And then she was standing right before Ellie. Only the old wooden fence separated them. Ellie’s heart soared when Penny’s damp breath reached her hand, sniffing at the apple it held out in offering.
Penny snatched the apple in her teeth and took a tentative step back.
Ellie stayed stock still as the horse chewed up the apple with a fast series of contented crunches.
And then gravel crunched on the path behind them and Penny took off like a shot. Darn it, Landon!
Ellie braced herself for battle, whipping around to give Landon a piece of her mind—but in a calm, pleasant voice since she knew the horse would still be watching from somewhere far afield.
But it wasn’t Landon at all. Rather, one of the older ranch hands had stumbled upon her midnight meeting with Penny. Liz had introduced the silver-haired cowboy when Ellie first arrived at the ranch, but for the life of her, she couldn’t remember his name.
“Sorry to interrupt, miss,” he said, taking off his hat and clutching it to his chest. “I was watching from down the path here and couldn’t believe my eyes when Penny came hobbling right on over. I haven’t seen you here before on my night walks. Was this your first time trying to engage the old girl?”
Ellie’s grin was so wide it hurt her cheeks. “It’s the first night, but I spend a lot of my afternoons with her. This was the very first time she’s gotten close, though. And it was amazing.”
The rancher let out a low whistle. “Well, I’ll be. Landon and Derrick have been working with that horse every day and making hardly any progress. Then you come trotting out and have her eating out of your hand in no time at all.”
“I think I’m still in shock,” Ellie admitted before a new worry overtook her. “But please, do me a favor and don’t tell Landon about this. He seems to think I’m going to do something crazy like hop on her back and get myself killed or something.”
He chuckled low in his throat. “Now don’t you be worrying about that, miss. Old Howard O’Reilly doesn’t go around gossiping about other people’s business. Besides, I have to agree with you that Landon wouldn’t be too happy about my finding you here. I swear, that boy has a stubborn streak a mile wide. Especially when it comes to you. I suspect that’s just because he cares about you, that’s all.”
Ellie shivered as a fresh gust of breeze blew by. “Well, yeah, I know he’s supposed to keep all the guests safe, but sometimes he takes it a little too far.”
Howard raised an eyebrow so high it was almost hidden by his hat. “Oh, I reckon he doesn’t worry so much about all the others. Not like he does you. I might be an old man with one foot hovering dangerously close to a six foot hole in the ground, but I’m not buried in it yet. That boy may not know it for himself yet, but that doesn’t stop his heart from beating Ell-ie, Ell-ie, Ell-ie.”
Ellie had to laugh at the colorful way Howard explained his theory. “Well, you’re still a long way from that hole. In fact, I bet you’ll keep dancing around it for years to come.”
They grinned at each other until Penny snorted loudly, drawing their eyes over to her again.
Howard placed both hands on the fence as they stood and watched the horses together. “If you’re going to the barn dance next Saturday, maybe I can show you my famous not-dead-yet jig.”
“Oh, I forgot all about that,” Ellie said with a sigh. As fun as a barn dance sounded, putting herself in another situation where she could be wooed by Landon’s charms didn’t seem like the best of ideas. “I didn’t realize it was coming up so soon,” she hedged.
During their orientation walk about the property, Elizabeth Jane had regaled Ellie with tales of the famous Memory Ranch dance parties. Once per season the staff, guests, and choice off-property acquaintances would gather together for a swinging good time. The old pole barn was made over with all the glitz and glamor of a high school gymnasium for prom, and everyone celebrated well into the night, sometimes clear into the next morning.
Ellie had been looking forward to it until things had become complicated with Landon. She’d thought she could feign ill, but Howard made it obvious that she was expected to make an appearance no matter what.
“Well, get your dancing boots on, darlin’,” he continued fondly. “Because I’m surely not the only fella who’s gonna be wanting a chance to sweep you across that floor. But you better be promising me the first dance, because I have a feeling that’s all I’ll get once a certain young buck gets his chance.”
Her heart raced at the thought of being spun around a dance floor in Landon’s arms. She couldn’t avoid him forever, no matter how much easier that would make her recovery. And, by goodness, she wanted to attend that dance, whether it was a good idea or not.
She placed a hand on the old man’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “It’s a promise, Howard. And I can’t wait.”
Chapter 17
Another couple days passed. On each of them, Ellie brought Penny an apple before bed. Penny hesitated every time, but ultimately came forward to claim the delicious fruit. They shaved a little bit of time off their exchange each night, too. At this rate, the horse would come trotting to Ellie in no time.
She hoped she’d still be here for it to happen.
But then again, being here would mean she wasn’t getting any better…
Why did this all have to be so difficult? Every time she began to settle into her life at the ranch, she was abruptly reminded of how this wasn’t her real life. It wasn’t the real Ellie.
She lay with her back flat on the grass as she thumbed through a paperback on loan from one of Liz’s friends—literally from one of her friends. She had written it. The world the author painted of a snowbound Anchorage and a spirited pack of sled dogs seemed so different than the summery skies around her now. How could one place change so much within the span of only a few short months?
Just as she reached the part where the heroine met a handsome stranger at the Miners and Trappers ball, Ellie’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She glanced down at the caller ID and groaned.
Her mother.
Ever since Ellie’s dad had paid her a visit at the ranch, Ellie’s mom had taken to calling her at least once per day. Sometimes many more. And every call started the same.
“Hi, Ellie. When are you coming home?” Mrs. Hawkins rasped into the phone.
“When I feel it’s time,” she answered, same as always.
Her mother let out an exasperated sigh. “When I agreed to let you go up there I didn’t think I’d be signing over rights to my daughter forever.”
Agreed? That’s not how Ellie remembered it.
“I think I’m starting to get a little better,” she said, if only to throw her mother a bone.
“You think? What do your doctors say?”
“Well, they’re not sure about my theory, but they support it.”
“Theory? What theory?”
“Mom, I’ve told you about this a million times before. It’s the man in my dreams. I just know he’s important, and one way or another, I’m going to find him.”
“Oh, that.” Her mother’s voice came out clipped, and Ellie realized that then the aggravation worked both ways. Maybe if she prodded her mother enough, she’d either get answers or a bit of a break. Either would be most welcome.
“Are you sure you don’t know who he is?” Ellie asked in her most petulant voice. “You keep telling me we spent all our time together. That you know me better than anyone else. If that’s true, there’s no way I kept someone so important from you.”
A few charged moments of silence passed between them before her mother spoke again.
“Ellie, I don’t know what’s with this accusatory tone. I promise you, if I knew something, I would tell you about it. You worked a lot. That was your life. That was your passion. If you kept some secret boyfriend from me, then how is that my fault?”
“Mom, I didn’t mean—”
“Wait! Wait, wait, wait…”
“What is it, Mom?”
&nbs
p; “I’m thinking here. Give me a second.”
Ellie waited as her mother muttered to herself under her breath.
“Okay, I just remembered something. There was this guy you saw a few times in the month before the accident. I thought you’d broken up, but who knows? Maybe I was wrong. I mean, I was so busy getting things set up for your cover shoot in New York that I didn’t really have time to pay attention to the details. I met him once and thought he seemed nice enough.”
Ellie shot upright at this news. Could she finally have the key to unlocking her past? “What was his name?” she asked breathlessly.
“It started with an M—one of those trendy names everyone is naming their babies these days. Marcus? No… Marlon? That’s not it, either. Oh, I think it was Marshall! That sounds right.”
Ellie had hoped something would click in her memories when she heard her mystery man’s name. But nothing happened. He was still as distant to her as always. “Do you know where I can find him?” she asked. The name wasn’t enough. Maybe she had to see him to remember.
Yes, because this man—this Marshall—had to be the one from her dreams. He alone held the answers she so desperately sought. Surely her heart would recognize him when at last they met again.
“I don’t, but I’ll ask around. You know, why don’t you just come home? It would be so much easier to have you here. We could find Marshall together. I could help you remember. I want to help, Ellie. I love you more than anything in this whole world, and I hate having you so far away.”
Ellie sighed loudly and leaned back on the bench. As excited as she was to meet Marshall, she couldn’t just leave her life at the ranch with a snap of the fingers. “I love you too, Mom, but we’ve already been over this. I’m staying here. I don’t know for how long, but I need to be here a while longer. I like it, and it is helping.”
Her mom sighed, too. “If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure, Mom.”
“Well, just think real carefully before you walk away from the life you had before the accident. I know you can’t remember it, but it was a great life, the one we lived together. And it won’t take all that much to get it back. So what if you don’t remember? I can show you it all again. We can pick up right where you left off. A fresh round of introductions and a bit of plastic surgery to cover up those scars, and you’ll be good as new. Better than new, because now you have a sob story, and the media loves sob stories.”
Ellie sat staring straight ahead in disbelief. Every time she thought her mother had begun to lay off her, the woman would find a new way to get under her skin. Yesterday, it was about her dad. Today, it was about her scars. Tomorrow, it would probably have something to do with some new career opportunity she simply couldn’t pass up. All of it made her sick to her stomach—made her feel like staying away forever.
“I’ve got to go. Please just find Marshall for me. Okay?” She pulled the phone away from her ear and jammed down on the end call button, unable to handle another word from her mother.
That was when she discovered that she wasn’t as alone as she’d thought. “Everything okay there?” Landon asked, approaching from inside the corral.
“Hey,” she answered sadly. “What did I say about sneaking up on me?”
He flung his body deftly over the fence and strode over to where she sat waiting in the grass. “I’ve told you before,” he said, “I’m not sneaking. You just don’t pay enough attention to your surroundings to hear me coming.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, so ready to be done with this day. “Don’t you start with me. I don’t need anyone else telling me how wrong I am about everything.”
He sank down onto the grass beside her, concern lining his brow. “Another call from your mom?”
She hadn’t told him much about her life back in L.A., but apparently it was enough for him to know just how she felt after conversations with her mother.
“She calls every single day to let me know I need to come home, get plastic surgery, and get back to my real life.” Ellie clenched her jaw tightly as she stared across the yard to where the horses stood grazing.
Landon leaned forward and rested his arms on his legs. “Why can’t this be a real life, too? And why on earth does she think you need plastic surgery?”
As much as it flattered her that Landon seemed genuinely confused by her need for plastic surgery, there was no denying that her mother was right about this one. She lifted her hand to trace each scar in demonstration. “To fix this…and this…and this one.”
Landon’s eyebrows drew together in anger. “You’re joking, right?”
And then the rush of tears began to form. She refused to let them fall, to let him know how much his words had touched her, how much her looks apparently still mattered to her.
Before Ellie knew what was happening, Landon had stretched forward and placed his fingers right on the scar at her temple. Slowly, he moved them along to the one on her jaw. “Ellie, you don’t need to fix anything. You’re beautiful exactly as you are,” he said on the wings of an exhale.
Ellie felt herself sigh with him as he continued.
“Your scars are part of your story, and you don’t need to hide them.”
“But my face is my livelihood,” she argued, unwilling to let herself get lost in this tender moment with the man she shouldn’t want, couldn’t have. “I need it to be perfect. I can’t just throw away everything my mother and I have worked so hard for.”
His shoulders moved as he breathed, his fingers still slowly circling the skin on her jaw. “I can’t understand how any job that places importance on a few scars over the beauty a person has on the inside could be worth it. Don’t let them put your light out, Ellie.”
Her heart jumped as he whispered the words that came next. “To me, you already are perfect.”
Pain ripped through Ellie’s head as a waking nightmare played beneath her eyelids. Her nocturnal suitor had returned, reminding Ellie that she didn’t dare betray him. She still couldn’t see his face even as she clenched her eyes shut, hoping for a glimpse. All she knew was that this moment with Landon, while so special, just wasn’t right.
“Are you all right, Ellie?” Landon’s voice was concerned as he brought his other hand up to frame her face.
Opening her eyes back to him, she allowed her tears to fall freely.
Why couldn’t she just see him? If she could remember him, maybe she could move on and let herself love Landon. He thought she was perfect, scars and all. What did this mystery man think, and was he really the Marshall her mother mentioned? Why hadn’t she remembered yet? And how could she ever know for sure?
She smiled sadly and pulled back, his hands falling from her face. “I’m fine. I thought I had a memory coming through, but maybe it’s just a headache. I’m going to go lie down for a while.”
Ellie stood, unable to find the strength she needed right now, unable to love Landon but also unable to resist him—a dangerous combination if ever there was one.
She hoped that one day the world would make sense again.
But until then happiness—like the man who appeared only in the shadows of her dreams—would always be just out of reach.
Chapter 18
For the next couple days, Ellie avoided answering her mother’s calls. Even though she longed to learn more about Marshall, she needed to prepare her heart first.
And so she’d spent much of her time sitting with Penny near the corral and taking pictures around the ranch. She also requested extra therapy sessions and even took on more than her fair share of chores to keep her mind busy while her heart sorted through all it had learned since the accident.
Today Elizabeth Jane had insisted she treat Ellie to another special lunch at Anna’s in downtown Anchorage. “It’s to thank you for all the extra work you’ve been putting in around here,” she’d explained.
And now they sat over heaping plates of freshly fried Halibut as they carefully sifted through the prints Ellie had ordere
d online. She couldn’t believe how fast the pictures arrived and how good it felt to hold the physical proof of her creative work right there in her own two hands.
“I still can’t believe you took all of these yourself!” Liz gushed as she studied each glossy photo after the next.
“There were so many more.” Ellie burst with pride as Liz oohed and ahhed over her art. “I tried to pick the best ones to print off, though I kind of wanted to get them all. This is maybe like a tenth of what’s on my memory card.”
“Are you sure you were a model before? I mean, not that you’re not gorgeous. But these, Ellie, these are really something else. You had to be a pro!”
“From what I know of my life before, I sincerely doubt it. Back then I was all about standing out, but now I like to blend in. See that one of the fox?” she said, thumbing back a couple prints to bring out the picture she had in mind. “It came out from the woods while I was sitting at the creek. He saw me and everything, but there was no fear as I lifted my camera and got my shot. It’s like he just intrinsically trusted me.”
“You do have quite the way with animals from what I hear,” Liz said, lightly touching her thumb to the tiny fox face in the photo. “Penny is like a changed horse.”
Ellie smiled sheepishly and shrugged. “Not yet, but we are certainly getting there. She didn’t need to change. She was already perfect. She just needed others to see that, too.”
Liz shook her head. “Hmm, sounds like somebody else I know, too.”
Ellie smiled to herself. Could Liz be right? It was so hard not knowing who she’d been before or who she was meant to be now. She flipped through the remaining stack of photos and lifted one of Penny into the light. “Speaking of everyone’s favorite rescue horse, I thought maybe you could use this one on the website for the ranch or maybe some of your brochures.”
Liz took the picture from Ellie’s hands and studied it close up. This was the favorite of all Ellie’s works so far. Not just because of her bond with Penny, but also because the morning mist creeping through the background looked like something out of a dream.
Memories of Home Page 9