Until Spring (7 page)

After they all sat down to dinner, Mary Kate entertained them with funny stories about school, and Rooney told a joke about fleas and a dog that Jane didn't understand. She laughed anyway, looking from Duncan to Mary Kate to Rooney and trying her best to fit in.

As she looked around the table at the others' smiling faces, relaxed and bright with sociability after the satisfying dinner, she knew that someday she would have friends like these in her life, suntanned people who would visit her home and relish after-dinner conversation around the swimming pool. She would figure out how to be a gracious hostess, she would learn to cook, she would—

"Jane! Jane, this is the second time I've asked you. Have you been over to see the llamas yet?" Mary Kate peered over at her, puzzled at Jane's inattentiveness.

Duncan cleared his throat. "The doctor hasn't said she could go out. It's mighty cold out there."

"I'd like to see the llamas," Jane said.

"Howard said you should stay inside for two weeks," Duncan reminded her. "It hasn't been that long yet."

She shifted uneasily in her chair. "I was thinking I could go as far as the barn. I'm feeling stronger now."

"You'd better follow Howard's instructions and wait until he gives you the go-ahead before you go traipsing around outside. Our Wyoming winters can be harsh." Thus ensued a lively discussion about the temperature, which was due to dip below zero again that night.

Jane said nothing, but since she was feeling so much better, she wondered why she couldn't leave the ranch now.

After dinner she went to her room and brushed aside the draperies to look at the llamas. She had a clear view of the barn and corral from her window. She watched with growing fascination as they milled around their enclosure. The llamas seemed a remarkable array of colors, sizes and shapes. They looked nothing like camels, which is what she had expected them to look like, minus the humps, of course. They sported thick woolly coats and walked with a graceful elegance.

She felt a sudden urge to get closer to them. What she could see of their gentle faces intrigued her, but since Duncan had prohibited her from going outside until the weather grew warmer, she'd have to wait. According to Rooney's weather report at the dinner table tonight, the cold spell following the blizzard seemed to have settled in to stay.

Mary Kate came into the room without knocking and stood behind Jane. "See that pale gray and white one on the far side of the herd?" she asked, hopping from one foot to the other.

"Mmm-hmm," Jane replied. She had grown accustomed to her company over the past week. The girl seemed lonely, and so was she.

"That's Dearling, my very favorite," Mary Kate confided. "You should see her face up close. She has black rings around her eyes, so she looks just like she's wearing eyeliner."

"Why did you name her Dearling?"

"She's so dear, the sweetest little thing I ever saw. She follows me around better than a dog, and she never rolls in the dirt the way the other llamas do. Grandpa says that's normal llama behavior, but I think it's disgusting."

Jane had to smile at this statement, because Mary Kate wasn't exactly the cleanest person Jane had ever met, and in her travels she'd certainly come across her share of those who simply didn't care how dirty they were.

As Mary Kate babbled on, they saw Duncan step out of the barn and call to the llamas, who turned almost in unison and made their way toward him with a dignified gait.

Jane was surprised at the way the llamas craned their long necks against Duncan's body, nuzzling at his shoulder or cheek until he petted them. She hadn't expected llamas to display such affection toward humans, but she was beginning to realize that Duncan was the kind of person who naturally inspired trust.

"Duncan knows all their names," Mary Kate said. "Every one is real special to him."

As they watched, Jane marveled at the rapport Duncan had so obviously established with the animals. Trust; a sense of affinity; the exact feelings he had inspired in her.

How did he manage it? She wanted to know, because she wanted to be able to do it. How easy it would be to attract the kind of friends she longed to meet in California if such a skill were hers. She'd never actually thought of establishing a connection with another human being as a skill. But it was—and she observed Duncan carefully during the next few days in order to learn it.

She didn't want him to know that she was doing this. It would have embarrassed her to admit that she lacked such fundamental knowledge. She studied his body language, analyzed his facial expressions, did her best to commit them to memory. She realized that she was so intent on becoming an apt student that she was mimicking his movements exactly. If he sat with his legs crossed, she sat with her legs crossed. If he leaned back in his chair at the dinner table, so did she.

If he smiled, she tried to smile, although that wasn't so easy. She didn't particularly feel like smiling.

In the first few days of her stay at the ranch, whenever Duncan came in after a day's work, Jane would be downstairs watching television in the living room. She would always jump up and make herself as inconspicuous as possible, attempting to sidle upstairs to her room without drawing attention to herself. But after she started smiling in response to him, he seemed to want to comment whenever she left the room, and finally he spoke out.

"Stay down here," Duncan said one night when she got up from the living-room couch to go to her room around eight o'clock. He had just come in from Rooney's house and was settling down in his leather chair in front of the fireplace.

"I don't want to disturb you," Jane replied, but that wasn't the real reason.

He walked over to where she stood beside the staircase and cupped his hand around her chin, turning her face toward the light. She flinched at his kindly touch, and he noticed. It worried him that human contact made her so uncomfortable.

He didn't say what he had been going to say. Instead he said only, "The last thing you would do is disturb me." He released her face and she bowed her head.

"What I mean is that you have a right to your privacy," she murmured in a low tone. Having learned long ago not to draw attention to herself, privacy seemed to her like the most precious of commodities, much too scarce to squander on strangers like herself.

"Privacy!" he snorted. "I'd call it loneliness," and when she didn't move, he took her hand and tugged her back into the circle of lamplight. He sat down in a big chair, but she stood uncertainly in front of the couch until she sank onto it at last and fixed her eyes on the television screen.

They watched the program, but even though he commented frequently on the actors or the commercials, she didn't speak. She was almost comically surprised to discover that anonymity was easier to achieve in a crowded city than in a man's living room. It was something she'd simply never thought about before.

It seemed like a long evening to her, though not an unpleasant one. She felt out of her element and unsure how to act. Finally, when the late news flashed across the screen and she decided she could reasonably leave, she started to climb the staircase and Duncan spoke again.

"Don't be so afraid to make yourself at home here," he said, his eyes very dark in the shadows of the dim living room.

She paused and turned halfway around to face him. He looked so hopeful, as though it meant a lot to him for her to like it here. For some reason this made her feel wretched.

"Thank you for everything," was all she managed to say before fleeing to her room. She had wanted to tell him that all this was new to her, that she didn't know how to make herself at home anyplace.

In her room she walked to the window, where she pulled the drapery aside and stood looking out over the ranch. Tonight it was bathed in soft moonlight glimmering on the snow. The barn was outlined in stark detail, and she saw Duncan making his way toward it. He certainly seemed to set great store by those llamas of his.

Maybe it was just that he liked all animals. He seemed to delight in Amos's antics, for instance. Yesterday he had unearthed an old ping-pong ball for the cat and had laughed when Amos bounded and skidded around on the kitchen floor chasing it. He had mentioned that he'd like to get another dog because his faithful companion, an Old English sheepdog, had died last year.

In fact, Duncan's propensity for animals could be the reason that he seemed to have taken a liking to her. She was like a stray; in fact, for all intents and purposes she
was
a stray. A stray human. Duncan clearly saw himself as a kind of one-person humane society, feeding and sheltering her because she had nowhere else to go and because he felt sorry for her. The more she thought about this, the colder and emptier she felt. She couldn't bear pity. Clearly she needed to reassess this situation.

She was feeling increasingly restless about her role in the household. The attention she received from these people whom she barely knew was threatening to become stifling. Their interest in her was like heat in a close room—at first it felt wonderful, but as it grew warmer and warmer, she was beginning to feel as though she couldn't breathe.

Jane had become adept at blending in, like a chameleon taking on protective coloration so that people would think that she belonged. But everything still seemed strange to her. Duncan, Rooney and Mary Kate were kind and thoughtful of her needs. They were generous to a fault.

And that was another part of the problem. She was having a hard time dealing with her deceit toward these fine, decent people who considered themselves her friends.

She wouldn't have told Duncan any falsehoods if she'd thought she had any alternatives. But to tell him that he had taken a homeless street person into his home? Someone who'd found herself lying and stealing just to stay alive? At first she hadn't doubted that he'd throw her and Amos out if he knew her true colors.

That was then. This was now.

She was well enough to continue on her journey with or without the approval of the estimable Dr. Walker. She was ready to start a new life somewhere else under her own terms.

She counted her assets. One old coat, one set of clothes, socks and shoes, and a cat.

She realized that she'd need money to get all the way to California, but she'd spent all of her meager supply before the truck driver had picked her up near Elmo. For transportation, she had no doubt that she could catch a ride on the highway, but that would only get her so far. She'd have to eat. Sometimes strangers helped out with food, but she couldn't count on that.

There was Duncan. Maybe he'd lend her the money. But no, he didn't want her to leave. He'd be furious if she suggested it, and she couldn't tell him she was planning to go immediately. She couldn't say that she had lied from the beginning and really had nowhere to go. She certainly didn't want his pity or, more to the point, didn't want to grow accustomed to it. If Duncan thought she was a pitiable creature, it wouldn't be long before she regarded herself in that light, too. Self-pity, she knew from experience, could be deadly.

Jane was aware that Duncan often left money lying around. He liked to empty his pockets as soon as he came into the house, and he had a place where he put his wallet and loose change. It was on a table right inside the front door. There was no telling how much money he kept in his wallet, and there was usually a dollar or two in change.

She heard the door slam downstairs, and she realized that Duncan had come in from the barn. Perhaps even now he was dumping the contents of his pockets onto the little tray on the table.

She heard his footsteps on the stairs. As he always did, he went into his room at the other end of the hall and closed the door.

Jane sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the lemon-yellow walls and knowing what she had to do. Sadly, with tears in her eyes, she got up and prepared her clothes for tomorrow. She would have to leave early, before it was light. She would take only the things she had brought with her.

Except, perhaps, for the money on the downstairs table.

Chapter 4

That night Duncan couldn't sleep for thinking about Jane and her problems. She was a secretive woman, a frightened woman, and he knew that there was more to her than she wanted him to know. He longed for her to open up to him. He couldn't bear the bleak expression that he so often saw in her eyes.

There had been another woman once, his wife. He'd been too busy to pay attention to the nuances of her behavior, thinking that they would eventually pass and she'd eventually be her old self once more. He'd been wrong about that. Sigrid had found someone who could be more responsive to her moods and had moved out one night a couple of years ago.