Carol Ericson - Circumstantial Memories

She must be about four years old, and if his guess was right…she belonged to him.

Clem filled the stranger’s ears with local gossip as they ambled toward his house, covering the awkwardness that hung in the air like one of those heavy Native American blankets sold from roadside campers.

The truth of her past hovered right around the corner and she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Perhaps this stranger…no, Ryder McClintock…didn’t know her that well. Wouldn’t his family have recognized her name as one of Ryder’s friends? Of course, they knew only her first name.

His father and stepmother didn’t mention him often and he hadn’t been to visit them in over three years. She recalled talk of the McClintocks’ middle boy working overseas on some kind of a secret mission. How did she know a spy? Perhaps they had some brief acquaintance.

If she didn’t know him well, why was she on her way to see him that fateful night when her car skidded off the road in a snowstorm? That couldn’t be a coincidence. She must’ve been seeking out Ryder when she crashed, but where had he been the past three years?

As Ryder chatted with Clem, his responses terse, he avoided looking at her but seemed fascinated by Shelby. Julia’s heart skittered in her chest. He could probably tell her all about Shelby ’s father, where he was and why he never came looking for them.

“Hat, please.” Shelby strained away from Julia’s tight grip, leaning toward Ryder.

“You want my hat?” Ryder grinned down at Shelby, a gleam lighting his blue eyes.

“I’m sorry. Everyone spoils her around here.” She tugged Shelby back to her side. “Don’t be rude, Shelby.”

“Her name’s Shelby?” Ryder shoved his hands into his tight blue jeans. “That was my grandmother’s name.”

“I know. Ralph, your father, told me that after I named her.”

She folded her arms, gripping her elbows. “Do you think…?”

“Hat.” Shelby stomped her feet before planting them firmly on the dirt road.

“Young lady,” Julia crouched next to her, “I’m going to tell Aunt Millie not to give you any sugar cookies unless you behave yourself.” She secretly thanked her daughter for the distraction. After almost four years of having a blank slate for a memory, she didn’t think she could handle someone filling up that slate too quickly.

Julia looked up at the man who held the key to her identity and rolled her eyes. “She’s stubborn.”

“Just like…” Ryder stopped and clenched his jaw. Then he lifted his hat from his head and placed it on Shelby ’s. “There you go, a real Colorado cowgirl.”

Shelby squealed and holding her hands in front of her as if gripping reins, she trotted around the three adults, as the hat slid down to her nose.

“Thanks, but you didn’t have to do that.” Julia stood up next to Ryder as a breeze lifted the ends of his brown hair, touched with gold. She flinched at the pain lurking in his eyes and it took a physical effort for her not to reach up and smooth her palms across the creases at the sides of his mouth.

She couldn’t be Ryder McClintock’s wife. His family would’ve known if he had a wife. Ryder could give her a husband and a father for Shelby, it just wouldn’t be him. Her throat tightened and tears pricked behind her eyes.

Her knees trembled at her response to this tall, broad-shouldered man-the McClintocks’ son. She slipped her arm through Clem’s, leaning on his shoulder.

“R-Ryder and I have to talk, Clem.”

“I know that, honey.” He patted her shoulder. “Let’s just make it back to my place, and Millie will get some lunch for Shelby and you two can have some privacy.”

Clem’s neat ranch house appeared all too soon. His wife, Millie, waved from the porch, a dish towel in her hand. She called out, “I heard Ryder was back in town. How’d you get him first?”

“Just luck.” Clem strode to the porch as fast as his old bones could carry him and mumbled something to Millie.

Julia overheard her name, Ryder’s name, and something about her memory. Word would spread as fast as a Colorado brushfire. It always did.

“Mercy me.” Millie covered her mouth with the dish towel, her eyes wide above it. She scurried down the steps and stood on tiptoe to plant a kiss on Ryder’s cheek. “I hope you can help our Julia.”

Clem grabbed Shelby ’s hand. “C’mon, buttercup, cookies and lemonade for you after lunch and then I’ll take you out to see Missycat’s kittens.”

Millie placed a plump arm around Julia’s shoulders. “You and Ryder can have the patio out back. Plenty of privacy there.”

Julia’s stomach churned and she stumbled on the top step. Ryder placed a steadying hand against the small of her back, beneath her backpack, his warmth seeping through the thin cotton of her T-shirt. Her hyperawareness of him had to be due to their connection in her previous life.

She always referred to her past as her previous life, as if it had no bearing on the life she led in Silverhill. The foolish phrase allowed her to ignore the terror she always felt when she groped in the shadowy darkness of her past for answers. Now a collision between her past and present loomed before her. Was she ready for the fallout?

“Behave yourself and don’t be greedy.” Julia settled Shelby at the Stokers’ kitchen table, while Millie handed Ryder two glasses of lemonade.

Ryder led the way to the patio and Julia followed, her gaze clinging to his tight jeans molded to his behind-a pleasant distraction from the uncertainty that lurked around the corner.

Too bad Ryder didn’t rush in claiming to be her long-lost husband like so many others had. She might have accepted Ryder’s story without question.

He clicked the glasses down on the glass-topped table, and then pulled out her chair. The legs scraping against the flagstone jarred her from her pleasant reverie back to the present…back to the past. She perched on the edge of the chair and wrapped her hands around the sweating glass.

Settling beside her, Ryder sipped his lemonade and then turned his blue eyes to her. His gaze meandered over her face and hair and skimmed her shoulders. A sinuous warmth suffused her skin, his intimate inventory feeling like a caress.

“You look…different.”

“Let’s cut to the chase, Ryder.” She rubbed her damp palms on the thighs of her jeans. “Who am I?”

A quick grin split his face. “Not so different after all.”

His smile took her breath away, and she gripped the edge of the table to keep from sliding beneath it. Damn, if this man wasn’t her husband in her previous life, she must’ve had a hot fling with him. Or should have.

“Okay.” He planted his hands on his knees. “Your name is Julia Scott, although after you and Jeremy separated you started using your maiden name, Rousseau. How’d you remember your first name?”

“Wait a minute.” A dull pain thumped behind her eyes as she held up her hands. “You’re going too fast. I’m divorced?”

Dragging in a breath, Ryder raked a hand through his thick brown hair and the sun glinted off the golden streaks. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m not very good at filling in someone about her life. You were married to Jeremy Scott for less than a year. Things didn’t go so well after he got back from Afghanistan, and you split up.”

“ Afghanistan? My husband was in the military?” Maybe the military deployed him again, and that’s why he never looked for her.

“Yeah.” Ryder shifted his gaze and took a long swallow of lemonade.

“And my parents? My family? Why didn’t anyone else look for me?” She held her breath as she watched Ryder trace beads of moisture on the glass with his fingertip.