Page 24 of When I Forgot Us (Blue River #1)
She let Beatrice walk all the way up to him before she stopped.
Dirt covered her knees, and he raised his eyebrows in an obvious question.
“I found something.” The memory tangled with the heart she’d found, and it all came out in a hurried explosion of words.
She told him everything about the memory it had triggered.
“I saw you carve the heart, then tell me you loved me.”
His jaw worked side to side, his body tensing. “You remember?”
“Just that memory and the others I’ve already told you about.” Accusation colored her tone. “It was you, in the other dream. You’re the one I loved.”
“Loved.” He said it with a harsh twist to his face.
“It was real, wasn’t it? Both of those are real memories of us saying we loved each other.”
His nod was so miniscule she’d have missed it if she wasn’t staring so hard. She dismounted and draped Beatrice’s reins over the top rail behind Chase.
“We had a relationship.” The look he sent her way was fraught with anguish. “And I want you to choose me again.”
It was the first time they’d confronted the feelings she’d sensed growing between them.
He took a step back when she moved forward. “Not like this. Not out of obligation because you’ve had those two memories come back.”
“It’s not obligation. I’m not that shallow.”
“No.” He agreed. “But you are in a fragile state. I say that intentionally. Your mind is trying to put all the pieces together.”
“We loved each other.” She said it for the sheer joy it brought her. She’d been in love with Chase. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
She stalked toward him, a stiffness in her steps that carried her right up into his personal space. “Don’t lie to me.”
That was all it took to crush him.
He retreated, ducking between the rails so the fence separated them. “That proves we’re not ready to discuss this. You need time to process, and I need time to understand how much to tell you.”
“Everything. You need to tell me everything.” The need to know was a cloying, grasping thing that pushed and demanded until nothing else mattered.
Denial locked his eyes into a squint. “I don’t think so. And I have no idea what happened. Maybe you’ll be willing to tell me when you remember.”
It hit her with a savage punch to the gut and knocked the breath from her lungs. This was her fault. Their failed relationship was all on her.
No wonder she refused to remember that part. The love had eased her into thinking things were okay. Chase’s face told a different story. “That explains why you always retreat when we get too close. I broke your heart.”
She didn’t need his nod for confirmation. The next retreating step anchored the truth deep enough by itself. “I still have feelings for you.” Her body relaxed with the admission. “Even before my memories started coming back.”
“It doesn’t change anything.” Another step away from her increased the physical distance, but the emotional gap hurt more. “I want to give us a chance. And I will even if you never get your memories back, but that’s not a decision we can make right now.”
“You mean we can’t make a decision based on emotions that I might be confused about.
” She wasn’t confused. How she’d felt about him that first week had grown every week since.
If it wasn’t love, it was close. It had every chance of turning into love if he’d give them a chance. “What do you want from me?”
“Time.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets in a move she recognized. He’d done it countless times before, usually when she was distraught or highly emotional.
The feel of his arms around her in the memory warmed her skin, teasing her with the past and almost driving her over the fence to throw herself into his arms. He’d catch her. Even if it tore him apart, he’d catch her.
And that realization gave her the strength to hold her ground. Whatever pain she’d caused him in the past lingered, and she refused to add to it with her desperation. “I need to put Beatrice in the barn.”
The mare stood dozing at the fence, her head hung over the rail and her eyes closed. One hind hoof was cocked, her weight leaning toward Michelle. She took her time picking up the reins, giving Beatrice time to wake up. She nosed Michelle’s pocket and followed at the softest touch.
Chase remained behind her. Maybe he watched her leave. Maybe he walked away. She didn’t have the courage to turn around and check.
Maude stepped out of the office as Michelle crossed into the dim lighting. The woman’s brows creased into a furrowed line. “Michelle?”
“Hi.” The fake brightness fell flat, and she shored up the frown, forcing it into an easy smile. “I did it. Rode out by myself.”
“Good for you.” Maude crossed the distance and hugged Michelle. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Pray for me. And Chase.” She blinked back the sting of tears. “We both need it.”
“Of course.” Maude—apparently she’d stopped thinking of her as Mrs. Nelson—patted Michelle’s back in a series of comforting strokes.
She pulled away and walked Beatrice to the crossties.
Every movement of removing the mare’s saddle and rubbing her down happened on autopilot.
Chase showed her how days ago, and once she stopped trying to think about it, the motions came.
Her mind spun back and forth between the memories and the past few weeks with Chase.
He wanted her to choose him. Done.
He wanted that choice to be made out of love and not obligation. Done. Mostly because she had no clue what he really meant by that. She didn’t feel obligated to him in the slightest.
“Maude?” She called out before Maude slipped back into the office.
“Yeah?”
Beatrice snuffled her pocket again, and she fed her a peppermint after removing the bridle. “Do you think it’s possible to love someone when you don’t know anything about yourself?”
“Love is a powerful, powerful thing.” Maude’s smile was tinged with her own pain. “It does not solve every problem, but it goes a long way when two people are willing.”
“Not sure that answers my question.” Didn’t it, though? If both she and Chase were willing to step out on faith and in love, then they had a shot. Sounded like good relationship advice for anyone, not just her with her complication of throwing amnesia into the mix.
Maude left, retreating to the office and leaving Michelle to her thoughts.
She built and discarded several plans for convincing Chase. It all came back to his request that she give him time.
“Can I really love him if I never remember our past?” She returned Beatrice to her stall, staying with the mare and whispering questions into her furry ears. “What if I never remember? Even worse. What if I remember years from now and it tears us apart. He claims he has no idea what happened.”
She had no reason to think he’d lie. They were back to that awful place where he had information and refused to divulge it out of some inane reasoning that it might influence her memories in some negative way. Or was he afraid to tell her?
Beatrice flicked her tail, and the rough strands lashed over Michelle’s arm.
“Okay. I hear you. Wrong train of thought. All he’s done is try to protect me. I might not agree with his method, but he’s trying to help.” She believed that. If she didn’t, then love was out of the question.
She recognized Chase’s steps the minute he crossed the threshold. He walked straight to the office and disappeared inside, not avoiding her but not seeking her out.
It hurt either way.
Leaving Beatrice’s stall, she retreated to the B&B and her Bible.
Chase, Aunt Sarah, and the messages she’d heard at church told her to turn to God anytime she had a problem.
They all promised that God cared about everything.
Even her broken heart? She flipped through the Bible’s thin pages, reading scraps of verses.
When that didn’t help, she dragged the chair over to the window and curled up with a notebook, pen, and the Bible.
She poured her pain onto the pages. All the words she’d been unable to articulate into a prayer appeared in scrunched scribbles so shaky they’d be unintelligible to anyone but her.
Tears blurred her eyes and fell onto the notebook. Coming home was not a mistake, but it certainly hurt like one. Loving Chase in the past was not a mistake.
Loving him now might end up breaking her for good. She anticipated the next memory. Surely there would be more. Answers were in her head, everything she needed to know about why they’d failed years ago.
That kind of love wasn’t meant to be thrown away.
It was meant to be treasured. Something had torn them apart.
It all came back to that. Chase claimed not to know.
Which meant it had been her. Had she been at fault?
Or had she learned something so devastating about Chase that she’d left it all behind?