Without a Past

by Debra Salonen

  Because Harley didn’t want to discuss Andi with his father, he returned to the topic of the Ledger. “Gloria’s a combination town crier, father confessor and Dear Abby in twenty column inches. You gotta give her credit for trying.”

  Andrew made a scoffing sound. “She’s a small-town gossip on an ego trip. I’ve seen plenty like her, and so have you—even if you can’t remember them.”

  Curious about the chasm he sensed between himself and Andrew, Harley turned his back to the window and rested his bottom on the sill. He crossed his ankles and took a deep breath. The room smelled of coffee and newsprint, which brought back a memory from his childhood.

  He pictured himself sitting in the knee well of his father’s desk at the Bainbridge, Missouri, Herald-Times—his childhood playground. He was waiting for his father to return so he could jump out, crying, “Surprise.” Sometimes his father wouldn’t come back for hours, so Jonathan would take paper from the desk and write stories. Tales of magical places and wonderful heroes who always saved the day.

  “If this Glory person was a responsible journalist, she’d alert readers to what’s really going on in this town. Let me show you what I mean.” His father chucked the offending newspaper atop the pile then marched into the adjoining bedroom.

  While waiting, Harley glanced around the parlor of the honeymoon suite of the Mountain Comfort Inn. The blue and gray plaid sofa contained a Hide-A-Bed. He doubted it would be a vast improvement over his jail bunk.

  He didn’t really care. His main concern at the moment was Andi. They’d parted abruptly—his father pulling him in one direction, Jenny’s problem—something to do with the florist—pulling Andi in the other. Why had she looked at him as if he’d broken her heart? They barely knew each other.

  But he knew that was a lame argument. Time was irrelevant where love was concerned. Andi’s bright smile and frank attitude were imprinted on his soul. Correction. Harley’s soul. At the moment, he wasn’t sure how much of Harley would be left after Jonathan’s memories took over.

  “Look at this,” Andrew said, breaking into Harley’s reverie. He handed his son a single sheet of typewritten copy. “I have an old friend who works for the Sacramento Bee. He stumbled across this a few weeks ago.

  “Somebody’s on the move. Someone big. And they’ve got their sights set on Gold Creek. They just haven’t bothered to inform the locals. And the Ledger is too busy with local gossip to investigate the real story.”

  As Harley scanned the page—a list of recent property sales—another memory surfaced. Nothing as clear as his olfactory regression to the Herald-Times, but something that made his senses tingle. He pictured another time when someone handed him information, and he’d grabbed his jacket yelling, “Look out, Mr. Pulitzer, I’ve got a hot one.”

  Harley shook his head, not particularly charmed by the arrogance he heard in that voice. Jonathan’s voice.

  “Sure, these look harmless enough—a ten-acre parcel here, a convenience store there,” his father was saying, “but a little digging revealed all the purchases were linked to one holding company—Meridian, Inc.”

  “Who owns Meridian?”

  “No idea.”

  “Maybe it’s the newspaper publisher. He’s been pushing development hot and heavy the past month or so.”

  His father snorted skeptically. “Anyone who prints that kind of drivel doesn’t have the brains or balls for a move of this scope. He’s probably on Meridian’s payroll, though.”

  Harley’s head started to throb with the worst headache he’d had in days. He tried to focus on meditating through the pain, but a rush of images and sensations swirled and coalesced in his mind. Names, contacts, possible sources who could help him root out the mystery behind this puzzle.

  He rushed to the bathroom and closed the door. In the grocery sack that held his clothes was a new bottle of aspirin. He pried off the lid and shook four into his hand. He washed them down with water scooped from the faucet.

  Resting his forehead against the cool mirror, he analyzed the attack. He knew what had provoked it. Jonathan’s memories. A response to the kind of stimuli Jonathan welcomed. The kind of game playing Harley wanted nothing to do with. He was out of that rat race for good. He wasn’t the same man he’d been before the accident. He might not be a cowboy, but he wasn’t an investigative journalist, either. He no longer had the stomach—or head—for it.

  When he returned to the sitting area of the suite, his father was hunched forward, a concerned look on his face. “Are you okay?”

  Harley nodded as slowly as possible. “Headaches.”

  Andrew webbed his fingers together. “Perhaps this isn’t the right time, son, but I wanted to talk to you about that last meeting we had.”

  Harley shook his head. “I don’t remember it.”

  His father frowned. “You don’t recall tossing a check for a quarter of a million dollars in my face?”

  Harley sat in the recliner across from his father. That memory had surfaced once, but it had seemed too staged to be real. Harley couldn’t empathize with the fury he’d seen on Jonathan’s face because he’d had no clue to the motivation behind the argument. “Why was I so angry?”

  “I’d just explained about the sale. Instead of giving you the family business, I’d sold it. For a pretty fine profit, if you ask me. The check was your share, but you didn’t want it.”

  Harley closed his eyes, resting his head against the cushion. He could hear raised voices. “As my daughter would say, ‘Puh-leeze.’ You never wanted the business, Jon. You left town the day after—no, the night you graduated from high school and never looked back.”

  Then Jonathan’s voice. “It was my right—my obligation—to carry on the family tradition. I’m the last Newhall male. And I’m a journalist.”

  “You’re my son and you’re an excellent reporter, but you’ve never been a Newhall.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  Harley’s gut twisted. Now he understood what he’d been feeling that day. Anger, yes. But more than that. Betrayal. Frustration. Hurt. His father had sold his heritage—the Newhall family’s string of small but prestigious papers. Andrew planned to retire in Florida with his wife of seven years and their two daughters. Jonathan received a check.

  “Jonathan,” his father said, his voice low and serious, “You left Newhall Enterprises years ago. You’ve traveled around the world, interviewed kings, survived mortar fire. Does that sound like the kind of person who could sit at a desk for ten hours a day and not succumb to boredom?”

  Harley answered without thinking. “I would have brought a different vision to the company. New energy.”

  “But why would you want to? Listen to me, Jon. I was trying to save you from a life you would have hated. My life.”

  Harley opened his eyes. He saw something Jonathan Newhall had probably never taken the time to see. A man who’d made mistakes and didn’t want to repeat them.

  “We fought a lot, didn’t we?”

  Andrew shook his head. “Disagreements.”

  “Something about Harvard?”

  Andrew looked sheepish. “How come you can remember that but not your little sisters’ names?”

  Harley almost smiled. “Have I met them?”

  “Of course. They adore you. They think you’re famous.”

  Neither said anything for a minute then Andrew spoke. “Jon, I regret a lot things. You should have gone to Harvard. Lord knows you had the grades for it. I just didn’t want to see you move so far from home.” He laughed ruefully. “I tried to keep you close and only drove you farther away.”

  Andrew shook his head and continued. “Do you know the true irony of this? As Gwen told me before I got on the plane, for a publisher and writer of some repute, I’ve never been able to communicate with the one person in my life who mattered the most—my son.”

  Harley felt sorry for him. But he didn’t know what to say. “Gwen is your new wife, right? My stepmother.”

&n
bsp; Andrew’s face lit up, but he said with mock seriousness, “Don’t call her that. She hates the word. She’s only seven years older than you. But she’s wise beyond her years. She’s been so good for me.”

  Harley could tell that just from the look of serenity on his father’s face when he spoke of his wife. He asked Andrew how they’d met, and soon heard the whole story. Oddly, his name—Jonathan’s name—didn’t come up much in his father’s narrative.

  Maybe I was a lone wolf, off on my travels with no time for family. After watching Andi’s connection and commitment to her family, the idea seemed distasteful.

  “I guess I’ll take a shower,” he said, starting toward the bathroom.

  A soft knock on the door made him change course.

  “Hi,” Andi said, pushing her wind-tousled hair out of her eyes.

  Her denim jacket covered a plain white T-shirt. Instead of jeans, she had on a denim skirt that stopped several inches above her knees. Her bare feet were clad in Birkenstock sandals.

  “Hi,” he said, unable to keep from smiling. A mere six hours had passed, but he’d missed her. Not a very promising start to keeping his distance. “What’s going on?”

  “I need your help. Will you come with me? I’m prepared to use force if necessary.”

  Although her tone was light, the look in her eyes was serious. “I don’t see a gun,” he said.

  “I’m an ex-marine. I don’t need a gun.”

  Harley laughed. When was the last time he’d laughed?

  Pivoting, he reached for the closest jacket—his father’s umber-brown golf jacket. “Dad, I’m going out with Andi. I’ll see you later, okay?”

  He caught his father’s look of surprise, which for some reason segued into a broad smile. “I’ll be here.”

  He nodded and closed the door. “Where are we going?”

  “A mission of mercy.”

  As he followed her to the Cadillac, Harley felt an odd sense of lightness. He wondered if it might be joy. Or lust. Have I seen her bare legs before? Those are great gams. And very nice ankles.

  He got in the car and closed the door. They didn’t speak until the outskirts of town gave way to mountainous terrain, then Harley asked, “Can you tell me where we’re going yet? I promise not to jump out.”

  “The Blue Lupine.”

  “Lars’s cabin?” He almost changed his mind about jumping. “But it’s a crime scene, and I’m the main suspect.”

  She made a face. “We have Donnie’s permission to be there. Sam got a call from Lars’s neighbor lady.”

  “The one who told the cops she’d seen me on the premises?”

  Andi nodded. “Margaret Graham. She’s a nice lady. I think she and Lars had a little romance going.”

  “Maybe she killed him.”

  Andi’s dry chuckle made him frown. “And dragged his body to the mine shaft? I don’t think so. She’s in her sixties and weighs about ninety pounds soaking wet.”

  Harley made a dry sound. “I see your point.”

  “Donnie said not to touch anything. We’re just there to pick up Sarge.”

  “The dog?” Harley’s right eyelid quivered. He pictured the large slobbery animal quite clearly, and the image intensified the sudden pain in his head. “Why me?”

  “He knows you. You lived with Lars after your accident. Sam figured he’d come to you. Margaret tried to coax him off the porch, but he wouldn’t have anything to do with her.”

  The theory had merit—except for one thing: Harley was feeling a reaction very similar to the acrophobia he’d felt when Andi had been dangling on a rope over the edge of the cliff. He couldn’t explain it. He remembered Sarge as a friendly hound completely devoted to Lars. Not the least bit threatening, but now the idea of handling the dog was making him ill.

  Andi, who was busy negotiating the turn that put them on the road to the mine, didn’t seem to notice his distress. She said, “Sarge is a great dog. He’s been living up there alone all this time. Mrs. Graham has been checking on him, supplementing his food, but she’s going away for the weekend and she’s afraid something will happen to him. She told Sam she heard a mountain lion the other night.”

  Harley took a deep breath and let it go. Focus.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  Harley rolled his head to loosen the muscles in his neck. “I don’t know.”

  He thought back to his weeks of recuperation at Lars’s cabin. The huge, floppy-eared mutt—part hound dog, part coyote, Lars used to say—had slept at Harley’s side on a braided rug on the plank floor beside the couch. Once Harley could handle the climb to the loft bedroom, Sarge had positioned himself at the foot of the ladder, as if guarding him. Or making sure I didn’t escape.

  “Are you certain I’m allowed near the property?”

  “I told you, Donnie gave me the go-ahead. But he did say to be careful. He said, ‘If Harley didn’t kill Lars, then somebody else did. I don’t want you up there alone.’ That’s another reason Mrs. Graham is leaving.”

  “Couldn’t she drop the dog off in town?”

  “Not if Sarge won’t go with her.” Andi’s grin lit up her face. “Besides that, wait till you see Margaret’s car. She never goes anywhere without her menagerie. Two birds—cockatiels, I think. Three or four cats, a snake and a standard poodle. Old Sarge would never fit.”

  “She sounds like quite a character.”

  Andi nodded. “She is. Just like Lars was.”

  Harley closed his eyes. Lars was a recent memory. A good one, and returning to the small, rustic miner’s cabin was going to hurt. Even if he did have Andi at his side.

  ANDI HADN’T VISITED Lars’s place in years. Not that it had changed one whit, she decided as Rosemarie approached the clearing. The tiny cabin sat at the edge of a meadow just as she remembered it—a lush green carpet dotted with blue lupines.

  A recent rain gave everything a clean look, but there was a sad, abandoned feeling to the house, too.

  As Andi had noted, the cabin looked unchanged—except for an obscene yellow necklace of crime scene tape around its middle. It flapped in the breeze with a ghostly crackling sound.

  Harley had gone quiet the past few miles. He hadn’t seemed as enthusiastic about their mission as she’d thought he would be. She was trying to make herself think of him as Jonathan Newhall, not Harley Forester. But it wasn’t easy.

  Jenny—once the flower crisis had been solved—had taken a few minutes to give her sister some advice. “In a way, you’ve lost a friend. Even if he looks the same, his mind is changing. And, trust me, change, even good change, is almost always accompanied by a sense of grief.”

  Andi believed her sister. She didn’t know anyone better qualified to talk about loss and change than Jenny. “But maybe you’re giving up too soon,” Jenny had said as she’d left for the ranch. “If you get to know him better, you might like this new incarnation as much as you liked the old one.”

  Andi glanced at her passenger. She’d felt something in their few stolen kisses that she’d never experienced before. Was it love? She couldn’t say for certain, but Jenny was right. Andi owed herself a chance to find out.

  “Mrs. Graham’s place is right around the corner,” she said, slowing for the railroad crossing. The traditional white X with the words Southern Pacific always made her smile since the narrow-gauge track only connected the mine to the stamp mill where the ore was crushed. “Her house sits up on the knoll, giving her a bird’s-eye view of Lars’s place—which is how she happened to see the Rocking M truck that fateful day.”

  As they drove past Lars’s driveway, she frowned at the mournful baying coming from the front porch. A few seconds later, she cranked the steering wheel to the left and turned into a steeply banked driveway. The car rocked to a stop at a forty-five-degree incline. She put the gear into park, letting the car idle. “Before we go in, though, I’d like to ask you something.”

  He sat up a little straighter. Wary.

  “Are you plannin
g to leave once the trial—if it comes to that—is over?”

  “My father wants me to return to Florida with him. He thinks that by looking at family photo albums and spending time with his wife and daughters, I’ll feel more…like my old self.”

  The wry tone was pure Harley, and Andi could have kissed him. Would have, if he’d made any kind of signal that he’d welcome her kiss.

  She gambled. “Do you have to go? I was thinking you might stay and take over the mine. It’s yours.”

  He looked doubtful.

  “I don’t mean actually mine it. I doubt if Lars made any money at that, but with a satellite dish, you could telecommute.”

  He shook his head. “I’m out of the newspaper business.”

  “Then write the great American novel.”

  His snort was filled with skepticism.

  Andi hadn’t thought her suggestion would work, but she cared too much to just let him walk out of her life. She took a deep breath, then asked, “What about us?”

  He kept his gaze on the view out his side window. “We already talked about this. I don’t want you to get hurt. You’ve grown to care for a man who doesn’t exist. Maybe he did for a while, but now I’m part Jonathan, part Harley.” He gave a small laugh. “I’m pretty sure I’ll be in therapy for years.”

  Andi scooted across the wide seat and draped one arm across his shoulders. “That’s just it. You still look like Harley. And I can’t shake the feeling that deep down you care for me too. Can we check my theory?”

  He shrank back against the door. “I don’t think that’s such a hot idea.”

  “Humor me.” She knew the risk. If the feelings that had drawn the two of them together were still there, their relationship held potential. If not…

  Just as she lowered her head, a horn sounded.

  Harley moved across her protectively. “What is it?”

  A gray Subaru Brat with an oversize wooden camper shell drew to a stop a bumper’s width away from the nose of the Cadillac. Andi sighed in frustration. “It’s Mrs. Graham’s car—the Holyroller.” She slid back behind the wheel. “You’d think she could wait a minute.”