It wasn’t quite that simple, Jack mused. He’d been fixing up the house as a surprise for Tammy. He’d bought a diamond ring and staged his proposal in front of the newly rebuilt rock fireplace in the front room, but when Tammy had realized that he’d meant for them to live there, she’d laughed at him.
“I’m not going to stay around here any longer than I have to,” she’d said. “Just tell your mother that you want your inheritance now, and let’s go someplace fun.”
Shocked, he’d informed her that he would never leave the ranch, at which point Tammy had declared that he could keep his ring. She’d been seeing the trucker all along, it seemed, and the guy had promised to take her somewhere exciting, someplace where “cowboys and cows were not the be all and end all.” She’d left him that day saying that she’d wasted enough time on him.
“No wonder Jack wants no part of love,” Maddie observed.
“I don’t know,” Violet said, staring down at his phone. “Maybe he’s ready to move on, after all.”
A picture of the girl in the hospital bed suddenly shimmered through Jack’s mind. He saw her beautiful eyes open, her gaze flicking around the room and coming to rest on him. She had smiled slightly, as if she’d recognized him. He’d had to restrain himself from stepping forward to touch her. Every protective instinct he possessed had risen to the fore, and he couldn’t have stopped himself from trying to reassure her.
He recalled the moment when she’d realized that she’d lost her memory. The panic and horror in her eyes had pierced him. He’d wanted to wrap her in his arms and promise her that all would be well. He’d never felt that way toward Tammy or any other woman outside of his mom and Violet.
Chills ran down Jack’s spine. He shifted away from the door frame and stepped back. What was he thinking? What was Violet thinking? Just because he felt a little protective toward an injured woman and had taken a picture of her for the local police, that didn’t mean he was interested in her personally. No way. Even if the woman hadn’t been in dire straits, the timing couldn’t have been worse. With his mom in a coma and all this upheaval in the family, romance was simply out of the question.
“We don’t know anything about this woman,” he heard Maddie caution. Jack snorted. No one knew anything about this woman. She didn’t even know anything about herself! “We need to pray about this,” Maddie added.
Sounded like good advice to Jack, very good advice. He’d pray for the mysterious young woman in the wedding veil and blue jeans and ask the Lord to meet her needs before the Colbys had to step in. That would be one problem solved, at least. The rest would resolve in time. Or not. He truly wasn’t sure that he even cared anymore.
Did it really matter why Belle and Brian had split up the family, including two sets of twins? His mother had been determined to keep the secret, and he should have let her. He shouldn’t have insisted that she tell him why they had no contact with any extended family. If he’d let it alone then, his mom might not be lying in that hospital bed now. As far as he was concerned, the whole matter should just be dropped.
Turning, he went to clean up before Lupita could catch him eavesdropping.
* * *
Sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, she curled one leg beneath her and smiled at the fashion dolls “walking” across the coverlet in the hands of little Emily Wilmon, the only other patient in the dormitory.
“I think you look like a Julia,” the child said, as if amnesia was some sort of game.
“Julia?” She laughed, shaking her blond head. “Why do you think that’s my name?”
Emily looked at the male doll in her left hand and changed her mind. “Kenna!” she decided. “I want your name to be Kenna!”
Struck by how right that sounded, she sucked in a deep breath, murmuring, “Kendra, maybe?”
“Yeah, Kendra.” Emily beamed.
“Who is Kendra?”
The husky, masculine voice shivered through her with welcome familiarity. She looked up to find Jack Colby standing in the break between the curtains surrounding her bed. Hatless, his rich brown hair fell forward haphazardly, giving him a sweetly boyish air. Much as the day before, he wore scuffed brown boots, comfortable jeans, a utilitarian belt with a palm-size buckle engraved with the initials J. C. and a long-sleeved shirt. He held that disreputable, sweat-stained straw hat in his hands. Only the shirt seemed to have changed. The faded but sunny gold of this one made his light brown eyes glow.
“I guess Kendra is me for the time being,” she told him, winking at Emily. “Seems as good a name as any.”
“So still no memories?” he asked casually, stepping closer.
“Obviously I remember how to speak and how to walk and how to brush my hair, but I can’t recall a thing about me personally.” She shook her head. “It’s as if yesterday was the first day of my life.”
Nurse Hamm had graciously laundered her clothing the previous night, so she had been happy to change out of the hospital gown and into her own things that morning. The dark jeans, pale yellow T-shirt and white athletic shoes felt familiar and safe, but she couldn’t recall purchasing them. Were they favorite items or merely garments to wear? She just did not know.
“Met George outside,” Jack stated offhandedly.
George Cole had been by earlier to tell her that he hadn’t found any reports of a missing person or vehicle that matched the descriptions he’d put out county-wide, so he was broadening the scope of his search. Meanwhile, she was not to leave the area. As if she could do so on foot without a penny to her name.
“He’s, um, running the Vehicle Identification Number on the car and contacting police departments within the odometer range.”
Jack nodded. “So he said. Since no one within the mileage on the odometer of the car seems to know you, he’s searching the state database for the VIN.”
“What if it’s not there?”
“I don’t know,” Jack said. “I guess the car would have to be from out of state. Could’ve been brought in by a new-car dealer.”
“A new-car dealer,” she murmured, feeling uneasy.
“What?” Jack asked.
She searched her mind for some reason to explain her feeling but found nothing, so she shook her head. “I don’t even remember the car, let alone where I got it.”
The curtain slid back, and Dr. Garth entered the space. “Emily,” he said, taking the child by the shoulders and bodily turning her, “you’re supposed to be in bed. Nurse Hamm has medicine for you, and your mom’s off work now. She’ll be here any minute. Scoot.”
Uncowed, Emily tucked her dolls into the curve of one arm and waved. “Bye, Kendra!”
“Bye, sweetie.”
“Kendra?” Dr. Garth asked, sliding his hands into the pockets of his white lab coat.
“Emily named me after her boy doll.”
“Ah. The amnesia hasn’t alleviated, then?”
She shook her head, sighing. “No.”
Jack Colby chuckled, watching Emily scamper across the room to her own bed. “Could’ve been worse,” he noted drily. “I can think of a few toys and cartoon characters I wouldn’t want to be named after.”
“Kendra” shared a wan smile with him. It was true that she preferred that moniker to a number of other possibilities, but what she wouldn’t give to merely know her own