by Arlene James
“If I don’t keep busy, I’ll worry,” Kendra explained.
Lupita gave in, and Kendra occupied herself by helping the woman polish the tile floors then start dinner. Consequently, everything got done early, so the dinner table was laid before Maddie or Violet even came home that evening. Jack walked in through the front door at the last minute, tossing his hat onto the beautiful buffet table and announcing that he had to clean up before he could eat, even though he was “starved.” He seemed in a distracted mood, telling the others to start without him.
Kendra expected his sisters to say that they’d wait for him, but instead they bowed their heads. Violet prayed, and they quickly filled their plates. Kendra dithered, placing a spoonful of this on her plate and slowly eating it before reaching for a spoonful of that. Jack returned a long quarter hour later to drop down into his chair and stab a steak with his fork, shifting it from the serving platter to his plate.
His sisters jumped up within seconds after he began to eat.
“Gotta rush,” Violet said. “Need to change.”
“Landon back in town?” Jack asked, frowning.
Violet sighed. “No. Not yet.”
“This is First Wednesday,” Maddie announced.
“Oh, right.”
They rushed off, and Jack tucked into his food. After a few minutes, Kendra cleared her throat and said, “You mentioned a laptop computer.”
Jack speared a slice of fried potato. “Yeah, I’ll get it for you after I finish eating.”
“Great. Thanks.”
Before that happened, however, Maddie came back into the room. She wore a skirt with a neat little sweater and a cute pair of flat mules. Violet was right behind her in fresh jeans and a clean blouse. She carried a gray- and gold-colored blocked shirt on a hanger, which she thrust at Kendra.
“This is for you.”
Kendra blinked, then smiled. “That’s very kind. Thank you.”
“It’s to wear tonight,” Maddie informed her.
“That’s right,” Violet confirmed. “You’ll go with us, won’t you?”
“Uh, I—I’m not sure. Go where?”
“To church,” Maddie replied. “First Wednesday is a women’s Bible study that’s held before prayer meeting the first Wednesday of every month.”
Kendra thought about the research she wanted to do, but the thought of church in any form suddenly beckoned to her. She nodded. “I’d like that.”
“Okay,” Violet said. “You run up and change. We’ll clear the table.”
Jack paused in the act of spooning the last of the creamed spinach onto his plate and scowled. “Hey, I’m still eating here.”
“So eat,” Violet retorted, picking up the now-empty bowl and the fried-potato platter to carry them from the room. Maddie followed her with the bread basket and steak plate.
“What about the laptop?” Jack asked Kendra as she quickly rose.
“Maybe you could leave it where I can find it?”
He scowled but said, “Guess I can leave it on the breakfast table.”
The sisters returned, Violet carrying a piece of lemon-meringue pie and Maddie a pitcher of tea. They placed both in front of their brother then grinned at Kendra.
“What are you waiting for?”
“I’m going,” she laughed, doing that.
“So what am I supposed to do?” she heard Jack grumble.
She glanced over her shoulder in time to see Violet shoot a look at Maddie before replying, “What you always do, I guess. Hang around here until it’s time for prayer meeting.”
“Maybe I’ll get ten minutes of peace, then,” he grunted.
Sighing impatiently, Violet went to his side, bent, brushed back his hair and smacked a kiss onto his forehead. She looked to Maddie then, and the twins shared a knowing smile. Kendra felt that she had missed something, but she couldn’t very well ask what. After all, she was missing her whole life, everything but the last couple days.
She rushed off to change.
The shirt proved to be a little longer than the others that Violet had loaned her, so she tucked in the tail before rolling back the sleeves, which were still too short. Grabbing the hairbrush, she bent at the waist and gave her hair a vigorous stroking, wishing that she had some clips or hair bands with which to style it. She applied a dab of lip gloss then impulsively peeled the bandage from her forehead. The wound looked dry and smooth, the stitches neat and even. She decided to make do with a pair of flesh-colored adhesive bandages. As soon as she walked back into the dining room a few minutes later, Jack’s jitters bustled her out of the house and into Violet’s small SUV. The twins chortled as they drove away.
“Did you see Jack’s face?” Violet asked.
“And our brother says he’s sworn off romance,” Maddie giggled.
“I don’t get it,” Kendra admitted, unsure what was being implied.
Violet pinned her with a look via the rearview mirror. “Jack thought he was going to have you to himself for a while tonight.”
Kendra felt a spurt of elation, but she ruthlessly tamped it down. The last thing she or Jack needed was a romance. “No...I’m sure you’re wrong about that. We were alone together much of the day, after all.”
“Oh, really?” Violet crowed.
“A-at the barn this morning,” Kendra clarified, “while tending the stock. Then later we drove to Wichita Falls to deliver samples to the lab for testing.”
“Wichita Falls!” Maddie exclaimed. “There and back is at least four hours.”
“Well, yes,” Kendra said. She thought it best not to mention that they’d had lunch, too. “I think you’re reading too much into it, though,” she went on doggedly. “Jack’s manner toward me is completely...” Okay, so he wasn’t entirely impersonal. “He thinks I’m probably engaged.”
Maddie twisted in her seat. “What makes him think so?”
“The wedding veil.”
“Oh...right. Forgot about that. But there’s engaged and then there’s engaged.”
She looked pointedly to Violet, who grinned and said, “Especially if you’re engaged to the wrong man.”
Kendra shook her head. “Why do I always feel like I’m missing half the conversation with you two? Must be that twin thing.”
Both girls burst out laughing, then Maddie said, “I was more or less engaged to Violet’s fiancé, Landon, when they met.”
Kendra gasped. “Oh, my!”
“I wasn’t in love, though,” Maddie explained. “Now I am. In love and engaged. To Ty.”
“And so am I,” Violet proclaimed, “in love and engaged to marry Landon Derringer, that is.” The twins emitted tiny, identical sighs of satisfaction before Violet added, “He’s in Fort Worth on business right now, and I sure do miss him.”
Kendra sat back in her seat, astounded at these revelations, but one bit of outstanding information had been glossed over. “Why has Jack sworn off romance?”
This time the sighs were much more gusty.
“Her name was Tammy Simmons...” Violet began.
* * *
By the time they pulled into the graveled parking lot next to the pretty white church with its elegant steeple, Kendra hurt for Jack and could only be glad that she wouldn’t be encountering Tammy Simmons anytime soon. No wonder the poor guy could go from warm to frosty in the blink of an eye. With memories such as those hinted at by Violet, he was bound to have some heavy-duty reflexive barriers that would pop up at the least provocation. She wondered if she might have suffered a similar disappointment. Maybe that was why she had been wearing that veil and driving like a maniac––and why she didn’t remember anything that happened before she woke up in the clinic.
Violet and Maddie introduced her to everyone at the meeting simply as Kendra. However, h
er story had already circulated around the town, and no one seemed shy about asking her questions—no one but a mousy little woman named Sadie Johnson, who sat down next to Kendra just as the opening prayer began. Though grateful for the prayers that were said on her behalf, Kendra couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable. Sadie surprised her by offering a timid smile.
“I’m very sorry for what you’re suffering through,” the church secretary all but whispered.
Kendra noticed that the slight, delicate young woman had chosen to wear oversize clothing. Even her eyeglasses were too large for her.
“Thank you,” Kendra softly replied. “It’s rather frightening not to remember anything at all about your past.”
“I suppose,” Sadie murmured, her gaze turning inward. “I sometimes wish I could forget my past.”
“Why is that?” Kendra asked, compelled to engage this unassuming girl.
Jolted from her reverie, Sadie suddenly looked down, shrugging. “It’s just that I spent a lot of time in foster homes. Seems like I was always moving around from place to place.”
“That would be tough,” Kendra admitted. “I wonder if I was in foster care. That might explain why I don’t remember my family.”
“It might,” Sadie agreed.
“What was it like?” Kendra asked, excited to think that Sadie’s memories might spark her own, but Sadie almost physically withdrew, shaking her head.
“I—I don’t like to talk about it.”
“Oh, of course. I understand.”
The leader, an older woman, claimed everyone’s attention then by asking that they turn to the sixteenth chapter of Psalms. Someone handed an extra Bible to Kendra, and she was glad to find that she knew right where to find the passage. The fifth and sixth verses especially spoke to her.
LORD, You alone are my portion and my cup; You make my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.
Those verses might have been written specifically for her situation. Who, after all, did she ultimately have to depend upon except God? Thankfully, He had moved Jack and his sisters to take her in when she had nowhere else to go. At what more pleasant place could she have landed than the Colby Ranch? As for any inheritance, the future lay entirely in God’s hands, regardless of one’s circumstances, but with no past upon which to build, she would have to trust Him completely for any delight that lay in store. The fact that she could, and did, trust Him bathed her fretful soul in peace, at least for a time.
She prayed that Jack could find some measure of that peace, too.
* * *
Rolling back the sleeves of his stark-white shirt, Jack glanced into the mirror above his dresser. He needed a haircut, but then he always needed a haircut. Who had time to run into town every few days for a trim? Besides, better shaggy than shorn. Unbidden, an image of Kendra came to mind. She always managed to look polished, even with hardly a thing to her name.
The woman didn’t even own a rubber band to keep her hair out of her way. He’d fought the urge to drag her off to a store in town and buy her whatever she needed today. Best not to start down that path, though. Even if she didn’t belong to some other man, she wasn’t his, and giving her a place to stay while she could figure out her past and future didn’t change that. Still, someone had to provide for the woman.
Pushing the thought aside, he picked up the Bible that he’d brought in from the truck after the girls had left for their hen party. He hadn’t wanted to say anything, but he’d found the Bible when he’d come by the old Lindley house that evening. He didn’t know why he’d stopped there on his way home after treating the cattle. Something had him thinking about the old place and his plans for it, though, so on impulse he’d dropped by. He’d known what he’d found as soon as he’d seen the Bible lying there on the hearth. Both Maddie and Violet had received Bibles with notes tucked inside, but their “mystery gifter” remained just that, a mystery.
He reached over and flipped open the soft, brown, saddle-stitched cover. Inside was a folded sheet of paper. He flattened it out with his palm and read the handwritten words, even though they were the same as those given to his sisters.
I am sorry for what I did to you and your family. I hope you and your siblings, especially your twin, can forgive me as I ask the Lord to forgive me.
Whoever was leaving these notes and Bibles seemed to know a good deal about the family, maybe even more than they knew about themselves. Maddie had received her “gift” back at her place in Fort Worth. Violet had found hers right here. Now this.
Who was this person? And for what did he or she need to be forgiven? He wondered if it could be Brian. That might make sense if Brian was not his and Grayson’s father, but then why include Violet and Maddie in the scheme? It just didn’t add up.
He’d have to tell his sisters that he had received a Bible and note, too, but tonight hadn’t been the right time. Besides, he hated to open up things again. After his mother’s accident, he’d vowed not to look for information about the past anymore, but then he’d let Violet and Maddie convince him to do just that—with disastrous results.
He thought of Kendra again. They had more in common than she realized. Oh, he knew his name, but no one could tell him why his parents had split up the family, including two sets of twins! Was Brian Wallace his father? Or was his real father Joe Earl, as Earl’s widow, Patty, insisted?
Jack regretted ever agreeing to look for answers in their old neighborhood in Fort Worth. He didn’t even remember the place or Patty Earl, the neighbor to whom he and his sisters had spoken. They’d gotten the address because of an old photo that had been restored, and he’d let himself be convinced to go there and nose around, only to come home with more questions and no answers.
The worst of it was that if Joe Earl did turn out to be his father, then his sisters were only his half sisters, and Carter wouldn’t even be a stepbrother. Grayson, the twin he’d never met, could be his only full sibling. Jack could just barely conceive of that scenario.
His mother would have been quite young when he and Gray were born, just out of high school, but Jack had a difficult time believing that she would have married one man while pregnant by another. He had a much harder time believing that his sisters could have been fathered by anyone but Belle’s husband, Brian Wallace, however. His mother just would not cheat on her husband.
Then again, the woman he knew as Bethany “Belle” Colby was in reality Isabella Wallace. At least he now knew where she’d come by the nickname Belle. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to know anything else. Even if Brian Wallace had been around to answer all these questions and not lost somewhere in South Texas—or sneaking around dropping Bibles and cryptic notes in strange places—Jack wasn’t sure that he wanted to know the truth, especially not after his mother’s accident. Yet, he couldn’t seem to think about anything else—except Kendra.
He didn’t know which was worse, dwelling on his murky past or the woman without one. At least he knew where he belonged. Come what may, he knew where his home was and would always be, right here on the Colby Ranch. Kendra had no such assurance.
Who was she? Where did she belong? And with whom? Not with him, that was for sure. He couldn’t help wondering what was going to become of her, though. She’d come across some tantalizing clues about herself, but what if she never recalled her identity and her past?
And what if she did? She’d almost certainly leave then.
Ignoring the pang in his chest, Jack shoved the note back into the Bible and strode from the room. He needed prayer meeting more than usual tonight. He’d have a great many unspoken requests to go along with the usual prayers for healing for his mother. He’d decide later when he should mention receiving the Bible and note to his sisters.
* * *
Looking at the clock on her bedside table, Kendra r
eflected ruefully that she did, indeed, appear to be an early riser. For the third morning in a row, she had awakened before the sun even rose. She’d dressed then stared out the window into the courtyard below, waiting for Jack to put in an appearance. He hadn’t done so, however. That or she’d somehow missed him again as she had on Thursday morning. She wondered if he was avoiding her, surprised by how much the notion hurt.
Lupita had declared today “Pancake Friday,” so Kendra didn’t waste any more time waiting for Jack. She figured she could get things started. She and Lupita had discussed the menu and cooking techniques the day before, after all.
Hurrying downstairs to the kitchen, she found Lupita and Jack already there.
“¡Buenos días!” Lupita greeted as Kendra entered the room. “The bacon is cooking in the oven.”
“What do you mean the bacon is cooking in the oven?” Jack asked, lounging at the breakfast table over a tall mug of coffee. “Since when do you cook bacon in the oven?”
Lupita tossed a glance over one shoulder as she carefully stirred the pancake batter. Kendra went to find salt and vanilla to add to the mix, pausing only momentarily to wonder how she knew to do that, as Lupita explained, “Since Kendra showed me that it cooks more evenly that way. Takes a little longer, but at least it can all be done in one batch, and the stove doesn’t get so dirty.”
“Done much cooking, have you?” Jack asked, targeting Kendra with his gaze.
“Apparently,” she answered, placing the salt and vanilla extract on the counter.
Lupita lifted her eyebrows. “Yes?” she asked, nodding toward the batter bowl.
“Just a little of each.”
Trustingly, Lupita began sprinkling drops of vanilla extract into the batter. Kendra smiled and turned away to test the heavy, cast-iron skillet on a front burner of the stove. She flicked a few drops of water over the oiled surface and watched them sizzle.
“This is ready.”
Lupita poured the batter into the pan, making saucer-size cakes that immediately began to bubble up. As soon as the bubbles started to break, Kendra shook back her hair and began flipping the pancakes with a spatula. Suddenly, she felt someone at her back.