wonder if she’s right.”

At last, a topic that made Julie feel safe. “Do you believe her predictions? I don’t know why, but she makes me a little uneasy.”

He returned his attention to her. “We’re at the time of year for blizzards. I won’t put much stock in a prediction like that unless it flies in the face of meteorology. As for being uneasy around her...well, some folks are. She’s essentially a harmless, nice person, but when those eyes settle on you, it’s possible to feel like she sees your soul.”

Remembering the strange electric tingle she had felt when Winona fixed her gaze on her, Julie could only nod. “There’s something about her...”

“Which is why some people listen more than maybe they should. But she means well, I’ll give her that. If she’s psychic, I don’t really know, but she’s not cheating widows out of the life insurance, if you get me.”

Julie didn’t know. She had no memory of psychics. “What do you mean?” she dared to ask.

“Oh, there are some scam artists around who’ll charge an arm and a leg to give you some ridiculous reading. Never knew one, just read about them. At least we don’t have one of them around here. Winona gets paid for speaking, but never charges for any information she volunteers. To my way of thinking, that makes her honest, even if it doesn’t necessarily make her right.”

Julie nodded, stuffing some more of the blueberry muffin in her mouth, savoring it then washing it down with her latte. “Great flavor combination,” she said after dabbing her lips with a napkin. She didn’t want to gossip about local people, even if gossip sometimes seemed to be a favorite pastime. She was willing to listen, but talking was a dangerous thing. There was no way to know, if she said something wrong, whether it would come back to haunt her. And sometimes she feared she simply didn’t know what the wrong things to say might be. She seemed to have retained most of her skills from her past, but she couldn’t be sure, without memory, how many of them were working right.

“So where in New England are you from?” Braden asked.

At once she tensed, and her mouth started to dry out. Now would come the questions she couldn’t answer because there were no answers. At least she knew the last place she had lived. “Outside Boston, in a town called Worcester.”

“I always liked the way that word doesn’t sound like it’s spelled. I had a terrible time when I was a kid learning to say Worcestershire, that sauce. Love it on my steaks. Anyway, mastering that one took long enough that my brothers were merciless. I think I finally got it.”

“I’d say so.”

“You must be missing your friends.”

She felt her face start to freeze. Time to go, before he grew too personal. “I moved a lot,” she said finally, glancing at her watch. “And I really need to go.”

“So soon?” He studied her. “I said something wrong.”

“No, really. I just have some other things I need to do.” Like examine her own head, explain to herself why she’d been stupid enough to accept this invitation, even if the guy awoke her entire sexual being. What the hell was she thinking? Yes, she needed to be out more and talk to more people if she was ever going to jog her memory, but her few friends here had stopped asking most questions a while back. A new person meant more questions, and each question caused her to evade and face the blank wall all over again.

“I wasn’t trying to pry,” he said, lifting his hand for the waitress. When she came over, he asked her to put both coffees in takeout cups, and the blueberry muffin remains in a bag.

Afterward, he passed the bag to Julie. “Sorry I cut it into mostly crumbs. I thought we had a little longer. It’s been great getting to know you. Thanks for the company, Julie.”

“Thank you for the coffee and muffin.” She stood and pulled her coat on quickly, not so quickly that she appeared to be in headlong flight, she hoped.

He stood, too, offering to shake her hand. She took it reluctantly, and once again met those brown eyes. They seemed to hold some kind of understanding, although what he was understanding she couldn’t imagine. She was acting like a nut.

“See you soon,” he said, and let her make her way out on her own. He watched her get into her car and drive off, and it wasn’t until she was out of town and nearing her cabin that she realized just how tense she had become; that reaction was making her shake.

One man, one coffee, a few casual questions and she became a basket case? God, she had to get over this. He appeared interested in her. She knew for a fact that she was interested in him. Then she turned into a nut and ran from what she wanted?

Oh, she definitely had to get over this, at least enough to reach for the future.

But the only way over it seemed to be recovering something that remained stubbornly elusive: her past.

Chapter Three

Braden wasted a lot of time over the next couple of weeks wondering about Julie and what her problem was. Since he spent the time doing manual labor around the family spread, the mindless kinds of tasks he needed to do for the most part opened up his mind to wander—and no matter what he did to distract himself, it kept wandering right over to the mysterious blonde.

Pitching hay and stacking bales didn’t exactly require many brain cells. Making sure it would be easy to feed the cattle when the snow got deep, making sure the bales provided windbreaks against the worst weather, took a lot of time but not a lot of thought.

So he was thinking about Julie and telling himself he was a fool. At least Dallas was over on a different section of their pastures, because he would have noticed his woolgathering and given him a hard time about it. Someplace deep inside, he did not want to be teased about his fascination with Julie Smith.

That alone should probably have warned him, he thought almost grimly.

What was it about the woman anyway? She seemed frightened of almost everything, poised on the edge of taking flight...and then she’d relax briefly, and he was sure he saw the real woman peek through. Maybe.

Will the real Julie Smith stand up? he thought with sour amusement. She looked so innocent, so angelic with those big blue eyes, that he couldn’t believe there was anything bad about her. She’d been in town since June, and there sure hadn’t been any unkind whispers about her. If she were a bad sort, he’d have heard something by now.

But even on the rumor mill it was almost as if she were invisible, which was kind of hard to do. People who knew her mentioned her briefly; she did things with the Newcomers Club; she’d made some good friends. Upstanding friends. If they thought there was anything wrong with her, they wouldn’t keep her in their circle.

So whatever was going on had to be something other than that she was a fleeing felon.

He almost laughed at that thought. Yeah, right.

But the urge to protect her remained; the desire to know more about her goaded him. The coffee experience...well, he didn’t know for sure how to characterize that. Maybe she had just had something to do. After all, the meetup had been impromptu, and she could well have had some chores awaiting her.

He slung another bale onto the wall he was building to give the cattle a windbreak, and hoped like hell that Winona Cobbs was wrong about a record-breaking blizzard on its way. The weather reports certainly showed no indication of any big front coming, even as far away as the Pacific Coast. So far it looked as if they were in for a relatively normal December.

He didn’t want to ponder Winona, however. She could be intriguing at times, but mostly he thought of her as a character, part of the charm of the place. For some reason, that brought his thoughts around to another character, Homer Gilmore. The old coot was a little crazy, wandering around and telling everyone he was “The Ghost of Christmas Past.”

Weird, but the weather was going to take a severe turn for the worse eventually, and he couldn’t imagine that Homer could get by relying on charity handouts. Lord only knew where the guy was sleeping. Grunting as he hefted another bale, Braden decided that something needed to be done for the man. Surely there was a warm hidey-hole somewhere in this town where they could shelter him for the winter. If it came to it, Braden would pay for it himself.

It would be heartless to leave the man’s fate to the elements.

His mother’s remark floated back to him, and he suddenly grinned. Parsival, huh? If she had any idea where his thoughts wandered on the subject of Julie Smith, she wouldn’t liken him to a “pure and perfect knight.” Hah!

A laugh escaped him even as Julie rose in his mind’s eye. That wool sheath she had worn to the pageant had draped her gentle curves in a way that drew a man’s thoughts far from the angelic. Her face might bring to mind an angel, but the rest of her called to a man’s demons.

He paused for some coffee from his thermos and wiped his brow. Cold or not, a man could work up a sweat doing this. And apart from sweat, there was the damn prickly hay. It had managed to get inside his jacket, and probably his shirt.

He scratched a bit, letting his mind wander over Julie’s gentle curves. Closing his eyes as he sipped warming coffee, he imagined running his hands over them. Even through that wool sheath they’d be able to set him on fire. Hell, picturing them was enough to put his motor in high gear.

Leaning back against the wall of hay, he gave himself up to the daydream for a few minutes. Julie in his arms. Her lips welcoming his kiss, her soft curves pressed against his hardness. He imagined pulling down the zipper on that dress, reaching inside to feel warm, silky skin.

Damn it! His eyes popped open, and he stopped himself in midfantasy. Just that little bit, and he was ready to bust out of his jeans. Over a woman he hardly knew, one who seemed a damn sight too skittish to be interested in any kind of intimacy. In fact, she seemed to be avoiding it.

Mentally, he stomped down on his male urges as if he was trying to put out a small grass fire. Cool it, he ordered himself.

It might have been easier to call a halt if he hadn’t remembered that tomorrow was the Presents for Patriots event at the Community Church. Holy hell. He was going to see her again, and it suddenly struck him that she might spend the whole time avoiding him.

He drained his coffee, wondering if he should skip the whole evening, then realizing he’d never hear the end of it if he let down the Traub family by failing to appear.

Stuck, he thought. Shaking out his cup, he then screwed it back onto the thermos and hit those bales again with every bit of energy in him.

Work could drive out demons, even if it couldn’t make him forget an angelic face.

* * *

Living a lie didn’t make Julie happy. And while she was mostly engaged in just surviving while she hunted for some evidence of her past, it didn’t make her happy to realize that she was surrounded by a web of deceit of her own making.

Vanessa and Mallory called a couple of times, asking what she was up to, and the lie came too easily to her lips. “Writing,” she said.

Because that was her cover story. She had to explain why she was hanging out here, why she didn’t have a job—mainly because she wasn’t at all sure she could hold much of a job successfully. She’d managed working in retail shops and one antiques store, but the strain had overwhelmed her. All the strangers, her uncertainty about so many basic things, the other employees who asked way too many questions about her...well, she had a little money now, thanks to selling that coin, and that meant she didn’t have to try to pull off the role of a shopgirl while she was here, a huge relief for her. In a town this size, her seeming standoffishness would eventually be noted and commented on.

So she claimed to be working on a novel on the cheap laptop that sat on a wooden table. It explained how she survived, why she didn’t have an ordinary job and why she disappeared sometimes when she felt too troubled.

But it was a lie. She hated the lies so much that she’d even taken a stab at writing something. The problem was, fiction seemed like a way to escape the really important things she needed to deal with, and nonfiction all came down to “My journey as a woman without a memory.” As if.

It didn’t help that her life seemed like a plot ripped out of the pages of a novel, or that her writing was mostly a meandering diary.

So she wasn’t being honest with her new friends, which didn’t make her feel one whit more comfortable. Maybe she should just blurt the truth, tell everyone that she’d been born and given a name only a short time ago. Yeah, they’d probably call her crazy and drop her like a hot potato. Who was going to believe that?

So much had happened in the weeks after she returned to awareness of where she was, things that had made her feel that even professionals suspected she might be lying, and finally just made her feel like a bug under a microscope.

Go forth and build a life sounded easy, but it was hard.

Like coffee with Braden. It should have been so simple, but the evasions began to get to her. You couldn’t have a relationship based on lies, and the truth was too painful.

Pulling on her outdoor gear, she decided to take a walk in the woods. She left her phone behind, even though she knew she should take it in case she had an accident, but she didn’t want another call reminding her about tomorrow, asking how her writing was going, and did she ever intend to come out of her cave.

For the first time she wondered how anyone wrote a book when people were so disrespectful of a writer’s time. But maybe writers learned not to answer the phone, not to go to the door, not to feel guilty for ignoring a friend’s call.

Somehow she doubted it. Her acquaintance with guilt was growing by leaps and bounds. She seemed to be building it constantly and adding to it with every evasion.

Telling herself it was necessary didn’t much help.

They’d tried to convince her that she would be building a new past for herself each day that went by. It sure wasn’t enough of a past to satisfy her. Yes, she could talk lightly about the few jobs she’d held in her wanderings, some of the people she’d met, but there was always that wall she couldn’t surmount.

Dang, she thought, scuffing her toe in the light layer of snow and bringing up some loam from beneath.

Braden. He was another problem. Though she didn’t have a lot of experience she remembered so she could call on it, she was almost certain that he’d looked at her several times with male interest.

Well, she’d looked at him the same way. He drew her, attracted her, made her want to be a normal girl who could just date and get to know a guy. But since there wasn’t much he could get to know about her, she was a fool to even cherish such dreams, and even more of a fool when he hadn’t tried to reach her in over a week.

But she couldn’t help wishing, and Braden made her wish. The warm, roughness of his palm when he shook her hand seemed to have imprinted itself vividly on her memory. She liked just looking at him, which she supposed was utterly silly, and she reacted like a woman to his scent, to his broad shoulders, to the sight of his butt in those snug jeans he wore.

Oh, man, the bug had bit, but it couldn’t go anywhere. Not unless she told him the truth, and she could just imagine the horror that would come to his face. “You don’t know who you are?” The question that most terrified her.

For heaven’s sake, she didn’t even know how old she was. When her birthday was. Who her parents had been. Where she had gone to school. All those simple but important things. Not even whether she was a virgin.

Man. Self-disgust filled her again, even though she knew it wasn’t fair. She’d been seriously injured. She was lucky to be alive.

Except that she had only part of a life.

Tomorrow was going to be another rough day unless she found a way to excuse herself from the big community gift wrapping. But no, she wasn’t going to excuse herself. She had no idea what had drawn her to this town, what had made her feel so compelled to come here, and hiding out wasn’t going to answer the question.

But that compulsion... As she stepped out of the trees and looked up, she saw the snowy peaks of the Rocky Mountains, like the Alps, although how she knew that, she had no idea. They called to her, those mountains in all their majestic height and cragginess. They seemed to be a part of her.

They felt more like home than anything else since her accident. They kept her here.

* * *

The church hall was full of people by the time Julie arrived. So many people, all very busy at sorting through gifts and wrapping them, then labeling them for “A soldier” or “A soldier’s family.” Ages were placed only on toys.

Vanessa grabbed her at once and dragged her to the table where she, Mallory and Lily were busy wrapping things.

“The others will be here later,” Vanessa told her. “Except Jonah, who has a bad cold. Caleb’s finishing some work, and Cecelia and Nick got delayed. I don’t want to know how they got delayed.” Vanessa rolled her eyes suggestively, drawing a laugh from Julie, who then greeted everyone and asked, “If we were going to do toys, why not send them to Toys for Tots?”