“I don’t know what I could’ve said.” What I couldn’t say was that I didn’t know why I felt the niggling need to go. My father had died while I’d been convalescing in a military hospital, shattered and only just beginning to understand the ramifications of not having my memories anymore. I’d gotten a bit of a payout because of the nature of the injury I’d suffered while serving in the Army Rangers, but the bulk of my money came from a life insurance policy my father had taken out prior to his death.
It was a lot of money. The guys all thought the money I’d put up to buy the bar was thanks to my pay from the Army, but I didn’t know how to tell them about how rich I’d become because of my father’s death.
Probably because putting it like that sounded so bad.
“Do whatever it is you think you have to do,” Ace said. “Go pay your respects.”
“I don’t have any memories of him,” I said quietly, hating how big of an asshole that made me feel like to admit. “Why am I getting the shit about war and explosions and medal ceremonies and nothing about anything that’s important?”
“The brain’s a mystery. With the kind of injury you suffered, you’re lucky you’re not a vegetable.”
“I don’t feel very lucky sometimes,” I said. “I feel like I’m a ship adrift without an anchor.”
Ace looked hurt for a moment before look down into his lap. “We’re all your anchor here, you know. Horizon. The club and the bar. Your friends. That anchor just keeps growing and growing.”
“You’re my regular ball and chain,” I cracked, trying to cheer him up. That was the problem with being honest. I made the friends I had now feel like they weren’t good enough. I was always in pursuit of the past as if the present didn’t really do it for me.
“Do you need any company on the ride?” Ace asked, then frowned. “Where is it you’re going?”
“Colorado.”
He brightened. “You going to bring us back any souvenirs from that great state?”
“Are you asking me to traffic marijuana back to New Mexico?”
“No?” He winked elaborately.
“You’re practically married to a cop, Ace.”
“Hey, she’s cool.”
“The answer’s no.”
“Sure you don’t need company?”
“I need someone to promise me that the bar will be looked after.”
“You could always promote me to general manager.”
“And then what would Brody do?”
“Play grab-ass with Nadine behind the bar instead of in the office.”
I blinked slowly. “Seriously?”
“They’re still in the honeymoon stage.”
“Maybe you should keep an eye on that.”
“You know the bar basically runs itself. But if it means that much to you, I’ll be extra vigilant.”
“Thank you.”
“Enjoy your trip, then.”
It was ill-advised to take the motorcycle to Colorado, especially in the dead of winter, but I kept the machine well maintained. The only thing even remotely predictable about the weather was that a person should expect snow – and lots of it. As soon as I got in the north of New Mexico, I put on another layer from the few clothes I’d packed and made sure my motorcycle was running perfectly. I’d looked ahead to the forecasts for my hometown, and it seemed to be clear for the next few days. Even if it was snowing, I probably would’ve still made the trip on the bike and simply made it slowly and cautiously. Something was calling me back to the place that was supposed to be my home. I would get there when I got there.
It was a small town, the place I’d grown up in, but bigger than Rio Seco. There were more chain restaurants, which was somehow considered a hallmark of development, and more residential neighborhoods. There was a downtown with a historic courthouse, as well as some old buildings a little newer than the beauties that made up the main strip of Rio Seco. I stopped and got a room at the first hotel I saw – nothing special, just a strip of small rooms. I wasn’t sure how long I was going to be here, but I wouldn’t need it for anything other than sleeping. I dropped my small bag in there and set out again, mindful of the growing chill to the air.
I knew where the cemetery in town was. I’d been here once before, anyway, in the process of moving the contents of my past from one storage unit to another. My father’s grave was well kept, even if it didn’t have some of the elaborate floral arrangements others did. I wished I’d had the forethought to bring something – some kind of bouquet, even if it would wither and freeze in the coming night. Something to show that this man was loved, even if I couldn’t remember why he was loved. What any of his redeeming qualities had been beyond fathering me.
“I wish you weren’t dead,” I muttered at the headstone, flurries beginning to fall. Even if it was purely for selfish reasons, I wanted someone around who could tell me who I was. Someone I could trust, like a parent. Someone who wouldn’t get offended or sad or defensive that I had a ton of questions.
Or, if I was really wishing big, here, I could just go with the wish that I had never become an Army Ranger. I couldn’t even remember what reasoning I’d had to serve my country any more. I wasn’t terribly patriotic, even if I tried to make a good show of it. I knew it was important to a lot of people – my close friends included. Both Brody and Sloan had served in the Armed Forces.
But if I’d never enlisted, I’d still have my memories. There wouldn’t be any angst about my past. I’d know exactly who I was, where I’d come from, and where I was going. I thought anything would be better than the strange limbo I was in right now.
I supposed I was even more disappointed by the fact that I hadn’t had any big revelations since I’d been here. No life-changing realizations. Just a cold, lonely, windswept hill with buried memories that I couldn’t access. I thought I had come to Colorado for a reason, but it just wasn’t revealing itself to me. Maybe all of this was a big waste of time.
I wasn’t sure how long I had been shivering out there in the cemetery, but it was time to leave. There weren’t any answers here. Not like I thought there’d be.
There were only graves.
Chapter 3
I didn’t feel like going back to the hotel, but I wasn’t sure where I could go. If I actually had my memories back, I was sure I would know the best place to go in town to distract myself from my troubles.
But I didn’t even know if I’d been a big drinker.
Or if I had been generally troubled. A moody individual. There was no way of telling.
Sometimes, I was afraid that I used to be the complete opposite of what I was now. Clean cut. With a respectable job. Mild mannered. Non-drinker. Eschewed all things motorcycle and counterculture.
Then I remembered that whoever I’d been had become an Army Ranger, and I had to content myself with at least some confirmation that I’d been a badass.
As it was, in a town I used to call home that I didn’t recognize anymore, I had technology on my side. A quick search highlighted the few bars in the area, and I picked the one located the closest to my hotel. No reason to tempt fate here, even if it had terrible reviews.
“Terrible hole in the wall with terrible service,” one read before I switched the display off on my phone and slipped it in my jacket pocket. The Horizon MC Bar could probably be described as a hole in the wall by someone who had come from somewhere a little better. But it was a palace for everyone in Rio Seco, especially since it was the only bar in town.
The parking lot here was full, forcing me to find street parking for the motorcycle about a block away. I could’ve squeezed it in here or there, but I didn’t know the general climate of the town, or the level of friendliness to strangers on motorcycles. I wasn’t as intense-looking as, say, Ace, with his long hair and beard and tattoos, but I didn’t look like an average individual, either. The leather jacket instead of a puffy thermal winter coat was everyone’s first indication. And just the fact that I didn’t belong. I liked to think t
hat in Rio Seco, everyone was friends, instantly welcoming of strangers. I just didn’t have much experience here, even if it was the town in which I’d grown up.
Nobody looked up when I shouldered my way into the bar, though, so that was something, and the smell of bar food hit me right in the face and made my stomach rumble. Maybe I was hungry after all. I guessed I’d come to the right spot, even if it was by chance.
I sat down at a free table, wishing there was a barstool open at the bar proper. It was easier to eat and drink alone, as long as you were bellied up to the bar, but that was just my opinion. The table was small, and that was doable. I could be alone, faceless in this town. I could do that. I didn’t have to have any answers about anything right now. I could just exist, someone without a name, without a past, have some beer and something greasy to ease the brew’s passage, and relax.
I had earned that, maybe.
I’d once made the mistake of typing in my name to a popular search engine and hitting “enter.” I’d only been curious to see if the internet had anything to say about my past, or if I could even turn up a social media page I’d maintained for myself prior to enlisting, but I’d stumbled instead upon a quick writeup of the local paper in this town. A quick human interest piece without any sources about a native son of the town – that would be me – serving with the Army Rangers and being grievously injured in battle. Shit about me being a hero. Platitudes and ambiguity and an article that would’ve raised more questions than answers for anyone who was actually looking for concrete information on Jack Ryder. People like me. I wondered, though, about other people. People who had known me from before. The reporter who’d written the article had probably based it off of an Army press release, and hadn’t made any effort to contact me for additional information. Of course, I couldn’t be sure that I would’ve answered any of their questions, or cooperated in any way. Not at that point in my recovery, when I didn’t even know what I was supposed to be doing, or where I was supposed to be. In retrospect, though, it would’ve been smart to collaborate with the reporter. Make the effort to see if anyone could prove that they knew me, could help me recover my memories. It could’ve exposed me to scammers and other people looking to make a quick buck off of an easy target, or take advantage of me in some way, but maybe I would’ve taken that risk if it meant the reward of figuring out who I was.
But that was then. I couldn’t change the fact that I’d had no say in the article. That perhaps it was a missed opportunity. That even if I wanted to figure out who I really was, I had no desire, now, to put myself and my situation into that spotlight. I was a little more protective of my privacy. I had more to lose now with my life in Rio Seco – the success of the bar, the inheritance I’d received from my father.
The friends who knew me as I was now and didn’t seem to care about who I’d used to be.
I’d washed up in Rio Seco first among them, purchased the building for a bar I only had half-planned in my head. The town needed a place to drink, I decided, and that was going to be the first contribution I’d make. A way to settle into a place and make it feel like home. Ace had drifted in soon afterward, looking haunted by something he wasn’t ready to talk about, and even if the bar was under renovations ahead of opening, I offered him the bartending job right there and then. Ace was the first person – in my memory – that I ever rode a motorcycle with, the pair of bikes rocketing down the desert highway, freedom on every horizon. The camaraderie between the two of us with our motorcycles was enough to convince me that making a club to do that all the time was an excellent use of my attention and resources. When Brody wandered in to town, I realized I could devote all my time to motorcycles and less to running the bar, especially if I had someone to run it for me. And once Chuck and Sloan showed up, we were complete.
Though always looking to expand.
“Can I get you something?”
A waitress had approached me during my ruminating, and I hadn’t even cracked the menu.
“Just a beer right now – something light,” I said. “Can you recommend something to eat? I think I might be ready for some dinner.”
“Jack?”
I looked up at the waitress, who had a very confused look on her face. She was a gorgeous woman with glossy, shoulder-length brown hair, and she looked down at me, her gray eyes curious and entrancing. She had to be the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my entire life.
“Yeah?”
“Jack Ryder?”
“That’s me.” I didn’t care about anything at that moment, only that I was somehow lucky enough for this woman to know my name. She had curves in all the right places, and an apron tied around her hourglass waist. “Oh, do you work here?”
“Do I work here?” She gaped at me. “Are you kidding me right now?”
I swallowed around my dry mouth. “I guess the apron was a dead giveaway, right? Stupid question.”
“Do you even know who I am?” she demanded, hands gripping her hips so hard her knuckles paled. “I mean, I know it’s been a minute. But do I really look that different?”
My stomach dropped out from underneath me. “Did we…do we know each other?”
“I thought we did, Jack. I really did.”
“I’m sorry. What was your name again?”
“You don’t even know my goddamn name?”
“I suffered severe brain trauma while I was in the Army Rangers,” I said, hating that I even had to explain myself, hating that I’d made the mistake of coming to my hometown. Why hadn’t the thought crossed my broken mind that I might run into someone I didn’t know but who knew me from before? “Because of that, I don’t remember almost anything from my past. So if we knew each other, I apologize.”
“Almost anything? You don’t remember almost anything? So there are things you do remember?”
I should’ve picked my words more carefully, even if I didn’t quite know why I felt obligated to explain myself to this woman. “Just…flashes of things. Things I don’t understand yet.”
She looked like she might cry. “And I’m not in any of those flashes?”
“No. I’m sorry, but you’re not.” All I could do was watch as this woman tried not to fall apart in the middle of the bar. “I take it we knew each other…before.”
“We…used to date.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m really– I wish I could remember.” I laughed, shifting with the queasiness that robbed me of the appetite I thought I’d had walking in here. “I really do. You’re beautiful. Gorgeous. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. That’s what I thought, when you came up to my table.”
Her laugh was closer to a sob than either of us was comfortable with. “You used to say that.”
“I did? Which part?”
“That I was the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen.”
Jesus. If that was true, maybe I had going through all of this heartache and trauma in the wrong way. I hadn’t been able to recognize anything in my hometown, so I’d left it. The only person I knew from my past who was still alive was my uncle, and I’d caused him so much pain the last time I’d gotten in contact with him that I hadn’t tried it again. But all of the frustrations I was suffering related to who I was now and whether I was deviating from who I had been could’ve been solved if I’d had access to someone who knew me from before.
“Well, that’s something, isn’t it?” I hazarded. “Do you want to sit down?”
“I’m working.”
“Yeah, right. Of course. Because you work here.”
“That’s right.”
“Could I please ask you what your name is? I’m sorry I don’t remember it. I wish I could remember everything – anything – if it meant remembering your name.”
She still looked like she was in some kind of shock, but her expression softened a little. “It’s Cheyenne. Cheyenne Knight. We were high school sweethearts.”
I stared at her. Now I was the one in shock. �
�What happened?”
She shrugged. “Normally, I’d say that’s something you should be telling me, but I guess you wouldn’t remember.”
“Could you…you know, after you’re done with your shift, come back? Have a seat? Talk to me a little bit? If you want to.”
“There are a lot of things I’d like to say to you,” she said, heaving a sigh. “I close tonight, though. Won’t be off until late.”
“That doesn’t bother me if it doesn’t bother you.” I tried for a smile, and thought I succeeded. “I’m a night owl.”
“If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t. Not at all.”
“Then stick around, I guess. Make yourself at home. Or comfortable, at least. You want a bucket of beers or something? An appetizer plate?”
“That sounds great.”
“I’ll make it happen.”
What were the chances that I would run into someone who’d known me from before as I just came back into town? I resisted an urge to do an internet search on the name, electing to trust her. She had seemed almost upset to see me again, which was an oddity – unless I had ghosted on her because of my amnesia. Or unless something else had come up that would’ve ended the relationship.
But the idea that I’d had a long-term girlfriend waiting on me to pick up ties again was an immense shock. Was this why I’d been so eager to get back to Colorado? Because there was some part of me that knew Cheyenne was here, and could help me? If so, though, why had it taken me all this time to realize it? What did that mean?
It was a lot to chew on, even as I picked at the appetizer plate and polished off the beers, one by one, trying not to stare at Cheyenne and scare her away. For the most part, she avoided me entirely, and purposefully, so I probably could’ve made a study of her without her noticing. Other members of the wait staff checked on me from time to time, making sure I was kept comfortable.
What in the hell was I going to say to her? It was all happening so fast, but it was apparent we had a history together – though it was one I couldn’t remember quite yet. My anxiety made the time pass faster, and soon, it was closer to the end of the night than I was comfortable with.
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