Without a Past (9 page)

As the sound of their gulping air lessened, Andi rose and hopped to a seat on the log. She juggled the half-empty plastic bottle between her hands as if looking for a message in the water. An odd image struck. Harley pictured himself holding a black ball in his hands. A much younger voice called out an ambiguous, but mysterious-sounding message.

Rolling his head to ease the tension in his neck, he pushed the image away. If it was a memory, it might bring on a headache—which was the last thing he needed here. “You didn't want Ida Jane to move back to the bordello, did you?”

She offered him half of her granola bar, which he declined. “The timing sucks. The roofer starts tomorrow. I have an electrician coming in next week. Ida's not too steady on her feet, you know. She could trip again. Get hurt.”

He sensed this was the truth, but not the whole truth. “How does she feel about all this work?”

The look she gave him said
Bingo.

“You haven't told her?”

“She met Bart, the roofing contractor, this morning.” Her expression told him the meeting wasn't satisfying. “Jenny and I have both tried to keep her up to speed, but it's difficult. Some things we tell her don't stick. Other times she goes ballistic for no reason. When I mentioned replacing some windows with dual-pane glass, she came unglued.” She frowned. “Wanna guess what my December utility bill was?”

When she mentioned the dollar figure, Harley gave a low whistle. “Even if Ida doesn't understand the rationale behind your improvements, it sounds like you have a handle on what needs to be done. For everyone's benefit.”

The look she gave him was filled with doubt, and for the first time since he'd met her, Andi Sullivan appeared vulnerable. In need of a friend. The thought seemed diametrically opposed to what he knew of her. But what
did
he know?

He still didn't know why she was helping him. Just to avoid a confrontation with her aunt? He didn't think so.

She re-capped her bottle, stuffed the granola bar wrapper into her pack, then hopped to her feet. “Shall we press on?”

Harley stopped her with a hand to her bare forearm. The contact made her freeze. Harley felt a current pass through him. Her skin was slick from exertion, which he found incredibly sexy. He could picture the two of them naked and sweat-drenched after making love.

“Maybe we should turn around,” he suggested, struggling to keep his voice level. The farther they climbed up this hill, the less he wanted to be there. Instinct told him to
stop, but he couldn't very well admit that to Andi—who was eyeing him as though he'd just suggested they elope.

“It's your call,” she told him, “but I guarantee this will be my last window of opportunity for a long time.” She made a negating gesture. “Of course, you can always hire somebody else.”

Harley reviewed his options—as he had much of the night while tossing and turning. He reminded himself that finding his bike—if there was a bike—might lead to him recovering his memory. Which was a good thing, right?

A sudden surge of red colored her cheeks. She looked down and kicked a stone with the toe of her hiking boot. “I'm sorry, Harley,” she said softly. “This is your life, not mine, and I don't have any business pushing you to do something you don't want to do.”

She looked flustered. He liked her flustered. It made him feel as if he had a chance to get under her armor.

“Maybe I'm just as much of a busybody as Gloria Hughes—you know, the lady who writes the gossip column. I mean, it's not like this is
my
problem—I have enough of those waiting for me at the bordello.”

She sighed. “Do you want to know the
real
reason I volunteered to do this?”

No.
“Tell me.”

“Because I've seen your eyes glaze over when the other cowboys start talking about their rodeo exploits and bar fights. Maybe working at the Rocking M is enough for you at the moment, but you don't belong there.”

Harley's male response to her sex appeal warred with his intellectual response to her challenge. He knew at a gut level he wasn't living the life he'd lived before, but something kept him from venturing beyond the safe little world he'd created for himself at the Rocking M.
Fear?

“It's good enough for your brother-in-law,” he argued.

“Soon-to-be brother-in-law,” she corrected. “But Sam's a rancher, and he knows you're not. He told me he thinks you're using the Rocking M for therapy—to heal and get your bearings.”

It annoyed him to think that people were speculating about his state of mind behind his back, but Andi put her hand on his arm and said, “Small towns are like families, Harley. We talk about each other because we care. It's only natural to worry about the people in your life. And however you arrived—crashed motorcycle or alien invasion—” her grin made her look about ten “—you're a part of our lives.”

Her fingers were callused. He wanted to turn her hand up to investigate, but she stepped away, burying both hands in the pockets of her fatigues. “Sorry. That was me on my high horse again.”

“If you were suffering from amnesia, you'd have been searching for your past from day one, wouldn't you?” he asked.

Her shoulders rose and fell. “Hard to say. I'm an action kind of girl. Downtime is pure hell for me.”

“So I've noticed.”

Her smile was as feminine and enticing as he'd ever seen, but the look in her eyes was serious. “This is your business, Harley. Not mine. It's your call whether we go on or not.”

Go on. To where? The future or the past?

“What did you want to be when you grew up?” he asked, stalling while he tried to calm the trepidation building in his belly.

She blinked once then said, “A veterinarian. A smoke jumper. A pilot. An FBI agent. Not necessarily in that order.”

Her smile looked curious, but she didn't return the question. What good would it do? he thought bitterly.

“Lately,” he told her, “I've been wondering if, as a
child, I might have dreamed of being a cowboy and this is my way of fulfilling that fantasy.” He took a deep breath of clean, pine-scented air. “I mean, think about it. If you woke up tomorrow with no memory or obligations—virtually a clean slate, you could pretty much pick your life, couldn't you?”

Her eyes opened wide, as if the thought had never crossed her mind. “We all have obligations, Harley. That comes with being born.”

He liked the way she argued with him. “But mine belong to my old life. To the person I was. Since I can't remember that person, he doesn't exist, right?”

She frowned in thought. “But you do exist.” She punched him lightly. “In body.”

“But this isn't the same body that woke up at Lars's cabin with the mother of all headaches. And while I might not be much of a cowboy, thanks to my job, my body is a heck of a lot more fit than it was when I first got here.”

Her eyes did a quick toe-to-head scan, and she nodded. “That's true. You've toned up a lot. But we're more than just muscle and bone. What happened to the old you? Where'd he go?”

A pulse point of light flickered behind his eyes. A warning. “I don't know. I admit there's a whole side of me that doesn't fit this life. Little pieces that don't belong to this puzzle. Not memories exactly, but impressions.”

She stepped closer. Her scent—something fresh and natural—reached him. “Like what?”

The sharp sensation in his brain oscillated. He moved backward until his hip brushed against the log. Finding a flattened-out spot that had obviously served as a resting spot for other butts, he sat down, letting his legs dangle. His feet felt hot inside his secondhand black Ropers, now tan with dust.

As tempting as it might have been to reel Andi into the space between his knees, the suggestion of a headache made him rest his elbows on his thighs.

“Let's see,” he said, trying to think of how to answer her question. “The other night at the Slowpoke. After you and your friends left. I got into an argument with the bartender.”

Harley's memory of the incident was vague. Not because he'd had too many beers, but because he'd blacked out after he'd snapped. According to the story circulating in the bunkhouse the next morning, the mouthy bartender had made a comment about Andi “screwing Ida Jane out of the antique business,” and Harley had reacted by trying to shove the guy's tonsils down his throat.

“Oh, yeah, I heard about that,” she said.

“You did?”

She chuckled. “Probably ten minutes after it happened. Donnie stopped by for a cup of coffee and told me.” She shrugged. “Like I said, this is a small town. People talk.”

Harley sighed. “The image I have of myself—as Harley—doesn't include public brawls. I mean, in order to be consumed by rage, don't you need a background, history, passion?” He couldn't bring himself to say what he was thinking.
I don't have any of those things in my life.

Andi lightly cuffed his shoulder. “Don't sweat it. Rollo's a self-medicated, undereducated idiot. Whatever he said to provoke you was undoubtedly stupid. I threw a beer in his face last fall, myself.”

“Really?” Harley wondered if she knew what some people were saying about her motives for making the changes at the bordello.

“Right after we started the ‘Haunted Bordello' advertising campaign, Rollo said something like, ‘Who cares if some slut was murdered? She probably deserved it.'”

“You tossed a beer in his face?”

“A Guinness, no less. Broke my heart to waste good beer on a jackass.”

He chuckled. “Remind me not to piss you off.”

As if embarrassed, Andi suddenly dropped to one knee and dug in her bag until she produced a pair of binoculars. “Maybe I'll just take a peek around. Since we're here.”

When Harley failed to acknowledge the suggestion, she paused in the process of removing the protective lens caps and looked at him. “Unless you really want to call the whole thing off.”

He looked at the ground. “I like it here in Gold Creek. I like you. I don't want to screw that up.”

She went very still. “I like you, too, Harley. The past-few-months you. But I know I've barely scratched the surface of who you really are.”

Something about her tone made him ask, “Are you saying you won't get involved with me unless I find out the truth about my past?”

She brushed a lock of hair off her forehead. Her shoulders lifted and fell with casual grace, but Harley sensed her answer was filled with import. “I don't know. But whatever comes from finding your bike—
if
I can find it—is for your benefit, not mine. I have no idea how it will change things.”

He crossed his arms. “But things
will
change.”

“I agree, but…” She drew out the word. “Isn't it better to find out
now
instead of a year from now?”

W
HILE
A
NDI WAITED
for Harley to make up his mind, she stepped closer to the edge of the precipice and moved the powerful binoculars in an arcing motion just below treetop level. An errant hint of color caught her eye, and she paused.

Just as she brought the image into focus, a woodpecker peeled away from the tree he'd been about to plunder. She lowered the glasses and was startled to find Harley standing just a few inches away.

“Did you see something?”

His proximity sent a weird flutter through her chest. Her instinct was to shove him away—a defensive move perfected when she'd been the only woman in an office filled with horny marines, but she stifled the impulse.

“A peckerhead,” she said, trying not to breathe in his scent. If his cologne was a popular brand, it wasn't one she recognized. More woodsy and fresh, like soap and the great outdoors with just a teasing hint of patchouli.

He turned his chin, a question in his eyes.

Andi had to swallow to work up enough moisture in her mouth to speak. “A woodpecker,” she clarified.
Have his eyes always been this blue or is it just because the sky is so clear at this altitude?

“Ah,” he said, smiling.

Oh, God, no. Don't let him smile.

Andi stepped back, almost tripping over the soles of her
heavy hiking boots. Her clumsiness stirred up a cloud of grayish-brown dust.

“They're destructive birds,” she said, focusing on anything but what she was feeling. The intensity of her reaction unnerved her. She was not a
chemical reaction
kind of girl. She chose a man by his qualities, not by the way he made her head spin.

And what do I have to show for that?

“They peck holes, fill them up with acorns, then fly off and forget about them, so they have to peck more holes. Stupid birds,” she said with more passion than the subject called for.

“Not fond of woodpeckers, I take it?” His teasing tone made her blush.

“According to Bart, it's going to take an extra day to repair the woodpecker damage at the bordello. Extra day means extra bucks.”

He nodded more soberly. “I understand. It's personal.”

“Pretty much.”

She put her hands on her hips and faced him. “So? Are we doing this or not?”

He looked around, his gaze sweeping across the panoramic vista. A vast patchwork of greens and grays stretched westward with occasional scarlike lines, indicating a power line or fire trail.

“Let's give it another hour. I'm afraid that's all my legs can take.”

His honesty—and his willingness to take risks—were aspects of his personality that she found extremely appealing. Which, she reminded herself, was not a good thing.

She turned back toward the road and set off, motioning for him to follow. She'd intended to put some space between them, but Harley dogged her heels.

“I may have mentioned this before,” he said, “but I ad
mire what you're doing to help your aunt. You and your sisters are part of the Sandwich generation—young adults who are faced with raising children and caring for aging relatives at the same time.”

Sandwich generation? Once again, Andi was struck by his intelligence. Sure, he could have heard this theory stated somewhere on the news, but it stayed with him, and he applied it to his observations.

“What choice do we have? We're talkin' family.”

He was silent a moment. “That's one of the subjects I try to keep out of mind. If I think about people…connected to me…worrying about me…”

Andi heard the distress in his tone. His amnesia fascinated her, but it frustrated her, too. There were so many avenues of normal conversation that were closed to them. “Where'd you grow up?” “What did you want to be when you were a kid?” “What are your parents like?”

“I've noticed that you tend to think the worst about your past, Harley, but what if…you're a scholar or a surgeon or someone vital to national security?”

His laugh reminded her of her first crush—Bob Sanders, her junior-high-school math teacher. He'd made Andi's secret list—Potential Husbands. Until he married Miss Jerrond, the French teacher.

Breathing hard again, Harley pointed to a plateau a quarter of a mile ahead. “Water break. Up there.”

They squeezed under the minuscule area of shade afforded by a scrawny oak. A lone granite boulder—probably left behind when the road went in—offered a fairly level bench for their rest stop. After graciously helping her get settled, Harley hopped up beside her.

He slouched forward slightly, his back an attractive curve. He took a drink from the water bottle he'd pulled from the
backpack, then held it out to her. Andi shook her head. She wasn't ready for that kind of intimacy.

“For a while when I looked in the mirror, I'd see a stranger. Now, I've slowly gotten to the point where my face is starting to look familiar. I work with people I've come to know. People in town wave at me. It's the level of recognition a person wants in his life. The thing that worries me about digging up my past is that I won't fit anymore. I'll have to deal with a whole slew of strangers who know me and expect certain things of me. But I won't know them. What if the new me doesn't meet their expectations?”

Andi made a fist to keep from reaching out and touching his face. Dang, he had great skin. Hardly a beard to speak of. Sandy-colored eyebrows and lashes. Even his half-moon scar was attractive.

“Since I can't remember anything about my past, I only know who I am now. And I like myself.” He gave her a halfhearted smile that seemed to ask for her approval. “What if I don't like the man I was?”

Andi made herself focus on his plight instead of his body. “I'm trying to understand, Harley. But the idea of starting a second life when the first one is still out there somewhere seems…I don't know. Incomprehensible, I guess.”

She put out her hands, frowning at the remnants of cherry-wood stain that hadn't washed off. “It's true you might have been a lobbyist for the tobacco industry in your other life,” she said, trying to keep her tone light. “But what if you're a researcher on the verge of finding a cure for cancer?”

A flash of something that looked like pain clouded his eyes. “I was only joking, Harley. I'm sorry.”

He nodded. “There's the rub, Andi. I could be a good guy or I could be wanted by the police.”

“But your prints would have shown up on the police records,” she argued. “And Donnie said they were clean.”

When he looked at her with a question in his eyes, she explained, “Donnie told Sam and Sam told Jenny, who told me.”

He nodded. “I guess I should find the results of that check reassuring, but we both know the system isn't perfect.”

Andi couldn't think of anything supportive to say that wouldn't sound as though she was diminishing his fears. He had every right to feel this way, and she couldn't begin to understand what he was going through. After all, her past was an open book. In fact, thanks to Gloria Hughes, much of Andi's past was documented in the annals of the
Gold Creek Ledger.

“Don't get me wrong, Harley. I wouldn't trade places with you, but sometimes a little anonymity sounds heavenly.”

He smiled again. “Let me guess. You're saying it was hard to be a chameleon in the marines?”

Andi chuckled. “There, too.”

“How come you don't talk about your military career?”

Suddenly feeling restless, she sloughed off her backpack and stood up. Keeping her knees flexed, she walked the uneven surface of the boulder until she had a clear view of their surroundings.

The mountain ridges were staggered like knuckles. A gray-blue haze softened the outline of those farthest away. Overhead, the sky was a cerulean blue that reminded her of Harley's eyes.

Since he'd been so frank with her, she decided to talk about her military experience. “I went into the marines for the wrong reasons. Ida and the Garden Club ladies were pestering me to transfer from junior college to the university, but I was tired of school. Burnt out. Bored.

“Then I met a guy at a party who was on leave from the marines. He'd been all over the world. Had a cool car and money in the bank. It sounded like a great opportunity.” She looked at him and said, “And, believe me, the corps is perfect for
some
people. I don't regret my experience, I just couldn't make a career out of it.”

“Why not?” he asked, his gaze trailing up her legs.

Something in his all-male look made Andi glad she'd shaved her legs, even though she was wearing long pants.

She took a breath. “I missed my old life,” she said, knowing how that might be interpreted. “I liked the order and stability of the Marine Corps, and the feeling of being one of an elite few. But in the end, I realized I needed my family.

“At some level, I thought the Corps would take its place, but that never happened. I never had a close woman friend the whole time I was in the service. The women I worked with were extremely competitive.”

Out the corner of her eyes, she spotted something that looked out of place. Dropping to her haunches, she put out her hand. “Pass me the glasses.”

Harley leaned over to dig in her pack. Andi's hand hovered an inch above the smooth white material stretched taut across his back. He was lean but not skinny. She liked the way his shoulder muscles moved—contoured and sinewy under the soft cotton. Her fingers itched to touch him, but as he straightened, she moved her hand to the right to take the binoculars.

Standing, she lifted the small, powerful glasses to her nose but didn't hold them to her eyes until she'd checked what had attracted her attention in the first place. Moving in minute increments, she slowly scanned between the grayish-green needles of bull pines, around the dense blue-black cluster of live oaks. The purple velvet nubs of the red bush
would soon give way to glossy green leaves that would obscure even a very large target.

“I saw something shiny. But I can't—” Another tantalizing glimpse taunted her, but it took three or four seconds for the image to make sense. Because it was upside down. In a tree. Back wheel caught in the Y of a branch like a dead fish suspended twenty or thirty feet above the ground. “I found it.”

“It?” Harley barked, jumping to his feet. “My bike?”

Andi swept right and left to get her bearings before lowering the glasses. “
A
bike, but how many lost motorcycles have you heard of in this area?” She grimaced. “Never mind. Forget I asked. Let's get closer so we can see if it looks new or if it's been there since before either you or I were born.”

“Were they making motorcycles back then?” he asked with a grin.

Andi pretended to swing at him with her binoculars. “Watch it, fella. I may be an
ex
-Marine, but I survived MCT—that's Marine Combat Training—at Camp LeJeune, so I'd be a bit more careful with the insults, if I were you.”

“Yes, sir, ma'am.” He gave a goofy salute and a smile that looked sexy as hell.

She felt a quiver of trepidation. What if that bike did belong to Harley? What if he turned out to be married with six kids?
Then you're doing his family a service. So shut up and get busy.

She hopped down from the rock, hefted the strap of her backpack over one shoulder and started walking. She needed to put the attraction she felt for Harley out of her head.

Perhaps once his past was settled, and he turned out to be a dot.com millionaire with a glam wife and three adorable kids, or an uptight lawyer with half a dozen ex-wives,
she'd be able to get past this attraction. Unfortunately, none of those possibilities made her feel better.

Andi lengthened her strides. If she was going to lose him, she might as well get it over with before she did something stupid like fall in love.

 

H
ARLEY LAGGED
behind. His brain was having trouble processing the possibilities. This find would change things. For better or worse? That was the question.

As if attuned to his dilemma, the woman ahead of him paused. She'd charged up the steep incline like Teddy Roosevelt at San Juan Hill, and now faced him, chest heaving from the exertion. She had a lovely body—fit and trim with enough curves to make him stare—especially when a gust of wind made her nipples stiffen against the bright-orange fabric of her T-shirt.

Bold, bright, beautiful. He liked her a lot, was drawn to her, but he'd be a complete and utter fool to think it might lead anywhere.

Suddenly, an image made him stagger. A bleak, hostile landscape the color of bleached bones. Pockmarked craters gave it a moon-surface look. Twisted hunks of steel were scattered like children's jacks. And at the rim of one jagged saucer was the broken body of a child. Limbs charred. Unrecognizable beyond its human form.

“Harley?” Andi called.

A river of ice water passed through his veins. The thrumming in his head reverberated like a drum riff run amok. Was it really so important that he find out whether the image was real or imagined? Dr. Franklin had mentioned something about “false memories.”
Please, God, let that one not be real.

“Are you coming?”

Harley still lacked the ability to answer.

Andi apparently put her own spin on his reticence. “When I was in Search and Rescue, my team leader used to say I had the nose of a bloodhound and the same amount of social skills,” she said as she walked toward him. “This is a huge deal for you, if this is your bike. Would you like to go first?”

She held out the binoculars as a peace offering.

Damn, he liked her.
If only—

Harley cut off the useless thought before it could develop. Dr. Franklin had warned him that depression was common amongst amnesiacs. It came from having too many variables outside his control.