Until Spring

by Pamela Browning

  "It's all right." Icicles were melting off the roof overhang. One fell and broke with a tinkle on the porch railing. He tried to make a joke. "This place is a far cry from California, wouldn't you say?"

  "Yes," she said. "I guess it is."

  "You'd better go in," he said. He didn't know whether to kiss her out here or not.

  She nodded, then put the suitcase down again. "Oh, Duncan," she said, and went into his arms. In that moment she thought her heart would break.

  As he tried to memorize the way she felt in his embrace, he remembered the first time he had held her. It had been the night he found her in the mine, and she'd lain naked in his arms all night long. Like last night, except that on that first night she had slept. Last night neither of them had slept much. There had been other things to do.

  "I won't say goodbye," she said. "It seems so final." She told herself to stay brave, but it wasn't easy.

  "Give Moonglow my regards."

  "I will. Tell Rooney hello, and tell Mary Kate—" Here her voice broke. She swallowed and began again. "Tell Mary Kate I love her."

  Duncan nodded, backed down the steps, then turned swiftly and walked to the car. His feelings still raw, holding back tears of disappointment, he drove away without looking at her. When he summoned the strength to glance into his rearview mirror, the porch was empty.

  He stopped to pick up the dress for Mary Kate, evading the questions of the kindhearted Alice Beasley. He hand carried the package all the way home but didn't give it to Mary Kate. That was something for Jane to do.

  If she came home. No, he corrected himself. When she came home.

  Chapter 16

  Jane and Moonglow moved Jane's old bed into Moonglow's room, and Jane settled into the household routine. Up early in the morning, breakfast with Moonglow and Sonora, scheduling time on Moonglow's loom so that they each had a turn. She took to wearing tunics and leggings and high boots, or sometimes loose dresses the way Moonglow did. She bundled her bright hair in a snood. When she looked in the mirror, she seemed to have become someone else, someone she didn't know very well.

  It was a life that Jane—Moonglow called her Celeste, but somehow she still thought of herself as Jane—that Jane remembered, but it didn't seem quite real to her. Even though Moonglow was delighted that she'd returned, Jane found it a major adjustment to resume living in that household. This was no longer her home, and these weren't her people. It was as though this was a movie she had seen and liked a long time ago, not a real life.

  And if some mornings she woke up and expected to see the yellow walls and flowered draperies of her room at Placid Valley Ranch, well, maybe that too was a movie she had seen once. With a real-life hero who had rushed to her rescue, who had treated her with unfailing kindness and consideration, and who loved her. Now that she was caught up in life at Shanti Village, her life at Placid Valley Ranch sometimes seemed more like a dream than a movie.

  She wove an afghan and sent it to Duncan, thinking that it would warm him on cold nights when he sat reading in his chair by the fire. He called and thanked her, but communication between them was stiff and awkward. They had many such conversations, and Duncan was always terse. He seldom told her anything that was happening at the ranch. He never texted, saying that it was too distracting.

  After their phone conversations, Jane always felt sad. She missed the warmth and happiness she'd felt when they were together. She missed the get-togethers with Rooney and Mary Kate, and long Sunday dinners with them, and being in and out of each other's houses, and Mary Kate's laughter as she ran up the path to the house.

  "Why don't you go back to him? To them?" Moonglow asked once when they were having one of their frequent heart-to-heart talks.

  "Because I don't have a real sense of who I am yet," Jane said, staring at the floor.

  "If you and Duncan love each other, you should be together."

  "If only it were so simple," sighed Jane. "You see, when I came into Duncan's care I was lost and angry and defiant, and he let me know that he cared about me, so all I wanted to do was to be like him. It worked for me then. But now I've learned that I had a life before that, and I want to live it for a while. Then I'll know if I can go back to the ranch and pick up where I left off."

  "What about California?" Moonglow asked.

  "A new life in California was a dream I had. Maybe it wasn't realistic, although it kept me going through the hard times. Oh, I don't know. All I want right now is to live here and do my work, and I'm so grateful to you for letting me stay."

  "Nonsense," Moonglow said as she swung Sonora onto her lap. "This is your home, too."

  Many of the people who lived in Shanti Village before the Fenton Murdock faction came into power had moved away and were now moving back. Jane quickly reacquainted herself with the ones she knew, and they were eager to accept her. They held potluck suppers every Tuesday and Thursday night, afterward lingering for long talks during which the villagers engaged in mutual support of their endeavors. A warm, convivial feeling enveloped the place, and Jane's work went well. She began to produce handbags for the boutique market and learned to weave new patterns. She obtained a copy of her birth certificate and renewed her driver's license. She was happy enough.

  But all she had to do was hear Duncan's voice on the phone and it would send her into a funk for days. She would think about the way he laughed with her over lunch at the ranch, the way she could tell by the set of his shoulders when he came in from the barn how tired he was, about how he looked with Mary Kate settled into the crook of his arm as he read her the Sunday comics with Amos purring in snatches at their feet.

  And she would wonder if he missed anything at all about her—her attempts to cook the same foods that his mother used to make, the hum of her spinning wheel as they kept each other company in the living room on those long winter evenings, the way they had made love that last night in Terre Haute.

  The lovemaking had exceeded her expectations. She hoped it had lived up to his. And now that she'd had a sample of it, her body ached with wanting him.

  As if all that wasn't enough, during her third week with Moonglow she received an incoherent phone call from Mary Kate, who had found her telephone number scribbled on a notepad in Duncan's house.

  When the phone rang, Jane picked it up and immediately heard someone sobbing on the other end. She knew immediately that Mary Kate was the caller.

  "Mary Kate? Mary Kate, now listen to me. Calm down and tell me what's wrong," she said. The sound of the child's crying made her frantic. She didn't know if something had happened to Amos, or Duncan, to Rooney or Mary Kate herself.

  "J-J-Jane," was all Mary Kate could say, and this made Jane even more worried.

  "Mary Kate, honey, can't you tell me what's wrong?"

  Mary Kate struggled to contain her crying, and after a moment, she hiccupped a few times. "D-Dearling," she managed to stammer at last. "They sold her."

  Jane felt only shock. "What?" she gasped, incredulous.

  "They sold her. My Dearling. She's gone!" Mary Kate began to sob again.

  Jane tried to get a grip on the situation. Dearling sold! But Duncan wouldn't do such a thing to Mary Kate. He'd been angry about her letting the breeding females escape, but he wouldn't have done this. He knew how important Dearling was to Mary Kate.

  "Tell me about it," Jane said apprehensively, not really wanting to hear. She still couldn't believe it.

  "G-Grandpa did it. He sold her. He's punishing me. But I miss her so much! Dearling won't be happy anywhere else," Mary Kate said all in a rush.

  "Oh, Mary Kate, I'm so sorry," Jane said. A deadening depression began to seep through her. She felt helpless to do anything to make Mary Kate feel better.

  "You are not sorry! If you were, you'd come back here. You promised! You promised! And then you didn't come back and didn't come back, and now you're never coming back!" Mary Kate began to cry again, tears of anger and despair and frustration, feelings that Jane recognized because
they were all too familiar.

  Mary Kate was right. She had promised. In the aftermath of discovering her lost identity, her promise to the girl had dimmed in importance. She felt sick with guilt.

  "Look, Mary Kate, may I please speak to Duncan?"

  "He's not here," Mary Kate said coldly before abruptly terminating the call.

  Moonglow happened to walk through at that moment, leading Sonora by the hand. "Bad phone call?" she asked with interest when she saw Jane staring at the phone.

  "Very bad phone call," Jane agreed. Trying to think, she sat down on the floor and leaned her head against the wall.

  "Problems, I gather," Moonglow said, dashing down the hall to retrieve Sonora as she toddled away.

  "Sit down here, Moonglow, and help me figure this thing out," Jane said, patting the floor beside her. So Moonglow brought Sonora and set her down to play nearby while Jane outlined the situation.

  "If I were you I'd get myself back to Wyoming," Moonglow said when Jane had finished.

  "If I go back, I won't want to leave."

  "So what's wrong with that?" Moonglow asked, rolling her eyes and getting up to chase after Sonora again.

  "I'm just starting back to work, and I do like it here, and—"

  "And you've been mooning after Duncan Tate ever since he dropped you on my doorstep. Now I ask you, does it really make sense to stay here when you're head over heels in love with the man?"

  "I didn't know it was that obvious," Jane said ruefully.

  "You can't talk to him on the phone without going all fluttery, and afterward you're no fun to be around, believe me. And he's obviously crazy about you. Go for it, kid. As a woman alone, I can tell you that it's no picnic. If Duncan Tate was in love with me, I'd snap him up so fast it would make your head spin."

  Jane digested this, then thought about Mary Kate again. "I can't believe they sold Dearling," she said under her breath.

  "Sold what?"

  "Dearling. Mary Kate's pet llama. I just can't believe it. Oh, I've got to talk to Duncan and find out his version of the story."

  She picked up the phone and speed dialed Duncan's cell phone number. He didn't answer.

  "I'll call him at the house later," she said.

  But when she tried to reach him just before her bedtime, the phone rang and rang, and she finally decided that Duncan was purposely not answering. She called the Rooneys' house, and Mary Kate answered. She sounded as though her nose was stopped up.

  "Mary Kate," Jane began.

  "I don't want to talk to anyone," Mary Kate said before slamming down the phone.

  "Poor Mary Kate," Jane said brokenly.

  "She sounds like a real pain to me," Moonglow observed.

  "You don't understand. Mary Kate's had a hard life. She needs lots of love and nurturing and—oh, if only I were there," Jane said, burying her face in her hands.

  "Then why don't you go?"

  "It's not exactly around the block, you know," Jane said.

  "You could fly out of Indianapolis and be there in a few hours."

  "I'll sleep on it," Jane said, pulling the bed covers up over her head.

  She didn't sleep well that night. When Moonglow made hot cereal with cinnamon and brown sugar for breakfast, she hardly ate any.

  "Look, this is ridiculous. Why don't you try calling Duncan again?" Moonglow suggested a few hours later when she saw Jane sitting motionless, staring at her idle loom.

  "I did," Jane admitted. "Twice. And I called Rooney's house and the office in the barn. There's no answer there, either."

  "Bruce Hodges is driving into Indianapolis this morning to pick up supplies. Want me to call him and see if he'll give you a ride to the airport?"

  "I'm not ready to leave."

  "Get ready, then. Look, you love Duncan. You love these other people. It doesn't make any sense for you to be here if they're having trouble. You belong with them."

  "You're right," Jane said, lifting her eyes. "They helped me when I needed it."

  "Exactly," Moonglow replied. "That's what it's all about, isn't it? Letting your lives spill into each other, taking from someone else's cup when yours isn't full enough."

  "I was going to California because I intended to find a life for myself and people who would love and care about me. But I found all that at Placid Valley Ranch, didn't I?" Jane stood up.

  "Shall I call Bruce?" Moonglow offered again.

  "Please. And where did you store my suitcase, Moonglow?"

  Moonglow looked as though she would have jumped up and clapped if she hadn't had a toddler in her lap. "It's in the closet in Sonora's room," she called as Jane rushed down the hall.

  Jane packed in record time. She put on her gray slacks along with one of Duncan's favorite sweaters. When she looked into the mirror, her first impression was that she looked like her old Jane self, not the new Celeste self she had become since moving back to Shanti Village.

  "Goodbye, dear friend," Moonglow said, hugging her before she left.

  "I'll see you again soon," Jane promised, kissing Sonora on her dimpled cheek.

  "I doubt it," Moonglow said, laughing through her tears. "I expect you'll stay a while once you get there."

  "Come see me if I do?" Jane asked.

  "Maybe. Does that Duncan of yours have a brother?" Moonglow asked hopefully.

  "No, there's only Rooney," she said.

  Moonglow made a face. "I'm not interested in a man who would sell a kid's pet," she sniffed.

  At the airport, Jane discovered that air traffic was backed up due to weather problems in the west, but she added her name to a waiting list for flying standby to Cheyenne and spent her time nervously pacing up and down the concourse by the gate from which the plane would depart. She hoped she would get a seat. If she didn't, she'd wait here until another flight left.

  She had no idea what she would say to Duncan when she saw him. She had no idea what he would say to her. She thought up imaginary conversations in her head. Instead of the usual platitudes like, "How have you been?" and "I'm fine, thanks," they would get right down to the central issues.

  "I was stupid," she would say, looking him right in the eye. "We had something special going, and I didn't realize how good it was until I didn't have it anymore."

  "I forgive you," he'd say. "And besides, it was really out of character for me to get angry that last night in the hotel in Terre Haute. It's you who should forgive me."

  Then they would fall into each other's arms, never to be separated again.

  At least that was the way she pictured it, the way it would happen on Restless Hearts. But by this time she knew that real life hardly ever followed the approved script.

  Finally, when the tension of waiting became almost unbearable, she sat down in a seat near the gate and forced herself to read a newspaper that someone had thrown down beside her. Moonglow didn't get a paper at Shanti Village; with no television set, either, Jane had often felt cut off from the world while she was there.

  She read the front page first, then tried to read the features. Nothing held her interest until she spotted a headline in a story across the bottom of a page of state and local news. She bent over the newspaper, scarcely believing what she was reading.

  Van in Pond Is Clue in Jane Doe Case

  An irrigation pond on the property of Tyree farmer Elwood Merck yielded valuable information in Tyree's mysterious "Jane Doe" case, according to Detective Bill Schmidt of the Tyree County, Illinois, Sheriff's Department.

  "Mr. Merck was draining his pond in preparation for the growing season, and at the bottom of it was a blue Ford van registered to Ms. Celeste Norton, who is known to this community as 'Jane Doe,'" Schmidt said.

  The Jane Doe cited by Schmidt captured Tyree's interest a year and a half ago when a young woman bearing no identification was found lying in a ditch on the farm of Carlton Jones. She was suffering from a head wound, Schmidt said.

  The van found in Merck's pond contained a handgun that was traced to a
convicted murderer, Harry Milton Furgott, Jr. Furgott is presently serving time in the Indiana State Prison.

  Schmidt says that Furgott has admitted to abducting Ms. Norton near Indianapolis seventeen months ago.

  "Apparently Harry Furgott had broken out of jail on that date, and he saw Ms. Norton's van at a convenience store. When she went inside to pay for gas, he hid in the van, and when she reentered the van, he held her at gunpoint and forced her to drive to Illinois," said Schmidt.

  Schmidt says that Furgott told authorities that Ms. Norton became angry when he spilled a can of Coca-Cola in her van, and he struck her on the head with the butt of the gun. He panicked when he thought she was dead and tossed her out of the van into a ditch.

  "After that, he was in an agitated state and drove around Tyree and its environs trying to figure out what to do. The night was exceptionally dark, and he wandered off the main roads, becoming lost and by accident driving Ms. Norton's van into Mr. Merck's pond. He had to swim for his life, but after walking to the highway, he hid in the bed of a pickup truck unbeknownst to the motorist. That's how he managed to leave the area. While still in the pickup, Furgott smashed Ms. Norton's cell phone and threw it and her identification off a bridge," Schmidt said.

  Furgott was recaptured two weeks later near Des Moines, Iowa, and returned to the Indiana State Prison.

  Schmidt added that Furgott will probably be charged with kidnapping and assault with intent to kill.

  Jane let the newspaper drop to her lap. She felt a rage of murderous proportions. After all this time of not knowing what had happened to her, now she knew. She could dredge up no actual memory of Harry Furgott or his act, but the knowledge of it hit her hard. She allowed herself to feel anger, to feel hate, to feel disgust for someone who would hurt another human being. He had done more than injure her physically. He had robbed her of her past, left her with no present, and jeopardized her future.

  The drone of the public address system speaker directly over her head jarred her out of her thoughts.