Circumstantial Memories. Carol Ericson

stomach churned and she stumbled on the top step. Ryder placed a steadying hand against the small of her back, beneath her backpack, his warmth seeping through the thin cotton of her T-shirt. Her hyperawareness of him had to be due to their connection in her previous life.

      She always referred to her past as her previous life, as if it had no bearing on the life she led in Silverhill. The foolish phrase allowed her to ignore the terror she always felt when she groped in the shadowy darkness of her past for answers. Now a collision between her past and present loomed before her. Was she ready for the fallout?

      “Behave yourself and don’t be greedy.” Julia settled Shelby at the Stokers’ kitchen table, while Millie handed Ryder two glasses of lemonade.

      Ryder led the way to the patio and Julia followed, her gaze clinging to his tight jeans molded to his behind—a pleasant distraction from the uncertainty that lurked around the corner.

      Too bad Ryder didn’t rush in claiming to be her long-lost husband like so many others had. She might have accepted Ryder’s story without question.

      He clicked the glasses down on the glass-topped table, and then pulled out her chair. The legs scraping against the flagstone jarred her from her pleasant reverie back to the present…back to the past. She perched on the edge of the chair and wrapped her hands around the sweating glass.

      Settling beside her, Ryder sipped his lemonade and then turned his blue eyes to her. His gaze meandered over her face and hair and skimmed her shoulders. A sinuous warmth suffused her skin, his intimate inventory feeling like a caress.

      “You look…different.”

      “Let’s cut to the chase, Ryder.” She rubbed her damp palms on the thighs of her jeans. “Who am I?”

      A quick grin split his face. “Not so different after all.”

      His smile took her breath away, and she gripped the edge of the table to keep from sliding beneath it. Damn, if this man wasn’t her husband in her previous life, she must’ve had a hot fling with him. Or should have.

      “Okay.” He planted his hands on his knees. “Your name is Julia Scott, although after you and Jeremy separated you started using your maiden name, Rousseau. How’d you remember your first name?”

      “Wait a minute.” A dull pain thumped behind her eyes as she held up her hands. “You’re going too fast. I’m divorced?”

      Dragging in a breath, Ryder raked a hand through his thick brown hair and the sun glinted off the golden streaks. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m not very good at filling in someone about her life. You were married to Jeremy Scott for less than a year. Things didn’t go so well after he got back from Afghanistan, and you split up.”

      “Afghanistan? My husband was in the military?” Maybe the military deployed him again, and that’s why he never looked for her.

      “Yeah.” Ryder shifted his gaze and took a long swallow of lemonade.

      “And my parents? My family? Why didn’t anyone else look for me?” She held her breath as she watched Ryder trace beads of moisture on the glass with his fingertip.

      “I don’t think you have close family in the States, Julia. Your father, Girard Rousseau, was a diplomat with the U.S. Embassy in France. He passed away about five years ago. As far as I know, your mother, Celeste Rousseau, still lives in Paris.” A smile quirked the edge of his mouth. “And you and your mom were never close. When I called her, she said the two of you had had a falling out. She hadn’t seen or heard from you in years and figured you’d headed out for parts unknown.”

      Yeah and who would figure those unknown parts would be her own mind? She slumped back in her chair and exhaled. Her father was dead. Her estranged mother lived in Paris. Her ex-husband was probably fighting overseas.

      That explained the deafening silence when she tried to search for her identity. She clasped her hands in her lap. It didn’t explain her black eye or what she was doing in a stolen car with mounds of cash in the trunk and no ID.

      Ryder’s large hand covered hers and his warmth soaked into her bones. “I’m sorry this happened to you, Julia. Didn’t you have any ID? Whose car were you driving?”

      She met his gaze. His touch, his presence calmed her, making her feel as secure as those mountains that ringed her world for the past three and a half years.

      “I didn’t have a purse, a suitcase or any identification with me. I was driving a stolen car. The police found the owner of the car in Washington, but he didn’t know me. Th-there was a lot of money in a bag in the backseat of the car, but the owner didn’t know anything about it. The police held on to the money for almost a year, tried to trace the serial numbers and then released it to me. It totaled about three hundred thousand dollars.”

      His glittering blue eyes narrowed and he squeezed her hands before releasing them. “That’s a lot of money.”

      “Why would I have that much money?”

      “Your mom’s rich.” He lifted a shoulder, but his face tightened as if she’d transferred her anxiety to him.

      “And the stolen car?”

      “Did the police charge you with any crime?” he asked.

      “No, they put it down to a mystery in my past, besides I was injured and pregnant. The owner of the car didn’t want to press any charges.”

      “God, I wish I could’ve been there for you.” Ryder jumped up from his chair, knocking it to the ground.

      His concern caused her heart to thump against her rib cage. He knew her…Julia Rousseau Scott…and he cared about her. That knowledge gave her strength, the strength to examine her past and unveil its secrets.

      She took a deep breath. “How did you know me? It seems as if I didn’t have any friends who cared about me enough to search for me.”

      “Oh, you had lots of friends.” He stopped pacing and shoved a hand in his pocket. “In Paris. I heard you’d followed Jeremy to Tucson, but if you landed here almost four years ago I don’t think you had time to form a circle of friends in Arizona.”

      “You knew me in Paris?” Her voice squeaked. Even though she’d discovered she knew French last week, she never imagined she’d lived in Paris.

      “That’s where I met you. I worked with…Jeremy and I served in the same unit. When I came to Paris on leave, Jeremy introduced me to his new wife.”

      Ryder worked with her ex-husband? Did this mean her ex-husband was a spy, too? Did Jeremy even know about her pregnancy, about his daughter? Would she have to share Shelby with a stranger? Her gut clenched. She didn’t want to share Shelby with anyone.

      Running her hands across her face as if brushing away cobwebs, she pushed out of her chair. “Where is he? Where’s Jeremy?”

      Ryder spun around and gripped her shoulders. “Jeremy’s dead.”

      She closed her eyes and waited for the grief, the sharp pang of regret, a twist of guilt. Nothing. She felt nothing but a flare of relief. No stranger would be knocking on her door to take Shelby for court-mandated visits with a father she didn’t know.

      “Are you okay?” Ryder squeezed her shoulders.

      Her eyes flew open. With his face inches from hers, she could smell his strong, clean scent and the citrus on his breath from the fresh lemonade. Two lines formed on either side of his mouth and his nostrils flared. Did he expect her to collapse?

      “I—I don’t feel anything. I know he was your friend, but all I feel is relief that he can’t take my daughter. Am I a horrible person? I’m sorry you lost your friend.” A sob escaped her lips for the man, Shelby’s father, she’d never know.

      The pressure on her shoulders turned to a caress and Ryder pulled her into an embrace. She molded against his hard body, and he tightened his arms around her, laying his cheek