Without a Past (10 page)

“I once heard a quote that might help you,” she'd told him. “
The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.
It applies to a lot of things in life, but particularly what you're going through.”

“Prioritize,” she'd advised him. “Let the rest of the world catch up with you, instead of you trying to catch up with it.”

A pain radiated under his breastbone, and Harley wondered momentarily if he was having a heart attack. He tried not to breathe too deeply. A memory—if that's what it was—seemed to hammer at the edge of his consciousness, but it brought with it the white, consuming pain that always left him sick and humbled.

He couldn't handle a second headache episode in Andi's presence. “No,” he said. “I can't do this.”

She stepped toward him, both hands resting on the strap of her backpack, which was slung over one shoulder. The sunlight glinted off her wind-combed bob—the richest mix of reds and gold he'd ever seen. Her sunglasses were pushed back on the crown of her head like a tiara.

“It's up to you,” Andi said, lifting her chin to look him
in the eyes. “We can turn around right now, if that's what you want but…”

He was almost afraid to ask. “But what?”

She looked down as if ashamed of her thoughts. “I know the SAR helicopter pilots who scouted the area said their infrared equipment didn't pick up any signs of life, but by the time Lars brought you to town the whole area was under a couple of feet of snow.”

Her sympathetic look made him brace for what was coming. “This question sucks, Harley, and I'm sorry. But, what if you weren't alone that night?”

Harley ground the heel of his hand against the tender scar at his temple. Lars had asked him that question the morning after the accident, and Harley had answered honestly, “I don't know.”

Andi's hand on his bare arm pulled him back from the brink of darkness. “Harley, forget it. I shouldn't have brought that up. Lars told us he was pretty sure you were alone.”

Her touch soothed, but he couldn't allow himself the intended comfort. Although he'd pushed the idea from his mind these past months, the possibility existed that he'd abandoned someone—buddy, wife or girlfriend—that night.

“That's what I want to believe,” he said. “I tell myself if there were someone else, I would have remembered, right? What kind of monster—”

She cut him off. “No. Don't do that to yourself. You can't help it that you can't remember.”

But what if I can?
For the past few nights, he'd had a dream. At first, he thought it was another of the gruesome nightmares that had plagued him. But unlike those, this one felt connected. Real. Maybe because the images were, in fact, memories of his accident.

“Two nights ago I dreamed that I was falling down a
deep fissure. My body bounced off rocks, rolling over and over, out of control. I didn't know where I was or why I was there, but I opened my eyes to total blackness.

“Cold. I was so cold I thought I was dead. But there was a red-hot pain in my head. And I could smell gasoline.” He closed his eyes, trying to reel in the memory. The image remained disjointed—mixed with the panic he'd felt upon waking up.

“It felt like days passed. No one came. The only sound was a constant drip. Like a leaky faucet.”

Andi's eyes grew big. “You think it's a memory of your accident?”

“Maybe. I don't know. Usually pain and nausea accompany any kind of memory. But this dream was so intense I woke up shivering.”

He closed his eyes picturing the moment he'd awakened. Swamped by feelings he couldn't decipher. “One thing that stayed with me was the sense of being all alone, and knowing that if I didn't do something to help myself I was going to die.”

Andi squeezed his arm supportively. “So you did it. You saved yourself.”

“I guess so, but I can't
remember
the accident, Andi. I can't remember driving a motorcycle or being a passenger on a motorcycle. I don't even have any memory of Lars picking me up or my first night at the cabin. Nothing—except for that dream.”

She moved her hand to the middle of his back and rubbed it, much like a mother might do to a child. “I wish I hadn't said anything. Me and my big mouth. I'm sorry.”

He straightened. He didn't deserve her sympathy. The fact that he'd blocked the possibility that someone else might have been hurt from his mind didn't say much about his character.

“No. You're right.” His words were clipped, his throat tight with emotion. “I told myself that searching for my bike was a hopeless cause. But maybe I was just trying to postpone the inevitable.”

“Harley, it can wait. We don't have to…”

“Yes. We do.
I
do. I can't put it off any longer.” He gripped her hand—for luck. For strength. For hope. “Let's go get that damn bike.”

 

A
FTER PULLING OUT
a variety of clamps, fittings, hooks and who knew what from her backpack, Andi stepped back to survey the mess. Her smile held a distinct air of satisfaction. Harley felt as useful as a cowboy at a quilting bee.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and waited for her cue.

She lifted her chin and looked at him. “You know, there's something we neglected to get straight.”

“What?”

“My finder's fee.” The impish look in her eyes told him she was kidding. “I mean, what if you turn out to be the guy who invented Velcro?”

His bark of laughter echoed in the trees. He would have given anything to kiss her. Right there. Middle of the road. No future, no past involved. But he took control of his emotions. He didn't want to leave Gold Creek with even more regrets. If this turned out to be his motorcycle, he knew it would be only a matter of time before he was yanked back into his old life.

“Somehow I doubt I'm a big money man. I didn't have one thin dime on me when Lars found me.”

“Says Lars.” Her eyes sparkled sassily. “What if next week he shows up in town claiming to have hit the mother lode? Uh-huh. Sure. We'll know where it really came from, won't we?”

Harley laughed outright. “Like I said, I kinda doubt it.”

She put her hands on her hips and faced him. “Okay. Here's the plan.”

Harley liked the way she described each step in the process, making certain he understood her. He listened carefully, but nothing she said about the rappelling process rang even the slightest bell in his memory. He knew he had to trust her experience and expertise to accomplish this.

She drew his attention to a break in the mound of gravel at the edge of the road. “That could be where you went off the road.” She'd dropped to a squat and appeared to be studying the ground as if it were a book with a story to tell. “I think you must have been going back down the hill. There's no way you could have gone off at that angle if you were climbing. Is any of this coming back to you?”

He tried to picture himself on a motorcycle, but aside from a throbbing sensation just behind his eyes, nothing else appeared. “No.”

He followed her to the edge of the road. The hillside at their feet fell away at a sixty-degree incline and disappeared into underbrush so thick it was impossible to follow it more than twenty feet from where they were standing.

“Look at that broken branch,” she said, pointing. “And there's another. Deeper in. My gut says this is the place, but I can't see a thing. I'm going down for a closer look.”

Harley looked over the ledge and was hit by a sudden wave of panic. Raw, stomach-turning panic. His skin turned clammy, his respiration shallow, his vision blurred.

“No. I can't let you do it. Let's just mark the spot. I'll hire a crew to recover the bike and whatever else is left. Even if—God forbid—there is someone else down there, a few days won't make any difference.”

Andi spun around. “Harley, this is
my
find. I don't want to hand it over to somebody else.”

“But it's
my
bike,” he shouted. He needed to get away from the ledge, and he wasn't going without Andi.

He grabbed her arm.

She yanked back. Harley's grip faltered, and she seemed to lose her balance. Her right foot stepped backward…into space. Her expression went from anger to consternation, as if she didn't have time for a bothersome little tumble down the side of a cliff.

“Andi.” Ignoring the rush of fear that deafened him to the sound of his own cry, Harley reached for her. His fingers felt numb but reflex made them clamp on the material bunched at her waist. This kept her upright long enough for his other arm to swoop behind her shoulders and haul her close.

Bodies in motion—they fell backward to what he knew was safe, level ground. They hit hard, his left shoulder taking the brunt of the impact. Small stones pierced his skin, but Harley didn't care. Pain meant they were alive. Andi was safe.

Neither moved as the dust settled. Harley ignored the screaming fury in his shoulder. The weight resting on his chest more than made up for any ache. She was awkwardly clasped against him, but she felt wonderful—and smelled of fresh air and herbal shampoo.

Andi lifted her head then braced one hand on the ground beside his jaw to push up. “What the hell was that?”

Harley opened his mouth, but it took several seconds to produce the necessary mental state to speak. It didn't help that her midsection was resting squarely against his own. “I thought you were going to fall.”

“So?” She arched her neck as if working out a kink. Her breasts—just a few inches from his face—rose with her breath. The movement added to Harley's problems.

“You could have been killed,” he said, his tone husky.

Her lips flattened then gave way to a grin. “You were trying to save my life?”

Harley didn't like her condescending tone. “I
did
save you. At no small cost to my own body, I might add.”

She rolled to her hip and sprang into a squat beside him so fast Harley barely had time to blink. “You're hurt? I'm sorry. I thought you were goofing around because you didn't want me to go after the bike.”

It bothered him that she seemed totally unaffected by the sexual overtones of their encounter. He sat up stiffly, trying not to wince. “I'm fine, but I'm not letting you go down into that ravine.”

She rocked back. “You're not.”

It wasn't a question. “No.”

He didn't try getting to his feet. His vision blurred, and he felt a bit queasy.
Not another damn concussion,
he silently muttered. Andi would probably want to carry him to the car—on her back.

“This has nothing to do with finding your past, does it?” she said, her tone frosty. “You're turning all macho because you think this is too dangerous for a girl.”

He didn't like her tone—or the direct hit.

“Harley, I'm an experienced climber. I spent two summers working in Tuolumne Meadows, and I did 5.11 face climbs and 5.10 crack climbs. This isn't even a challenge. Trust me.”

He didn't understand the jargon, but he believed her.

“I'll just drop into the gully and snap a couple of pictures. It might not even be your bike, and you would have wasted all that time and money on nothing.”

“Fearless Andi Sullivan. Tell me, are you afraid of anything?” He moved cautiously so as not to aggravate the pain in his back. Finally he was sitting.

Andi sat, too—after adding a few inches between them.
“Sure. Most social situations make me jittery. Put me in front of a crowd and my brain freezes solid.”

He didn't believe her, but before he could say so she went on, “And I'm afraid of losing my aunt's business.” Her gaze dropped, and she tucked in the hunk of shirt that he'd pulled loose.

Were Ida's financial woes really that bad?

“Last week I got a letter from a company called Meridian, Incorporated. They want to buy the old bordello.”

“Do you want to sell?” The idea made him uneasy, but he couldn't say why. What did the demise of a run-down old building matter to him?

“Of course not. It's our home. But then I realized it's not my call to make. Ida Jane's name is on the deed. Maybe everything I'm doing is for nothing.”

“Have you talked to her about it?”

Andi shook her head. “Not yet. I called a local realtor. His wife is a friend of Ida Jane's. He said there's big money moving into the area, but not to do anything until he'd investigated the company.”

“Sound advice,” Harley said, surprised by the sense of relief he felt.

Andi rose. “Why are we talking about me? This is your show,” she said. “Are we doing it or not?”

Harley took a deep breath. He couldn't put it off forever. “Okay,” he said, reaching around to massage his aching shoulder. “But nothing fancy. No shinning up the tree to perform some kind of inverted Evil Knievel trick.”

Her quick peck on his cheek made it tough to stay focused, but that, he promised himself, would be his goal. Maybe his unconscious mind was afraid of heights. Maybe his past was about to catch up to him. Maybe he was falling for a woman who was twice the man he was, but he refused
to think about any of it. Focus on keeping Andi safe, he told himself. That's all.

 

T
WENTY LONG MINUTES LATER
, Andi had two half-inch braided ropes secured to the trunk of a pine as thick as a watermelon. “I'd rather use an oak tree—their roots go all the way to China,” she explained, hoping to dispel some of Harley's obvious unease, “but this guy will have to do.”

Harley didn't say anything, but he gave the tree a stern look.

“I'll be back in a flash,” she said, securing a bright purple anodized clip to her guide rope. She used her teeth to pull on a pair of leather gloves then started walking backward toward the ravine. “All you need to do is keep an eye on my line so it doesn't get twisted. I'll holler if I need anything.”