Collision Course: A Romantic Thriller

by Susan Donovan

  She waited several long moments in the comfort of his heat before she knew it was safe to relax. Relief and gratitude flooded through her when she realized that Ruby would do only what she asked. She didn’t want him to know she was crying, so she let the tears fall silently in the dark until sleep came.

  Ruben lay against her, where he belonged, feeling the rise and fall of her deep breathing, noticing how hot his own tears felt against his cool cheek.

  Chapter 8

  Monday, March 20

  Shit! The geese! Gina’s coming!

  Ruben slowly extracted his arm from around Zia’s waist and she stirred next to him. Stupid birds. His plan was to lie here all morning and feel her sleep.

  Goddamn stupid birds. They howled and squawked in this particularly annoying way whenever Gina or Pookie walked across the road to Pura Vida. Now they were going to wake up Zia and there’d be no chance to reclaim his place in bed with her.

  “Ugly, stupid, damn things,” he mumbled aloud, nearly stumbling down the little hallway to the door.

  Gina stood with her hands on her hips surveying his yard.

  “Good morning, Ruben. I’m on official business. How is she? She’s been here over three days and you haven’t returned any of my phone calls. I came over here twice and you were gone.”

  He stood in front of her, trying to pry his eyes open.

  “You are aware that she’s my responsibility, correct?” She gave her head a little sassy shake. “Your yard looks very nice.”

  “Good morning Gina. She’s asleep.”

  Gina craned her neck to look beyond Ruben and saw a neatly folded stack of blankets at the end of his couch.

  “I see.”

  “No you don’t see.”

  “Oh, yes I do.” She glared at him, then pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers, as if she was suddenly blinded by a headache. She looked up again.

  “I trusted you.” Gina shook her head at her own stupidity. “That woman is in no position to be added to your collection. How could you do this?”

  “Do what?”

  “Use her.”

  Ruben put a hand on Gina’s shoulder and gently pushed her farther onto the little front porch. “Stay right there, Kravitz.”

  He grabbed his denim jacket from the peg and his boots from near the couch and went out to join her on the plaza.

  Gina studied Ruben carefully. He certainly didn’t look like a man who’d recently made a conquest. He looked drained. His eyes were red and swollen. Dear God, what were they doing to each other in there?

  “Her memories are coming back, Gina, a little bit at a time. She’s a dancer. A classical ballet dancer.” Ruben blinked, still marveling at what he’d seen her do. “She’s very good.”

  “A ballerina? On a motorcycle?”

  “Apparently, yes.”

  “Well, this is great news! She has her follow up with the neurologist Wednesday. I’ll come pick her up.”

  “I’ll take her.”

  Gina’s eyes narrowed. “It’s at nine A.M. You’ll be at work.”

  “No I won’t. I took some time off.”

  “What do you mean ‘time off?’” Gina asked. “I thought you were kidding about that.”

  “No joke. I took a leave so I can help her through this.”

  Gina laughed. “Good God, Ruby. Are you all right?”

  He laughed too and looked down at his boots. “I’ll tell you all about it when she’s gone home.”

  “Does she remember anything else?” Gina tried to see under the fringe of his hair, but couldn’t make out his expression. “Ruben?”

  “She’s not saying. I think maybe she’s remembered more, but she hasn’t told me. It’s not going to be long before she remembers everything, though.”

  “Are you all right, kiddo?” She waited. “Are you?”

  He looked up, and Gina’s heart nearly fell to her knees. “What’s wrong?”

  He chuckled and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m more lost than she is,” he whispered.

  Gina softened a bit and touched his elbow. “Jesus, Ruby, just don’t hurt her.”

  “I wouldn’t hurt that woman for anything in the world.” His words came out sharp and fast and then he sighed. “I just want to help her. I love her.”

  Gina let out a groan and guided Ruben to the little wooden bench beneath a pear tree. “Have a seat.” She plopped next to him.

  “First of all, she’s not real, Ruby. You do realize that, don’t you?”

  “What do you mean she’s not real?” He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned.

  “Honey, I mean she’s not a real, whole, complete woman, not until her memory comes back. She doesn’t have strong opinions or a history full of hurts and disappointments and lessons learned. She doesn’t know how you fit in her life. She doesn’t even have a life, for God’s sake! She’s not real.”

  Ruby held up a hand. “Wait a minute. Is this a free session with Gina Kravitz, mental health professional?” Howard would be pleased, he thought.

  She smiled at him. “Damn straight it is, and I hope you’re paying attention.”

  Ruben scowled.

  “Look. You’re the hardcore skeptic here, right? Let’s say Cooper came to you and said he’d fallen in love in less than a week, would you believe him? Especially if the lucky woman didn’t even know her own name?”

  He stared at her blankly.

  “I think maybe you love the idea of her. She’s gorgeous, obviously. And she’s completely unattainable.” Gina seemed quite pleased with herself and folded her hands in her lap. “In fact, she’s the perfect woman for you, Ruby!”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Think about it. Have you ever, once, felt this way about a woman?”

  “No.” He didn’t need to think about it.

  “Okay. So she’s the first woman you’ve found who is safe to love. Why is that? Because she’s already out the door, that’s why! She’ll never make any demands on you. You’ll never have to risk anything with her. You’ll never wake up one morning and realize you’re bored.”

  Ruben stood up and walked with his back to her. “That’s pretty harsh, Gina. Shit, I thought you were my friend.”

  She came to him and placed a hand on his forearm. “I am your friend, you goof. That’s why I’m telling you what you need to hear. Somebody has to do it.”

  “I think you’re wrong.” He shrugged her hand away and walked toward the house.

  “I think I’m right!” she called after him. “Her appointment is Wednesday at nine! Call me right away if she remembers anything important!”

  He closed the door with finality.

  Zia had never seen people eat so much in her whole life – at least she didn’t think she had.

  Arleen Gallegos was giving out thirds now, and the men bent their heads to the plates of big, fluffy scrambled eggs mixed with red and green chiles, cheese, onions, salsa and chorizo sausage. Some rolled the concoction inside a warm tortilla, and devoured the whole package in two or three bites.

  “More, Zia?” Arleen held the giant cast iron skillet with an oven mitt, her sinewy arms straining with the effort as she waited for her answer.

  “Oh! No, but thank you.”

  Ruben shot her a crooked smile and Zia grinned back.

  Uncle Frank had been foreman at McQueen Ranch for eighteen years now, and as far as weekday mornings went, this one was pretty standard, Ruben thought.

  Just like all those mornings he remembered, the table was packed with an odd assortment of stragglers and hired help. The Mexican ranch hands—the names and faces changed month-to-month—were joined at the table by four college kids in need of extra cash.

  And everybody was shoveling in the food as fast as Arleen could throw it at them.

  Ruben watched, fascinated, as his uncle made small talk with Zia. Frank’s huge, callused hands took on monster-like proportions compared to Zia’s delicate bones. As Ruben compared th
e two sets of hands, he had to remind himself they were of the same species.

  Uncle Frank was giving Zia the standard guest lecture, explaining that the McQueen Ranch was one of a handful of huge cattle operations left anywhere near Albuquerque. The area was once surrounded by ranches, before all the development, he said.

  “Now, I like to do things the old-timey way,” Frank, said, sipping his coffee. “This morning, we’re going on horseback to drive 175 head to the eastern edge of the property, where water’s good. Are you coming along?”

  Zia swiveled her head to Ruben, smiling excitedly, then back to Frank. “Of course we are!” she said.

  One of the college boys grunted.

  “Now, you know, my father, Ruben’s grandfather, he was a great cowboy,” Frank said. “He’s a Taos Pueblo Indian but he married an Anglo woman, did Ruby tell you that?”

  Zia nodded.

  “We lived in town and father worked at a big Anglo ranch his whole life to support the family.”

  As Zia listened, she realized Frank’s brown eyes reminded her of Ruben’s. They were liquid and kind and intelligent. But Frank’s face advertised a life in the sun, wind and dirt, and though Ruben said his uncle was sixty, he looked much older.

  “Now, Old Gallegos would take me out for so long when I was a youngster that I thought for sure I’d die of thirst and blow away,” Frank chuckled. “He’d look at me and say ‘You’ll live’ and we’d just keep going.”

  “Stop scaring the girl, Frank!” Arleen was at the stove, simmering the shank roast she planned to serve for supper. She glanced over her shoulder to Zia. “Honey, you can take water with you in the saddlebag. Don’t pay any attention to that man.”

  Frank winked at Zia. “Anyway. Here’s what I tell everyone who comes to the ranch: if you want to be a cowboy, you gotta be tough as a pig’s nose and fast as heck.”

  “I’ll remember that,” Zia said, smiling.

  Ruben tacked up Monty and gave Zia a boost into the saddle. Monty was not as quick as he used to be, but was as sure-footed and gentle a beast as there was on the McQueen Ranch. Zia obviously adored him. As she cooed and stroked his neck and scratched behind his ears, the veteran ranch horse seemed to return the sentiment.

  She was a natural, Ruben observed. Maybe it was her well-developed sense of balance, but she didn’t seem scared. He watched her relax into the saddle, hold the reins lightly and direct the horse with a gentle, steady touch. He only had to show her once.

  She smiled at him as they rode leisurely through the dramatic cliffs, gullies and buttes of the Rio Puerco basin west of Albuquerque.

  Ruben admired her from under his felt hat and decided that Zia had an unfixed kind of beauty. She looked sexy and chic in her Santa Fe skirt and sweater. She looked ethereal in her ballet leotard. She looked cute in his borrowed tee shirt and shorts. And that morning, in one of Arleen’s straw cowboy hats, bundled in a denim jacket, her hair tied back in a ponytail – and she looked clean and pretty and true.

  In all his life, no woman had ever looked so right to him.

  He had cradled her in his arms last night, and he let the remembered feel of her surface in his mind. Whatever else came of this, however soon she’d be gone, at least he’d been lucky enough to hold her for one night.

  Frank and the hands were far ahead, small black dots in a cloud of dust. Ruben kept an eye on their progress, but was in no hurry to catch up. He and Zia were there to have fun and eat Arleen’s cooking, not to work.

  “It’s beautiful here, Ruby. How often do you come out to visit?”

  “As often as I can. I spent a lot of time here when I was a kid,” he said, glancing her way. “My mom and Frank were real close. She sent me out to work for him every summer from the time I was about twelve until I went to college.”

  “You worked here?” She seemed surprised, and raked her gaze along Ruben’s body atop the stocky black horse. “You were a cowboy?”

  He smiled at her and tipped his hat. “Yes ma’am. Still am,” he drawled.

  She laughed and shot him the biggest, most dazzling smile Ruben had ever seen. He figured he’d better keep talking or he’d fall off his mount.

  “Every summer I’d be out here with Uncle Frank and he’d make me work until I couldn’t stay awake in the saddle. It was hard, but it kept me out of trouble.” Ruben shook his head. “I was too exhausted to get in trouble anyway, not that there was much to be found out here, except when I pissed off Aunt Arleen.”

  Zia grinned at him. “So were you were already a bad boy by then?”

  Ruben laughed a little self-consciously. “I’m sure I would’ve been if my Mom had given me any rope. I had to wait until college to let ‘er rip.”

  Zia didn’t look at him. She gazed at the spectacular, rugged sweep of the horizon and the soft streaks of clouds above. She took inventory of the land that stretched out before her – the plants Ruben told her were prickly pear and chamisa – and the sandy soil, the dark volcanic rock.

  “You’ve had a lot of women in your life, haven’t you Ruben?”

  That surprised him. He brought his horse to a standstill and Monty pulled up alongside without being asked.

  “A fair number, yes.”

  She looked at him then, her eyes partially shaded by the brim of her hat. “Women like you, don’t they?”

  “I guess.”

  “Do you know why that is?”

  He was intrigued by her questions and wondered if she was asking him more than her words indicated.

  “Because I’m a great guy?” he asked, producing one of his grins. He noticed that she didn’t succumb to it.

  “You’re charming and handsome, Ruby.” Zia held his gaze for a moment, then scanned the full picture he made on horseback—rugged, sturdy, and confident.

  “I bet you’ve got a routine that works well with women. You like being around women, but you’ve never wanted one particular woman to be a part of your life for a very long time. You like the challenge most of all, and after that you lose interest. How close am I?”

  His lips parted and he blinked, but he had no idea what to say. So he shut his mouth.

  “I grew up in a city, Ruby,” Zia blurted out. “I can see my house. It was a red brick row house with little white marble front steps and a black wrought iron handrail. The railing was cold to the touch in the wintertime.”

  His eyes went huge.

  “I remember dance classes. I remember coming home in the evening and my Dad was there. I can see his face. I can feel him hug me. I remember I felt very well loved.”

  “When did… why didn’t you tell me?”

  She smiled and sighed. “It’s coming in little pieces, not in any order, and I’m not sure how it all fits together. I don’t have the big picture yet.”

  “What else is there? Do you know your name?”

  Zia’s eyes went hard and she pursed her lips. “I can’t explain to you how awful it is, how unbearably frustrating it is to have it all right here on the edge of my brain—everything.” She poked her forehead with her finger, knocking the hat back a bit. “It’s all in there, my name, my address, my phone number, my social security number, my locker combination, whatever, and when I try to touch it, speak it, I lose it. Like a swirl of smoke, it’s gone.”

  “But it’s coming.”

  “Absolutely. It’s already there. It won’t be long.”

  “So what else?”

  She studied his face. There was a flash of the same pain she saw when she went to him in the kitchen last night. She knew he wanted her, whatever that might mean for Ruben Jaramillo. He had been kind. He had been generous. He had been so patient and gentle to her last night. She owed him whatever truth she could scrape together for him.

  “There’s a man, Ruby. I can see his eyes, and I can feel him somehow, but I think it’s over between us.”

  “You think it’s over? What does that mean?”

  Zia pushed the hat farther back from her forehead and a few blond
strands fell around her face. “I feel him, but there’s nothing in my heart, nothing good, anyway.”

  Ruben looked down at his hands where they rested on the saddle horn. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I’m scared, Ruby. I’m incredibly scared.”

  “Of what?” He raised his head and his eyes found hers.

  She stared directly at him. “I’m scared of that man. I’m scared of you—what I feel for you. And I’m scared of what I’m about to remember.”

  He considered all this in silence for a moment, watching the wind play in the golden threads of her hair, feeling elation and dread wash over him in waves. What was the right thing to say to her right now? What did she need to hear?

  “I will never hurt you, Zia.” And it was the truth.

  “How do you know that?”

  “You’ve just got to trust me on this,” he said earnestly. Before her frown could form, Ruben adjusted himself in the saddle and sat tall and straight, then saluted her. “I swear by the bad-boy cowboy code of honor that I’ll never hurt you, Miss Doe.”

  She couldn’t help but laugh. “Wow. That’s such a relief.”

  They returned from McQueen Ranch exhausted and stuffed with shank roast and all the fixins. Ruby took the fastest shower of his life so Zia would get most of the hot water.

  She didn’t invite him and he didn’t ask, but Ruben just climbed into bed with her, in clean clothes, if it were the most natural thing in the world to do. She curled up next to him the same as she had the night before, but this time, she fell asleep immediately.

  When the honking sound woke him, Ruben assumed it was the Goddamned geese again, but he soon realized the rhythm and pitch weren’t quite right. He opened his eyes to find Zia gone.

  He jumped out of bed and said her name. It took just seconds to discover she wasn’t in the house. Then he heard it again.

  Zia sat curled up in a ball on the plaza bench, a blanket pulled tight around her. She was crying, crying hard.

  He grabbed a roll of toilet paper from under the bathroom sink and hopped out on the cold pavement in his bare feet. “Zia?”