“Why?” she asked. He was terrible at this not-confusing-her thing. Zach took a deep breath and knew he had to come clean. She might kick him out, but it was her choice.
“I fucked up after your grandmother died. I was trying to comfort you and I said the wrong thing. Or a dozen wrong things, and you told me to stay out of your life.”
She frowned, like she was trying to do a difficult math problem. “What kind of things? What did you say?”
“That you’d be better off without me and our two-horse town, but I think what set you off was when I stopped you from kissing me.”
“Oh.” Then Zach saw it. Evie made a face, eyes popping wide with stunned understanding. He knew that face and knew the laugh that usually followed it. She didn’t laugh this time, but the expression was enough to give him a bit of hope. Evie just needed some time. She’d be back to her old self. And if he knew the old Evie she wouldn’t waste a moment cussing him smooth the fuck out whenever the time came. But for now . . .
Zach moved a little closer and took Evie’s hand. “So, talk to me, girl. What else do you want to know?”
“Were we ever . . . were we ever a thing? Were we ever together as a couple? I know there’s probably more pressing information, but I want to know.”
“What makes you ask?”
“I’ve seen you. Before now, in my dreams.”
Zach coughed and did his best to redirect his train of thought, but it was already speeding down a certain track. Evie had no memory of anything, but somehow, he’d made it through the haze of her amnesia. He wasn’t going to let it go to his head, but he was pretty sure Jesse had one hell of anI told you socoming his way.
“No, we were never together, but we had a thing.”
“What kind of thing?”
Jesse was going to kick his ass. “It’s not important right now.”
“I understand that you probably have your reasons for not wanting to tell me, but I think it’s Nicole’s plan to possibly send me back to Charming with you. You may know me, but I don’t know anything about you. You can see how that puts me at a disadvantage. If something happened between us, I have the right to know.”
She had a point. She was surrounded by people who were a thousand steps ahead of her. It was only fair that she be given a chance to catch up.
“I’ll give you the abridged version because I don’t want to make you more upset. You had a crush on me when we were kids and I didn’t really understand how I felt about you until you moved away for culinary school. When I saw you again, I thought it was—I don’t know what I thought, but I said and did the wrong things. We fought and we haven’t spoken since.”
“This was—”
“About ten years ago,” Zach admitted, hardly believing it had been that long. He’d missed Evie like crazy, but now that they were back together—forget her injury—it felt like it had been no time at all. He ignored the wave of conflicting emotions that threatened to crash over him and settled for giving her hand a gentle squeeze. She returned it even though she was clearly busy trying to sort things out in her mind.
“So, we haven’t spoken in ten years?”
“Yep.”
“But I’ve talked to Jesse. My assistant, Raquelle, found some texts in my phone.” Irrational jealousy heated Zach’s face.
“He mentioned that you two had been in touch. What happened in these dreams?”
“Um, we were usually somewhere hot and there was a brown horse.”
“Ah, maybe you were remembering Chestnut.”
“Is that your horse?”
“No, that was your Nana Buck’s horse, your grandmother. You learned to ride on him.” Zach pulled out his phone, but before he pulled up a picture of Amelia with her beloved quarter horse, he thought twice about it. “Blaire didn’t tell you about your nan, did she?”
“No, she never met her. She just repeated back a few of the things I told her over the years, but it wasn’t much.”
Zach tried not to think about the years following the funeral. The Christmases, the birthdays when Evie should have been back in Charming or at least gotten to video chat with the whole gang at the ranch, and how she’d been alone, because of him.
“I’m not sure this is the best idea, but do you want to see a picture of her?”
“Yes,” Evie said without hesitation. Zach fished out his phone and googled a picture of the acclaimed horse trainer who had made herself a fixture at Big Rock Ranch long before he was born. There were pictures of Nana Buck in his grandmother’s home, but over time they’d faded into the background. It had been a while since Zach had really looked at her sharp brown gaze and her welcoming smile. He handed Evie his phone and waited as she took in the image of her grandmother.