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“And I don’t think that you can possibly understand how much it really should be a prank,” Dallas told her. “It’s like they all decided together that it was time to stop their nonsense and give it over to Lady Justice.”

“Maybe they always wanted to be law enforcement officers, so they were getting their wild oats taken care of first,” Ruthie suggested, imagining wild boys and small-town rumors. “Sowing them, as you do.”

“Could be,” Dallas said, in a tone that said he absolutely did not think that.

Ruthie had no idea why she found that charming too. And when he headed back down into Cowboy Point proper again, she realized that she didn’t feel that awkwardness anymore.

Somehow, Dallas had known that taking the spotlight off the things she couldn’t remember, and the past he didn’t really want to talk about, was the best way to handle this. He’d put them both at ease, she thought. And she liked it. Not just that he was capable of doing that, when she couldn’t really remember feeling much at ease over the past few months, but that she genuinely enjoyed all the stories he told her.

She figured he knew that, too. That Ruthie liked a good story and was more than happy to sink into it. She liked thinking about the way the puzzle pieces fit together. These different families and this small town, where everybody knew everything about everyone, their parents, and their grandparents too.

This was also true when it came to reading books. She’d definitely clocked the little bookstore up there by the lodge, looking adorable in its own tiny little cabin with an Airstream pulled up beside it sporting the same store branding, like the bookshop took to the road sometimes. If she really did stay here for the full month, she was going to have to go poke around up there.

When he got back to the turnoff to the lighthouse, and drove them up that slippery road more easily than she had last night, Ruthie was feeling pretty good. All things considered.

Or maybe what she meant by that was that she felt ridiculously comfortable in this man’s presence, and that was weird. Objectively, it was weird. But if she thought about it, even though he’d been awkward and grumpy last night, she hadn’t tried to push furniture in front of the door to her room to make sure she was safe in this remote place with a strange man.

Quite the opposite. She’d walked around an empty inn with him and hadn’t had even a stray thought about her own safety.

If she really needed proof that this man was who he said he was to her, she thought it was probably that. Because she couldn’t imagine how else her body would simply fail to react to him like he was a danger to her otherwise.

Because it should have. She should have been wary, at the very least.

She didn’t know why this was only now occurring to her.

They walked into the lighthouse together and she couldn’t believe how different it seemed to her now. How much had shifted since she’d arrived here last night, because the space looked the same—as charming as she’d found it last night.

In the lobby, she took off her boots that were wet from the snow and peeled her way out of all her external garments. Dallas did the same, and then he nodded over toward those couches where he’d been sitting the night before. They were a cozy, deep leather that felt soft beneath her, not slippery, and she curled herself up in one. He tended to the fireplace, muttered something about being right back, and left her there.

Ruthie blew out a long, slow breath, and let the warmth of the fire dance all over her. And now that she thought about it, she couldn’t think of anything else. She really did feel comfortable here. Entirely too relaxed for someone who was about to discuss the end of a marriage with a person she hadn’t known existed yesterday, but now trusted.

When he came back in, she found herself looking for signs of stress and upset on his face, and in the way he held his body. The things a person looked for in someone they knew.

But when he sat down across from her, and set a box on the table in between them, she had another thought. “What exactly did you think was going on last night?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I walked in here, you recognized me immediately, and I… I didn’t recognize you. Did you know I didn’t recognize you?”

“I didn’t know you didn’t recognize me,” he said, his voice going tense again. “I thought you knew exactly who I was.”

“So what did you think I was doing?”

“Punishing me, Ruthie.” He said that…not bitterly, but there was something painful there even so. “I thought you were playing a game, because it hurt. And you have reason enough to do it, so I figured I’d play along with you. It wasn’t until you introduced yourself that I realized you weren’t playing.”

“What kind of game is that?” She frowned at him. “Is that who I am as a person? I play weird little games and pretend not to know people?”

“I don’t know.” His blue gaze was heavy. Intense. “I don’t know who you are now. I haven’t seen you in eight years.”

“I just think it’s a very bizarre sort of game, because what would I get out of it? What’s the point?”

“Turns out, you have amnesia,” he gritted out. “So there’s no need to worry about what kind of person you are. Unless you mean a person with no memory.”

“You thought I was that person, Dallas. Your experience of showing me around and up to that room was me being an asshole.” She tipped her head to one side as she sat there. “You could just say that.”

But he didn’t. She watched his jaw flex. And she knew, somehow, that he would hurt himself before he would say a bad word about her. She couldn’t understand why. They’d been separated for longer than they were together. Surely he should have some thoughts on what she’d done to help make that happen.

Dallas didn’t seem to notice the way she was looking at him. He took the lid off of that box and then he started pulling out the items from inside it.