Like the other times, he lay back, feeling weak and hurting as the doctor administered pain medication. He waited to fall back into the black hole he’d only recently climbed out of, knowing at least down there he wouldn’t be alone. There was a beautiful brunette with amazing green eyes who came to sit in his room. Sometimes she would tell him stories about a young married couple and two small children. Other times she would hold his hand and smile down at him. He had no idea who she was.
In one recurring dream, she was holding his hand and crying, begging him to come back to her. For some reason, she seemed to think that he’d saved her life.
Each time he woke, she was gone. He would beg someone to tell him what had happened to him. “I need to know,” he told the nurses and doctor. “I keep having these crazy dreams.”
The doctor would explain about the concussion but little more. “Give your brain time to heal. More might come back with time as your brain fills in the blank spots.”
Time. He felt confused, anxious and scared. There were moments when he couldn’t remember his name, and he would panic. The doctor kept telling him to be patient.
He was relieved almost to tears when he recognized a familiar face and could even put a name to it. “Earl Ray,” he said. “I can’t remember—”
“It’s all right,” the older man said, hurrying to his bedside. “Don’t try. It’s so good to see you awake. The doctor said you’re doing amazing, and in time—”
“In time,” he said with disgust. “Why do I feel like there’s something that can’t wait?” He met Earl Ray’s gaze. “I keep having these dreams about a woman with green eyes. I feel like I...know her. Like I have these memories...” He shook his head in frustration. “I know she probably doesn’t exist, but I feel like I have to get to her. Does that make any sense?”
Earl Ray chuckled. “Oh, she exists all right, my friend. She’s an amazing woman. I’ll tell you all about her.” He pulled up a chair next to the hospital bed. “Her name is Kate. You call her Katie. She lost her husband twenty years ago, but I’m getting ahead of myself. The best part of the story begins in Buckhorn, Montana, the day Katie’s car broke down in the middle of a snowstorm.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
THE TEXAS SUN beat down relentlessly on the patio. Kate watched the automatic sprinklers come on to water the flowers she’d planted around the pool. Everything was in bloom—a riot of colors next to the shimmering turquoise of the water in the pool. A warm breeze stirred the leaves on the oak trees outside the fence that surrounded her house.
After her daughters had left home, she’d often thought about selling the house. Now she was so glad that she hadn’t. It was too large for her alone, and yet she loved her yard, especially the wild array of plants and flowers she had growing around the pool.
She’d never thought of herself as having a green thumb, far from it. But since arriving back in Texas, she’d been at loose ends. Winter had left the pool area looking drab. She’d yearned for color after all that winter white in Montana. Sometimes she thought about those days in Buckhorn when it snowed day and night and she’d thought it would never end. She thought about how quiet the snow made the world, how pure and clean it had looked and felt. She thought about the cold stillness and how her breath had come out in frosty puffs.
While she’d never been that cold in her life, she had only good memories of Buckhorn. She thought often of Jon Harper, knowing that he was gone. And as Earl Ray often reminded her when he called, Jon would never be back. She loved getting reports from Buckhorn via Earl Ray. Spring had come, the snow had melted and the snowbirds were returning to open homes and shops. The Closed for the Winter signs were coming down. The fields were greening up, and the air smelled of new growth and pine, he’d told her.
Bessie would be opening her bakery at the edge of town Memorial Day weekend—the official start of tourist season. “You never got to try her fried pies. They are a little piece of heaven,” Earl Ray said.
She’d asked him if he was watching his diet after his heart attack.
“I don’t have to. Bessie watches it for me,” he said with a laugh. “She has me eating fruits and vegetables with every meal.”
Kate had smiled. “You sound good.” She desperately wanted to ask about Danny but didn’t because the news was always the same. He was recovering. The doctors were encouraged by his progress.
She didn’t need to ask how Bessie was doing. She could hear it in Earl Ray’s voice. The two had gotten closer. She listened as he talked, telling her about people she’d met at the funeral. Sharing the latest gossip. A few names she could put faces to, others not so much. Lindsey, the pregnant waitress at the café, had had a baby girl. She’d named her Kate. Fred’s son Tyrell got in trouble with the law. Nothing new there, according to Earl Ray.
The big news was that Anna Crenshaw’s granddaughter, Casey, was returning to town and would be opening up the old hotel on the edge of town. The Crenshaw Hotel had been closed for two years, ever since Anna had died. It had been years since anyone had seen Casey Crenshaw. Everyone was anxious to see if the now grown woman was anything like her grandmother. Rumor was that she was only opening the hotel to put it up for sale. “The place is said to be haunted, has been for years.”
Kate had laughed. “Like you believe in ghosts.”
“You might be surprised what I’ve come to believe in,” he’d said. “Tell me about you.” Kate told him about the latest book she was ghostwriting and about her gardening. She’d discovered that she enjoyed digging in the dirt, but her favorite part was watching what she’d planted bloom.
He always asked about her work and how the girls were doing when he called. The book was done. She was considering another one but hadn’t committed yet. Danielle had graduated college and would be teaching elementary school in the fall in a small town in East Texas. Mia’s design business was going great guns, and she’d met a man. “Do you like him?” Earl Ray asked.
“He’s nice. I think her father would approve.”
He never asked how long Kate planned to wait for the love of her life to return to her. He didn’t have to. He knew. Until forever.
“Tell Bessie hello for me,” she said as their conversation waned. “Tell her I miss her corn bread and ham and bean soup.”
“I’ll do that. You take care of yourself, Kate.”
“You, too, Earl Ray.” Pocketing her phone, Kate went back to her gardening.
* * *
HIS NAME WAS now Nicholas Ross. He didn’t recognize himself when he looked in a mirror. Often when he was shaving, he would stop and stare into the brown eyes looking back at him. They seemed to be the only thing that hadn’t changed about him.