“That would be the cowboy Ethel mentioned.”
“Yes. His name is Bill.” Gail’s expression sobered. “Bill and I planned to work full-time fixing up the place he bought on the outskirts of the city. Right up to the day before the wedding, that was our intention. And then everything changed.”
“Mind expanding on that?” Ryan asked when she halted.
She ran her tongue over her lips, as if debating whether to say more before she shrugged and went on. “My goddaughter, having already resigned from her job in Phoenix, had agreed to come up for the wedding in late April, help look after things in my absence, and then spend the rest of May here in order to give herself time to decide on becoming partners with me and managing the bed and breakfast. It would have been perfect for her. For all of us, in fact. Bill and I would be free to live out at his place, while Ethel, who needs a job, since her late husband didn’t leave her much, stayed on here. And Abby would have an ideal spot in a friendly family neighborhood to raise Cara.”
Ryan nodded to himself, thinking that he now had a good hunch what had scuttled the whole thing. “And then a certain doctor entered the picture.”
Gail’s gaze sharpened. “So she told you about—”
“The new fiancé? Uh-huh.” She had, in fact, Ryan thought, relished telling him about it.
“Well, that’s what happened the day before the wedding,” Gail continued. “Abby phoned and asked if she could bring a guest, and then broke the news that she had just become engaged.”
“Which put a huge damper on your plans,” Ryan summed up.
She sighed a long sigh. “Lord, I wish it were that simple. I’d give up whatever plans I had in a heartbeat if they stood in the way of her happiness, believe me. The problem is that this man is all wrong for her.”
Ryan felt his brows make a fast climb. “You mean the good doctor isn’t so good?” For some reason it pleased him, more than a little, to think that the guy was a jerk.
Gail squashed that notion in the next breath. “I mean that he’s as handsome as sin and has a list of virtues an angel might well envy. Abby’s parents gushed all over him at my wedding. But, as far as I’m concerned, he’s still not right for her. There’s no…spark.”
As there had been with him. At least he had that satisfaction, Ryan told himself, aiming his gaze past the window to look out at bright sunlight. Not that it should make any difference to him. And not that it apparently did to Abby. Whether she was engaged to the right guy or not, husband number one no longer seemed to be striking any sparks.
Or she’d gone out of her way to give that impression.
“Do you still care about her?” Gail asked quietly, regaining his attention.
“I don’t know.” It was all he could say. “Hell, I don’t even know who I am, not really.”
But he wanted her. That much he recognized full well, especially after spending the last half of the night in a room only steps from hers and wondering how it had felt to have her stretched out under him. His body wouldn’t have objected to finding out, that was certain. His brain, on the other hand, wasn’t flat-out sure of anything. “Right now, I only know who other people tell me I am—or was. Can you understand that?”
Gail shook her head. “I don’t suppose anyone could who hasn’t been in your situation. I do understand, though, that I care deeply about my goddaughter. I am thankful that she’s agreed to spend the rest of the month here, as planned. I can only hope she’ll think long and hard about this engagement, because I would hate to see her make another mistake.” She released another sigh. “I was once so sure you were the right man for her.”
His sudden smile was wry. “Someone told me coming here would make a new man of me.”
Gail rose to her feet and studied him for a long moment. “Maybe it will,” she said at last with a thoughtful frown.
Chapter Three
“You ran into who?”
“My ex-wife,” Ryan repeated to the man seated beside him on a short stack of back-porch stairs. The small two-story frame home rising behind them came complete with grassy yard and white picket fence.
“Jeez,” Jordan Trask said with feeling, his hazel eyes wide. As tall as his visitor and even broader through the shoulders, he was a powerfully built man in his midthirties, and currently a stunned one.
“Came as something of a shock to me, too,” Ryan slid in dryly.
Jordan blew out a breath. “I can well believe it. And you ran into her at Aunt Abigail’s?”
“Actually she met me at the front door.”
Ryan went on to bring his former co-worker up to speed on what had happened during his first day in Harmony, as well as the first night. Although a smile crossed the other man’s face at the mention of the feather-bed episode, he listened without comment. A short time later, Ryan summed up the situation. “So I not only have a former wife who just got engaged, I have even more questions about the past than I did before I knew she existed—and not one blasted thing has come back to me since the accident.” Including our friendship, he thought to himself.
As though fully conscious of what hadn’t been said, Jordan’s expression sobered. “That’s a damn shame.”
Ryan found himself appreciating the forthright tone of that statement more than he could say. The last thing he wanted was any more coddling. Apparently this man knew him at least well enough to know that.
“Yeah,” Ryan agreed, slapping his palms on his denim-clad knees. “It hasn’t exactly been a picnic. What really sticks in my craw, though, is that some of the people we both worked for at one time have been looking at me sideways, as if they’re not too sure I can be trusted at the moment—even though, from what I understand, I was a damn good pilot before this whole thing happened.”
“Better than good,” his companion readily conceded. “What you could do when it came to handling a piece of aviation equipment was downright amazing sometimes. Then again, that might be part of the problem.”
Ryan frowned. “How’s that?”
“You liked to take risks, especially in the air. Although you never said as much, I got the feeling that was at least part of why you joined the agency. Guarding the border can be a dangerous proposition just from the standpoint that no one’s ever sure what’s going to come down next. Some people thrive on that kind of thing. I have to say you seemed to be one of them.”
Ryan’s frowned deepened. “Do you mean I got off on putting my butt on the line?”
The question won him a low chuckle. “Let’s just say you didn’t consider your own health and wellbeing as much as you might have. You took chances—big ones, on occasion—and I’m fairly certain the top brass didn’t always appreciate that fact. You volunteered for some of the toughest assignments and got the job done, but it wasn’t always done exactly their way.”
“Hmm. I suppose my last day on the job didn’t earn me any points. I not only crashed the copter, but I was apparently already off course when the storm hit.”
Jordan raised a large hand and ran it through dark hair worn just long enough to brush the collar of his black polo shirt. “My guess would be that you were checking something out without bothering to let headquarters know first.”