Scorching hot tears filled Ellie’s eyes. “You all knew? This whole time, everyone knew but me.”
Liz shifted awkwardly on her feet. “I can see this is a family affair, so I’ll just be—”
“Did you know, too?” Ellie asked, turning on the woman she had once thought her friend. “Is that why you pushed me so hard toward Landon?”
Liz’s hesitation was the only answer she needed.
“You listened to me go on and on about the mystery man in my dreams and you never said a word.”
“I’m sorry,” Liz said, wrapping her arms around Ellie’s heaving body.
“No!” Ellie cried, shaking her off. “You lied to me at every turn. You don’t get to be my friend now.”
Liz nodded and walked away, leaving Ellie with the others.
Marshall attempted to speak to her next. “So it wasn’t me?” he asked, his voice as broken as her heart felt.
Now Ellie was the one who needed to apologize. “I’m so sorry. If I’d known, I would have never let it go this far. I would have never led you on.”
“I understand,” he said, taking on a dejected air. “I’m sorry, too. I wish I could have been enough. Then or now.”
“I didn’t know for sure,” her mother said, hanging back as she spoke to Ellie. “When you broke up with Landon, you cried for weeks. You wouldn’t even come out of your room half the time. You became a whole different person. But then you met Marshall and things seemed to get better. I had hoped he really was the one in your dreams.”
“Why did we break up?” she asked Landon. She remembered now, but she needed to hear it from him.
“I asked you to choose,” he said in a shaky voice. “Between your modeling and me. I knew your heart wasn’t in it, and I thought perhaps you would see if…”
“But you made the right choice, Ellie,” her mother interjected. “You chose your future, the long picture.”
“You never liked him,” Ellie said accusingly. “You wanted us to break up from the start.”
“Well, of course I didn’t like him! You’re so much like me, and he reminded me so much of your father. Look how that turned out.”
Ellie ran into her father’s outstretched arms, not wanting to hear a single word more but knowing that it would be worse if she turned away. Her whole world had just been torn apart, and now she didn’t even know what to believe or who to trust.
“Ellie…” Her father’s gentle voice sent a new wave of fear crashing into her.
“You knew, too?” she asked, pulling away as if she’d been burned.
Her father nodded slowly as if his head was almost too heavy for his neck to support. “Landon came to the hospital while you were still asleep. Your mother hadn’t arrived yet, so it was just the two of us. Gave us a chance to talk. Right away, I knew the only two things I ever needed to know—that he was a good man and he loved you.
“He told me about Memory Ranch and how he thought it was the best place for you,” Landon added, taking a nervous step forward. “And I asked if it would be okay for me to go and keep an eye on you.”
“I knew you needed a friend, someone who would love and care for you even when you were at your worst,” her father finished.
“But why keep things a secret? Why not just tell me who you were?” Ellie asked, still in disbelief.
“I didn’t want to overwhelm you or trick you into feeling something that might not be there anymore.”
“So you lied?”
“I wanted to tell you so many times, especially when…”
“When what?” Ellie demanded.
“I began to fall in love with you all over again.” He took another step toward her, but Ellie refused to fall into his arms, especially when everything they’d built here on the ranch was based on this giant lie.
“Ellie, wait. Let us explain.” Her father reached out for her again, but she jerked out of his arms.
“I think I’ve heard enough. Thanks. And now that my memories are coming back, I won’t fall for anymore of your lies or games or whatever all this was.”
Her stomach churned as she fought the pain ripping through her. Landon was the man from her dreams. He was the man she’d loved before. And all along, he’d known yet chose not to say anything to her.
Landon closed the distance between them, then reached for her arm.
Ellie spun around and shoved him away as hard as she could. All the anger and frustration of the past few months came out. “Let go of me. Don’t ever touch me again.”
“Ellie, please,” he begged.
But she refused to let herself be swayed by the pain in his voice. Instead, she left them all standing there as she raced toward the corral.
“Miss, what’s the matter?” Howard asked from where he stood petting Penny.
Ellie’s heart softened at seeing the old man and the sweet horse. They’d been the only ones who hadn’t known the truth, hadn’t deceived her. And now they’d be the ones to help her escape this horrible waking nightmare.
Without giving it a second thought, Ellie grabbed the reins from Howard’s hands. And before he had a chance to react, she flung her leg over Penny’s back and kicked in her heels.
“Ellie, no! She’s not ready!” he cried.
But she just didn’t care. She needed to get away from everyone, and she trusted Penny to help her. Leaning low, she whispered to Penny, “Get us away from here, Penny. I know you won’t hurt me.”
The strong horse raced across the open pasture, finally free to let herself run without any restraint. It was almost as if they were flying. The sky ahead was still partially lit, outlining the trees and mountains as they sped over the ground. Penny seemed to sense her urgency and wasn’t holding back, her hooves pounding the ground beneath them.
As they came into a clearing in the trees, Ellie pulled back, slowing the horse. Even in her distress, she knew that Penny needed to proceed carefully. The horse hadn’t had a good run for a while, and Ellie would feel terrible if anything happened to her. Penny’s sides heaved with every breath. She’d done a good job.
And now Ellie was far enough away to have a space all to herself, a space where she could think. She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around the horse’s neck. “Thank you, Penny.”
She closed her eyes and let the tears fall, dropping onto the horse’s mane. She let all of the hurt out while trying to make sense of the memories that played on loop through her mind. When she felt strong enough to try standing on her own two feet, Ellie shed the last of her tears, patted the horse on its neck, and dismounted. She then led Penny over to the creek to get a drink before taking a seat for herself under a large tree across the way.
Penny lifted her head from drinking as the steady beat of hooves approached. Ellie just sat back and waited. She knew Landon wouldn’t just let her ride away without at least attempting to come after her. Thankfully she’d had a chance to get all of her tears out, which eased the awkwardness of the situation somewhat.
Landon and Buddy raced into the clearing, pulling to a fast stop when they spotted Ellie.
Penny whinnied uneasily at the intrusion.
Landon ran over and crouched down before her, hurt also reflected in his normally bright eyes. “Ellie, are you all right?”
She shrugged noncommittally. “Depends on what you mean. If you’re asking if Penny hurt me, then no. Penny is just about the only one I can honestly say hasn’t hurt me today.”
He looked at her with his brows pulled together. “So she didn’t throw you?”
After pulling her knees up in front of her, she wrapped her arms around them and looked away from him. “No.”
He sat down beside her, close but not close enough to touch. Good.
“Ellie, I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I know I should have been honest with you, but how? You’d already left me once and told me you didn’t want anything to do with me going forward.”
She looked back at him incredulously. “So you thought it was okay to go against my wishes just because I couldn’t remember them? That it was okay to swoop back in and try to trick me into falling in love with you?”
He shook his head, the glimmer of a tear reflected in the setting sun. “No, I came to help you get better—nothing more. I came to the hospital after I heard about your accident even though I was sure you’d never agree to see me. When I met up with your father in the waiting room, we got talking and he told me about your memory being gone. After talking for a bit, we decided the best thing for you would be to let your memories come back on their own, without pushing you too hard. He mentioned this ranch and asked if I’d be willing to come here and make sure you were taken care of. I couldn’t refuse, Ellie.”
“Yeah, you guys already told me that. What you didn’t tell me is why you couldn’t have just told him it was a ridiculous idea and left me alone.”
He fixed his gaze on her, not even trying to hide the tears that had formed. “Ellie, do you honestly have to ask me that? Especially now that your memories are coming back? You know how much I’ve always loved you.”
Her voice came out cold and disjointed. “It seems if you loved me so much, you would have respected my wishes.”
He clenched his jaw tight, not moving a muscle. “I did it because I wanted you to heal. I wanted you to have your life back. No matter what happened between us before, Ellie, all I’ve ever wanted was for you to be happy. And you’d already made it very clear that would never happen with me. I wasn’t foolish enough to believe you’d change your mind when you remembered everything.”
He looked past her to watch Penny grazing along the bank. “What I hadn’t expected was to fall in love with you all over again. When I saw what was happening, I made a plan to tell you the truth. But then Marshall showed up and I just didn’t know anymore.”
“You didn’t know if you loved me?” she squeaked, hating the desperation she felt in that moment.
“No, Ellie. That’s the one thing I always knew for sure.”
Ellie didn’t trust herself to speak as she watched Landon run through the gamut of emotions. She remembered now, remembered when she’d first met him almost two years ago.
A new ranch had opened up just outside the city, and Ellie jumped at the chance to go and rekindle the love she’d once shared with her father. Landon had started working there and they’d ended up riding together a lot. Over time, they’d fallen in love and she remembered how her mother had reacted when she’d found out. She’d been livid and had insisted a simple cowboy without a steady job couldn’t give her the kind of life she deserved. She’d been adamant that when Ellie made it, she couldn’t have any dead weight like Landon hanging around.
Ellie had fought the pressure of her mother for a while, but eventually it wore her down and she started to believe what her mom was saying was true. She clenched her eyes shut as she remembered the moment she’d broken up with him. He’d asked her to choose between modeling and their relationship, believing the outcome would be different.
“I love you, too,” she whispered before she could stop the words from getting out. “But I can’t forgive you.”