Until Spring

by Pamela Browning

  Mary Kate, having caught Amos, walked slowly back to the kitchen, scratching him under the chin. The cat closed his eyes in obvious bliss.

  "Amos likes me," Mary Kate said. "The other day he let me rub his stomach and didn't even move. He didn't used to let me do that." She set him down gently on the floor and picked up her coat without complaint.

  "Mary Kate, why don't you stay and have French toast with Duncan and me?" suggested Jane. "I'll make it while Duncan reads you the comics."

  "You're making French toast?" asked Duncan.

  "I found this recipe for Orange Blossom French Toast, and we have all the ingredients. I think I'd like to try it."

  "Oh, good," Mary Kate said, grinning from ear to ear.

  "We'll be in the living room," Duncan said, leaving Jane to her recipe.

  It all seemed so domestic to Duncan, with Mary Kate sitting close on the couch as he read, Amos purring on the rug at their feet, and delicious aromas floating in from the kitchen.

  He tried to recall ever having this cozy feeling on a Sunday morning when Sigrid was here, but all he remembered from those days was Sigrid's discontent at being cooped up here on the ranch with just Rooney and him for company, Mary Kate having arrived only shortly before Sigrid departed. And when Sigrid had cooked, it had been done grudgingly. Unfortunately, his ex-wife had never taken to life at Placid Valley Ranch.

  He read to Mary Kate with one ear cocked toward the kitchen, where Jane hummed as she went about her tasks; he loved the way she hummed as she worked. Duncan looked up between comic strips, catching a glimpse of an ankle as she temporarily moved out of view, appreciating the way her hair curled against her cheek, and was rewarded for his vigilance by her glance in his direction and a fleeting half smile before she turned toward the stove again.

  "The French toast is ready," Jane called finally, and he and Mary Kate sat down with Jane at the kitchen table to eat hot French toast made from a recipe that Duncan recalled from when his mother was still alive. It almost seemed like the old days to Duncan, like the time when he lived here with both parents, to be pouring steaming orange syrup out of the gravy boat with the spout that he had chipped when he was about Mary Kate's age, to be joking and teasing and laughing with Mary Kate and with Jane, who kept urging French toast on him until he asked her if she expected to feed the whole French army. Jane laughed at this, her cheeks slightly flushed with happiness, and Duncan thought, Why, Jane likes this kind of atmosphere, too.

  After Mary Kate went home, Duncan lighted a fire in the fireplace, then he and Jane spread out the sections of the newspaper on the floor and took turns reading them, passing the most interesting items back and forth with a comment or two. Jane brought the coffeepot into the living room, and Duncan remarked that she made wonderful coffee. Jane replied offhandedly that it was one thing she had learned to do at her short-lived job in the restaurant in Apollonia.

  Finally, when the newspaper was neatly piled to one side of the couch, Duncan poked at the fire and, because he was curious, said, "You never talk about your life before you came here. You've never told me how you managed to get along in Chicago."

  Jane, sitting on the floor, leaned back against the couch and clasped her hands around one knee. "It doesn't seem like entertaining conversation," she said.

  "I suppose you would like to forget about that period of your life," he suggested.

  She stared into the fire. "No, not forget, exactly. I'm still trying to come to grips with what happened to me. Maybe talking about it would help. I keep having flashbacks to the hard times, especially to the period when I was in Chicago. It didn't turn out the way I expected, that's for sure." Briefly she looked unsure of herself, like the Little Girl Lost she'd been when he found her.

  "What do you mean?" he asked.

  "When I arrived in Chicago, I tried to get a job right away, but it's hard to get a job when you have no past," she said.

  "What happened?"

  "Well, when I went to fill out the job applications, they asked for a social security number. I didn't have one, which posed a problem."

  "Didn't you tell your prospective employers about your situation?"

  "I was always afraid that if I told anyone I was an amnesia victim, they'd think I wasn't a good risk, so usually I left the space for the social security number blank. If an employer asked me about it, I'd say I'd left my social security card at home and didn't remember the number. Usually that would work for a little while."

  "You could have applied for a social security card," Duncan pointed out.

  "I did. The people at the Social Security Administration told me I had to have a birth certificate in order to get a social security number, but of course I didn't have a birth certificate. At that time I was still having severe headaches, and I couldn't pull myself together enough to decide what to do next."

  "Poor Jane," Duncan said sympathetically.

  "Poor somebody," Jane agreed. "I know I have a name as well as a birth certifícate somewhere, and probably I have a social security number, too. But there seems to be no way to find out who I am."

  "There must be people who knew you before your accident, who were your neighbors, co-workers, something. They must be worried sick about you."

  "As far as I know, no one ever came forward to say I was missing. You'd think someone would, wouldn't you?" she said wistfully. Her eyes seemed large and dark, mirroring her sadness. Duncan's heart went out to her.

  "Someone like you, someone so beautiful—yes, it does seem as though someone would have cared about you and looked for you," he replied softly.

  "Do you really think I'm beautiful?" she asked unexpectedly.

  The question took him by surprise, but he didn't have to hesitate. "Yes, I do, Jane. Very beautiful," he said.

  She seemed satisfied with his answer. "Beauty isn't a quality that I identify with myself," she explained. "I was so busy trying to survive that I didn't care what I looked like, as long as I was neat and clean. Oh, that reminds me of something I've been meaning to mention. I found a portable sewing machine in my closet, Duncan. Would you mind if I used it to make myself some clothes? Somehow I think I can figure out how to sew."

  "Of course," he said.

  "There's material, too. I wonder if—"

  "Take anything you need," he said. "The machine was Sigrid's, and the fabric was hers, too. She didn't want to take it when she left."

  "If you want to ask her if she wants her sewing machine, I won't mind," Jane said. She hadn't known it was his former wife's and had surmised that it had belonged to his mother.

  "Nonsense. Sigrid hardly used it, and she won't want it now."

  "Thanks. Duncan. I think I'll go upstairs and look through the patterns. She must have been about my size."

  "No. Sigrid was heavier," Duncan said. Somehow he felt uncomfortable comparing the two women.

  "Well, anyway, I guess I'll go upstairs."

  "Please don't," Duncan said.

  "What?"

  "I said, please don't go. This is my only day off. If you do, I'll have to spend another Sunday alone. I enjoy your company." There was a cajoling tone to his voice; he'd never used it before.

  Jane, who had risen to her feet, sat down on the couch. "Duncan, I think we should talk about this," she said slowly.

  "Is it worth calling one of our meetings?" he asked with a grin.

  "Meetings—oh, I'm not sure. Maybe." She looked confused.

  "Well, what's bothering you?" he asked.

  "You know what I mean. You're getting too attached—I mean, I'm getting too attached—oh, I don't know." She bit her lip in chagrin.

  "You think it will be harder when you leave if we become close now," Duncan supplied.

  "Yes, I suppose that's it," she said unhappily.

  In the fireplace, flames crawled upward until they consumed another log. The heat made Jane's face glow, and Duncan wished that he'd initiated this discussion sooner. In it he saw a replay of her insistence that Mary Kate
not get any ideas about Jane's staying past spring. He stared at her, at a loss as to how to impress upon her how much he wanted her to reconsider.

  Jane had blossomed, losing that wan, debilitated look that she'd had at first, and the ample food had filled out that slight frame of hers. The delicate shadows under her cheekbones had disappeared. When she'd asked him if he thought she was beautiful, he had felt like shouting out his answer. Not only was she beautiful, but she had imbued this house with that beauty, and for that he was grateful. He had never realized how drab and dull his life had been before she arrived.

  He liked everything about her—the way she cared for that little cat of hers, her interest in the llamas, her responsible shepherding of Mary Kate, her thoughtful ways. She didn't deserve the buffeting that life had meted out to her, and he wanted to make it up to her.

  He wanted—but what difference did it make what he wanted? At night he often thought of her lying alone in her bed. In his fantasies she came to him, looking soft and ethereal, and he imagined reaching up to her and pulling her down to him, imagined being absorbed into her.

  "I suppose we could become too attached to each other," he said with all due gravity, but his thoughts refused to run in this groove and instead leaped around inside his head bearing images that he had only dared to dream. Jane in his bed, Jane stepping naked from the shower and reaching for a towel, her shape outlined by the light from his bedroom, Jane everywhere.

  The real Jane wrinkled her forehead, unaware of the way he had pictured her. What a pity that she will never know, he thought, and before he knew it, moving as if in a dream, he had taken her chin in his hand, turned her face toward his, and kissed her on the lips. It was a short kiss, and heaven help him, she seemed about to sink into it before she pulled away.

  "Duncan!" she said when he released her. Her eyes widened and darkened, and he sensed how much he had shocked her.

  "I couldn't help it," he said truthfully.

  She looked rattled. "It's just—just—"

  "Just what?"

  "That I've never thought of you in that way. Never."

  "How do you think of me?"

  She ran a hand through her hair and looked off into space somewhere over his left shoulder.

  "As—as someone who has been more than kind to me. As someone who is easy to be around. Easy to respect. Oh, Duncan, I don't know," she said in obvious dismay.

  Quickly he masked the disappointment in his eyes. She didn't reciprocate his feelings. She had no inkling of how he felt. He found her innocence very moving, although at the same time he was annoyed by it.

  "Forgive me, Jane," he said, knowing how abject he sounded. That was genuine, too, and as real as his feelings for her.

  "This changes things," she said with certainty. She looked perturbed in a way that he had never seen her.

  Duncan, you idiot, now you're three times a fool, he told himself. Aloud he said, "It needn't change anything. It was a whim, a mark of affection, and no more than that."

  "I'm reading too much into a simple kiss. Is that what you're trying to say?" Her troubled gaze rested on him, seeking reassurance.

  "It was a mistake, and it won't happen again." He sounded stiff and formal even to himself. No telling what she thought.

  She sighed heavily and leaned back on the couch, massaging her elbows through an old sweater of his that was a favorite of hers. She closed her eyes and seemed to be deep in thought.

  He was angry with himself. He'd muddled their relationship, that was for sure. In the past few weeks he had allayed her basic mistrust with both words and actions, and then, with one misguided kiss, he had destroyed what they had. He couldn't allow himself to show his bitter disappointment that she didn't reciprocate his feelings, so he made himself adopt an air of icy detachment.

  "I think it's time I went to my office in the barn," he said. He got up and took his coat out of the closet.

  Jane was up immediately.

  "Duncan, I'm not angry. Only confused," she said. She looked so lovely standing there with the winter sunlight from the window slanting across her face.

  "Confused," he repeated, incredibly spellbound by her.

  "I've had a lot to deal with where men were concerned. All of them weren't as nice as you."

  He paused in the act of shoving his Stetson onto his head.

  "Which means what?" he asked, the ice starting to melt.

  "That as far as I know, I've never had the chance to develop a normal relationship with a man. That I've never even wanted to."

  "And do you want to now?"

  Her eyes searched his.

  "Maybe," she said, her voice a mere whisper. "I'm very fond of you. I care about you."

  "And?"

  Her eyes met his, and beyond her misgivings, he sensed deep sadness. "Maybe I was married. Maybe I'm not free to attach myself to anyone." She wrapped her arms around herself, looking worried.

  He shook his head. All this was almost too much to fathom. If Jane was married to someone else, that certainly changed things, and he didn't know about all this hemming and hawing and trying to figure out the nuances that could be felt when a man and a woman were getting to know each other. He was accustomed to being straightforward and up-front with his relationships, but this situation seemed to make that impossible.

  "Like I said, I'm going to the barn. I'll be back in time for dinner."

  "Shall I roast the chicken as we planned?" Her words were matter-of-fact.

  "Sure," he said, pulling himself together so that he was able to give her an easy smile.

  She handed him his muffler because he had forgotten it in his haste, and he felt her eyes on his back as he made tracks toward the barn. Whatever had happened back there, it was a surprise to him that he felt pretty good about what they'd acknowledged between them. Except that he didn't know what his next step should be, or if there would even be a next step.

  And if she was a married woman with a family to which she'd eventually return, he'd be devastated. Which was why it was better not to start something now.

  * * *

  After Duncan left, Jane, still shaken by their discussion, went upstairs and sorted in a desultory way through the fabric that Sigrid had left. It was hard to think about sewing now that the situation with Duncan had taken this new and disturbing twist, although he had reassured her about it. A simple mark of affection, that was what he had called his kiss. She decided that she could accept this explanation. After all, he had asked for nothing more. Well, at least not in words.

  She sat with neatly folded packets of fabric in her lap, reviewing her experiences with men, or at least all those that she could recall.

  There'd been a lecherous fry cook in one of the restaurants where she'd waitressed. He'd been more than twice her age and claimed to have arthritis, but he was certainly agile enough when it came to pinning her against the shelves in the pantry. Fortunately, she'd been fired before things went too far. Then there was the calculating owner of the laundromat where she'd spent some of her nights. He was married and the father of two little girls, but that didn't stop him from asking her out.

  A man who worked at an employment agency had promised her a pleasant office job if she'd move in with him, and a teenage newspaper vendor had once blurted that he had a crush on her. And a wino in a shelter had forced his attentions on her until she was rescued by a minister who was there to provide chaplain services.

  She might say that her experiences with men had been less than satisfying or, being honest with herself, that they'd mostly been terrifying. It wasn't easy to trust men after what she'd been through.

  She reminded herself of a few standouts: the concerned and kindly Dr. Bergstrom, who had treated her after she was found in the ditch; a thoughtful shelter attendant who had let her stay in the building to use the house phone to look for work during the day when homeless people were expected to vacate the premises; and, of course, Duncan.

  Duncan. She liked him so much. If she were e
ver to fall in love with someone, she hoped it would be with someone like him.

  In a sense, Jane was curious. She knew her experience with men had been mostly limited to the deadbeats, the down-and-outers, the immoral and the lechers. This was not a fair cross section of American men. It was reassuring that someone of Duncan's caliber thought she was beautiful, liked her, and was physically attracted to her.

  Duncan had always made it clear that he recognized her as a real person, someone unique. When he kissed her, he was reaffirming that sense of herself that she had long hoped to develop. Also, and this surprised her, she had liked kissing him. She hadn't pulled away. But she knew that what she felt wasn't love.

  Though she had had little experience as far as she knew, she understood what went on in a physical relationship between men and women. She had heard plenty of talk about it; there were all those affairs on the daytime dramas, and when she'd lived on the streets, she had even seen frantic, shadowed real-life couplings. That kind of thing seemed ugly and shameful. She had never had any doubt that love was the ingredient that made sex worthwhile.

  But to make love—ah, that was an experience that she had begun to anticipate with pleasure. To lie in a man's arms, to be cherished and adored so much that he wanted to be that close to you and you to him; it seemed like a wondrous way to express affection.

  When she thought about it, she couldn't imagine the act of intercourse taking place without love. It was a value left over from her past life, her other life, the one she'd had before she became Jane Rhodes. That and other values kept popping up out of nowhere, often confounding her. How did she know that love made what went on between men and women special? If she had experienced it in her past life, it was one of the things that she longed to remember.

  Her attitude toward love caused her to wonder if she had ever been in love, just as her knowledge of fabrics and sewing inspired the question, Did I lead a very domestic sort of life? The kind where I often sewed, say, for my children? Had there been a man to love, children for whom she sewed little overalls and pajamas, dancing costumes and dresses? If she was married, had they been happy? Was someone distraught about her disappearance and waiting for her to come home?