Lone Star Survivor

He reached across the desk and found her hand, then squeezed it. “I refuse to let it change me, let that pain turn me jealous and suspicious when you’ve done nothing to deserve it. When I could never imagine a consummate professional like yourself—a generous, decent woman—betraying what we have.”

“Of course, I wouldn’t.” She’d learned her lessons young; she would never be her father. “Especially not for a man who broke my heart. But I will do my best to help him, just the way I’d help any other client who was hurting.”

“Then it’s settled,” he answered with a nod. “I’ll need you to log in and update your contact records daily, but I’m told there’s wireless available.”

“When have I ever forgotten my logs?” It was a protocol she frequently reminded the counselors to follow, since the portion of their funding received from government grants depended on the number of recorded contact hours. The case notes themselves, however, remained password protected, covered by patient confidentiality.

“Also,” Julian said, “I thought you’d like to know that when Captain Rayford’s family extended the invitation for you to come, they mentioned they’d set up a suite of rooms for your use.”

“A suite of rooms, just for me?” It sounded like paradise, since her own quarters consisted of a single bedroom in the women’s dormitory, where female staff and clients alike shared a communal bath and kitchen.

“Play your cards right, and I’ll throw in some bubble bath.” From across the desk, he winked at her, a gesture so at odds with his usual demeanor that it made her laugh with delight.

“Ooh la la.” She waggled her brows at the man who’d asked her to keep their engagement under wraps for the time being, to avoid causing any suspicions of favoritism among the staff. And given that there was no way either of them could visit the other’s room without drawing speculation, the physical side of their relationship had been largely confined to their imaginations—a situation that was growing more frustrating by the day. “But it’d be ever better if you could join me in that bathtub.”

He smiled. “With or without strategically placed bubbles?”

“Up to you, Colonel,” she teased, standing when he left his chair and came around the desk.

He pulled her into a warm embrace. “I promise you, my darling, by the time you come back to me, I’ll have figured out a way to break the news to the others. And after that, no more sneaking around like a couple of teenagers.”

“In that case—” she smiled up into his brown eyes “—I promise you, I’ll do everything I can think of to get Captain Rayford’s memory back in record time.”

Chapter 2

Funny what it was his mind chose to remember, Ian thought as he curried the palomino, a sturdy gelding known as Sundance. Though Ian had been told that he hadn’t set foot on the ranch since the day of his high school graduation, he remembered the order of operations he’d been taught to the last detail: currycomb, then dandy brush, followed by the mane and tail brush and the hoof pick. He remembered to lay the saddle pad over the withers and slide it back so the golden hair would lie comfortably and to walk the horse a few steps before cinching up the saddle so it would be tight enough. He knew to mount from the left side, too, just as he could still not only ride but rope a calf or cut a heifer from the herd with ease.

Procedural, semantic and short-term memory intact, one of the army shrinks had written on his report, which meant that Ian also remembered the meaning of words and could acquire new information. But it had been the next part that disturbed him, the notation: Retrograde biographical memory continues impaired—psychogenic origin likely due to emotional trauma.

In other damned words, they figured him for some kind of nut job. Not a veteran who’d lost his memory due to the injuries he’d clearly suffered, judging from the scarring on his back, his arms and legs, but a head case too soft to handle the stress of the ambush that he’d been told had killed a fellow soldier, along with the captivity that followed. Insulted by their insinuations and sick of being poked and prodded, he had gone back to the ranch and vowed to stay there, with the people he was learning to accept as his family...slowly.

He led the horse out of the barn and into the bright September morning, happy that last night’s shower had knocked down the dust and cooled the temperature. Zach kept telling Ian he didn’t have to work like a hired hand to tackle any of the never-ending chores that kept the cattle ranch’s wheels turning, but he found it far easier than staying in the house to be watched, fussed over and treated like a ticking time bomb by his mother or stuffed full of pastries by their cook, Althea, who apparently took it as her God-given duty to help him put back on the forty pounds his ordeal had cost him.

His older brother was easier to deal with, maybe because he’d served as a marine corps fighter pilot before his return to run the ranch following the false reports of Ian’s death. Ian had found Zach steady, supportive and respectful of his privacy, but always there if he wanted to talk or ask questions. Along with Zach’s journalist wife, Jessie, he did his best to keep their little girl, Eden, out of Ian’s hair, though the rambunctious five-year-old was forever finding ways to corner him and wear him out with innocently awkward questions. Questions that he couldn’t answer, for the most part, no matter how damned cute she and the pair of young Australian shepherds who followed her everywhere were about their interrogation.

Mounting up, he looked beyond the ranch’s outbuildings and toward the open rangeland, where a herd of red-and-white cattle grazed off in the distance. Farther afield, he’d been told one could find the fresh drilling that marked the promising new natural gas find that had recently sent the family’s fortunes soaring. But Ian left the worries about the operation and the money to Zach while he focused on the hard manual labor that was not only helping him recover his physical strength but would leave him exhausted by the day’s end. Too exhausted, he hoped, for the disjointed nightmares that had been waking him several times a night. Like his past, their content was largely forgotten the moment he returned to himself. But that didn’t keep him from racking his brain for hours, no matter how frustrating the attempts.

He nudged the palomino into an easy lope, eager for the freedom, the peace that he found only with the prospect of a day alone in the saddle. But it had barely lasted for an hour before he spotted a lone rider making his way toward him: Zach, aboard his big bay, Ace, irritation casting more shade on his expression than the wide brim of his hat.

As his brother’s mount clattered to a stop, Ian sucked a breath through his clenched teeth and raised a palm to hold off the complaint he knew was coming. “Sorry, man. I’m sorry. I did it again, didn’t I?”

“Apologize to Mama, not me,” Zach told him. “Do you have any idea how panicky she gets when you take off without a word to anybody? Jessie thought she was going to have a stroke when she found your bed empty after you didn’t show for breakfast. Mama broke down, asking if you were really still dead, if she’d dreamed all that part about how you’d come back home.”

Ian screwed shut his eyes and blew out a long breath, hating himself for causing her more suffering. “But you knew where I was, right? You told her, didn’t you?”

“I told her you were sure to be around, yeah. But the fact is, Ian, I got lucky figuring out where you were because you didn’t tell me, either.”

“You could’ve called instead of riding all the way out...” But as he felt his pocket for the fancy new smartphone his brother had bought him, Ian’s mouth went dust dry. “Oh, shoot. The damned cell—”

“Works a lot better when you remember to take it with you, bonehead.”

Ian opened his eyes and faced his older brother’s disappointment. “I know I screwed up. But I swear, I’ll do better.”

“Yeah, you damned well will.” Zach’s glare faded, his blue eyes softening. “Listen, man. I know what it’s like, going from a place where you have only yourself to think of, yourself and your mission. But things are different now. You’re part of a family again, with people who care, who worry about you, who want to help you finally come home.”

“I am home,” Ian insisted, the edge in his voice making his mount shuffle and toss his mane. Clutching the reins tightly to keep Sundance in hand, he added, “Against all odds, I made it.”

The government’s investigators had tracked his northbound progress through Mexico and into Texas, where he’d hitchhiked, walked and at one point trailed “coyotes” smuggling their human cargo across the border during his months-long odyssey. There had been some speculation about how Ian might have gotten out of the Middle East and into Mexico, but he’d been unable to contribute anything beyond a fragmented memory of himself clinging to a coarse scrap of threadbare blanket in the dark hold of a cargo ship.

“You think you’ve made it, brother,” Zach said, “but I’m telling you, you’ve still got a ways to go. Which is why you’re coming back with me right now, to meet our visitor.”

Ian’s gut clenched. “I told you, no more shrinks. No counselors. None of Mama’s preachers, either, here to save my lost soul. This range, this work, is the only salvation I need.”

Zach gazed out over the undulating golden waves, over a land that looked flat to those who didn’t know the deep furrows that could lead a man to its hidden places. “I remember a time when you couldn’t wait to get the hell off this land.”

Old resentment squeezed in Ian’s chest. Because since returning, he had remembered enough fragments from their upbringing to resurrect some old grievances. “You should talk. You took off before I did. Left me here, with him.”

At the mention of their father, Zach’s shoulders fell and his gaze drifted. It served as a reminder that some of the memories Ian had recovered would be better off forgotten.

“I know, and I’m sorry, bro,” Zach said. “Sorry for leaving you and Mama both behind. I was just trying to survive those years without ending up in prison. Because I would’ve damned well killed the son of a bitch if I’d stayed one more day.”

Ian nodded, understanding the same desperation that had driven him away from their father’s brand of torture as soon as he’d been able. Like Zach, he’d left their mother here to face it, since she’d refused to admit to what her husband was, much less abandon the material comforts and social status she’d enjoyed as a Rayford. As sorry as he felt for the suffering she’d endured when he’d been believed dead, Ian still hadn’t entirely forgiven her for refusing to protect him and his brother back when it might have mattered.

But there was nothing to be gained by treading that old minefield, and he quickly changed the subject. “I’ll apologize for scaring Mama. I’ll remember my phone next time. But I won’t be coming back with you now, not unless you tell me who’s there waiting.”

“I’ll tell you this much. It’s a woman. A woman from your past.”

Ian frowned, wondering which past his brother meant: the one he couldn’t bear to think of, or the dark, erotic glimmers that invaded his dreams every night.

* * *

Andrea had known Ian grew up on a working cattle ranch in North Texas, but she’d had no idea that he’d come from money. Maybe she’d been projecting the hand-me-downs and frequent moves that had defined her own hardscrabble upbringing or maybe she’d judged Ian by his rare comments about living hand to mouth after going out on his own right out of high school, but the ranch itself, especially the opulent white mansion at its center, convinced her she’d had it wrong. As did the fact that a heavyset woman with her pinned-back gray hair and a starched uniform wheeled out a real, honest-to-goodness tea cart with a silver pot and baskets of delicate confections to the fussy formal living room where she waited while Ian’s mother, Nancy Rayford, did her best to pick Andrea’s brain.

“So, dear,” said the neatly dressed, silver-haired woman over the gold rim of her teacup, “you were saying, you met my son in California?”

Andrea didn’t answer, too distracted by the heat rising to her face as the maid offered her some cookies. “Th-thank you very much. These are lovely.” Andrea chose a chocolate-centered square to be polite, nearly choking on the thought of how her mother, who had waited on more than a few pampered rich ladies in her day, might have looked a lot like “Miss Althea” had she lived.

The maid nodded and excused herself, leaving Mrs. Rayford to repeat her question.

Andrea nodded. “Sorry. Yes, we met on a country road not far outside of San Diego. I was out riding when the chain came off my bike and sent me flying.” She shivered in the air-conditioning, remembering the moment she’d gone over the handlebars. “Fast as I was moving, it’s a wonder I didn’t split my skull along with my helmet.” As it was, she’d been a bloody mess, with the frame of a bike she’d scrimped and saved for for two years bent so badly it was never again race-worthy.

Mrs. Rayford frowned. “You don’t mean to tell me you were riding one of those noisy motorcycles, do you?”

Andrea nearly laughed aloud at the horror souring the woman’s prim face, as if a female on a motorcycle would have been the scandal of the century. “Not a motorcycle, no. A racing bike, for the triathlons I used to compete in before that crash. I tore up my knee pretty badly in the fall. If it hadn’t been for Ian pulling off the road to help me, I could’ve lain there for a long time before anyone else came along.”

She remembered the moment she’d first seen the tall, dark-haired man jumping out of his SUV and racing toward her, gorgeous as any guy she’d ever met in real life, but in a masculine, clean-cut way that left actors and male models in the dust. Hurting as she’d been, she’d still felt sucker punched by his blue eyes, the intensity and concern in them as real as anything she’d ever seen.

“He was always a bighearted boy,” his mother reminisced. “Always dragging home strays.”

Jolted by her words, Andrea wondered if she’d just joined their ranks in his mother’s eyes, if the woman somehow saw through the tan slacks and coral shell she wore with a light jacket, through the fake gold earrings and the thrift-store beige pumps and all the way back to the scabby-kneed, motherless girl she had once been. Telling herself that couldn’t be, that Nancy Rayford only knew her as Zach’s former fiancée, a psychologist who happened to work an hour away in Marston, Andrea said, “He didn’t exactly drag me home, but he did drive me to the ER.”

Behind her, the floor creaked, and she turned to face the man she’d met that long-ago day. Though his face was leaner and his tan deeper, she recognized those deep blue eyes and came to her feet at once. But his eyes were different, too, she realized, haunted by events he could not consciously remember.

“Ian,” she managed, pulse revving as she fought an instinct to run to the man she’d once loved and throw her arms around him. “I’m so glad to see you, so relieved that you’re...”

He stared into her face, his gaze as unreadable as it was disconcerting. Her stomach fluttered in response, and she felt an outbreak of tiny beads of perspiration.

“He won’t remember you, of course,” his mother announced. “He didn’t know any of us here at all, not for days and days—”

“Andrea?” he asked, taking two steps closer. Close enough that she saw his color deepen and recognized what looked like pure relief wash over him. “Andie, is it really you?”

Andie, he had called her, using the nickname no one else did...

Before she could react, his mother scolded, “You’ll need a shower before you come in on the good furniture. I can smell the horse on you from here.”

Paying her no mind, Ian took two more steps and claimed Andrea, pulling her into his arms and kissing her for all he was worth.

The connection arced through every nerve ending, raising each fine hair and jolting her with memories of how incredibly well their bodies worked together. The searing contact made her ache for more, forgetting all the ways they’d wounded one another.

Forgetting, at least for a few moments, the other woman who stood gaping at them and the man Andrea herself had so recently promised to marry, a man whose face she struggled to recall.

Finally, she pulled away, a red-hot tide of embarrassment scorching her face. Shaking her head, she stammered, “I—I’m sorry. S-sorry, Ian, but what you’re remembering—that was two years ago. It’s been a long time since we—”

“I remember the trip we took together to Key West in Florida,” he said, the words coming in a rush as she took two steps back. “There was a little bed-and-breakfast, and you wore—there was this blue bikini. I’ve been dreaming of that trip, of all that color, of you for so long now.”

The professional in her noticed the way his eyes had dilated and the light that had come into them, extinguishing the pain she’d first glimpsed. As much as she hated dimming that excitement, she told herself that letting him go on believing would be crueler.

“You’re right,” she said. “What you remember really happened. But afterward, so did a lot of other things. We’re not—we’re not together anymore, not in that way. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about what’s happened to you. It doesn’t mean that I can’t be your friend.”

“We’re not...we’re not together anymore?”

Confusion shifted through his handsome features, followed by a sorrow so profound it reminded her of the day she’d told him they were finished. Of course, she realized, because for him, it was happening again right now, the boom lowered only seconds after he’d consciously accessed the memory of one of the happiest times of their eight-month relationship, a time before she’d grown aware that it was all built on a raft of lies.

“I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it—and acutely aware of the disapproval emanating from his mother. She couldn’t say whether it was because he’d made the sexual side of their relationship so obvious or because Andrea had so clearly broken her son’s heart, but she knew one thing for certain: the woman didn’t like her.

Andrea shook it off, reminding herself her visit was about Ian’s well-being, his healing, not her comfort level. “We’ve been apart for two years,” she said. “I have a new fiancé.”

“So we’re engaged—or we were?” He shook his head, offering the wry smile she’d always found so irresistibly disarming. “I must’ve been an idiot, letting a woman like you go.”

She smiled back at him, pretending not to hear the fresh grief behind his words. “Your brother thought that we might visit for a while and talk. He thought that seeing me might help you remember.”

Ian snorted. “Well, at least you’re a damn sight better looking than any of those shrinks they keep pushing at me.”

She sighed but realized there was no way around what was sure to be another troubling disclosure. “Do you remember why we went to Key West? What we were celebrating?”

He shook his head.

“You surprised me with the trip after I completed my doctorate.”

“So you’re a doctor? Like an MD?” He winked at his mother. “I always did go for the smart girls, at least, the pretty ones.”

“I’m a psychologist,” Andrea admitted.

He laughed, his smile turning bitter. “So that explains why you’re here. One more shrink to poke around my skull. Tell me, are you working for the army these days, or the Department of Defense?”

“Neither, Ian. I’m here because I care about you. And your brother, Zach, really did speak to my boss at the center for—”

He waved it off. “I don’t give a damn who sent you.”

His mother looked up sharply over the gilded rim of her teacup. “Language, young man.”

“I just want you out of here, right now,” he finished, anger and betrayal competing in his voice.

“Please, Ian,” Andrea said. “I’ve come a long way to see you.”

“Not half as far as I’ve come to be left the hell alone.”

With that, he showed her his back as he stalked toward the stairway. A few steps up, he paused and turned to look down at his mother, his voice gentling. “Sorry for the language, and I’m sorry I upset you earlier. I’ll remember next time to let you know when I have plans.”

“It’s all right, Ian. It’s just—” she answered nervously “—I do worry so about you, with everything that’s happened.”

“I’m headed upstairs for that shower now. But while I’m gone, would you please show Dr. Warrington the door.”

On his way upstairs, he nearly ran into a strawberry-blonde woman close to Andrea’s and Ian’s own age as she was heading down, a purse over her shoulder and a set of keys in hand.

“Excuse me, Jessie,” he said, his voice tight with impatience as he angled his way past her and the muscular black-and-tan Rottweiler at her side.

“Sure thing, Ian.” Jessie raised a speculative brow as he charged upstairs. At the bottom of the steps, she paused, glancing back up toward the landing at the sound of a door slamming. “Is he mad that I sent Zach to find him?”

“I’m afraid he’s upset with me,” Andrea admitted as she walked up to the woman and offered her hand. “Andrea Warrington.”

“The psychologist, right, and ex—the old friend.” Jessie shook her hand in greeting, looking up to meet Andrea’s gaze. “Hi. I’m Jessie Layton.”

“Jessie Rayford now,” her mother-in-law corrected, that same disapproval in her tone.

“I thought we’d had this discussion. Several times, as I remember.” An undercurrent of annoyance rippled beneath an attempt at pleasantry. “Since I write under my maiden name—”

“But you’re not writing now, Jessie. This is a social situation, and as Zach’s wife and Eden’s mother, I’d expect you’d want to—” Nancy Rayford cut herself off as the Rottweiler interposed herself between the women, as if to ward off her harsh words. Scowling, she added, “Really. That animal.”

“Gretel, platz,” Jessie said, and at the command—which Andrea thought might be in German—the dog dropped into the down position. “Sorry, but whenever she perceives a threat—”

“So what happens if you have an argument with my son?”

Jessie smiled at the Rottweiler. “Big traitor usually takes his side.”

Eager to defuse the tension, Andrea cleared her throat. “I read the article you wrote on Ian’s return. It was incredibly well done, very moving.”

Jessie ducked a nod, the relief in her green eyes making it clear she appreciated the diversion. “Thanks, Andrea. It was important. To get the word out quickly, I mean. Ian might not remember why, but he’s pretty paranoid these days. When he first came, he worried that someone might come take him away in the dark of night if the public didn’t hear he’d come back. He’s pretty short-tempered these days, too. But I guess you’ve already found that out for yourself.”

“Please, Jessie,” Nancy Rayford said. “He’s been through so much. And you’re making him sound like some sort of madman.”

“I promise you, I’ll never think of him that way,” Andrea assured her. “I work with returning vets. A lot of them have anger issues, and it must be even more confusing when he doesn’t consciously recall the reason why.”

“It was those horrible terrorists,” Mrs. Rayford whispered, tears shining in her eyes. “Heaven only knows what they did to my poor boy for almost a year. When I think of how he’s suffered...”

“It must be hard for you, too.” Andrea looked from one woman to the other in an effort to remind them of their common ground. “Not knowing what might set him off, not knowing what will help him.”

Jessie gave her a look that seemed to weigh and judge her. “You’ll help him. I see that.”

“It’s a shame that Ian won’t allow it,” her mother-in-law said, talking right over her. “But you heard him a moment ago. You’ll have to leave, Miss Warrington.”