by B. J Daniels
* * *
SARAH HURRIED DOWN the hospital hallway, reaching Russell’s hospital room as the doctor came out. “How is he?”
He recognized her from all her other visits and like most people in the county, knew that she had been Russell’s fiancé not all that long ago.
“It is nothing short of a miracle,” the doctor said, closing the door behind him. “He’s still a little confused. We’ll need to run more tests, but it appears he will have a full recovery.”
She breathed a sigh of relief that brought tears to her eyes again. “Thank you. Can I see him?”
“Just keep your visit short.”
Sarah took a deep breath and pushed the door open. The first time she’d come to see Russell was right after his attack. He’d been so badly beaten that he hadn’t been expected to live. The doctor had worried that he would have brain damage. So it really was a miracle.
As she entered the room, she let the door close behind her. Russell lay on the bed on his back, his eyes closed.
She moved quietly to his side and took his hand. His eyes opened at her touch, and he turned his head toward her, a smile coming to his lips.
“I am so glad to see you’re awake,” she said, unable to hold back the tears.
His smile wavered. “I’m sorry, I thought for a minute you were my daughter, Destry.”
“I’m sure the doctor has called her.”
He nodded and looked toward the door. “I thought the two of them would be here by now.”
She stared at him. Now she was the one confused. “Destry and her husband?”
“Destry and Judy, my wife.”
Judy? His deceased wife?
She stared at him. The doctor had said there was some confusion after such major injuries. “Russell, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. I know you were just trying to help me. If I could take any of it back—”
He pulled his hand free, his frown deepening. “I don’t mean to be rude, but do I know you?”
She was momentarily stunned. “Russell, it’s me, Sarah.” He still looked puzzled. “Sarah Hamilton.”
His eyes widened as he finally seemed to recognize her. “I’m sorry, but I thought you were... That is...” He looked around the room as if now not sure where he was. When his gaze came back to her, he looked more frightened than confused. “I’m sure I recall going to your funeral.” He fumbled for his call button to alert the nurse, all the while he just kept frowning at her.
Sarah stared at him, almost too shocked to speak. “You don’t remember finding me on the road outside Beartooth months ago?” she asked, her voice breaking.
“Finding you?”
“You don’t remember...” She couldn’t bear to say the words. You don’t remember falling in love with me, asking me to marry you? You don’t remember promising to help me? The door opened behind them. Sarah turned as a nurse came in.
“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to leave,” the nurse said, glancing from Sarah to Russell and back again. Russell was visibly upset.
Sarah nodded. Russell was still frowning at her, looking scared since his last memory was going to her funeral all those years ago.
“I was just leaving.” She forced a smile. He didn’t remember her. She’d heard about head injuries where there was memory loss. His had apparently wiped out everything they had been to each other since she’d returned.
She thought of her own loss of memories due to Dr. Venable eradicating them. At least for Russell, forgetting her was a blessing. “I’m so glad you’re better,” she said, her heart breaking.
* * *
AINSLEY PLAYED THE conversation over in her head, mentally kicking herself. She still couldn’t believe that she’d actually gone skinny-dipping—again! It was so not like her and yet... She smiled to herself. She’d felt a sense of freedom like none she’d ever experienced. And Sawyer had been a man of his word. He’d behaved like a perfect gentleman.
So what had made her say she would have dinner with this cowboy? He’d caught her at a weak moment, she told herself.
“I thought you might enjoy getting away from here for a while,” he’d said. “I feel like I’m in a fishbowl up here, you know what I mean?”
She knew that feeling only too well. But then she’d felt like that for months. “Not much goes on out here that someone doesn’t witness. That’s why there is so much gossip.” Fortunately, she hadn’t heard anything about her and Sawyer, given his early-morning exit from her cabin.
Ainsley had been ready to leave it at that. Going into town with him would only get tongues wagging. She had opened her mouth hoping a good excuse would come out.
“Unless you’ve gone back to being the old Ainsley Hamilton, the one who isn’t allowed to have fun...”
She had groaned. Did he really think he could dare her into having dinner with him? “Last night I was—”
“Drunk?”
“A little overdramatic.”
“So you don’t think going into town with me to the local café would be living too dangerous for you?”
Right then she couldn’t imagine anything more dangerous. There was something about this man beyond his good looks, his obvious charm, his way of making her feel safe.
“You’re making fun of me.”
“Not at all. Like I told you, I like both the old and the new Ainsley. It will be interesting to see which one comes out with me tonight.”
She’d laughed. It had felt good. It also felt good to be asked out by this handsome cowboy. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken a man up on an offer for dinner. No way was she going to let that Ainsley Hamilton from last night out, but what would it hurt to let down her hair just a little?
“Okay, cowboy,” she’d said. Only later back in her cabin did she worry. Sawyer brought out a woman in her she didn’t know. It scared her, but it also excited her. Something told her that she should keep her distance from the man.
* * *
SAWYER HAD MADE up his mind that he would tell Ainsley the truth at dinner tonight—if she went out with him. He feared she might change her mind. He didn’t like keeping the truth from her, now that he’d met her.
But at the same time, she’d made it clear that she prided herself on her independence. As she’d said, she could take care of herself. The rock slide yesterday, though, had shaken that solid foundation she’d built her life on. She seemed to think she’d contained that urge she’d had to do things she’d never done. He wasn’t so sure about that, given that he’d talked her into going into the spring with him.
Truthfully, he’d love to see the new Ainsley come back. Had she been sober, he would have gone skinny-dipping with her last night. But then again, had she been sober, it would probably have never crossed her mind.
On the ride back to the stables, Ainsley had asked, “I’m curious. What do you do when you aren’t playing a cowboy extra?”
He’d avoided the truth. “I was raised on a ranch, so me and horses are a given. But I promise to tell you anything you want at dinner.” He made an x over his heart with one finger. “Scout’s honor.”
Ainsley had seemed to relax a little. He knew she was still suffering from a bad hangover. He had no idea how much alcohol Kitzie had put in the drinks, but enough to down an elephant, he was betting. Kitzie. He pushed all thoughts of her away.
He wished he wouldn’t have to tell Ainsley the truth until he’d found her stalker. That was why as soon as they got back to the stables, he’d set out to find the person who’d left the note on her cabin door last night. He had it narrowed down to the security guard, Lance Roderick. He fit the profile.
The rest of the crew seemed okay, since, according to Kitzie, almost all of them were from California and had been on the road during the months that someone had been following Ainsley in Montana.
* * *
THE TRAMP! WHAT HAD happened to the woman he’d adored from afar? From the shadows, he watched Ainsley and the cowboy ride back from wherever they’d been for hours. She laughed at something the long, tall cowboy had said, her laughter coming to him on the breeze.
He felt bile rise in his throat. She was flirting with the man as if she had no morals at all. Look at how she threw her head back when she laughed. Look at how she touched her hair. Look at how she gazed at the cowboy shyly from under her lashes. How could she behave like this? Wasn’t last night bad enough?
The thought of her standing naked by the creek filled him with a burning anger. To take off her clothes with a man she didn’t even know? He’d been so disappointed in her, but last night he’d excused her behavior. While staying back in the blackness beyond the campfire, he’d heard her talking about her life passing before her eyes because of the rock slide. He had attributed her lack of decorum to her near accident—one he had caused.
So he had excused her even when the cowboy had bundled her up and taken her back to her cabin. He had waited outside, counting the minutes. But the cowboy hadn’t come back out. He’d moved closer. Ainsley had been drunk. If that cowboy laid one finger on her...
But at the cabin window in the back where the bedroom was, he’d heard only Ainsley’s faint snores. He’d stayed there, listening. He’d learned how to move around the place without anyone paying him any attention. No one had been able to see him in the trees behind the cabin, and if the cowboy had tried anything, he would hear it and wake up, should he doze off.
Nothing had happened. Not that he was happy about the cowboy spending the night in Ainsley’s cabin. What if someone else had seen the cowboy come out of there this morning? Her reputation would be ruined. People would talk. He thought of his mother and shook his head. She would not have approved. She would have demanded that Ainsley be punished.
The thought made his heart beat faster.
This morning he’d asked the girls in the kitchen about him. Sawyer Nash was nothing but an extra, some dumb cowboy who had a couple of ride-on parts in this ridiculous commercial.
Still, he’d been willing to let last night be forgotten if Ainsley came to her senses today. She had seemed to be her old, proper self this morning when he’d watched her with the director. He’d been cheered by that, and forgiving. Whatever she’d done last night, it wasn’t her fault, so he would overlook it.
But now, watching her with this cowboy... He felt sick to his stomach. She had always been the perfect lady. She didn’t wear trashy clothing like other women and, until last night, she hadn’t imbibed any alcohol with the others on the set—at least not when he was watching. And he was always watching.
He thought of his mother and wished she were still alive. Had she been, he would have taken Ainsley home to meet her long before this. He would have been proud to tell his mother that Ainsley was the woman he was going to marry.
But now all he felt was disgust. Nor could he understand the change in her. Had he caused this? If so, then he had to do something. If Ainsley kept behaving like this, she would have to be punished. It would be for her own good. He couldn’t let her disgrace herself with this...cowboy. He would save her from herself. His mother always said that when she’d had to punish him. The pain and scars were reminders.
As for Sawyer Nash... His anger boiled just under his skin, a hot lava that roiled through his blood. He would deal with him, as well.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SARAH LEFT THE hospital in a daze. Russell didn’t remember her. The part of his past with her in it was gone. Maybe forever. She felt bereft, her heart shattered. She hadn’t realized how much she was depending on Russell to help her. Russell’s love had been the one given. He was gone from her life as if he’d never been there. As if they had never shared anything.
She thought of how she’d hurt Russell when she’d broken off their engagement and gone back to Buck. He’d understood why she’d had to do it. Buck was the father of her children. She’d never denied that she’d still loved her husband. But Buck had remarried. She’d thought there was no place in his life for her.
Then right before Sarah and Russell were to be married, Angelina had died, and Buck had told her he was planning to leave Angelina for her. He was going to tell Angelina that night, but had gotten the phone call about her death first.
Russell had known the moment he’d heard about Angelina’s death. He’d known she would go back to Buck—and she had.
But she’d never stopped loving Russell. She could admit that now.
Stumbling to her car, she climbed behind the wheel and broke into sobs. Russell had been there for her, time and time again over the almost two years since she’d returned. He was the one person she could count on, no matter what. Even if her past was as dark as they both suspected. Without him... She’d never felt so alone.
She wiped her eyes and tried to pull herself together. She thought of Buck and her love for him. But she had never been able to be honest with him about the person she’d been. Russell had seen Red in her, and yet he’d still loved her. She hadn’t realized how much she’d loved him. And now he was damaged...and all because of who she’d been, what she’d done and whom she’d loved.
Joe Landon. He was the other man she had apparently loved just as desperately, she realized. He was why she’d bought into The Prophecy and its cause. And yet knowing she and Joe had been together back when they were still teenagers, she didn’t “feel” what that desperate love had been like because that memory hadn’t been completely restored yet.
Once Dr. Venable gives you back the rest of your memory...
Would that memory flip a switch so that she would not only feel love for Joe again, but she would also become the anarchist called Red? Would she again believe that bombing buildings and killing people was the way to change the world?
Any day now, Dr. Venable would contact her, ready to give her the final piece of her memory. But what if that key to her past released Red and united her with her former lover/terrorist Joe Landon? What if she became a woman she didn’t recognize?
Sarah told herself that she wasn’t that young, innocent girl who’d fallen for Joe Landon. She was strong and capable. She could fight whatever the memory might make her want to do.
Either way, she was on her own. All she knew was that Joe had something planned for election night. She prayed it wouldn’t mirror other horrible acts of terrorism. Joe needed Buck to become president. That was the reason she’d been brought back to Montana. She’d played her part. But what would that part be election night?
Sarah started her vehicle. She had no one to turn to for help. Russell was gone from her life. Nor could she go to Buck. Joe had big plans for her, Doc had told her. That terrified her more than she could admit. He was a loose cannon with more than an agenda. He felt she’d betrayed not just The Prophecy—but him, all those years ago when she’d fallen in love with Buck and had six children with him. Worse, when he’d contacted her about The Prophecy and she’d told him she wanted nothing to do with it—or him. That’s when she had realized all those years ago that she had to kill herself to save her family.
But miraculously she’d survived and had called the one person she thought she could trust, Dr. Ralph Venable. He’d wiped away the memory of her husband and her children and swore she’d be content.
Content until Joe Landon had found them and forced her return to Montana—and Buck. And all because Buck was about to run for president of the United States.
Since her return, Joe had been pulling her strings. He hadn’t forgiven her for betraying him and The Pro
phecy. He would want her blood. Just the thought of coming face-to-face with him again made her shudder. Or maybe his plan was just to kill them all election night.
As she drove away from the hospital and Russell, Sarah knew she had only one choice. She had to stop her former lover and bring down The Prophecy, no matter the cost.
* * *
JERROD WILLISTON GLANCED at his watch. It was time to make the call. He felt a small thrill each time he keyed the number into the disposable phone he’d been given. That thrill increased at just the sound of the charismatic, beautiful man who’d changed his life all those years ago.
He’d been headed for prison or the morgue the night he’d run into a church to hide from the gang members chasing him. At the time, he’d hoped to find something he could steal. He desperately needed to get out of town. Or at least get enough money to buy a gun.
When he’d heard someone coming from deep inside the church, he’d sat down on a pew with his hood pulled up and head down. He’d been pretending to search for spiritual guidance when Joe had sat down next to him.
He’d liked Joe from the first time he’d met him. Not exactly a father figure, he thought now with a laugh. But the truth was, he really had been searching for something, some meaning in his life.
He and Joe had begun to talk, their talk continuing through the night. As the sun was coming up, Joe told him that he could save him.
“You’re just the kind of man my organization needs,” he’d said.
At first Jerrod had thought Joe had wanted him to join the church. But then he’d asked, “Have you ever considered politics?”
He’d laughed, thinking he was joking. Born to a single mother on meth, he’d never thought he had a future. “You mean like for president or something?”
Joe had laughed. “I was thinking more behind the scenes. Someone who controlled what was going to happen in the world.”
He couldn’t imagine being in control of anything. His life had been one carnival ride with him never knowing if he would find his mother dead or if one of her boyfriends would beat the crap out of him. Not to mention the rough neighborhood where they lived and the fear he felt every time he stepped out the door.