Until Spring (5 page)

Jane opened her eyes when Duncan poked his head around the open door.

"Howard is coming as soon as he can, and Mary Kate is watching television downstairs. I'm going to go to the mine and get Rooney and see to Flapjack. Don't get up. If you want something, you can call Mary Kate. She might not come, but that's another problem. You can try her, anyway."

"Okay," she said. Her throat was hurting more and more.

Duncan seemed to have second thoughts about leaving and walked over to the bed. His look was anxious and concerned, and he pressed a hand against her forehead, leaving a cool imprint when he took it away.

"You've got a fever," he said.

"I just need a little sleep to be as good as new," she managed to say. She had no idea that he was thinking how beautiful she was beneath her pallor, and how intrigued he was with her.

"I hope you're right," was all he said, and then he was gone.

Somewhere a central heating unit clicked on and off, music to Jane's ears, and she heard the faint chatter of a television set downstairs. She slept, waking and thinking she was dreaming when she saw pretty blue and yellow-flowered draperies at the window.

This bedroom was the one she had always wanted, she mused.
Always,
she said again, reminding herself that in her case she had only wanted a room such as this one for fifteen months, the length of time that she had existed as Jane Rhodes. Before that maybe she'd slept in such a room, been part of a family, and lived in a hometown. But if she ever had, that part of her was lost, perhaps forever.

She slept again, and when she woke, a gap-toothed hoyden of a girl was hanging over the bed and blowing bubble gum breath into her face.

"Want to see me blow a bubble?" the girl asked, and without waiting for approval from Jane, she inflated a bubble only inches from Jane's nose. Jane watched spellbound as the bubble grew and grew, finally collapsing with a warm puff of carbon dioxide into a raggedy pink skin that covered the girl's nose, cheeks and chin.

Unconcerned, the girl peeled the burst bubble from her face and added the scraps of pink goo to the wad of gum already in her mouth.

"Want to blow one?" she asked. "It's a relaxing thing to do. You can use my gum. I just got it broken in good."

Jane shook her head, mesmerized nevertheless by the girl's bubble-blowing prowess.

"Well, if you ever want to, you have to use Yaya Yum Bubble Gum. It's the best, and it tastes good, too. Don't buy the grape flavor, get the regular flavor. The grape makes me want to throw up." She realistically pantomimed retching, leaning over the foot of the bed.

"You must be Mary Kate," Jane said.

"Yeah, Duncan told you about me, I guess. You're Jane. I like your cat. He doesn't care much for baths, does he?"

Jane pulled herself up onto her elbows in alarm. "You didn't bathe him?"

"Yep. Sure did. Or tried to. He scratched me. I think it was Duncan's pine-scented shampoo that he didn't like. Look at my scratch." Mary Kate thrust an arm bearing an angry red welt under Jane's nose.

"Where is he?" Jane asked with more than a little trepidation.

"The cat? Oh, he fell down the laundry chute. He's okay, though. He landed on a full basket of towels and things. I dried him off with a pillowcase, and he ran into Duncan's closet. I think he's sulking."

Jane swallowed painfully and hoped that Amos would have enough sense to stay in the closet until she was able to get up to defend him, although from the looks of the scratch on Mary Kate's arm, Amos didn't need defending.

"I like animals," Mary Kate went on. "Have you ever seen a llama?"

Jane tried to think. "No, I don't think I have," she said slowly.

"They're cute. I hadn't seen one either before I came to live with my grandfather. Then I got here and there was a whole ranch of them."

"You mean this is a
llama
ranch?" Jane's head whirled. All this time she'd thought that Duncan's ranch was of the cattle variety.

"Yeah. Duncan and Grandpa raise them. Then they sell them as pack animals or pets. I hate it when they sell one, but that's how they make a living. Quixote's my favorite male, but Dearling's my favorite female. They let me name Dearling myself. She's really small for a female, so she makes a good pet. I hope they never sell
her."

They heard a knock downstairs, and Mary Kate jumped up. "That must be Dr. Walker. I'm supposed to let him in. I won't, if you don't want me to. I
hate
doctors myself. They give shots."

"You can let him in," Jane told her, and Mary Kate ran away, her straggly black hair bouncing around her shoulders.

Howard Walker turned out to be around fifty or so. He put his medical bag on a chair beside the bed and set about examining her with sure, steady hands.

When he was through, he said, "You'll have to put ice packs on those bruises. And I'm going to bandage the cuts on your hands."

She said nothing, staring into space with her mouth clamped shut. If Howard Walker thought this was odd, he made no comment. He merely wrapped her hands in bandages, took a swab of her throat to be cultured, and wrote out a prescription.

"The prescription is for an antibiotic medicine for that throat of yours," he said, peering at her over the top of his reading glasses. "I'll give it to Duncan to have filled. Treat the bruises with ice packs, but only leave them on twenty minutes at a time. Put this ointment on the scrapes on your hands three times a day. Rest in bed until you feel better, and I'll see you in two weeks."

"Two weeks! I can't stay two weeks," she objected.

He ignored this. "I want you to eat properly. Three full meals a day, no skipping. I expect to see some roses in those cheeks next time I see you." He snapped the cap back on his pen.

"But—"

He waved the prescription in the air. "I'll give this to Duncan when I talk with him. Take care of yourself," and with that he hurried out of the room.

Jane sank back onto the pillows, pressing her fists to her hot cheeks. Two weeks! She'd planned to be in California before then. How could she stay here with Duncan all that time? He'd surely want to be rid of her.

Tears stung her eyelids. She had come so far all by herself with no help from anyone. She had made it at least halfway to California, too. She couldn't give up now.

"I'll get there yet," she whispered to herself as Amos padded into the room through the open door. When he jumped onto the bed, she made room for him in the curve of her body, taking comfort once more in his company.

* * *

"She's malnourished, she almost certainly has strep throat, she has a bad case of bronchitis, and those scrapes and bruises make her look as though somebody tossed her off a tall building. Who has she been hanging around with, King Kong?" Howard eyed Duncan balefully as he shrugged into his coat.

Duncan rubbed the back of his neck. There was a kink in it from last night. "Howard, I don't know. I found her in the old mine during the storm, and for a few minutes I thought she was a goner. Is she going to be all right?"

"I'd guess that she's no older than her mid-twenties, and her powers of recuperation are probably good. She'll be fine if she gets enough to eat and if she takes her medicine. Under no circumstances should she leave here and set out on her own. Is her name really Jane Rhodes?"

Duncan shrugged. "I doubt it," he answered.

"You'll need to get those antibiotic pills, and she must take them regularly as prescribed. If you need me, call again." Howard clapped his hat on his head and started out the door.

"Thanks, Howard," Duncan called after him. Howard threw him a salute and crunched across the snow to his car.

When the doctor had left, Duncan called Rooney and asked him to pick up the antibiotic for Jane when he went into town to buy groceries. Then he climbed the stairs and went into the bedroom where Jane lay sleeping.

The room was in shadow, the shades drawn against the weak winter sunlight. Duncan stood beside the bed, taking in the way her blond hair, fluffier now, spread out on the light blue pillowcases. Her cheeks might have been fine porcelain, so translucent were they, and the tiny hand resting on the blanket might have been that of a doll. Lavender shadows rimmed her lower eyelids, and her eyelashes were baby-fine but thick. She had turned her head to the side so that he saw her in profile. Her face was like a cameo.

He sat down on the bed beside her, wondering who she was and how she happened to be traversing the wilds of Wyoming. Despite the bedraggled hair and the quality of Little Girl Lost, she looked as though she should be gracing a drawing room in eighteenth-century England, not sheltering from a killer snowstorm in an abandoned mine.

"Jane Rhodes, who are you?" he asked softly, but she didn't answer. She didn't hear him; she was sound asleep. But even if she had heard the question, he doubted that she would have answered it. Or even could have, for that matter.

Chapter 3

Jane dreamed that night of the mine and of lying on the floor trying to get warm. This time the floor was not so hard, and she was much more aware of Duncan's arms encircling her. She awoke suddenly and shivered despite Amos's comforting presence against her side.

She eased onto her stomach, her favorite sleeping position, and dozed until Duncan came into the room shortly after dawn. She came awake suddenly, immediately defensive.

"Just wanted to see if you're awake," he said. He disappeared, and when he returned it was with a breakfast tray heaped with food. It held half a grapefruit, steaming hot coffee, corned beef hash with a poached egg in the middle, and toast dripping with butter.

"I don't think I can eat all of this," she said, clutching the bed covers tightly to her chest.

"Eat what you can, and I'll give the rest to Amos," he told her.

"I feel like I'm imposing," she said. She slid to a more comfortable sitting position before taking a bite of the hash. It was delicious. She relaxed slightly and told herself that there was no need to be wary here. Duncan Tate meant her no harm.

Duncan leaned against the dresser and folded his arms, watching her eat. "We don't get many visitors out this way. I'm glad to have somebody here to talk to."

"You live alone?" she asked, making an effort at conversation. He seemed to expect it.

He nodded. "Rooney and Mary Kate live in a smaller house down the road. Well, officially, anyway. They spend a lot of time in this house too. What did you think of Mary Kate, anyway?"

"She's lively," Jane said with great diplomacy.

Duncan laughed. "I guess that's one way to put it. Actually, I think she's a terror, and so does everyone else who has ever met her. She's lived with Rooney a little over two years and every day she gets worse. Last week she came over here when I was out and decided to wash all my jeans, and she used hot water. They shrank to the point that I can't wear most of them." He laughed again.

"I'm sure she meant well," ventured Jane.

"If you can stand it, I'll have Mary Kate come over again this morning. She can refill your ice packs and get you glasses of water and stuff like that. I don't like leaving you alone, but I've got some things to do in the barn."

"Doesn't she go to school?"

"The schools are having a week's holiday—something to do with the end of the semester. She'll be over in an hour or so."

"Mary Kate told me that this is a llama ranch."

"It is. The finest in the world, we like to think."

"Are the llamas here? I mean, can I see them?"

"You'll see them eventually."

"Mary Kate says they're like camels."

He grinned, but seemed pleased that she was interested. "Llamas are camelids, part of the same family as camels and vicuña and alpacas. One difference between camels and llamas is that llamas don't have a hump. They've become popular in the United States, which is how Rooney and I happened to get into the llama business. It helps that they're lovable animals."

Llamas,
Jane thought to herself. Try as she might, she couldn't pull up a corresponding picture of a llama from her memory bank. It wasn't surprising; her memory worked in strange ways. Sometimes an idea about something she'd thought she knew nothing about swam unbidden to the surface, and she'd spend days wondering where it came from or what significance it had. Other times, when a memory should have been readily retrievable, it simply wasn't there.