LITMIR.BIZ

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Falls. She’d been traveling in the wrong direction for her destination to have been Amarillo, Dimmitt or Muleshoe.

      When they got to the gas station, which was also a convenience store and mechanic’s shop, Jack pulled around back. As he suspected, the car had been left unlocked. He found the remote trunk latch inside and popped it.

      “Nothing,” Kendra announced, sounding deeply disappointed.

      Jack reached into the backseat and grabbed the veil to show her. “There’s this.”

      “This was in the car?” she asked with a frown as she reluctantly took the long, sheer piece of lace-edged fabric into her hand.

      “You were wearing it when I found you.”

      Her jaw dropped as the gossamer material filtered out of her hand and wafted on the breeze. “Wearing it?” She stared at the wide, satin-covered headband to which the fabric was anchored, then looked down at her jeans and athletic shoes. “I don’t understand.”

      “Well, that makes two of us. Maybe you were running from your wedding.”

      “Why would I do that?” she demanded.

      Jack shook his head. “Don’t know. You aren’t wearing an engagement ring.”

      She checked her left hand, verifying the truth of his statement. “I’m so confused.”

      “You don’t recognize the car, even?”

      Walking slowly around the driver’s side of the bright red coupe, she shook her head, but when she came to the front, she stopped and stared at the crumpled bumper.

      “Was I in the backseat?” she asked after a moment.

      “No. You were driving.”

      Her eyes grew wide. “No! I—I remember being in the backseat! And there were other people in the car.”

      “Not this car,” Jack stated firmly. “You were alone, behind the wheel and wearing that veil when I got to you.” He pointed to the fabric now crumpled in her arms.

      “Maybe they ran away before you got there,” she proposed.

      “No way. I arrived right after the crash. Besides, the car was suspended over a ditch. No one could have gotten out of this car without help. Doc had to make a bridge from a ladder and planks to get to you.”

      She gulped. “But I had this flash of... I could see the backs of their heads, and the car was sliding so fast.”

      “Could be you imagined it,” he surmised, “or maybe it’s a memory of another accident. Think back. Who are these people you remember?”

      Frowning, she seemed to turn her gaze inward. After a moment, she shook her head. “I don’t know. It was just a flash. Two people in the front seat and me in the back.” Her face screwed up with the effort to remember. “There’s nothing else. Nothing.”

      She looked so helpless that he had to quell the urge to slip a comforting arm around her. Instead, he said, “We ought to get on our way. Lupita will have supper ready soon.”

      “Lupita?” she asked in a dull voice.

      “Our housekeeper and cook.”

      “Hmm.”

      She barely seemed to notice that he turned her toward his truck and opened the truck door for her. He had to take her by the arm and all but lift her up into the seat.

      “You’ve been very kind,” she said suddenly, fixing those hazel eyes on him.

      He felt like he was staring straight into her frightened soul. Then her thick brown lashes fluttered down, masking her fear.

      Shaken, he once again moved around the truck and got into the driver’s seat. He told himself as they drove through town that he would keep his distance after he got her out to the ranch. His sisters and Lupita could take care of her, make her feel welcome. She shouldn’t be around for long, anyway. Someone was bound to be missing a woman like her. Probably a man, a fiancé, maybe.

      For some reason, the idea irritated Jack. But, then, he reasoned, everything irritated him lately.

      * * *

      Watching the storefronts pass by on the tree-lined main street, Kendra felt an odd sense of familiarity. Yet, she could not recall ever having seen any of the businesses before this moment, not the Grassland Coffee Shop or the Ranch House Bakery or the Corner Drug Store, not the Grasslands Bank or the library or the school. She stared at the Grasslands Community Church as Jack brought the truck to a brief halt at the four-way stop sign on the edge of the small-town green.

      The sanctuary was a modest building of all white, from the tip of its tall steeple to the painted concrete steps leading to the white-paneled door tucked beneath a peaked overhang. She stared, transfixed, at the stately chapel, which sat in simple splendor among the pecan trees and graveled walkways on the green lawn. Behind it stood a more modern building, and between the two lay graveled paths winding through a garden of shrubs, rosebushes and flowerbeds. A prayer garden, she surmised, judging by the white cross that rose between a pair of crepe myrtles. Kendra felt a sudden, wrenching need to kneel there and beg God to return her memories to her, but Jack had already started the truck on its way again.

      Had this, then, been her destination? But if she had been on her way to Grasslands when she’d wrecked the car, why didn’t someone here recognize her?

      She looked down at the veil in her hands and shivered. Had she been running from someone or something? But who or what?

      Did someone out there miss her, need her, want her? Or was she as alone in this world as she felt? Alone, except for the cowboy behind the steering wheel. Suddenly, Jack Colby had become her lifeline in a cold and tumultuous sea of confusion.

      * * *

      “Your ranch is farther from town than I thought,” Kendra remarked.

      Jack cocked a shoulder in a truncated shrug. “It’s a big ranch.”

      “I see.”

      A big ranch apparently required a big gate, for they soon came upon one. Slowing the truck, Jack turned it between the square, head-high rock columns and guided it over the cattle guard beneath the metal arch with a circle at its apex. Inside the circle, three Cs intertwined.

      “Is that your brand?” she asked, referring to the letters inside the circle above their heads.

      “Yep. The three Cs are for my mom, me and my sister, Violet.”

      “I thought I heard you say ‘sisters,’ plural.”

      “Uh-huh. The other is Maddie.”

      “But she’s not part of the ranch?”

      Jack shifted in his seat. “Well, she lives here,” he said vaguely.

      Kendra wanted to ask why the brand didn’t have four Cs then, but she decided to keep her comments to herself as the truck accelerated along the straight, graveled drive, barbed wire flanking it on both sides.

      A number of structures came into view. First, a corral built of metal pipe on the left. Straight ahead stood a magnificent two-story house constructed of native stone and brown brick. All graceful arches and mullioned windows with a porch across the front, it sat surrounded by mature trees and a wrought-iron fence. Behind it stood a number of cottages, some in better shape than others, several sheds and a large metal barn sprouting corrals and pens on both sides. Sand-colored with a green roof, the barn drew Kendra’s eye. She felt an odd yearning and wondered what animals resided within.

      “I see that you keep horses in the barn,” she ventured eagerly.

      Jack nodded. “Personal stock, mostly.”

      “Cows, too, I imagine.”

      He gave her an odd look. “Two at the moment, an ailing calf and a late springer.”

      A

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