“Okay.”
Evie watched as Blaire and Nicole walked out of the room and instantly it felt like they took all of their comfort and ease with them. Not that she was afraid of Jesse Pleasant or his brother Zach. Clearly Jesse was important to her if he was her emergency contact. But once again, she was with complete strangers who somehow knew her better than she knew herself. They were all silent for a moment.
“Man.” Zach let out an odd chuckle, shaking his head. Then he looked right at Evie before sitting on the edge of her bed.
“What is it?” Evie asked.
“Nothing.”
“Please tell me. Dr. Manzo said that it’s best if people don’t assume I’ll get an inside joke or be able to read their cues. I can’t. You know things that I don’t remember.” Evie felt awful for the way the warm smile on Zach’s face immediately dropped, but she knew she was right. There was so much she didn’t remember.
“Shit. I’m sorry. You’re right. Nicole mentioned that. She said that you didn’t seem like yourself and she was right.”
“What’s missing? What’s the most obvious thing?” Evie asked.
“Well, for starters you would have asked me what the hell I was doing here the moment you laid eyes on me.”
“Why?” Evie asked.
“We can talk about that later,” Jesse said, a bit of authority reinforcing his voice. Evie wanted to question him again, but from the way Zach clammed up she figured she should drop it for now. “How have they been treating you here? How are you feeling?” Jesse asked.
“Well. Better. The nurses are very nice and Dr. Manzo has been very patient with me. They’ve been letting Blaire stay beyond visiting hours, so that’s been nice. I don’t feel so alone.”
“Man!” Zach sprang up with another laugh and slapped his tan cowboy hat against the side of his free palm. “This isn’t weird to you?”
“You’re not helping,” Jesse said, his voice sounding dangerously tight.
“This isn’t weird to you? I’m not talking about her. I’m talking about all of this.” He motioned between the three of them. “When have the three of us ever had a conversation this tense and tight. Nicole said don’t confuse her. She didn’t say we should act like damn robots around her.”
“I don’t want that. Please be yourselves around me.”
“See?”
Jesse threw up his hands in surrender and leaned against the corner of the windowsill. Zach seemed to take that as some sort of cue. He sat back down on the bed, closer this time. Evie could feel the warmth of his leg pressed up against hers through the thin hospital bedding. It reminded her of the warmth from her dreams. She looked up into his dark brown eyes and was shocked all over again at the familiar feeling. He meant something to her.
“You look like hell, Buck,” he teased. It made no sense, but something in his perfect smile triggered something deep inside and Evie started to cry.
Chapter 5
So much for not fucking things up. Before Zach could let an “Oh shit” slip, Jesse had shoved him out of the way and Nicole and Blaire came flying back into the room, rushing to Evie’s bedside.
“What happened?”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine.” She sniffled before letting out another hiccup that turned into a sob. Zach’s chest started to ache at the sound. It had been almost a decade since he’d been face-to-face with Evie Buchanan. Nicole had prepared them for the shock. Evie wasn’t herself, she’d told them more than once. Plus, she was still pretty banged and bandaged up. She’d warned him, but he wasn’t prepared for how weak and fragile Evie looked in that hospital bed. The glasses and the fact that she hadn’t cussed him straight the fuck out the minute he walked into the room had thrown him off too.
The tears were something else though. The Evie he knew was too proud to cry in front of him, or anyone for that matter. He looked at her, stunned, as more tears squeezed out of the corners of her eyes. She didn’t know him, but something he’d said had set her off. Maybe it jogged a memory.
“Here. Move.” Jesse shoved Zach against the other wall and handed Evie a box of tissues.
“Thank you.”
“Are you okay?” Nicole asked.
“Yeah, I—I just thought . . .”
“You thought what?” Zach asked.
“Nothing. I think I’ve been a little overwhelmed and it just caught up with me, having new visitors. I didn’t mean to—”
“You don’t need to apologize,” Jesse said. “Maybe we should come back later. Let you rest some more.”
“No! No. Please stay. Blaire said you might be the closest thing I have to family.”
“That . . . is true,” Jesse said.
“You don’t remember anything about growing up with us?” Zach asked, watching her face closely.
Evie carefully shook her head. “I’ve been having dreams about horses and the desert, kind of, but none of it makes sense. I can’t connect any of the pieces.”
“We’re in town as long as you need us,” Jesse said.
“Yeah. We’re not going anywhere until we get this all sorted out. We don’t have to talk about anything now. We can just kick it with you for a little while.”
“No.” Evie sniffled again, but now her tears seemed to be under control. She wiped her face with a fresh tissue. “You didn’t come all this way just to hang out with me.”
“We don’t mind. Do we, Jess?” He turned to his brother and was given the firm nod of confirmation he and Evie both needed. This meet and greet had gone to shit, but Zach didn’t want to leave Evie’s side.
“It’s whatever you want,” Blaire chimed in.
“I’m sorry. I hate stressing you all out.”
“Nonsense,” Nicole said. “We’re here for you.”
Zach watched Evie’s face as she focused on the edge of the bed for a moment before she looked up. “Can I speak to Zach alone for a few minutes?”
Her request was music to Zach’s ears, but he didn’t miss the storm cloud that passed over his brother’s face as he leaned away from the window. Jesse’s brows drew together, a warning, before the expression dropped and he looked back in Evie’s direction. “I’ll go with Nicole and grab you some lunch.”
“Thank you. I have questions for you too, but maybe one at a time will be easier.”
“Absolutely.”
Blaire made a little motion with her hand, reminding Evie that she’d be right outside on the phone. Once they were alone, Evie’s eyes were back on him. There was so much Zach wanted to say, so much he needed to say, starting with “I’m sorry.” But he waited.
“Do you want to sit down?” she asked. Her voice was the same, but it had this odd, gentle lilt to it, like she was working so hard not offend him. Zach sat down on the edge of the bed, his leg pressing against hers. He carefully placed his Stetson on the other side of her bed.
“It’s good to see you,” he said.
“Even like this?”
“Yeah. Well—it’d be better if you weren’t in a hospital bed, but yeah. It’s good to see you, even like this. I was pretty convinced that you’d never speak to me again.”
“Why?” she asked. He was terrible at this not-confusing-her thing. Zach took a deep breath and knew he had to come clean. She might kick him out, but it was her choice.
“I fucked up after your grandmother died. I was trying to comfort you and I said the wrong thing. Or a dozen wrong things, and you told me to stay out of your life.”
She frowned, like she was trying to do a difficult math problem. “What kind of things? What did you say?”
“That you’d be better off without me and our two-horse town, but I think what set you off was when I stopped you from kissing me.”
“Oh.” Then Zach saw it. Evie made a face, eyes popping wide with stunned understanding. He knew that face and knew the laugh that usually followed it. She didn’t laugh this time, but the expression was enough to give him a bit of hope. Evie just needed some t
ime. She’d be back to her old self. And if he knew the old Evie she wouldn’t waste a moment cussing him smooth the fuck out whenever the time came. But for now . . .
Zach moved a little closer and took Evie’s hand. “So, talk to me, girl. What else do you want to know?”
“Were we ever . . . were we ever a thing? Were we ever together as a couple? I know there’s probably more pressing information, but I want to know.”
“What makes you ask?”
“I’ve seen you. Before now, in my dreams.”
Zach coughed and did his best to redirect his train of thought, but it was already speeding down a certain track. Evie had no memory of anything, but somehow, he’d made it through the haze of her amnesia. He wasn’t going to let it go to his head, but he was pretty sure Jesse had one hell of an I told you so coming his way.
“No, we were never together, but we had a thing.”
“What kind of thing?”
Jesse was going to kick his ass. “It’s not important right now.”
“I understand that you probably have your reasons for not wanting to tell me, but I think it’s Nicole’s plan to possibly send me back to Charming with you. You may know me, but I don’t know anything about you. You can see how that puts me at a disadvantage. If something happened between us, I have the right to know.”
She had a point. She was surrounded by people who were a thousand steps ahead of her. It was only fair that she be given a chance to catch up.
“I’ll give you the abridged version because I don’t want to make you more upset. You had a crush on me when we were kids and I didn’t really understand how I felt about you until you moved away for culinary school. When I saw you again, I thought it was—I don’t know what I thought, but I said and did the wrong things. We fought and we haven’t spoken since.”
“This was—”
“About ten years ago,” Zach admitted, hardly believing it had been that long. He’d missed Evie like crazy, but now that they were back together—forget her injury—it felt like it had been no time at all. He ignored the wave of conflicting emotions that threatened to crash over him and settled for giving her hand a gentle squeeze. She returned it even though she was clearly busy trying to sort things out in her mind.
“So, we haven’t spoken in ten years?”
“Yep.”
“But I’ve talked to Jesse. My assistant, Raquelle, found some texts in my phone.” Irrational jealousy heated Zach’s face.
“He mentioned that you two had been in touch. What happened in these dreams?”
“Um, we were usually somewhere hot and there was a brown horse.”
“Ah, maybe you were remembering Chestnut.”
“Is that your horse?”
“No, that was your Nana Buck’s horse, your grandmother. You learned to ride on him.” Zach pulled out his phone, but before he pulled up a picture of Amelia with her beloved quarter horse, he thought twice about it. “Blaire didn’t tell you about your nan, did she?”
“No, she never met her. She just repeated back a few of the things I told her over the years, but it wasn’t much.”
Zach tried not to think about the years following the funeral. The Christmases, the birthdays when Evie should have been back in Charming or at least gotten to video chat with the whole gang at the ranch, and how she’d been alone, because of him.
“I’m not sure this is the best idea, but do you want to see a picture of her?”
“Yes,” Evie said without hesitation. Zach fished out his phone and googled a picture of the acclaimed horse trainer who had made herself a fixture at Big Rock Ranch long before he was born. There were pictures of Nana Buck in his grandmother’s home, but over time they’d faded into the background. It had been a while since Zach had really looked at her sharp brown gaze and her welcoming smile. He handed Evie his phone and waited as she took in the image of her grandmother.
“What happened to her?” she asked.
“She had a heart attack.”
Evie was quiet for a few long moments, just looking at the screen. Zach sat quietly, fighting the urge to break the silence with a joke or distraction.
“She’s not what I expected.”
“Oh yeah?”
“All the pictures I’ve seen of myself I’m so dolled up. I figured if she raised me, I got some of that from her.”
“Nah. You were a tomboy through and through. I think the glamour is just for the cameras.”
Zach half expected Evie to roll her eyes or suck her teeth, but she just kept staring at the phone.
“What about my parents?” she finally said.
“You lost them in a car accident.”
“You probably don’t have any pictures of them.”
“No. They passed away before the internet was really a thing. You did post a picture of them on your Facebook a long time ago, but after you started the show you deleted your personal account.” Not that Zach had gone to look her up a dozen or so times.
“Oh.”
“Hold up. You said I was in your dreams and then you asked if we’d been together in real life. Were we together in your dreams?”
Evie stared at him for a minute and Zach saw it again, that trademark stubbornness. The Evie he knew was definitely in there. She drew herself up, straightening her shoulders and letting out a deep breath. “No, there was just—there were things I’d rather not discuss right now.”
Zach couldn’t hide his smile this time. “That’s cool.”
“Can you tell me about your family? What’s the ranch like?”
“Sure thing. Let’s see, there’s me, and you met Jesse, and we have a younger brother named Samuel. You and Sam got along great.”
“Do you have a picture of him? Sorry, I just have so many blanks. It’s all blank. Blaire keeps telling me about people and I keep hoping something will come to mind and there’s just nothing.”
“Nah, don’t apologize. Here.” Zach moved to the chair beside her bed and pulled up the private family Instagram account his baby cousin had put together. Lilah had done a great job as unofficial family historian even though things were a little tense between her and her parents at the moment. Zach hadn’t taken enough time to appreciate how much she’d done to keep track of their accomplishments and everyday moments. He showed Evie pictures of Sam and his horse, Majesty.
“He’s an actor. He hooked up with this girl on his last film and now he’s spending Christmas with her family.”
“Do you like her?”
“She seems alright. Here’s Lilah. She works at the ranch for me and Jesse.” He swiped through to more pictures of Lilah and a few of their other cousins, Penny, Wiley, and Sage. By the time he got to the pictures of Senior’s last birthday party at the ranch, Evie seemed more comfortable. Her tears had dried for real and she was actually smiling as Zach told her how pissed his mom had been when his dad ruined his own birthday surprise.
“Are you close with your parents?” she asked.
“Ah, yeah . . .” Zach said, trying to think of how to explain the relationship there. He knew how lucky he and his brothers were. They had two loving parents who only wanted the best for them. It didn’t change the sting of his father walking away from their family business. Zach and Jesse had proved themselves more than capable of running Big Rock. Still, it was something they thought they’d be doing with their father. He only had himself to blame for the shattered expectations there, and that annoyed him even more.
“You don’t sound so sure.” Evie dipped her head a little, forcing him to look her in the eye.
“Nah, my dad’s great. I just—we—” Zach stopped himself as soon as he heard Jesse’s voice in the hall. “Actually, let’s maybe get into that another time.” Jesse and Nicole walked into the room, bringing the smell of hot food with them. Nicole held up the plastic bag in her hand.
“Grilled chicken salad and some coconut cake for you, and a grilled cheese for Blaire.”
“Here, let me.” Zach hopped up. He
took the bag from Nicole and started setting up Evie’s lunch on her bedside table.
“Thanks. We saw Dr. Manzo on our way up,” Nicole said.
“What did she say?” Evie asked.
“She’ll be by to check on you in a bit, but she’s pretty sure they are going to discharge you the day after Christmas. I know spending the holiday in the hospital won’t be fun, but Blaire—”
“She said she’s going to come by as soon as they open presents,” Evie said. Zach could tell she sounded a little disappointed, he just didn’t understand why.
“Do we have some other plans?” Zach asked Jesse.
“I—we’ll be here.”
“Great. I have to go visit my folks,” Nicole said. “But I’ll be back in time to see you off.”
“You should spend time with your family. Raquelle showed me how to use the video chat on my phone,” Evie said. “I can just call you. You don’t have to rush back.”
“Nonsense. I’ll be here. Don’t worry. You should eat your lunch while those leafy greens are fresh. You gotta get your strength up,” Nicole said. She flashed Evie a smile that turned ice-cold as she turned in his direction. “Uh, Zach, can I have a word?”
“Yeah, sure.” Zach had known Nicole a whole two hours, but he knew what a woman’s friend who was getting ready to drag the hell out of him looked like. He slid Evie’s dining tray into place over her lap, then followed Nicole out into the hall. She closed the door behind them.
“Hey. Hi,” she said, getting right to it.
“What did Jesse tell you?”
“He didn’t tell me anything. She started crying the minute you opened your mouth.”
“Listen—”
Nicole held up her hand to silence him. “I get it. You two have history. Do you still have feelings for her?”
Zach answered as honestly as he could. “Yeah, there are feelings.”
“Is there a woman or many women waiting back in Charming?”
“No. Jesse and I are very focused on the ranch right now. We both decided that work and our family are the priorities for now.”
“Jesse’s single too?”
“Yeah. Why?”
A Cowboy to Remember Page 5