The Sheriff & the Amnesiac

by Ryanne Corey

  She missed him already. Oh, how she missed him.

  She turned blindly toward the grimy window next to her seat, then realized her thoughts had conjured the man. He was heading out of the Piggly Wiggly toward the bus, obviously a man with a mission. His lips were tight, his eyes stony. His beige uniform proclaimed him as the law. Jenny began to perspire. He was in Gladiator mode.

  The next thing she knew, he was standing in front of her, both hands clenched into tight fists. Jenny had never seen his muscular arms straining with so much tight energy.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” he snapped. “Nice note you left me. I was overwhelmed. I want you to get off this bus.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Yes you can. And you will.”

  Panic and pain made Jenny babble. “What are you now, the bus police?”

  Softly, but with a bite, he said, “This isn’t the place to talk, Jenny. We can work this out, but you have to stay around long enough to find a way. You have to help me. This is one thing I can’t do alone.”

  “You’re holding up these people,” she muttered, glancing toward the older woman seated across the aisle. She wasn’t looking bored any longer. She looked quite entertained. “Tyler, there’s nothing left to—”

  “Don’t.” He closed his eyes briefly, wondering what expression was on his face. Fear? Anger? Confusion? He felt all three. Then he looked into Jenny’s eyes and saw the dark wounds there. He felt a perverse satisfaction. At least she was hurting, too. He’d had that much of an impact on her. “I love you,” he said, loud enough for everyone on the bus to listen in to their conversation. “I love you. What do I have to do to prove it?”

  “Nothing,” Jenny said hoarsely, blinking furiously against the tears that threatened. “This isn’t about love.”

  “The hell it isn’t! Do you think what we have comes along every day? Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited for you? And you expect me to just let you disappear?”

  It took Jenny two tries before she found her shaky voice. “I’m not disappearing. I’m going to Duluth.”

  “St. Paul,” the woman across the aisle corrected.

  “I’m going to St. Paul,” Jenny said, feeling frantic. “I’m going because I want to. I haven’t seen much of the east. It’s time I did.”

  “It’s that easy for you?” Tyler said, his eyes fire-bright with emotion. “After…everything, it’s that easy for you? ‘Yes, I’ll be here when you get home, Tyler. No, I think I’ll go to Minnesota instead, Tyler.’”

  Jenny’s eyes glittered like a startled doe’s, dark and fixed. She stopped praying for the courage to do this thing well. She started praying for the courage to do it at all. This leaving was worse than she’d imagined, a thousand times worse. “I have to go. I want to go. It’s that simple.”

  Hot blood stung his cheeks. “Give me a reason. Give me one good reason to let you leave.”

  “What are you trying to do? Force me to say things that will only hurt you? This is your life, Tyler. Not mine. From the very beginning, I was only passing through.”

  From the front of the bus, the driver shouted something about keeping to his schedule. Tyler didn’t seem to have heard him. “It’s more than that, and you know it. Jenny, I can’t just walk out on my family. If I could, I swear I would, and I’d get on this damn bus and head east with you. Just give me some time to work things out.”

  “I don’t want you to leave your family!” Now Jenny was well and truly frightened. Just the fact he’d even thought about leaving his family, his job, his town, cut to the depths of her. She would never ask that of him, never expect it. She knew only too well what losing a family was like. She wouldn’t be responsible for that. “Tyler, we had all we could have. I’m not willing to take it any further. I don’t want to. I like my life the way it is.”

  “I don’t believe that,” he said flatly.

  “Well, you don’t have any choice.” Nothing lived in Jenny beyond the need to shelter him from the jagged remnants of her scarred life. “I was curious about you, Tyler. I satisfied that curiosity, but I never considered making our relationship permanent. Never. I care for you and I’m grateful to you, but I won’t pretend to give you something I can’t give. Accept it.”

  “You’re lying.”

  Yes. But I’m doing it out of love. “I’m sorry, Tyler. Truly. But I don’t fit here, and you sure don’t fit into my plans.”

  “Do you know what I think?” Tyler said with deceptive softness. “You’re too damn chicken to face what we could have together, Jenny. You’re scared to risk your pretty neck. You’d rather run than let something matter.”

  “You’ve got that right.” She forced herself to smile, though her stomach was spinning and jumping in a nauseating fluctuation. “I always take the path of least resistance. You should know that by now. I think the bus driver is going to have apoplexy if we don’t get on the road soon.”

  He became completely motionless in that way he had. Still, he didn’t bother to hide the stark pain in his eyes. Nor the anger. “Just like that?” he asked softly.

  The crushing weight in Jenny’s chest was growing heavier, harder to bear. She knew she had to end this now, before the dam broke and she flooded the Greyhound bus with tears. “Path of least resistance,” she repeated, her voice choked and hoarse, as if she had a cold. “That’s me.”

  Tyler took one step backward, looking around the bus as if seeing the other passengers for the first time. He shook his head, trying to think beyond his ravaged emotions. Nothing came, just complete chaos.

  “Goodbye,” Jenny said, wanting him to leave. A monsoon was coming, compliments of her broken heart. She met his eyes, then looked away. Helplessness took her by the throat, squeezing. She wanted this to be over.

  “I guess it’s your call,” Tyler said finally. “I’d expected more of you, Jenny. I thought you were a fighter. My mistake.”

  “She’s the one making a mistake,” someone muttered from the back seat.

  It was all Jenny could do to hold her head up and her shoulders square. She felt like someone in a very bad movie that wasn’t going to end well.

  “Please go,” she said.

  Beneath his shirt, his chest was taut with strain. His neck muscles were also corded, pulsating with every beat of his heart. Effortlessly he locked her into his angry, beautiful sky-blue eyes. “You better be damn sure this is what you want, Jenny.”

  For one moment nothing seemed to exist in the world but the awful blankness inside her. One thing she had learned long ago—life was not about what she wanted. She forced herself to swallow over the aching knot in her throat. “Take care of yourself, Tyler.”

  “And since you’re leaving me no choice—you better take care of yourself, as well. Apparently you’d rather have a memory than the real thing.”

  “Think about it,” the lady across the aisle remarked. “You better think about this, honey.”

  Jenny couldn’t think. She felt like the sky had landed with all its terrible weight on her shoulders. He had to go, he had to go now. Desperation gave her the strength to say, “The driver is going to call the police if you don’t get off the bus. Then you’d have to put yourself in jail.” Then, in a very different voice, “Go.”

  Tyler backed out of the bus slowly, never looking away from her once. Then he turned abruptly at the door and took the metal stairs in one step.

  Outside he stood with his thumbs hooked in the pockets of his pants, his golden-brown hair ruffled in the breeze from the departing bus. And there he stood, growing smaller and smaller as Jenny got farther away.

  Jenny didn’t hide her tears in her hands until he was out of sight. She knew, as Tyler did not, that his memory would never be enough.

  Eleven

  Tyler was in a very bad mood.

  It was Saturday night, his third Saturday night since Jenny had left town. Tyler had discovered he hated Saturday evenings. They were long and lonely. So lonely, in fact, that he decided to g
o over to Rosie’s and distract himself with the terrible twins.

  That was lonely, indeed.

  His worry for Jenny was a barbarous, open wound, bleeding whenever he examined it too closely. She hadn’t been completely well when she’d left. For the first few days he’d hung on to a faint hope that she would call, let him know where she was, tell him she’d changed her mind. After that, he’d run out of hope and all he had left was the pain.

  He hadn’t been exceptionally easy to be around, he knew that. He probably owed Rosie an apology. He’d been short-tempered with her, short-tempered with everyone, actually. In the back of his mind, he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that his responsibilities had somehow cost him any happiness he could have had with Jenny. And though he’d accepted those responsibilities of his own free will, he was still conflicted. He’d tried for so long to fill his father’s shoes, to care for Ella and Rosie and the boys the way they deserved to be cared for. Until Jenny came into his life, he’d never wondered about what he deserved. He’d been too busy trying to make up for all the mistakes of the past.

  He’d never bothered with knocking when he visited his sister. He discovered when he swung her front door wide, however, he probably should have announced his arrival. Then he might have been spared the sight of his sister snuggled on her sofa with Eliot Dearbourne. Kissing.

  No brother ever wanted to see his sister locked in a passionate embrace. Tyler slapped his hand over his eyes, said a bad word and shut the front door. Then he counted to ten and opened it again. Dearbourne was on his feet, slightly flushed but looking quite happy. Rosie was still sitting on the sofa with a goofy smile on her face.

  “What are you doing here?” Tyler asked the attorney by way of greeting. “Why aren’t you in Los Angeles? Am I going crazy, or did I just witness you making out with my sister?”

  Eliot cleared his throat. “Good to see you, too. And yes, we were making out. Sorry about that.” Then, on reflection, “No, I’m not.”

  The guy had lost the bow tie, Tyler noticed. There was nothing on his pristine white shirt but a smear of something that looked like grape jelly. Shaking his head, Tyler glared at his sister. “You want to explain this?”

  Rosie thought about it. Then she said, “No. Not really.”

  Tyler’s jaw was clenched hard enough to crack a molar. This situation was exacerbating his very bad mood. The last time he had seen Eliot Dearbourne had been the day Jenny left town. The man had called him a fool for letting her get on a bus in her condition. Tyler had come this close to popping him in the nose. The next day Dearbourne was on a plane to Los Angeles, never to be seen again. Or so Tyler assumed.

  “Well, someone better talk,” he said through his teeth. “Where are the boys? Where’s Ella?”

  “They’re spending the night with my next-door neighbor,” Rosie said calmly.

  This had the effect of an atom bomb dropped in the living room. “You two are here alone?”

  “Relax, Ty,” Rosie told him, uncurling from her comfy position on the sofa. “Eliot’s been a perfect gentleman. He’s always a perfect gentleman. Nothing’s going to happen that I don’t want to happen.”

  “What do you mean, always?” Tyler demanded. “You only knew this guy for a couple of days, Rosie. You can’t make a judgment on—”

  “You’d better sit down,” Eliot told him. “You don’t look well.”

  “He’s right, Ty,” Rosie said cheerfully, patting her brother on the shoulder. “You’ve had a bit of a shock. Well, I for one am glad you walked in here so rudely. We were getting sick of hiding from you all the time, anyway.”

  Tyler sat down heavily into a leather recliner. “Hiding?”

  Eliot and Rosie exchanged a look. “Eliot’s been back to visit me a couple of times,” Rosie said finally.

  “Mostly on the weekends. The last three weekends, actually. We didn’t want to tell you because…well, we were happy and you weren’t, basically. I’ve been feeling terribly guilty.”

  “Oh, I can tell,” Tyler said tonelessly. Under his palms on the armrests, the leather felt slippery. At least it was something to hold on to. “You’re all busted up about it.”

  “Rosie?” Eliot asked quietly. “Would you go make us a cup of coffee or something? It might be a good idea if I talked to Tyler alone for a few minutes.”

  Rosie eyed her brother uneasily. “Are you going to be nice?”

  Tyler groaned, dropping his forehead into his hand. “Yes, Rosie, dear. I’ll be nice.”

  But the moment she was gone, he shot Eliot a warning look. “If you are taking advantage of my sister, it will be the last thing you ever—”

  “You shouldn’t threaten people with death,” Eliot interrupted mildly. He sat down on the sofa, smoothing the creases in his slacks. “You’re the law around here, after all.”

  “I was her brother long before I was the law.” Tyler stared at Dearbourne long and hard. He was trying to make the man uncomfortable, but it didn’t seem to work. The attorney maintained his calm demeanor. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

  “Jenny. I was going to call you tomorrow, so you saved me the trouble.” Dearbourne sighed regretfully. “Although your timing is lousy.”

  Jenny. The name always in his mind, but never on his lips. He hadn’t talked about her since the day she’d left, despite all Rosie’s efforts to make him open up. “What about her?” he asked, his heart twisting painfully in his chest. “Is she all right?”

  Eliot pursed his lips, appearing to give a great deal of thought to his response. “Well, that depends on your interpretation of all right. She called a couple of days ago to tell me she was doing well, and asked me to wire some money.”

  Tyler’s head snapped up. “Wire money? Where?”

  “To a bank.”

  Tyler’s hands were now clenched into fists. “What bank?”

  “First National in New York City. She’s decided to spend the winter there. In the city, not at the bank.” As a lawyer, Eliot had been trained to always clarify himself. “She actually has herself some sort of job, though she didn’t say what it was. I’m feeling quite optimistic about her, to tell you the truth. She’s never been interested in staying in one place for any length of time.”

  “That’s great,” Tyler said woodenly. “Just ducky. Wonderful for her.”

  Eliot raised a questioning brow. “Do I detect a residue of anger?”

  “Why can’t attorneys communicate like normal people?” Tyler snapped. “Why do you have to use words like residue? Yes, Eliot, I’m angry. She got on a Greyhound bus and left me flat. She wouldn’t even give me a chance to make her happy. Nor has she called me, which has left me with an even bigger residue of anger.”

  Eliot walked over to the front window, staring out at the darkened street. After a long moment, he said quietly, “I’m getting to like this little town, Tyler. It’s like something out of a novel, the perfect little place to live and grow. The level of simple happiness here is amazing to someone accustomed to the rush and noise and craziness of Los Angeles. That’s one of the reasons I keep coming back.” He looked over his shoulder with a little smile. “Not the main reason, though.”

  “Rosie,” Tyler said.

  “Rosie.” The way Eliot said her name, he made it sound like an endearment. “Do you know why it’s so easy for me to fall under the spell of this place? I don’t know what it’s like to be completely alone in the world. I have six—count them, six—sisters. My parents are living in a retirement community in Palm Beach. We get together for holidays, birthdays, you name it. I’m one of the lucky ones who has nothing but good memories from life. I expect to be happy. And the prospect of committing to something—or someone—incredibly special doesn’t scare me a bit.”

  “Obviously, you haven’t spent enough time with the terrible two,” Tyler muttered.

  Eliot smiled. “Believe it or not, they don’t scare me, either. But I realize I’m one of the lucky ones. I automatically take happine
ss as my due. Jenny hasn’t had that luxury. She knows what it’s like to lose everyone and everything. It doesn’t surprise me a bit that she wouldn’t stay here with you. Unlike me, she expects to be alone. That’s been the only constant in her life for a long time—being alone.”

  Tyler stood up abruptly, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. He felt punchy with nerves, his mind exhausted. No matter how long he thought about her, he couldn’t come up with a way to solve it. His conscience demanded he stay where he was. His heart didn’t give a damn about his conscience. “I tried to make her stay, Eliot. I begged her to stay. She said no.”

  “Of course she said no,” Eliot replied, shrugging. “You asked her the wrong question.”

  “Y’know, I’m really not in the mood for games. If you want to tell me something—”

  “You asked her to stay with you,” Eliot said quietly. “Of course she said no. Do you know what an enormous risk that would be to someone like Jenny? One minute she’s alone and safely shut off from her emotions, the next she’s in the middle of the Brady Bunch and asked to stay forever. Of course she wasn’t up to dealing with that. To someone like Jenny, simple happiness is a major hurdle, an enormous risk. It’s like saying to fate, ‘Okay, I’ll give you one more stab at me. Have at it.’”

  Tyler only stared at him, a muscle working hard in his jaw. “I didn’t think of it like that.”

  “Why would you? You two were living on an emotional roller coaster, racing from one crisis to another. I don’t think you had much time to actually understand each other, or the feelings you had. When Jenny finally came back to earth, she felt she had only one choice—be absorbed into your life, your family, your love, or…continue as she always had, alone. Are you really surprised she bolted?”

  Dearbourne was making a terrible sort of sense. “You said that I asked her the wrong question. What did you mean?”

  Very deliberately he said, “You asked her to stay. You never asked her if you could go with her.”