Until Spring (19 page)

Wool, spinning wheels, warp and woof. What did they all mean? What relation did they have to her past life? All she knew was that she wanted to encourage more such knowledge to unfold from her subconscious. Maybe it was the key to the person she had once been.

That night she asked Duncan about the wool in the closet.

"Oh, we've been collecting llama wool as long as we've had llamas, which means that there's many years' accumulation of it. Most of it is in bags, but Mary Kate got in there one day and opened several of them, leaving the wool strewn about. You're welcome to all of it, if you like."

"I need a spinning wheel, Duncan," she said.

"A spinning wheel?" he said with some surprise.

"So I can spin the wool into yarn. Don't ask me how I know how to do it. I just do."

Duncan regarded her with a smile and more interest than he'd shown in a week. "A spinning wheel, huh? Well, what do you know."

"Do you have any idea where I can get one? Are there any catalogs around where I might be able to order it?"

"I'll see about it," was all Duncan would say.

Duncan left the ranch before she woke the next morning and didn't leave a note to let her know when he'd be back. She ate a solitary breakfast, but by the time she was loading her dishes into the dishwasher, she heard the SUV coming down the driveway.

She stood at the door and watched wide-eyed as Duncan opened the back doors of the SUV and unloaded a spinning wheel.

"Where did you get it?" Jane asked, wearing a big smile as he brought it in and set it down in front of the fireplace.

"Friend of mine in Durkee has a little junk shop. I recalled spotting this in there one day and wondering who in the world used spinning wheels anymore. Now I know." There was laughter in his eyes.

Jane tentatively approached the spinning wheel. It was dusty, but the drive cord was taut and no parts were missing.

"Are you sure you know what to do with this thing?" Duncan asked skeptically.

"Yes, oh yes," she said happily. "I just don't know how to thank you."

"I guess none of those characters on the soap operas you've watched have ever been given a spinning wheel, right?" He was laughing at her now, and in a new spirit of fun, she chased him out of the house, returning to gaze at the spinning wheel for a long moment before she went to get the llama wool that she had spent last night laboriously picking and cleaning in preparation for the day when she would spin it into yarn.

It felt strange but familiar to sit at the old wheel and begin the rhythm of twisting and drawing out the wool as she pedaled with her foot. She worked tentatively at first, but as yarn coiled on the bobbin, she became more confident. By the time Duncan appeared for dinner, she had spun a skein of lovely brown yarn.

After that she spun every day, feeling more at ease with the spinning process as time went on.
I wish I had a skein winder,
she thought to herself, then wondered,
How do I even know what a skein winder is?
But she
did
know that a skein winder could be attached to the spinning wheel for the purpose of skeining up the wool she was spinning. It was just another example of random memory, and it frustrated her with its hint of her unknown past.

Later that week as she sat spinning, Duncan, who had started staying home in the evening hours, said, "You look so contented when you work at that."

She smiled at him. "I feel good when I'm spinning. I don't know how it figures into the life I once lived, but I'm sure it was a skill that was important to me. Here, Duncan, hold your hands up. I want to wind this yarn around them."

Duncan complied, his eyes never leaving her face as she swayed from side to side, wrapping the wool around his outstretched hands.

"You know," she said, "I don't think that going to California is going to be enough. I think I want something more, something else."

"Such as what?" Duncan asked in surprise.

She divested his hands of the wool and wrapped the skein carefully in tissue paper. She took her time in answering. "I don't think I can start a new life until I know who I was. Who I
am."

"You said that no one could find out anything about you after they found you in the ditch," he reminded her. "They checked police reports, missing person reports, newspaper accounts, everything. Didn't they?"

"Yes, but at the time I had to leave the search up to others because I was too ill to work on it myself. Now that I'm feeling stronger, I'd like to attempt to figure out where I came from, where I lived, what I did for a living." Her face became dreamy. "I try to see myself in a house somewhere, sitting at a desk balancing a checkbook, perhaps, or walking my dog. Do you suppose I had a dog? And if I did, where would he be now? I've got to find out my true identity, Duncan." She wrapped her arms around her knees and pensively rested her chin on top of them.

"Why is this so important all of a sudden?"

"I keep learning things about myself, suddenly realizing that I know how to use a spinning wheel, for instance. I've come to hope that eventually I might remember who I am, but what if that happens when I'm in the middle of a new life? What if I were suddenly to regain my memory and realize that I've got a husband and a couple of kids someplace? Wouldn't I have to go back to them?"

"I don't know," Duncan said, keeping his eyes focused on her face. He wasn't sure what to say.

"You've always understood before," Jane said urgently. "Don't you see why I need to know?"

For the first time since she'd known him, Duncan seemed unnerved.

"Well?" she prodded gently, wanting his blessing and needing his help.

"I suppose you're right," he said, but his features had become strained and taut, and a muscle in his eyelid twitched.

"Help me," she said in a pleading voice. "You will, won't you?"

He turned to her, and for a brief moment bewilderment flickered in his eyes. He overcame it quickly. "If that's what you really want," he said slowly.

"I think it is," Jane said. "I know it is."

"Then that's what we'll do," Duncan said, but he looked less than enthusiastic.

"What's wrong? Don't you like the idea?"

"In some ways," he said.

"What does that mean?"

He shrugged, and his eyes burned into hers. "You might not like what you find," he said.

She stared at him, then managed a smile. "I'll have to take my chances, I guess."

"Why not leave well enough alone, Jane?"

She thought about it and said, "I'm more afraid of not knowing than of knowing."

"They say that what you don't know can't hurt you," Duncan offered.

"What you don't know certainly can hurt you, especially if it rears its ugly head at an inopportune time," Jane retorted. She softened her tone when he drew his lips into a tight line. "Anyway, I'd love to find out that I have a family—mother, father, brothers and sisters. I feel so—so alone in the world," she said with an embarrassed half laugh.

"You have us," he said, encompassing the ranch with a gesture. "You have me, Mary Kate and Rooney."

She was glad he considered her part of their close-knit little group, and her heart warmed to him. "Mary Kate and Rooney—I don't know them as well as I know you," she said slowly. "But you—you've been wonderful to me, Duncan. My own brother couldn't have been more decent."

"On that, I think I'll call it quits for the evening. Good night, Jane," he said gruffly. He stood up, put on his coat and headed toward Rooney's.

She had said something wrong. But what? That she wanted to find out who she really was? Or was it her comment that he had been as kind to her as a brother would have been? She had meant it only as a compliment.

Anyway, why wouldn't he be pleased that she thought of him as a brother? They were both really alone in the world. She had no known relatives, and he had none living. Was it only that he had trouble thinking of her as a sister? Did he think that she was being overly familiar in even suggesting that they had a brother-sister kind of relationship? Or was it only that he had never considered how comforting it would be to have siblings that he could depend on when he needed someone?

Okay, so she wouldn't say anything like that again. She felt that she had overstepped her bounds, or failed him in some indefinable way, or—oh, what was the use?

Feeling vaguely troubled and unsure of her ground, she gathered her skeins of yarn and went upstairs to bed.

Chapter 10

A brother. She thought of him as a brother, for Pete's sake. It was not an auspicious sign.

What would it take to show her that he cared for her in a way that was anything but brotherly? How could he get that point across without scaring her half to death?

Her emotions were still raw, and she admitted that she was wary of men. Still, he thought she had learned to trust him. No, he
knew
it. So it must be something else that made her hold back.

He studied himself in the mirror the next morning while shaving. Was he physically attractive enough to appeal to her? He'd never had any complaints in that department before, but his face was more weathered now than it had been when he was in his twenties, and there were deep lines around his eyes. He had all his own teeth, and his hair wasn't receding yet. No beer belly; the work around the ranch kept him in shape.

He tried parting his hair on the other side, but he didn't think the change made any appreciable difference in his looks, so he parted it again the way he always had. He swished mouthwash around his mouth, just in case. No sense in taking chances.

When he went downstairs, she smiled at him while she was taking eggs out of the carton, and, acting as normally as he could, he found a package of bacon in the refrigerator and stuck it into the microwave so that the slices would separate more easily.

"Good morning, Duncan," Jane said serenely.

"Morning," he replied as he laid the bacon slices in a pan and shoved it back into the microwave to cook.

They sat down at the table when the eggs were ready, and Jane asked, "How am I doing on the eggs?"

"Just the way I like them," he told her, and it was true, too. "How am I doing on the bacon?"

She munched on a piece, holding it daintily between thumb and forefinger. "Exactly crisp enough," she said.

They went on eating, and Duncan wondered if this spirit of cooperation between them was the problem. Was it possible to be too compatible? It might be better if they didn't get along so well. Still, he couldn't imagine having a squabble with Jane. They always talked everything out, which was the way it was supposed to be—but it certainly hadn't been that way with Sigrid.

"I've been thinking," Jane said carefully before they got up from the breakfast table, "about going back to Illinois. To talk to the people who found me." She watched him, waiting for his reaction.

This was mainly one of dismay, although he didn't want her to know that. "Have you been thinking about this long?" he asked.

"The idea seemed to be in my head when I woke up this morning," she admitted with a little laugh. "It's become a possibility since I've found out that I might be able to sell my llama yarn."

"How did you find that out?"

"I was looking through one of those magazines you get from the llama breeding association, and I found an article about llama owners who sell and use the wool for knitting, crocheting and weaving. In the classifieds there was an ad placed by a woman who wants to buy yarn, so I phoned her. She wants to see samples. I'll have my own income if she buys some." Jane's eyes were shining.

"You mean you'd use the money you make to pay for a trip back to Illinois?"

"Yes," Jane said. "I'll pay you back what I owe you, don't worry. I can travel cheaply and—"

"Forget about the money. What about our bargain? You promised you'd stay until the cold weather's over," he said gruffly.

"I'm well now, and I'd only be gone a week or two. I'll come back, Duncan. I promised you I'd stay."

He couldn't share her pleasure in this idea, and he didn't want her to go. He was still concerned about her health, and for reasons that he recognized as purely selfish, he didn't want her to leave the ranch. Such a journey would remove her from his sphere of influence.