the time they reached the end of the trail, which spilled onto Silverhill’s main street, they were all singing a made-up song about bumptious buttercups. Julia took deep, cleansing breaths of the mountain air, stuffing her previous panic on the dusty shelf of her former life.
They rounded a corner onto the street, and a tall man in jeans and a white cowboy hat glanced up after smacking the back of another man getting into a car.
Julia’s pulse ticked up a notch. Strangers. She pulled in a breath and rolled her shoulders back. Tourists.
“Lordy, lordy.” Clem stopped beside her, giving Shelby one last bounce on his shoulders. “Look who the cat dragged in. You look like hell, boy.”
If that tall, rangy man with the wide shoulders and tight jeans looked like hell, send her straight to the devil. She grinned at her visceral response to the stranger. It had been a long time since she felt that gut-wrenching lust for a man.
“Sorry, Julia.” Clem covered Shelby’s ears a little too late.
The man took a step forward, his mouth hanging open, his eyes wide. His tanned face blanched and he reached forward with an unsteady hand.
He looked like he was seeing a ghost…and he was staring right at her.
THROUGH THE ROARING in his ears, Ryder McClintock heard Clem’s voice saying his name, but he couldn’t respond. All his muscles seized up and his feet felt rooted to the ground.
A crease formed between Julia’s eyebrows and she tilted her head to the side, long brown hair sliding across her shoulder. She had different hair and different clothes, but unless he was in the middle of a dream, Julia Rousseau stood before him in the flesh.
“Ryder, what’s the matter?” Clem ambled forward and shook his hand, slapping him on the back. Then he reached up to steady the little girl on his shoulders. “You been away so long, the altitude got to you?”
The fog lifted and pinpricks of excitement raced up his spine. She had come to him. Julia had come to him.
“Julia, you’re here.” Ryder twisted away from Clem and reached for her.
Stumbling back, Julia put her hands up. “Who are you?”
Her words punched him in the gut and he nearly doubled over. Was this some kind of game? Did she want to punish him for leaving her? She, more than anyone, knew he had no choice.
“Julia, it’s me, Ryder. Why didn’t you write to me? Why didn’t you answer my letters?”
Clem choked and grabbed his shoulder. “Are you telling me you know Julia?”
Ryder swiveled his head around. Clem regarded him with the same open-mouthed astonishment that Ryder had bestowed on Julia. Didn’t Julia tell the residents of Silverhill that she knew him?
“What the hell is going on?” Ryder shook his head and swept off his hat. His gaze darted between Julia and Clem, and he plowed his fingers through his hair. “Didn’t you tell them?”
The blankness of her face pierced his heart. She didn’t recognize him. Three and a half years, and she didn’t recognize him. Something else in her expression twisted the dagger even deeper—panic. Julia feared him.
“Don’t you recognize me? Ryder McClintock.” He felt like a fool introducing himself to the woman he loved with a burning, searing passion—even when he thought she’d deserted him. He took another step forward, and she took a matching step back.
“Ryder.” Clem gripped his arm. “Julia doesn’t know you. She lost her memory over three years ago when her car took a dive off Highway 160.”
Clem’s words sucked the air out of Ryder’s lungs and a vice squeezed his chest. He searched Julia’s face for a glimmer of recognition, for the smile that used to curve her lip, when he told bad jokes, the light in her eyes. Nothing. Worse than nothing—wariness, doubt…fear.
If she didn’t recognize him, how’d she wind up here? She must have been coming to him, or rather his family, when she had that accident. What compelled her to seek sanctuary with his family? Did she know about Jeremy?
“I—I, Julia may not know me,” he dug the heels of his hands into his eyes to blot out Julia’s look of bafflement, “but I know Julia.”
Clem laughed and did a little jig in the street. “That’s a miracle, Julia. Do you know who Ryder is? He’s Ralph’s boy come home. You must’ve been coming to see Ryder when your car took that tumble. Now you can get your life back all right and tight.”
Ryder shifted his gaze to Julia, twisting her hands in front of her. She didn’t look happy about the prospect of getting her life back.
“I don’t get it.” Ryder rubbed his knuckles along his jaw. “Didn’t Julia have any ID on her? Didn’t the police check the registration on the car?”
“Let’s not talk about this in the middle of the street.” Clem shifted the little girl on his shoulders. “We’ll go back to my place and Millie can make us some lunch. She still makes the best lemonade in Silverhill, Ryder.”
Clem’s granddaughter whinnied and patted Clem on the head. “Let’s go. Ride ’em, cowboy.”
The tightness of Julia’s face smoothed out a little. She must know his family. Who didn’t know the McClintocks in Silverhill? They practically ran the town. Ryder took a deep breath. This might not be so bad. How could it be when he’d found Julia again?
Ryder smiled at the little girl. “Another granddaughter, Clem? Has to be Maddy’s with those blond curls.”
Clem swung the girl off his shoulders. “No, not one of mine. This here’s Julia’s daughter.”
The smile froze on Ryder’s face as he gritted his teeth. The girl ran to Julia and wrapped her arms around her legs, smiling shyly at him over her shoulder.
She must be about four years old, and if his guess was right…she belonged to him.
Chapter Two
Clem filled the stranger’s ears with local gossip as they ambled toward his house, covering the awkwardness that hung in the air like one of those heavy Native American blankets sold from roadside campers.
The truth of her past hovered right around the corner and she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Perhaps this stranger…no, Ryder McClintock…didn’t know her that well. Wouldn’t his family have recognized her name as one of Ryder’s friends? Of course, they knew only her first name.
His father and stepmother didn’t mention him often and he hadn’t been to visit them in over three years. She recalled talk of the McClintocks’ middle boy working overseas on some kind of a secret mission. How did she know a spy? Perhaps they had some brief acquaintance.
If she didn’t know him well, why was she on her way to see him that fateful night when her car skidded off the road in a snowstorm? That couldn’t be a coincidence. She must’ve been seeking out Ryder when she crashed, but where had he been the past three years?
As Ryder chatted with Clem,
