by Arlene James
Suddenly, Jack spoke. “I know you don’t understand my attitude toward Maddie, Grayson and Carter.”
Kendra closed her eyes in silent thanks that he had broached the subject that so troubled her. Leaning forward, she said, “It’s just that, given my own situation, I can’t imagine not welcoming a previously unknown sister or brother.”
“I get that,” Jack replied softly, staring at his drink. “The thing is... Maddie and Violet might be my sisters, in which case Carter wouldn’t be any relation to me at all.”
Now, that surprised Kendra. She understood suddenly that Jack was trying to protect himself from too much emotional attachment. Obviously, he didn’t want to be hurt if the truth somehow limited his connections to Maddie and Carter, but what about his twin?
“That means Grayson,” Jack went on, as if reading her mind, “could be my only full sibling, but what if he doesn’t—” Breaking off, he cleared his throat before saying quickly, “I don’t even know him! Twins are supposed to feel some connection, but what I mostly feel is shock. Does that make sense?”
“Absolutely,” Kendra murmured. “To suddenly discover that you have siblings you never knew about is one thing, but to discover that you have a twin... That has to be disorienting.”
“Disorienting?” Jack echoed with a snort. “More like overwhelming. With Mom in a coma, all these secrets coming to light, Maddie on the scene, and both she and Violet suddenly engaged to marry, I’m just not sure this is the time to bring someone else into the mix.”
“But aren’t you at least curious about Grayson?” Kendra asked.
“Of course! When I think of him, though,” Jack admitted bleakly, “I can’t help thinking that he grew up with the father I’ve always wanted.”
“Oh, Jack.” Her heart broke for him.
“If Brian even is our father,” Jack plowed on. “There’s a woman in Fort Worth who swears that her dead husband fathered me and Grayson. She believes my mother was already pregnant with us when she married Brian and that Mom chose him because he would be the better provider or something.”
“That’s...” Kendra shook her head, astounded. “I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing to say,” Jack muttered. Then abruptly he growled, “The only two people who could say anything factual about it aren’t talking. Mom’s sick, and Brian’s...” Jack threw up a hand. “Nobody knows where Brian is. That’s the problem!”
Kendra puffed out a deep sigh. “Jack, I’m so sorry. But surely you see that Grayson is in the same position as you. He grew up not knowing his mother.”
“Yes, he did,” Jack insisted. “He had a father and a mother. Until she died.”
Kendra wrinkled her brow, trying to put that information into perspective. “But that would have meant... She had to be his stepmother.”
“So? At least he had someone,” Jack grumbled. “They had someone. Maddie didn’t even know that the woman wasn’t their real mother until she and Violet stumbled across each other in Fort Worth a couple months ago.”
“I take it that Carter is this other woman’s child,” Kendra surmised, her mind whirling.
“Yes. Hers and Brian’s.”
“Which means that if Brian isn’t your father, then Carter isn’t any relation to you at all.”
“You got it.”
“Still, at the very least, Maddie is your half sister and Grayson is your twin,” Kendra argued. “If he’s as like you as Maddie is Violet—”
“I don’t know what he is!” Jack snapped. “We’ve never even met.”
“Why not?” Kendra wanted to know. If Jack was the problem, she intended to argue vociferously that he meet with his brother.
“According to Maddie,” Jack muttered, “he’s been undercover but should be surfacing soon.”
“Undercover?”
“He’s a cop and was on some top-secret assignment or something.”
Kendra briefly closed her eyes, relieved to discern that Jack hadn’t purposefully kept his brother away.
“What about Carter? Have you met him?”
“No. He’s in the military overseas. I think he’ll be stateside in November, maybe.”
Kendra lifted her eyebrows. Their chosen professions said volumes about the Wallace/Colby boys. She felt a moment’s intense relief that Jack hadn’t felt the need to take such risks as Grayson and Carter. She supposed that, being the man of the house, the responsibility that he’d had for his mother and sister had kept him closer to home.
“I’ll pray for their safe return,” Kendra told him softly.
Jack nodded, replying softly, “Thanks. Maddie says they can handle themselves, but you can’t help worrying. Just have to leave it in God’s hands, I guess.”
That told her much more than he probably intended. For one thing, he obviously felt concern for both Grayson and Carter. For another, he’d been praying for them himself.
“You’re a good man, Jack,” she declared impulsively.
His gaze darted to hers, his dark brows drawn together almost comically. “Why do you say that?”
“If you weren’t a kind, caring, responsible Christian man,” she answered, “you wouldn’t have taken me in after the wreck.”
He mumbled something about his sisters.
“Your sisters have been very welcoming,” she stated firmly, “but they weren’t the ones who brought me here. You did that. I hate to think where I’d be if you hadn’t. Thank you.”
Shaking his head, he muttered, “You don’t have to thank me.”
“I know,” she admitted. “I also know that Maddie wants to be your sister in just the same way that Violet is. It doesn’t matter whose father was who, Jack. It only matters that Maddie cares. And that you do, too.”
He didn’t let his gaze touch hers, but a smile tugged at his lips. “For a girl who doesn’t remember her own name, you sure know a lot,” he grumbled.
Kendra chuckled. “What I know,” she said, “is that you and the Lord will work it out in time.”
He met her gaze then, admitting, “It helps to talk things out with you.”
She couldn’t quell a spurt of joy. “Why?”
“It’s not just that you’re unbiased,” he began, shrugging. She only wished that she was unbiased, but she wouldn’t argue the point. “You’re...clear,” he went on, “about what’s most important, I mean.”
“When you have no past, you have nothing on which to base a future,” she pointed out. “That means you have only the present. And yes, some things do seem starkly clear to me. For instance, nothing matters quite so much as having someone to care about you and somewhere to belong.”
To her surprise, he reached out and caught her hand in his. “You have those things. This is your home for as long as you need it, and no matter who else out there is a part of your life, we are, too, now.” Squeezing her fingers, he settled back with his lemonade. “I like to think that we’re, well, family. Of a sort.”
Smiling, Kendra returned the pressure, clasping his hand tightly. They weren’t real family, but somehow, he had become her lifeline.
“I thought you were avoiding me,” she confessed.
“I was,” he admitted. “Can’t avoid the truth, though.”
“What truth is that?” she asked warily.
“That neither of us is in a position to start a romance, but both of us can use a friend.”
Thank You, Lord. This truth, though, pricked at her heart.
“That sounds about right to me,” she said in a soft voice.
He nodded. “Friends it is, then.”
“Friends,” she affirmed. After a few moments, she said, “As a friend, can I ask you something?”
“What’s that?”
“Will you tell me about your mom?”
Jack chuckled. “She’s a firebrand. She went to work for James Crawford when I was a little boy, and after his death she turned his gift into the biggest, finest ranch in northwest Texas.” He looked around, saying proudly, “She built this house, did the very best that she could by me and Violet.” Frowning, he added, “If I’d had a father, I’d have to say that my life had been as near to perfect as it’s possible to be.”
“That doesn’t sound like a woman who would willingly leave a daughter and son behind,” Kendra mused.
“You’re right,” Jack agreed solemnly. “That’s what doesn’t make sense. She’s a loving, hardworking Christian woman who never shirked a responsibility that I could see.” He shook his head. “I just don’t get it.”
“There has to be a good reason,” Kendra said, clasping his hand. “Hold on to that.”
Smiling introspectively, Jack nodded. “I’ll try. Meanwhile, maybe you’d like to see her? Tomorrow, after the doc takes out your stitches, I’d planned to stop by the nursing home with Violet and Maddie. You’re welcome to come, too.”
“I’d like that,” Kendra told him.
They sat in silence after that, holding hands and listening to the ice shift and clink in their glasses.
Everything had changed, Kendra realized, and yet nothing had changed. She still didn’t know who she was or where she belonged, but in this moment she felt utterly content. Clasping Jack’s hand, she didn’t have to wonder why.
* * *
“Meet you at the convalescent home,” Violet said through the window of her idling SUV.
“As soon as the doc is finished with Kendra,” Jack confirmed.
Violet nodded, glanced knowingly at Maddie, who sat on the passenger side of her vehicle, and drove toward the convalescent home next door to the clinic. Jack sighed inwardly. Those knowing glances were less perceptive than either of his sisters assumed. Yes, he felt a keen attraction and a certain responsibility to Kendra. But so what?
Neither he nor Kendra could get involved in a romance now. They had agreed that anything more than friendship was simply out of the question. Even if they hadn’t come to that mutual realization, he’d have to be nuts to fall for someone who couldn’t remember her past. What if she suddenly remembered that she was wildly in love with some other man?
Shaking his head, he stepped up onto the sidewalk next to Kendra.
“Something wrong?”
He offered her a lame smile as he walked toward the building. “Nope. Just don’t want you to be late for your doctor’s appointment.”
“We should be fine,” she told him, passing through the door that he held open for her.
Inside, Doc’s receptionist had them sit in the empty waiting room. Two more folks came in right after them. A third, fourth and fifth appeared before the nurse came for Kendra. She rose and started forward, only to pause and glance back at him.
“You coming?”
Jack warred with himself for a moment then rose to follow her. Nurse Hamm parked them in a treatment room and took Kendra’s vitals before disappearing again. Mere moments later, Doc Garth walked in. He slit the seal on a heavy plastic envelope containing tiny scissors and tweezers while shooting questions at Kendra.
“Any headaches?”
“No. Just some tenderness.”
“Blackouts?”
“No.”
“Dizziness?”
“None.”
“Strange dreams or memories?”
She told him about feeling that she’d been in the backseat of the car when it wrecked.
“Well, that didn’t happen,” the doctor drawled as he began to snip and tug loose the stitches on her forehead.
“I know,” Kendra conceded, “but that’s what flashed through my mind when I saw the car.”
“Did you go out to the site of the accident?” Doc asked, continuing to work.
“No.”
“Yes,” Jack corrected, glancing at Kendra. “We drove out that way a few days ago.”
“We did?” she asked in a small voice.
Nodding, Jack said, “She didn’t seem to recognize the spot, but we did approach it from the opposite direction.”
Kendra bit her lip, tears filling her eyes. Doc finished extracting the stitches, blotted a couple specks of blood with a gauze pad and instructed Kendra to keep the scar covered with sunscreen.
“Do that, and it should disappear entirely.”
“All right,” she agreed softly. “What about my memory?”
Doc Garth sighed and peeled off his gloves. “It’s anybody’s guess. I can’t tell you when, or even if, your memory will return.”
Ducking her head, Kendra dashed tears from her eyes. “I see.” She sniffed and lifted her head. “I’ve got a problem, then, don’t I? What am I going to do now?” It turned into a wail at the end, and she clapped a hand over her mouth.
“We’ve already settled this,” Jack said matter-of-factly, taking her by the arm. He tugged, helping her down off the examination table. “You’re going to the nursing home with me, then you’re going home to the ranch,” he went on, “and this evening you’re going to feed the animals again because that’s your job. Okay?”
Smiling through her tears, she vigorously nodded her head. They left a few moments later. When her hand stole into his, Jack clasped it tightly, aware of twin bubbles that rose in his chest, one of delight, one of regret.
* * *
“I don’t understand,” Jack said testily. “Is she coming out of it or not?”
“No one knows,” Violet told him, glancing toward the narrow hospital bed where their mother lay quietly, as if asleep.
“But the nurse did say that she’s been mumbling from time to time and pulling at her tracheotomy tube,” Maddie supplied.
Jack turned back to the bed, afraid to hope. Belle had never so much as stirred during one of his many visits. She had seemed to sigh once or twice, but he couldn’t even be sure about that. A movement at the side of the bed caught his eye, but it wasn’t Belle moving; it was Kendra. She brushed the back of Belle’s hand with her fingertips and bowed her head. He knew that she prayed for his mother’s recovery and mentally added his plea to hers.
Please, Lord, let her wake up soon. Let her wake up and be her old self.
Aware of a whispered discussion going on behind him, he turned to frown at his sisters. They stood together in the corner of the small utilitarian room and stared back, twin expressions of bland unconcern on their faces. He knew that look. Lifting his hands, he flexed his fingers in the international sign for “give.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“It’s not Mom,” Violet said quickly. “It’s Brian.”
Jack’s frown deepened. “What about him?”
“I’m very worried about Dad,” Maddie confessed. “I got an email from Grayson this morning. Now that he’s finished his undercover assignment, he’s made some phone calls, and he’s been told that Dad might be ill.”
“You mean, that may be why Brian’s dropped out of sight?” Jack clarified.
“That’s what Gray thinks,” Maddie confirmed. “Oh, how I wish Grayson could just go down there to investigate!”
“What’s the holdup?” Jack asked, stung more than he wanted to admit that Maddie seemed to automatically discount him as being of any help in the matter. Well, if he and Grayson were twins, they ought to be equally capable, right? Besides, hadn’t he been with her and Violet in Fort Worth when they scoped out Belle and Brian’s old neighborhood?
“Debriefing,” she explained. “He has to get all the right information to all the right people, submit a bunch of reports, that sort of thing. Once he’s fully debriefed, he’ll be free to leave, but it’s all complicated by the fact that he’s injured. Could be we
eks before he can get away.”
Jack frowned. “How serious is his injury?”
“A dislocated shoulder,” Maddie said. “He says it’s nothing, but it’s obviously slowing him down.”
“Did you tell him that I got one of those Bibles and mysterious notes?”
“I told him,” Maddie confirmed, “but I just don’t get how it’s all connected.”
“We don’t know that it is,” Jack pointed out. “The Bibles and notes might not have anything at all to do with why Mom and Brian split the family or with Brian’s disappearance, but someone obviously knows more about us than we do. I mean, whoever it is knows exactly where to leave those things for us to find, but we don’t even know what this person did or when.”
“Grayson is as puzzled as we are,” Maddie said, “but maybe he can figure out the mystery.”
“Our parents would know,” Violet put in, looking toward the bed. “They have to.”
“Which is one of the reasons why I think I should go to South Texas and look into things,” Jack stated flatly, irked that he’d had to volunteer and more disturbed than he wanted to be by Grayson’s injury and Brian’s possible illness.
“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Kendra interjected, appearing at his elbow. “You could drive down to where Brian was last seen and talk to the people there.”
“Yeah,” he said, buoyed somewhat by her unwavering support. “I could do that. Maddie and Ty made the trip last month and found Brian’s cell phone. This time, I could speak to the pastor of the church himself and try to figure out where Brian was last seen and why they think he might be ill.”
“It’s a long drive to manage alone,” Maddie pointed out with studied nonchalance. It had exactly the result he figured she’d intended when Kendra volunteered to go with him.
“I can’t drive, but surely I can be of some use.”
“Oh, I’m sure you can,” Violet assured her.