ringing in his head, as if she were still standing there arguing with him, even after all these years. She had been so beautiful, with her blond hair and green eyes a few shades lighter than his own. A perfect match, his family had said.
But she had hated living in Big Bend. Eight hundred thousand acres of desert, mountains and river—some of the most beautiful, remote country in the lower 48—and she had hated it. The place he never wanted to leave, because it had gotten into his blood, into his very soul.
He’d been ready to propose, sure that Erin was the one and convinced she would stay here for his sake—no, for their sake, at least until they could talk about asking for a reassignment. But love wasn’t enough. He wasn’t enough.
She had left, without ever looking back.
That was five years ago and no woman had caught his attention since. Probably a self-defense mechanism. Apparently it had decided to fail today. That was both unfortunate and unacceptable, because something about Ashley—maybe it was the suit, or her pale skin, or the fact she had no idea why she was here—screamed, I don’t belong in the desert.
Keeping her alive until she could be reassigned was going to be enough trouble. He didn’t need to add personal feelings. And the last thing he wanted, after the long years waiting for God to heal his broken heart after Erin, was to risk anything like it again. No, the newest ranger would be his trainee and his colleague, and nothing more.
He returned dutifully to her house an hour later, glad to find her condition appeared stable. Pupils weren’t abnormally dilated, responses all coherent. Four repeat visits over the course of the night showed similar promise of no regression. She greeted him with a groggy smile each time before stumbling back to the sofa where she’d decided to crash for the night. By 7:00 a.m. he advised her to go to sleep in her bed. He’d come back and check on her later in the day, after getting some work done in the office.
He nearly collided with someone on his way into headquarters. Will Sykes, one of the newer rangers, who had started just prior to Sam Thompson. “Will, a little distracted this morning?”
“What?” The dark-haired younger man glanced up, his thoughts obviously elsewhere. He was probably heading out to one of the campgrounds on patrol. “Oh, sorry. I guess so.”
Logan moved aside to let him out the door, but Will stopped, lowering his voice enough that Sandy Barnes at her receptionist desk wouldn’t overhear. “Hey, I heard you pulled somebody out of the Rio Grande last night. What happened?”
Word certainly got around fast in this park. “Actually, I found her on the riverbank. We’re not sure how it happened.”
“Good thing you showed up.” His Adam’s apple bobbed and he tapped his thumb against his clipboard. “Was she all right?”
“Bit of memory loss, but she’ll be okay. You’ll meet her soon—turns out she’s the newest ranger.” Logan glanced at his watch. Only fifteen minutes until his first meeting of the day. “Listen, Sykes, I—”
The clipboard clattered to the ground and Will stooped to retrieve it.
“—need to get going.”
“Of course.” Will’s face had gone uncharacteristically pale.
Must be thinking about Sam, too. They’d been friends and Sam’s death had affected Will almost as much as Logan. Ashley was their first new law-enforcement ranger since the accident. It wasn’t a surprise Will would be shaken up.
Logan squeezed the younger man’s shoulder, trying to mimic Ed’s natural gift of encouragement. “Nobody can replace him, but it’ll be good to have someone new on the team.”
“Yeah.” Will left through the front door, waving on his way out.
A file for Ashley Watson lay on Logan’s desk, as Ed had promised. It didn’t contain anything exceptional. Twenty-seven years old, hometown of New Haven, Connecticut—that might explain why picturing her in the desert seemed like such a stretch. She had passed NPS training school with flying colors. Before going into law enforcement, she had worked for the Department of the Interior in Washington, DC—a desk job—but maybe those connections had got her the position out here.
Nothing to explain why she’d been down at the canyon yesterday, in a suit, with a gun. A gun she handled so well it looked like years of instinct, he might add—not just six months of park service training.
No word had come back on the truck, either. Whoever had attacked them had managed to vanish into the desert. Barclay had looked concerned but could only tell him to file a report. What else could they do? Nobody could explain how the newest ranger had become a target in a park where violent attacks by anything other than mountain lions were almost unheard of.
Maybe Logan would have to make his afternoon visit to her a bit longer, see if he could ask any questions that might jog her memory. Purely for the sake of investigation, of course.
By the time Ashley woke up, the sun was shooting fiery streaks onto her covers as it seared in through the cracks in the blinds. Thank You, God, for air-conditioning. Wait—she wasn’t speaking to God.
Why was that, exactly? The only answer was that same feeling of oppressive loss she’d experienced last night. But her head didn’t hurt and—
She sat up, her mind racing. She remembered.
Her parents—Ned and Rita. Her brother’s name was Sam. Fumbling for her wallet, she dug out the picture again. Warmth flooded her chest as the memories filled her mind.
Sam and her at a theme park as kids—he’d been nearly two heads shorter than Ashley back then... Snowball fights—they’d grown up in Connecticut. Sandcastles at the beach... Sibling squabbles...
She grinned. Such good times.
But her heart twinged as she looked at his picture. Something had happened. But what? Sam was still in school, wasn’t he? Or maybe he’d graduated before she’d moved to Washington.
When she’d gotten her dream job.
Ah, the irony of it all. She clapped a hand over her mouth, nearly giggling.
The call had come in the middle of dinner with her parents.
Congratulations, you’ve passed the background check. Your basic field training course starts in three weeks. Welcome to Quantico.
That was why she had the gun. She was an FBI special agent.
And she’d managed to finagle an assignment to the coveted Washington field office. Years of work and effort finally paying off.
Yet none of it explained why she was here. And did the fake name mean it was an undercover assignment? Had she ever even gone undercover before?
Maybe her luggage held more clues.
She found a pair of yoga pants and a cotton T-shirt in one of her bags. After dressing, she pulled her long hair into a loose ponytail. She’d been so exhausted last night, what with all the wake-up calls, that she’d stumbled through a quick shower and fallen asleep on the couch without much thought. But now, looking in the mirror, she traced the lines of her face in the glass.
It was the face she had seen for a lifetime, familiar and yet not. Older. Because Ashley knew there was still a gaping blank spot—more like a chasm—behind that face. Places in her mind where the memories were gone, or maybe squished by swelling. Everything past the age of about twenty-six was blurry, faded into nothingness as she tried to recall anything more recent. But going by her birth date on the driver’s license, she was twenty-seven.
That meant more than a year of her life was incomplete or missing.
After returning her wallet to the handbag, she walked out to the living room to dig through the luggage. The suitcase was full of