A Ranger For The Holidays

She made sure to give him a warm smile. “Good news travels almost as fast as gossip in Little Horn. Congratulations.” She really was happy for the good doctor, and Eva was becoming a close friend, but the news still stung. Their engagement came on the heels of that of League president Carson Thorn and another of Amelia’s friends Ruby Donnovan. Even Amelia’s sister, Lizzie, was recently engaged—Little Horn was having as much of a wedding boom as a crime spree lately. “Well, I’d best get in to visit my new project.”

Tyler looked at the package from Maggie’s, the local coffee shop, in Amelia’s hand. “The nurse told me you left some flowers in Ben Stillwater’s room, too. That’s a nice thing to do.” Ben Stillwater was a young man from Little Horn currently in a coma from a riding accident. “Does this man know how fortunate he is to be a project of yours?” the doctor teased.

“If he doesn’t, he will soon.” Amelia waved as she pushed the hospital room door open.

Finn looked better. Her heart still twisted at the lost look in his eyes, the way he searched places and faces as if desperate for any anchor. He looked at her as if hers was the only face that held any meaning for him. The half-eaten dinner beside him stirred her sympathy. Hospital food? If anyone needs the comfort of home cooking, it’s someone who can’t remember where home is.

He noticed her looking at the plate. “I remembered I don’t like peas.” The comment brought the faintest hint of a smile to his features. Finn’s mussed, lost-puppy charm kicked Amelia’s compulsion to help up a notch. That helpfulness was her special gift, but it occasionally proved her greatest weakness.

“I don’t care for myself, actually. My favorite food is pie. I’m extra partial to blueberry, but really, any pie will do.”

She’d hoped he’d say something like My favorite is apple, but he only shrugged and said, “Who doesn’t like pie?”

Amelia sat down, putting the bakery box on his bedside table. “I’m glad to hear you say that. I went for the basics—apple, cherry and, given the season, pumpkin.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, startled. “You brought me pie?”

What kind of life had he led that a simple kindness seemed so foreign to him? “I am of the opinion that pie makes most things better,” she explained as she retrieved a second box with her own slice of blueberry. “Actually,” she added, fishing two plastic forks out of the bag, “I haven’t met the situation that can’t be improved by a good slice of pie.” Amelia dismissed his bed tray to the other side of the room and replaced it with the selection of pie slices. “Anything look especially appealing?”

She watched as his startled expression warmed to a small smile. Small, a tiny bit forced, but enough to restore the striking quality of those light blue eyes. Against the white of his bandages and the brown-black gloss of his hair, his eyes drew her gaze, making her stare even though she knew better.

Picking up the fork, he scanned the selection. “I think I like pumpkin.”

“Only one way to find out,” Amelia cued as she picked up her own fork and dug in. Delicious. She hoped Finn thought so, too.

She watched in satisfaction as his face registered the gastronomic pleasure that was Maggie’s Coffee Shop pies. “Oh—” he sighed in just the way she’d hoped he would “—that’s good. Beats peas and whatever meat that was supposed to be.” He took another bite. “Thank you kindly.”

It was gratifying to see him even a little bit happy. “My pleasure.”

After a third bite, he paused to look at her, his head cocked sideways in analysis. “If you don’t mind my asking, why are you being so nice to a complete stranger?” The sad edge he gave those last two words poked Amelia under the ribs.

Amelia had trouble explaining her compulsion to help folks in need to good friends, much less to strangers like Finn. Only he wasn’t a stranger. He was someone she was supposed to help. Someone she didn’t find by accident, but by Providence. She recognized the pull toward his circumstances, the slow burn of burden in her heart that she’d come to know as her unique gift in God’s kingdom. While life had taken away important people—her parents, her grandmother, Rafe—life had given her lots of funds and a generous heart. “I make it a practice to be nice to everybody. And you’re not really a stranger anymore.”

He didn’t reply. Instead, he concentrated on a fourth bite of pie until his curiosity evidently got the better of him and he asked, “You’re really nice to everybody?”

“Well—” she dug her fork into the luscious pie again, feeling her face flush that he’d called her on such an exaggeration “—I admit it’s harder with some folks than others, but yes, I try to be.” It was doubly hard with folks like Byron McKay. Byron, the vice president of the Lone Star Cowboy League and so mean that everyone hoped President Carson Thorn never had to step aside, had laid into her but good this afternoon about some silly detail of League business. “Truth is, today I needed this pie as much as you.”

He sat back and looked at her a few heartbeats longer than he ought to have. “I can’t imagine anyone giving you a hard time.”

Amelia squeaked out a laugh, unsettled by his stare. “Oh, you’d be surprised.” She felt the words tumble out of her, rushing against the rise of warmth under the blue scarf she wore. She remembered wiping his face with the white one she’d worn this morning—now stained beyond repair. “Little Horn may be small by big-city standards—” she felt her words speeding up, filling the too-warm space between them “—but there’s no shortage of opinions and ornery personalities here. We’ve had tensions. We’ve got grumps and gossips. It’s been a rough patch these past two months. Try the apple.”

Finn did as requested, nodding his approval. “Tell me about Little Horn,” he asked, then evidently seeing the surprise on her face, added, “Maybe some little detail will spark a memory, and right now your voice is the only one that feels familiar.”

Amelia sat back in her chair. Finn’s admission that he found her voice comforting rose an insistent little hum in her stomach. “Little Horn’s the same as a hundred other small Texas towns, I guess,” she started. He must be feeling the worst kind of lonely, to draw such a complete blank on his home and family and everything the way he had. She wanted to fill in as many details for him as she could, to take at least some of the shadows from the corners of his eyes. “Most folks are ranchers or the like, but—” and here she hoisted her slice of pie “—we’ve got some good cooks, a warm, welcoming church—and of course, very nice doctors. The sheriff, my friend Lucy? She says Little Horn is about as upright a place as can be—that is up until all the rustling that’s been going on. That has everyone on edge.”

“Cattle rustling?” His interest seemed to pick up on that. Amelia wasn’t sure if that should be an important sign of something.

She set down her fork. “Livestock and equipment started going missing from some of the more prosperous ranches around town. Byron McKay—that grouch is the reason for my pie today, if you really want to know—was hit first. Ten head of cattle and a whole bunch of fancy equipment just walked off his ranch. You don’t want to get on Byron’s bad side, let me tell you. He’s barely nice on a good day. Only it didn’t stop there.”

Finn started on the cherry pie. “The rustlers struck again?”

“They hit Carson Thorn’s ranch. He’s the head of our chapter of the Lone Star Cowboy League. That’s a service organization that helps ranchers in these parts. Carson’s as nice as they come, so then we knew it wasn’t just someone sore at Byron. There have been over ten thefts since September alone, all different kinds of things taken from different kinds of ranches. Even the Welcome to Little Horn sign disappeared. It’s got everyone more than a little spooked.”

“So your perpetrators weren’t all about personal retaliation.”

Amelia saw Finn register the same surprise she felt at his choice of words. The technical language he used was the same she’d heard over and over from Lucy and from her ex-fiancé, Rafe. Police language.

So Finn’s interest in the rustling likely wasn’t criminal, it was professional. Her instincts were right, he was a good man. The satisfaction at her insight warred with the residual sting she still carried over men with badges. If that wasn’t enough to warn her off the connection she felt with him—and it was—Finn’s watch had told her someone was waiting for him to come home. Should she mention that?

She decided on a different topic instead. “You talk like you’re with the law, Finn. Are you?”

His eyes squinted, trying the idea on for size. “Could be. Only wouldn’t the force be out looking for me if I was? Dr. Searle says no one has filed a missing-persons report for anyone matching my description.” He said the words with a weary acceptance that made Amelia’s throat tighten.

“Of course someone’s missing you. I’ve no doubt there’s a pretty lady plain out of her mind with worry right now.”

Finn put down his fork, the rest of the cherry pie uneaten. “I don’t think so. I don’t feel any sense that there’s anyone out there missing me.” His eyes lost all their warmth. Amelia had met plenty of people in tight spots but she couldn’t remember ever seeing the kind of lifeless resignation that currently filled Finn’s features. He looked as if it came as no surprise that no one missed him.

“Sure there is.” She said it as much to remind herself as to remind him. “There’s B.”

* * *

“B?” Amelia spoke as if the letter should mean something to him, and Finn had the vaguest sensation that it did.

“Doc Searle didn’t show you the watch?”

Finn looked at his left hand, noticing the now-faint tan line that showed where he wore his watch. Dr. Searle had mentioned an inscribed watch but hadn’t shown it to him. Somewhere from the back of his brain came the fact that where a man wore his watch usually indicated if he was left-or right-handed. It seemed an odd detail for a person to know with the certainty he did and backed up the theory that he was somehow connected with law or security—he seemed used to collecting details as clues. Only if that were true, where was the force that should be out looking for their missing officer? Why wasn’t someone posting departmental notices? APBs?

Finn went to reach for the small drawer in his bedside table, but the action sent jolts of pain through his chest. “Let me look,” Amelia said. “It’s in here.” She pulled out a square gold watch on a black leather band. A nice watch, the kind that got given as a gift. Amelia placed it facedown in Finn’s hand. He ran one finger over the words as he read the inscription. Finn: all my love, B. The sight of those words brought up a bittersweet emotion he couldn’t place. Sorrow? Regret? Loss? Anger? It wasn’t clear enough to name, but it was strong enough to tighten his throat.

“See?” Amelia’s soft, comforting voice came at his shoulder. “There’s at least one person out there who loves you and misses you.” She said it like a blessing, like something that should make him feel better. It didn’t, but he couldn’t explain why. His face must have shown the turmoil, for Amelia’s face lost its encouraging glow and she backed away. “I’m sorry. Maybe there was a reason Dr. Searle waited to show that to you.”

“No,” Finn countered, “I’m glad you did...sort of. Kind of helps to see solid evidence that I’m Finn.” He turned the watch over to stare at the face. It should look familiar, but it was just an object. “I was wearing this when you found me?” He knew plenty of men who’d stopped wearing watches now that cell phones were an easy way to keep track of time—the watch clearly had sentimental value to him.

“It’s all we had to go on. There was no wallet or cell phone or car keys or that sort of thing.”

“If it was a robbery, why not take the watch?” His brain was used to putting facts together like this—it made Finn more convinced he was in some kind of security field.

“That’s what I can’t figure out. Only, you were wearing gloves—I found the glove before I found you—so maybe they didn’t see the watch.” Amelia twisted a finger around one curl of her cascading blond hair, hesitating before asking, “So, no idea who B is?”

Finn took a deep breath, trying to focus his thoughts, to push them through the veil of murky nothingness. “Only that she’s important.” It surprised him—in a much-needed good way—that he knew B was a she. He felt like some strange emotional version of Hansel and Gretel, scanning the world for bits and pieces of a trail to lead him back home. He was Finn and he had—or once had—a B. It wasn’t nearly enough to go on, but other than his recollections of Amelia’s rescue, it was all he had.

He put the watch on, pleased to note it matched the faint tan line on his wrist. He had at least something of his life now. “Thanks for showing that to me. It helps. Really.” He smiled at her, pleased when she smiled back.

“There is more, you know,” Amelia said as she rose up off the chair to open the narrow closet on the far side of the room. “You were wearing these when I found you.” She held up a pair of jeans, a plaid shirt and a heavy fleece—clothes that could have been attributed to half the men in Texas, and certainly no big clues to his identity. “Nice boots,” Amelia offered as she hoisted a pair of worn cowboy boots. She was digging for anything positive to bolster his spirits, and it touched him that she was trying so hard.

“They look like mine,” he said, not sure how he could make the claim but wanting to go along with her relentless hunt for affirmations. “Like something I think I’d wear, I mean.”

“Well,” she said, rehanging the clothes, “you know more now than you did this morning. Tomorrow you’ll find out even more. That’s what Dr. Searle said, that you’d get things back as you went along. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if by this time tomorrow you know your name, your address and your grandmother’s birthday.”

A knock on the door signaled Dr. Searle’s entry into the room. He nodded toward the watch on his hand. “So you’ve seen that. Bring up anything?”

Nothing good, but Finn didn’t really want to admit that. “I don’t know who B is, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Only it’s a she, and she’s important,” Amelia added. “That’s good progress, don’t you think?”

Finn touched the watch again and thought about the tender inscription now against his skin. B sounded like a wife, or a sister, or a love—so why didn’t he remember her, and why hadn’t she come looking for him? Why was his response to the watch so dark? Nothing made any sense.

“Pie?” Dr. Searle noticed the three pieces sitting on the tray beside Finn’s bed.

“Amelia was fixing to convert me to her theory that pie makes everything better. And that knowing which flavors I like was vital information.”

Dr. Searle laughed. “I could think of worse therapies.”

“I read that tastes and smells are among the most powerful memories. It seemed like an ideal way to wake up Finn’s brain cells.”

Finn sat up. “You were researching amnesia?” He hated using that term to refer to whatever it was that happened to him. It sounded so dramatic.

“Well, if you call looking things up on the internet on your smartphone while you’re waiting in line at the pharmacy for Gramps’s prescriptions research, then yes. I mean, really, how many amnesia patients does a person get to meet? It’s fascinating.”

Not so much from where I sit, Finn thought darkly. The feeling of everything being just slightly beyond his control was too prickly for his liking. Exhaustion pulled on his composure, and he tried to stifle a yawn.

“Speaking of Gramps, I’d better get home to him. He’s usually good about his evening medicines, but not always. And he’s an absolute bear in the morning if he stays up too late watching television.” She touched Finn’s arm again in that soft, kind way. “You must be worn-out—it’s been quite a day. I expect rest is about the best gift you can give yourself right now, so see that you get lots of it. I’ll stop back by tomorrow after church. And I’ve already added you to the prayer list, so you’re set there.”

“Pie, pajamas and prayer—what more can a man ask for?” Finn had to wonder if he was always this bad at conversation or if his slumbering synapses just made him say stupid things. “Thank you,” he offered, finding the words painfully inadequate for all Amelia Klondike had done.

Her blue eyes glowed, as if she understood all he’d failed to say. “You’re welcome. Rest up now, and we’ll see what else comes back to you tomorrow.” Amelia collected her things and sent him one last warm look before ducking out the door.

“Is she really that nice to everybody?” Finn asked Dr. Searle as they heard her heels clip down the hallway.

“Amelia? Sure thing. Helping people is what Amelia does. Ever since she and her sister came into her daddy’s money, she’s turned helping folks into a full-time thing. Me, I might have skedaddled to some tropical island with that kind of cash, but Amelia just turned her hobby into a nonstop kindness campaign. My wife says Amelia would just about up and die if she had to stop giving folks a hand up—it’s her gift.” He motioned for Finn’s wrist and took his pulse. “If I had to pick anyone in Little Horn to find me out cold in the woods, it’d be Amelia. God was watching out for you, son. You remember that when all this memory nonsense gets to you.”

“It’ll come back, won’t it, Doc?”

Dr. Searle sat down on the chair Amelia had vacated. “It should. The brain is the organ we know the least about—lots of it is still a mystery. But amnesia onset by head trauma is less rare than you think. You may never remember the accident, but the rest of it is likely to come back over the next few days.”

Finn fiddled with the thin hospital gown, suddenly eager to get into pajamas like a normal person instead of this ridiculous getup that made him feel like an invalid. “Do I have to stay in here until it does?”

“Your preliminary tests will be done by tomorrow afternoon, and then come back for an office visit Monday. So yes, you’ll be free to go tomorrow but, Finn, where would you go?”

If Finn was supposed to get rest, there wasn’t a less restful question in all the world.

Chapter Three

I should never have agreed to this. Finn stared at the holiday decorations that filled Amelia Klondike’s front porch late Sunday afternoon and fought the urge to bolt for the nearest hotel. As grateful as he was to get out of the hospital, their annoying holiday decorations paled in comparison to the blast of Christmas cheer that was Amelia’s house.

Why did anything Christmas bother him so? It was something else to heap onto the pile of unknowns. Dr. Searle had showed him a list of missing-persons reports, but none of them contained a Finn and he still couldn’t even say if Finn was a first, last or nickname. It made obscure recollections like his intense dislike of Christmas that much harder to bear. Finn knew he didn’t like any of it, but he still didn’t know why.

“You don’t need to put me up, Amelia. I don’t want to put you and your grandfather out.” The fact that he hadn’t seen anything even close to a motel on the short drive from the hospital just made it worse.

“Nonsense. Where else would you go with no wallet, no credit cards and no name other than Finn?”

Thanks, he thought, it sounds so much less desperate when you put it that way.

He must not have hidden his scowl well. “Even if you knew your address—” Amelia backpedaled “—you’re not supposed to drive. You can’t possibly live nearby, so how would you come back for those tests Doc Searle wants? And to tell the truth—” she gave him one of her wide-eyed, I-can’t-help-myself-from-helping looks “—I just plain think you shouldn’t be left on your own.” She pulled her silver SUV into the garage. “Gramps loves a mystery and no one even uses the upstairs bedrooms anymore. Besides, even if there was a hotel in town, what if some traumatic accident memory comes back to you in the middle of the night? Who’d want that in some cold hotel room all alone? I couldn’t forgive myself if I let that happen.”

One fact had become relentlessly clear: trying to stop Amelia Klondike from lending a hand to a soul she thought in need was like trying to stop a buffalo stampede with a flyswatter. It couldn’t be done—not without getting trampled. It won’t be for long, Finn told himself. Things are coming back to you. It’d be rude to refuse, right? She’s been so nice. From out of nowhere, Finn got the sense that he hadn’t had much home comfort of late—a vague impression of microwave bachelor food and bare-bones furniture pushed its way into his consciousness. He shivered—as if his body remembered the cold of the place without his brain remembering where that place was.

“What was that?”

Finn blinked, pulling himself back from the—the what? Memory? Hunch?—to see Amelia staring at him with a startled concern in her eyes. “What was what?” he asked, knowing that would do nothing to stave off her questioning.

She cut the car’s ignition. “Your whole face changed just now. And you shivered. You remembered something, didn’t you?”

It bothered him that she could see it. He wanted the return of his memories to be private. He was a private person—that much he knew. “I’m not sure.” It was no lie—he wasn’t sure what that flash in his brain was. “Except I think I live alone. And...not very well.”

Her voice changed, going all soft and warm in a way that got under his skin. “What did you just remember?”

He didn’t want to tell her, but the image rattled so loudly in his head it had to come out. “When you said that about waking up alone in the dark upset. I’ve done that. Or used to do that. A lot.”

“Oh, Finn. Do you know why?” Her eyes were so bittersweet, as if she knew exactly how it felt to be alone in the dark missing someone.

Missing someone? Where had that come from? Was it B? Was B gone from his life, whomever she was? Was that why no one was looking for him?

He caught her eyes again, feeling unmoored and too much at the mercy of randomly returning memories. He shifted his eyes to his hands and willed his fingers to unclench from their white-knuckled curl. “I don’t think I was a very happy man.” He wanted to take back the words the moment they escaped. To not know so much but to know that? What kind of torture was it going to be like to have things trickle back like this? “I don’t like Christmas.” He needed her to know how hard this was right now. Everything was messed up—he wanted company and he needed to be alone. He needed to remember but didn’t like what was coming back to him.

She blinked at him, unable to accept the thought. “Everybody likes Christmas.”

“I didn’t. I don’t. I mean...” Finn blew out a breath, the exhaustion welling up over him again. “I don’t know what I mean.”

“I’m sure I can’t begin to imagine what you are going through. It’s got to be so hard. But if there’s anything I do know, Finn, it’s that hard things are harder alone.” The dark, hard edge showed in the corners of her eyes again, the way it had whenever they talked about the possibility of him being in law enforcement. He’d noticed that little detail like he’d noticed a dozen others—how she avoided talking about herself, how she curled a finger around her hair when she got nervous, how everyone spoke about her in tones of veiled “bless her heart” pity.

Maybe that was why he felt such an affinity for her; she’d been knocked down by something but was fighting to stay up. He wasn’t very good at that fight but she was; she hadn’t let whatever it was beat her down. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to let a bit of that optimism rub off on him.

A wedge of light spilled on the car, and Finn looked up to see an older man standing in the door that led to the house. He could see more Christmas decorations behind the man, even from here. The urge to run was as strong as the urge to go inside. Not knowing quite who he was seemed to push every emotion closer to the surface, and he was too tired to fight it.