A Rancher to Remember

by Patricia Johns

  Sawyer shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  There was something about her—something almost comforting—that tickled in the back of his mind. But even without that, he understood why Lloyd wanted her to stay. Sawyer knew that he was in the way here at the house, on the ranch...everywhere. Lloyd was antsy, and he had other things he’d rather be doing than babysitting some confused cowboy who didn’t know his boots from his teakettle.

  But I’m a cowboy, he thought to himself. Lloyd had told him that, and it felt right, somehow.

  “I’ve got to get back out to the fields,” Lloyd said. “And Olivia can help with the girls.”

  “Yeah, that would be great...” Sawyer didn’t mean to sound quite so relieved, but he was in over his head with Lizzie and Bella. He might be their dad, but that biological fact didn’t seem to be much help right now. “Look, I don’t remember anything...you included.”

  “Lloyd filled me in,” she replied. “But your injury isn’t supposed to be permanent, so maybe while I’m here, I can help you remember a few things.”

  “Did you know their mother?” he asked, glancing down at the toddlers.

  “I was Mia’s best friend,” she said with a sad smile. “And yours, once upon a time. We three were inseparable there for a while. I was a bridesmaid at your wedding.”

  “Oh.” He nodded. “I saw the photos, but you probably look different out of that frilly dress.”

  “Yeah, I would.” She smiled.

  So maybe she’d be an authoritative source for information. “Okay. You sure you don’t have better things to do?”

  “Not really.” She shrugged. “You wouldn’t remember my brother, Brian, but he’s the only family I’ve got in town, so...”

  “So, we’re settled then?” Lloyd interrupted, glancing at his watch. “Because if I could get out to the fields and pitch in tonight, it would make it easier on the rest of the guys.”

  “Yes,” Olivia said, shooting Lloyd a smile. “Do what you need to do. We’ll be fine.”

  “And you’re okay with this, right?” Lloyd asked him.

  Sawyer shrugged. “Sure.”

  It wasn’t like he remembered any of them right now, anyway. Olivia sounded rather confident, and maybe that was a good thing.

  “Okay. Well, I’m going to head out for a couple of hours, and then I’ll come back and check in with you,” Lloyd said. He pulled a piece of paper and the nub of a pencil out of his pocket. He tore off a corner and scribbled on it. “That’s my cell number if you need me.”

  “Thanks.” She looked at it, then tucked it into her pocket.

  Lloyd gave them both a nod, then headed over to the pickup truck. Was it just him, or did Lloyd look like he was just about running to get out of here? Sawyer wasn’t sure he blamed him.

  “I guess that leaves just us,” Sawyer said. “I feel like I should apologize for this.”

  “Whatever,” she said. “It isn’t your fault.”

  “No, but it’s highly inconvenient,” he replied. “Apparently, I usually work here. A lot of use I am like this.”

  “You’re Lloyd’s nephew,” she said with a shake of her head. “You’re family.”

  “Right.” He wished that meant more to him right now.

  Sawyer scooped up one toddler then looked down at the child attached to his leg. He kept his leg straight, lifting her along with him as he headed back toward the house. The toddler squealed in delight, and he couldn’t help but laugh softly.

  “So, one of them is Lizzie, and the other is Bella. I haven’t figured out which is which yet,” he said. “Do you know, by any chance?”

  “I last saw your girls when they were newborns,” Olivia replied. “So I’m not much help. Wait—” She reached out toward the toddler in his arms and took her hand. “What’s your name, sweetie?”

  “Lizzie...” the girl whispered. Olivia shot him a grin, and then bent down to the other toddler. “Is your name Bella?”

  The other girl grinned impishly. “Lizzie!”

  Olivia straightened and laughed softly. “Never mind. I thought I was onto something.”

  “I tried that,” he admitted. “And Lloyd says he can’t tell them apart, either. When we figure it out, I’m going to have to mark them somehow.”

  “What...like with a permanent marker?” she asked, shooting him a teasing look.

  “You’re joking, but it’s not a bad idea,” he countered. “Apparently, I could tell them apart before, but now...” Sadness welled up inside of him, and he tried to push it back. “They say it’ll come back to me. Until it does, a nice B or L on their hands would be helpful.”

  Sawyer disentangled the little girl from his leg, and then put his other daughter on the ground next to her. They scampered on ahead.

  “Do you remember the accident?” Olivia asked.

  “No,” he said. “The first thing I remember is waking up with blood on my face, and riding to the hospital in town. I don’t remember anything before it.”

  “Nothing?” she asked, squinting over at him.

  He shook his head. “Well, I mean, I remember some funny little things, like which cupboard holds the salt shaker. If I’m not thinking about it, I can go through the motions for some basic chores like washing dishes or making coffee.”

  “So, the muscle memories are in there,” she said.

  “Seems like,” he agreed.

  “I’m a nurse, you know,” she said. “I work in an emergency room, and I’ve dealt with people with partial memory loss after a head injury, but never anything this complete. In the cases I’ve worked with, the patients usually get their memories back within a couple of hours.”

  “Yeah?” He eyed her curiously. Maybe she could be helpful after all.

  “What did the doctors tell you—exactly?”

  “It’s a brain injury. Kind of like a bruise. But it isn’t getting worse, and it should heal in a week or two. My memory should return. They said they’ve seen it before.”

  “Okay, that’s a good sign,” she said with a nod. “I’m sure relaxing a bit will help with that.”

  He shot her a rueful look. “Try relaxing when the most important parts of your life have been erased from your head. Besides—I want to get out there. Do something. Feel useful.”

  “That’s your way,” she said with a low laugh.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You like to work. You always did. You worked harder than any cowboy here.”

  That wasn’t a bad thing. He smiled at the description. “It could be worse.”

  “You need to relax,” she said, and her tone wasn’t amused.

  The toddlers stopped at the steps of the house and turned around, heading back toward them. Their curls bounced as they ran, and one of them came straight for Olivia. She bent down and swept the girl up in her arms, planting her on her hip. The move was so natural that he found himself smiling at her.

  Sawyer caught the second girl, and picked her up, too. It was easier with two adults. They weren’t outnumbered, and Olivia seemed more natural with the girls than Sawyer was.

  “What’s your name?” Olivia asked brightly.

  “Bella.”

  “Yeah, you’re Bella?”

  “Bella.”

  Sawyer looked at the toddler in his arms. “Hey, Lizzie,” he said softly.

  “Daddy...”

  Sawyer looked over at Olivia, his heart speeding up. “Did we just do it?”

  “I think we know who’s who,” she agreed.

  “Okay, don’t put her down,” Sawyer said, waggling a finger at Olivia. “We’re finding a marker.”

  “That was a joke,” she laughed.

  “It was a good idea. I need to tell them apart.”

  Sawyer led the way up the steps and into the side door of the ranch house. He might no
t remember much, but he did have a mental picture in his mind of a junk drawer of some sorts that had a big felt-tipped marker inside. He looked around the kitchen, unsure of where to start, so he began at the first drawer he saw, pulling it open, then closing it when it wasn’t the right one. On the fifth drawer, he found it.

  “There we go.” He pulled out the marker with a grin. “If there were a mother I’d have to explain myself to, I might be a little more worried. But I’m their dad, right?”

  “So I’ve been told,” she replied with a small smile.

  “Yeah, well, as their dad, I figure telling them apart is pretty important. I need something that won’t just wash off.”

  “Okay.”

  “So I’m making a responsible parenting decision here.” He held up the marker, watching her for a reaction.

  “You’re their dad,” she said with a nod. “It’s your call.”

  While he didn’t remember anything about them, being their father still mattered. In fact, as confused as he was, focusing on being their father had been what had held him together so far.

  Sawyer pulled off the cap and took Lizzie’s hand. He wrote a small L on the back of her hand, and then blew on it to dry the ink. Lizzie looked down at her hand in curiosity, and he put her down on the kitchen floor, then reached for Bella’s hand. She held hers out happily, and he wrote a small B.

  Bella pursed her lips to try and blow, and he laughed, then blew on her hand to make sure the ink was dry.

  “There,” he said. “That’s one problem solved.”

  It felt good—a victory. Olivia put Bella down, and the girls scampered off to a bucket of toys in the corner and dumped it out. He watched them for a moment... It still felt unreal that he was a father and that these little girls were actually his.

  “What was I like?” he asked, glancing toward Olivia.

  “You were serious,” Olivia said. “And stubborn. Really stubborn. You knew what you wanted and you didn’t let anything get in your way. You wanted to help your uncle grow this ranch—you thought you could double the herd size with the right support.”

  “Hmm.” A goal. He liked the sound of that. “How did you and I know each other?”

  “We met at the diner where I was working. We just kind of...clicked. It went from there.”

  “And you live in town still?” he asked.

  “No, I moved for college,” she said. “Right after you got married. I live in Billings now. I work at the hospital there.”

  He frowned slightly, taking her in—the tangled curls, the soft brown eyes, the pink in her cheeks. “What was my wife like?”

  Olivia’s expression froze, and then she glanced away.

  “Perfect for you,” she replied. “Mia loved horses and cattle. She wanted a ranch life. And she was quiet enough to balance you out.”

  “I take it you didn’t want the ranch life like we did,” he said. “Since you moved.”

  “I wanted...” She looked around the kitchen, her gaze turning inward. “I didn’t want to stick around Beaut. I guess I just wanted more.” She winced. “That sounds insulting. I don’t mean it to be. I just didn’t want a rural life. I wanted a new start. I wanted...streetlights and a nightlife, and more people. I was tired of living in a place where everyone knew my personal business, or thought they did.”

  She was beautiful, but it wasn’t her looks that kept his eyes riveted to her. There was something there, just beneath the surface, that he could almost remember. He hadn’t felt that about any of the other people from his forgotten life that he’d met so far. But he had a foggy memory—a black coat and a woman facing away from him. He put out his hand and touched her. She turned—

  Then nothing. He couldn’t get any more of it, but it felt connected to her. Or was the memory of his wife and talking to a woman bringing it back? He couldn’t tell. Not remembering was a strange weight. He was sad—or was that sadness some part of a memory that he couldn’t place, like the woman in the black coat? He wished he knew. It was confusing and frustrating. All he had was these shards of memory that didn’t fit anywhere, and sadness so deep that it made his chest sore.

  “Will you help me to remember it?” he asked quietly. “That life with my wife. My daughters.”

  “I wasn’t here for most of that part,” she said with a quick shake of her head.

  “Right...” So she might not be able to help with that as much as he’d hoped, but still, when he looked at her, that memory of the coat kept brushing so close that he could almost touch it. “What about our friendship? I have a feeling that you mattered to me, too.”

  Olivia blinked up at him and she opened her mouth to say something, then stopped.

  “Did you matter to me?” he asked. He needed to know that much.

  She nodded. “Yes. But Mia was the one who deserved you.”

  What did that mean? He was about to ask, but then one of the toddlers threw a plastic cup across the kitchen and it clattered into a corner, breaking the moment. Sawyer and Olivia both looked in that direction, and Sawyer cleared his throat.

  “It’s a lot to ask to help a man get his memory back, I know...but I need help.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” she agreed.

  “Thank you.” And he meant it from the bottom of his aching heart. For the first time in his limited memory, he felt something close to comfort.

  Chapter Two

  It was odd to be standing here with a man she’d known for so long, talking like virtual strangers. Sawyer wasn’t quite the same as Olivia remembered him. She figured that would still be true even if his mind was fully intact. He might not have his memory, but these last hard years hadn’t been erased; she could see that in the lines on his face and the strands of premature gray around his temples.

  Sawyer crossed the kitchen to the coffee maker and reached for a stack of filters. Olivia watched him work for a moment. He’d bulked up a bit since the last time she’d seen him, making him move with more confidence. His hands—she noticed them as he fiddled with a coffee filter—looked tougher, more calloused. He glanced instinctively toward the toddlers, who sat in the middle of a plastic minefield of toys.

  “You used to like baseball,” Olivia said.

  “Did I?” Sawyer glanced over his shoulder. “Playing it or watching it?”

  “Both,” she replied. “You played in high school, at least, but that was before I was in high school, and before we properly met. You’re older than me by a couple of years, by the way.”

  “Right.” He smiled.

  “We used to play catch in the park, you and me. When you weren’t working. You worked a lot.”

  “Did you play baseball, too?” he asked.

  Olivia would have...but there had been some women who’d liked to play with the local team who’d been part of spreading those rumors about her, and avoiding them had been simpler and less painful than standing her ground and facing them down. At that point she’d been so tired from the constant badgering around town, that she’d just let people believe what they wanted to about her. If they wanted to think she was sleeping around, then so be it, because no one was listening to her anyway. It was easier in the moment, at least. But it had confirmed that getting out of Beaut was the only option she had.

  “No, I wasn’t into baseball,” she said. It wasn’t entirely true—but it wasn’t really a lie. Joining the team would have been fun under different circumstances, but all she had was reality, not a fairy tale. And in her reality, baseball hadn’t been right for her at all.

  “Huh.” Sawyer cast her a peculiar look, then turned back to making the coffee again.

  “Why?” she asked. “Do you remember something?”

  “No, you just really tensed up when you said you weren’t into baseball,” he replied. “What’s up with that?”

  “Stuff I’d rather forget,” she said, forcing
a smile, then nodded toward the coffee maker. “You remember how to make coffee.”

  Sawyer nodded. “I realized that yesterday. How did I take my coffee when you knew me?”

  “How have you been taking it so far?” she asked.

  He screwed the lid back onto the coffee canister. “Lloyd has been handing it to me black.” He flicked the button on the coffee maker and turned back toward her. “I’ve been following suit when I make it myself. Is that how I liked it?”

  Olivia shrugged. “When I knew you, you used to take a dribble of cream and about five spoons of sugar.”

  He frowned slightly. “That sounds gross. Are you sure?”

  “Maybe you changed how you took it,” she suggested. “I mean, maybe you started worrying about your health.”

  Or maybe Mia had started worrying about it. Olivia couldn’t speak for what had happened in his marriage.

  “I’ll try it both ways,” Sawyer said. “Maybe you’re right.”

  And maybe she wasn’t... She’d adored Sawyer, but had she known him as well as she thought?

  “How much did you and I hang out?” Sawyer asked.

  Was he thinking the same thing?

  “Quite a bit, back in the day,” she said. “After you graduated, a lot of your friends had left for the city, and I didn’t have a lot of friends anymore, besides Mia. So you and I kind of bonded over the lack of other options.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a great foundation.” But a smile tugged up the corner of his lips. “What do you mean, anymore? What happened to your friends?”

  “I wasn’t terribly popular,” she hedged. “I was quiet. Kind of boring. And senior year, everyone decided to pick on me.”

  “Oh...” His gaze filled with sympathy. “I’m sorry.”

  “It was a good thing, in a roundabout way,” she countered. “For us, at least. We might not have given each other much of a chance if we’d had other options. We wanted opposite things out of life, so we were a bit of an odd couple.”

  “Did we date?” he asked. “You called us a couple.”

  “No, I meant that in the most platonic way possible.” She felt her smile slip.