by B. J Daniels
She still didn’t know what she was going to do as she pushed open the door into the motel room.
“Baby!” Collin cried as he rushed to her. “I was so worried about you.” He pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly. “I’m so sorry about earlier.” Drawing back to look at her, he said, “I was an insensitive jerk. Can you forgive me?”
She looked into this face she’d come to love. It still bowled her over that a man like Collin could love her so much. She felt the ring on her finger. How could she keep hurting this man because she couldn’t give up the fantasy of a life again with Danny? They were on their engagement trip—his surprise for her because she’d once mentioned that she’d never seen snow.
Well, she’d seen it now, she thought as it melted into puddle on the floor at her feet—more than she could have ever imagined.
“Collin,” she began. No longer able to look into his eyes and see the hurt, she stepped from his arms and turned to take off her coat and boots. This was all her fault, not his. All he’d done was love her. He certainly hadn’t asked for this.
“Look, I’ve been thinking,” he said behind her. “Of course you can’t leave until you know whether or not this man could possibly be your...husband. I mean, if he is, you’re still married. Not sure how that works. But anyway, there must be some way to find out, right?”
She turned slowly to look at him, knowing how hard this must be on him. “I told you. He doesn’t remember me.”
That stopped Collin for a moment, before he said, “Right. But then, he wouldn’t if he was someone other than Daniel Jackson.”
“Or if I’m right and he had a head injury from the explosion and didn’t know who he was.”
Collin frowned for a moment. “Okay, so you’re saying he still might have amnesia and that would explain why he doesn’t recognize you.” She nodded. “But he’s been somewhere all these years. All we have to do is find out where. If it was Texas...”
She felt tears fill her eyes as she stepped to him to hug him. “Thank you,” she whispered as she looked up at him.
“I love you, Kate. I want to marry you. So, we find out where this man has been and solve this.”
As she nodded, she realized that he thought this could be taken care of before their rental car ran out of gas in the motel parking lot. “It might not be that easy. I asked a couple of people. No one seems to know anything about him.”
Collin stared at her, surprise and something else she couldn’t quite put her finger on in his expression. “Well, wouldn’t the simplest way be to ask him?”
She stepped away again. “I’m not sure he’ll talk to me.”
“Well, he’ll talk to me. Leave it to me. I’ll take care of it.”
* * *
EARL RAY TAPPED at the right hand carriage-house door but didn’t wait for an answer. He could hear Jon inside the shop sanding one of his latest projects.
“Jon,” he said as he entered and closed the door behind him. Jon turned off the sander as Earl Ray sat down on the stool where he always sat when he came to visit. He liked sitting and watching the younger man work. The warmth of the old carriage house, the smell of the sawdust, the crackle of the fire all filled him with a peacefulness that relaxed him.
They didn’t talk much, didn’t need to. Earl Ray had seen the dark shadows in the man’s eyes the day Jon had arrived in Buckhorn. He knew pain when he saw it. What he hadn’t known was what had put it there. Something more than whatever physical pain Jon had endured, of that he was sure.
“I heard the most remarkable story earlier,” Earl Ray said conversationally. Jon glanced at him before picking up a piece of fine sandpaper and beginning to hand-sand the piece of wood he was holding. “It’s about this young woman. Twenty years ago or so, her husband left her and their two young daughters and never came home.” After Kate had left his house, he’d gone online. It hadn’t taken but a minute to find the story about the explosion all those years ago near Houston. He’d been horrified for all those who had lost their lives—and for the ones they’d left behind.
“Anyway,” he was saying. “There was an explosion at one of those plants down in Houston. So many people died, some never identified. The wife never believed her husband had died that day. She thought he’d been injured and didn’t know who he was and had walked away. She’s been looking for him ever since.”
No reaction from Jon, not that he’d really expected one. Still he sighed and continued. “She never quit loving the man all these years. Raised both daughters, seems she did okay for herself. Nor did she ever stop looking for him.”
Jon had stopped sanding. He was staring down at the board now covered with a fine layer of dust.
“Any of this sound familiar to you, Jon?” No answer. “The thing is, this woman has one hell of a lot of love left in the past that she just doesn’t know how to deal with. What makes it an even more tragic love story is that a new man’s come into her life after all these years of waiting for the other one to return. He’s offering her a second chance at happiness, but she won’t take it unless her first husband is really gone.”
Still no response.
Earl Ray rose, picked up his hat and gloves and headed for the door. He stopped, his back to the woodworker. “I suspect she won’t leave town until she has her answer. Nor will she be able to move on emotionally.” With that, he pushed open the door and headed toward the café. He’d done what he’d come to do, right or wrong.
He’d made decisions in the war that affected the lives of other men. But none were as heavy on his heart as this one. He’d interfered, something he tried very hard not to do anymore in other people’s lives. He just hoped he’d made the right decision and now Jon would do the same.
By the time he reached the café, he was craving one of Bessie’s blueberry muffins, and he had a feeling that she’d saved him one. Mostly he needed to see Bessie, to hear her laughter, to see her smile. She was the balm that soothed his regrets and gave him a reason to get out of bed in the morning.
Even the thought brought with it the guilt. Some days he couldn’t remember his wife’s face or hear the sound of her voice in his head. He felt himself slowly losing her all over again. It broke his heart, a heart that Bessie kept stitching back together, and he kept letting her, bringing with it another kind of guilt.
Yet the past still had a death grip on him.
He thought of Kate Jackson as he pushed open the café’s door. He hoped she would be able to move on. It would give him hope that he could someday as well.
“Earl Ray!” Bessie cried when she saw him. Her face broke into a huge smile. “Blueberry muffins still hot from the oven.”
He nodded, smiling. “You know me so well, Bessie.”
* * *
KATE STARED AT Collin as she felt her heart drop at his words. He was going to confront Jon Harper? “No, I—I don’t want you to.”
“Baby, you’re awfully protective of a man who is probably a complete stranger. I’m not going to beat the truth out of him. I’m just going to talk to him and try to clear this up, that’s all. Unless you don’t trust me to handle this.”
“It’s not that.” She could see that he was waiting to hear what it was in that case. She had no answer for him. She was protective of Jon Harper because she’d seen something dark in those sable brown eyes. A pain that she attributed to the explosion, his injuries, the path his life had taken over all these years.
Earl Ray had said they’d known Jon needed help when he’d landed in Buckhorn. Some of them had reached out to him. She understood their need to do that. She wanted to help him as well. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him even if he wasn’t Danny.
But he was. So what was the point of questioning him?
“Collin, I was thinking that maybe you could go on up to the border and meet your business associates and leave me here until—”
“Crazy?”
“I wouldn’t have used that particular word, but bizarre would work.” He sighed. “Or totally frigging off the wall.”
She could see that he was losing his patience, and she didn’t blame him. “I just need a little more time.”
He shook his head and looked at the floor. “I’m going to talk to him.” He held up a hand. “I’ll be nice. I promise. All I’m going to do is find out where he’s been the past twenty years while you were working and raising your daughters.”
“Collin—”
“No, let’s say you’re right, and this man is your husband. Maybe he had a brain injury. Could have happened. Or maybe, Kate, he didn’t. He was a teenager working two jobs and still you were barely making it. I know what that feels like. It makes a person desperate. So maybe he saw an opportunity to walk away.” Earl Ray had said the same thing. “How are you going to feel about him if that’s the case?” She met his gaze, her eyes brimming with tears. He swore. “Are you seriously still that much in love with him that you’d take him back even if he did walk out on you all those years ago?”
She’d once dreamed of finding him, of bringing him home. She’d known that he could have walked away. It hadn’t mattered. Did it now? For so long, she’d told herself he had to be dead, otherwise he would have found his way back to her.
“I don’t know how to feel about any of it,” she said. “I’d given up hope of ever seeing him again.”
“Well, I’m going to find out what his story is.” Collin grabbed his coat and was out the door before she could stop him.
She thought about going after him but could just see the two of them busting into the woodshop, making complete fools of themselves. It was bad enough that Collin was going. She picked up a book but couldn’t concentrate. Instead, she paced the small motel room, wondering what Collin was saying to Jon. More importantly, what Jon was saying. She thought about getting in the shower to warm up when the door opened and to her surprise he’d come back.
“He’s not there,” Collin said. “Apparently, he’s taken off. I found the cabin he lives in out back. His truck is gone, and his landlady said he drove off a few minutes before I got there. She checked his cabin. What few belongings he had were gone. He left rent money and a note thanking her. He’s gone, Kate. He isn’t coming back.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JON HARPER PARKED his old pickup in the lot and limped inside the bank. He’d driven the fifty miles to the nearest town of any size through a blizzard, even though his landlady Mabel had tried to talk him out of it.
“Lordy, Jon, have you noticed the weather?” Mabel had asked. “Now’s not the time to be going to the big city.” Lewistown was hardly the big city. “Can I loan you whatever you need and save you the trip?”
He shook his head. “Thanks anyway, Mabel. Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.”
She’d looked worried, but not as worried as she would be when she found his few belongings missing from the cabin she’d rented him the past five years. He’d left an envelope on the table in the cabin’s kitchen with the money he owed her and a thank-you note. He figured she wouldn’t find it for at least a few days, maybe more. It would take that long before she’d know that he wasn’t coming back. Then the whole town would know. Including the woman staying at the motel.
At the bank counter, he asked to get into his safety-deposit box. A clerk took his key and, using the bank’s key as well, pulled out his large box and handed it to him along with his key.
“Just let me know when you’re finished,” she said and stepped from the room.
He realized that his hands were shaking as he opened the box to see the stacks of bills he’d accumulated. Not nearly enough to disappear. He’d told himself that he needed at least one more good summer before he could move on. Now he realized that had been a lie. He’d liked Buckhorn. Even though he’d known it was dangerous, he’d stayed.
For years, he’d made a point of never staying long in any one place. But he’d made a mistake in Buckhorn. He’d been content there, and he’d let himself believe that no one was still looking for him. He’d lived on the run for so long, always looking over his shoulder, always moving on before he got too settled and people started asking too many questions.
Pulling out the duffel bag he’d brought to carry the money in, he knew this was his fault. He’d stayed too long. He’d got to believing that he was safe. In the middle of nowhere and miles from the interstate, only a few tourists wandered through in the summer. Not that he saw them. He let Bessie sell his wooden products so he never had to deal with the public.
The last thing he’d ever expected was a beautiful green-eyed woman to walk into his shop and turn his world upside down. Clearly, she had the wrong man. That man she told him about was long buried. But he knew Earl Ray was right. She wouldn’t stop digging into his past and worse, he didn’t know how to convince her that he wasn’t the man she was looking for. But she’d certainly reminded him why he needed to keep moving.
He thought of the look on her face when she’d opened her eyes after fainting in his workshop. He hadn’t understood it at the time, but now after what Earl Ray had told him... His heart ached for her. She was chasing a ghost, whether her husband was alive or dead. The man was gone. She was never going to find him and bring him home, that much he knew. People changed. They disappeared into someone unrecognizable.
He should know. He’d been running from the past almost as long as she’d been looking for hers. His heart went out to her and the pain he’d seen mirrored in those amazing green eyes.
His first instinct was to run and get as far as possible from Buckhorn and this woman. He had nothing to offer her and wasn’t sure he could convince her of the mistake she was making.
But what had made him realize he had to leave right away was what Earl Ray had told him about her having a second chance for happiness. He’d seen the big diamond on her ring finger and glimpsed the man a couple of times in town. He looked decent enough. She’d be a fool not to take hold of this new life she was being offered and not let go. He certainly didn’t want to be the one to stand in her way. Once he was gone...
Jon began to stuff the money into the bag. Running was the only choice he had, he told himself. He couldn’t look back. It was best for all of them, especially for her. He stopped loading the bag as he thought of what she would do when she found him gone. When she pushed open the workshop door, when she asked his landlady, when it was discovered that he’d run without a word. He imagined the look on her face, what he would have seen mirrored in her eyes.
With a curse, he slowly began to put the money back. He couldn’t do this to her. Not after listening to her story about her husband and their daughters. He couldn’t just disappear like her husband had—because she would keep looking for him or someone who resembled him. She would keep chasing a ghost.
Worse, she might give up her chance for happiness because of him. He didn’t need that on his conscience. He had enough as it was. But staying in Buckhorn any longer had become dangerous. If he wanted go on living, then he had to convince her to move on.
He put the money back into the safety-deposit drawer and shoved the box back into its slot. He realized he’d have to hurt her, but it might be the only way to give her a little peace. There would be no peace for him, though, he knew. If anything, the woman and her questions about him would probably get him killed.
But as he drove out of town, he told himself that if this had to end, then let it end in Buckhorn.
* * *
“KATE, COME ON. Think about what you’re saying.” Collin raked his hand through his hair. Since he’d found Jon gone, they’d continued to have the same argument. She could see that he was losing
his patience. She understood his frustration. Everything he said was true. Unfortunately, that didn’t make any difference to how she felt.
“Why would he leave if he isn’t Danny?” she demanded. That was the question that she kept asking herself.
Collin swore. “Because he didn’t want you coming back to his workshop day after day.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Baby, why would you want him even if he is your dead husband who left you not once but twice. Take the hint. He doesn’t want you. He left to get away from you.” He must have seen how his words landed on her and instantly stepped to her. “I’m not trying to hurt you. But Kate, we’re engaged to be married. I love you. I want us to spend the rest of our lives together. I thought this trip would be the beginning of something good for us. This man can’t offer you anything—even if he wanted to.”
“Maybe he’s not gone for good.”
Stepping away from her, Collin let out an explosion of air. “So, what are you going to do? Sit around here and wait to see if he comes back? Is that what you want to do? You want to break up with me for a shot-in-the-dark chance that this man is your husband, let alone that he’s going to miraculously remember you and want you again? Are you really going to live in that cabin out back of his workshop? Sell your house in Houston and spend winters in this town? Or are you planning to move him into your home in Houston? Maybe he could run his workshop out of your garage. Think about what you’re doing, Kate.”
He made it sound so ridiculous that she couldn’t help but see what a fool she was being. “You’re right,” she said. Jon Harper had left. She had to accept that, even if he was Danny, he didn’t want her or need her. He just wanted to be left alone. How much clearer could the man make it?
“Can we get something to eat before we leave town?” she asked, feeling weak and shaky. She felt sick at what she’d done. She’d run Jon Harper out of town. She hadn’t thought about what he wanted or needed. It had been all about her. All about finding Danny and her fantasy of bringing him home. Not to mention what she’d done to her relationship with Collin.
