He shrugged with an easy carelessness. “We both grew up here.” When she opened her mouth to respond, he held out a hand in a gentle ‘stop’ gesture. “Can I ask for a favor?”
“I don’t know, can you?” The question surprised her as much as the sarcasm seemed to delight him. Why did she feel so comfortable around him? In the days since leaving the hospital, the only emotions she’d felt were anger, resentment, and a few others that anchored a weight to her heart. A couple hours around Chase and she was snapping quips like it was her job.
His lips quirked upward, which made the skin around his eyes crinkle. It was the kind of smile she couldn’t resist matching. How could she forget a man like him?
Amnesia didn’t pick and choose. She understood that on a fundamental level, but her heart argued back that true love conquered all.
Whoa. She stopped in her tracks. Her throat constricted, and she gasped for breath. Where had that come from? She didn’t love Chase; she didn’t even know him. Love needed time to develop. Sometimes years and years. What she felt when she looked at him had to be nothing more than her body’s reaction to the stress and overwhelm she’d experienced. He offered a sense of calm in the middle of the chaos.
“You had a question?” Her voice did that thing where it lifted at the end, turning what she’d intended to be a statement into a question.
His steps slowed, his stride shortening, making it easier for her to keep up on the downward sloping driveway. “I’d like to try and help you settle in here.”
“And see if I regain my memories?” Confusion swirled through her. That was all anyone seemed to want to talk about. She couldn’t blame them when she tended to bring it into every conversation even without trying.
“We both know you can’t force yourself to remember. You either will, or you won’t.” It was a cold, painful truth, but he said it with such softness that she gave him her full attention.
Gravel rolled beneath her shoes, and she kicked a loose pebble to the side of the driveway. Her hands slid into her pockets as the steady movement of her heels hitting the firm ground rocked through her. “I’d like to think I’m more than just the woman who lost her memories. Aunt Sarah talked me into coming here, and I think we both hoped I’d remember everything by now. At this point, I’d like to know who I am.”
“You’re Michelle Baker.” He flourished his hand in her direction, inviting her to join in.
They crossed from gravel to dirt, stepping over the wooden threshold that separated the barn from the yard. “Former bank executive and owner of a rather bland apartment in Detroit.”
“Former?” His eyebrows rose so high they nearly disappeared.
Not the kind of opening conversation most people enjoyed. “Still figuring things out. Since I can’t remember most of my clients, or my original training, it’s kind of difficult to function in an executive role.” The horse in the stall closest to her pricked up its ears and slung its head over the stall door. She smoothed a hand over the sleek neck and up over a fluffy ear.
His grunt sounded closer than she expected and a long-fingered hand reached past her to fix the latch on the stall door. “Sorry. Looks like Samson here has been playing escape artist again.”
“Horses do that?” She eyed the horse with a critical lack of experience.
Chase moved to the next stall and checked the latch on that door. “He does. And he tries to free his neighbors. I almost resorted to a padlock, but I’d rather have something quick for me to maneuver in case of an emergency. All the ‘horse-proof’ locks have been a failure.” He air quoted horse-proof with a wry look at Samson.
The motion of patting Samson’s neck had that same vaguely familiar feeling she’d experienced off and on all day. “Why did you become a ranch manager?”
He leaned his shoulder against the wall and fed the gray horse in front of him a piece of carrot from his pocket. “Always loved ranching. Dad taught me how to ride before I could walk, and I spent every spare minute helping him with the horses and cattle. That whole thing about ranching being in the blood is true for me.”
“You never wanted anything else?” She tried to imagine what that felt like. Since waking up, all she wanted was more. Different. The one day she’d tried to return to her office ended in disaster when she had no clue how to talk to half the people who came to see her. She’d been distracted, on edge, and short-tempered every single second.
By the time she made it home, she’d been ready to quit. Some part of her dug in and refused to give up. A sensation of being too stubborn to let life run roughshod over her had sunk in as she’d listened to Aunt Sarah, agreeing to make a clean break from the city and try something different.
Light danced through the low-roofed barn and dappled Chase’s hat. He nudged it up with his thumb and stared into the distance where a line of barbed wire fence stretched all the way to the horizon. “I’ve wanted a lot of things.”
She waited for more, waited until the silence stretched as long as the fence they stared at. The house stood to the left of the fence, its off-white paint turning gold as streaks of color painted the sky. Clouds filtered past the sun and gathered on the edge of the horizon. The depth of space available here created a sensation of ineptitude and inadequacy in her. She was such a small part of a great, big world. And she had nothing to show for her years spent on it.
“When I was five, I had a brief stint where I wanted to be a policeman.” He moved from the stall to a bale of hay and cut the strings using a pocketknife. “That lasted about a week.” He picked up a stack of hay and flung it into a wooden box in the stall. “In high school, I wanted to be the star quarterback. Never mind I’d never played football or had any real interest in the sport.”
“So why did you want it?”
He worked in slow, methodical steps, picking up the hay and adding it to each stall. “Why else?”
“A girl?” Her heart did that funny lurching thing again.
He made a clicking sound with his tongue and finished throwing the last brick of hay into Samson’s stall. “You guessed it.”
The urge to laugh pressed hard against her ribs. “What did you do?”
“Asked her to go to the movies with me instead.” He brushed hay from his hands and tucked them into the edges of his pockets. His stance remained casual, his weight propped on one leg while the other knee bent at an angle.
