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“I already told you…” he began.

“I understand,” she said instead, so he would never know how he might have finished that sentence. “Really, I do. I want to apologize. I don’t want to put you in a position like that. I feel…” Her mouth curved slightly. “I don’t know. Terrible, I guess. That I can’t remember and that only you can. It feels unfair all around.”

That surprised him. It surprised him so much that his throat felt tight. So much that all he could do was nod.

She swallowed. “And I want to thank you. Your family is so lovely. So welcoming, when this is such a strange situation. And when I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my family could never have handled it like that. There’s no way. There would have been scenes upon scenes. Shouting, screaming, accusations flying in every direction. I don’t think I knew that a family situation like that could be anything but fraught with peril.” Ruthie smiled up at him. “So really, thank you.”

“Funnily enough,” he found himself telling her, for reasons he couldn’t have said, “that’s kind of what you said last time, too.”

She liked that. “Did I really?”

“You did. I was mad at everything and you were the voice of reason. You thought Tennessee was sweet, though maybe didn’t know how to express it, when I just thought he was controlling. You thought my mom was a little lost, which she was. She was coming out of it, then, but things weren’t great. And you loved my sister.” He didn’t know why he was telling her any of this, but he couldn’t seem to stop. “You loved Cowboy Point, too. You said you’d always wanted to go to Montana and it exceeded all expectations.”

“Doesn’t everyone want to go to Montana?” She tipped her head back, and even though he was still wearing his coat, he was sure that he could feel the heat of her hands, pressing against his chest. “Big sky, Rocky Mountains, cowboys everywhere. It’s a dream come true.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” Dallas told her, though he made himself step back as he said it. He made himself disengage. He wasn’t sure he could, but he did it. “I’m sorry about what happened to you.”

“I don’t need you to be sorry for me, Dallas.” Ruthie watched him back away, slipping her hands into the pockets of her parka. “For one thing, there’s nothing that I can do about it. I don’t remember what I don’t remember. Sometimes I think that’s helpful. Other times, I really do wish that I could just flip a switch and get my memories back.” She shrugged, like it didn’t matter, but he was starting to doubt those shrugs. “Either way, I found my way here. That has to mean something, doesn’t it?”

“It means my mom likes to meddle.”

He’d thought about bringing up the postcard with Jenny earlier. But they’d brought out those board games. And everyone had been having such a nice time. He couldn’t really see himself flipping over the table to accuse Jenny—and probably Peyton, too, since they were thick as thieves—of meddling deep and hard in his life.

More to the point, it wasn’t like he was angry about the fact that Ruthie was here. He wasn’t angry at all. This was, as far as he could tell, the best thing that had happened to him since he left Georgia.

So what was he going to yell at his mother about?

“I think it’s a good thing,” Ruthie said, like she was reading his mind. “Maybe you and I can get to know each other without all the distractions from before.”

“What distractions?”

“I don’t know. Your Army career. The whole insatiable thing.” She looked uncertain, and he thought he might actually melt. “Maybe you and I should figure out how to be friends.”

And somehow she was right. Again. She couldn’t even remember what their dynamic had been like, and she still called it out. Just like that.

They hadn’t really been friends. They’d never even fought. Their entire connection had been so physical, and so overwhelmingly hot, that it was the only thing they’d focused on. And they’d spent so much time in bed, turning each other inside out and taking each other apart, that he was pretty sure they had started to think of that as their own, separate language.

Which was all fine and good, he supposed. But not if it was the only language.

“Friends,” he agreed, and shoved his hands in his pockets too, so he wouldn’t be tempted to reach out for her. Because friends didn’t do that. Friends had boundaries. Friends kept their distance and their hands to themselves. “I’m looking forward to figuring out how to be your friend, Ruthie.”

“I’m looking forward to that too, Dallas,” she said, in that same, hushed voice that he’d used.

Then she smiled at him, her eyes bright and filled with too much gold and green and deep blue secrets that he wanted to uncover. And she was still so pretty it hurt. It would be the easiest thing in the world to move close to her now. Give her a hug and call it friendship, maybe. Hold her a little too long. Take a deep breath so he could smell her hair, and notice, once again, how perfectly they fit together.

But he wasn’t doing any of that. They weren’t going down that road. Not when only one of them remembered what that road looked like. So he kept moving away from her, and he smiled as he did it, so it didn’t sting. And then he turned and kept walking away, leaving Ruthie standing there looking after him—

He couldn’t dwell on that. He kept going.

Dallas forced himself to walk all the way into his own little house and shut the door behind him. Then he very seriously considered chaining himself to his own bed, so he wouldn’t accidentally sleepwalk his way to her in the middle of the night.

But that ended up being a non-issue, because he didn’t really sleep.

He stayed awake through the night, staring at his own ceiling and counting exactly how many steps it would take him from his bed to hers, then reminding himself why he wasn’t going to do that.

Again and again and again.

Hoping it might take.