Okay, she was indeed a bit uncomfortable lying here on the floor helpless as an overturned bug, but she was in no real danger. She could just read her mail until Mrs. L. got home. She craned her head to look at the clock on the antique trunk and groaned. Only nine o’clock. Given the drive to and from Yreka, plus Mrs. L.’s dental appointment and shopping time, she could be trapped here for another five or six hours.
There was the phone, if she could somehow reach it. But who would she call? She doubted the existence of quick help from 911 out here in the wilds. Oh, but there was the handyman from the boys ranch across the road. What was his name? Joe? Yes, she’d call Joe.
The phone was out of reach, but she tossed a picture frame at it and the phone tumbled to the floor. She bent a metal hanger into a long, narrow shape and snagged the phone. Then, a piece of luck. She got into the contact list and there it was! She held the instrument overhead and punched in the numbers from her awkward position on the floor.
On the third ring a male voice answered. “Damascus Boys Ranch. Jace Foster speaking.”
“Hi. Is Joe the handyman available?”
“I’m sorry. Joe went to town for supplies today. May I help you?”
The husky voice sounded authoritative but nice, cheerful and neighborly, the offer of help more genuine than mere polite phone etiquette. Where she hadn’t liked Stanton Riker on sight, she liked Jace Foster simply from his friendly voice.
She started to say, You don’t know me, but stopped. Maybe they did know each other. She detoured that tricky obstacle by jumping right in with her problem. “This is Katy Cavanaugh from across the road. I hate to bother you, but I’m in a rather ridiculous fix here—”
She broke off sharply. He hadn’t said a word, made no response at all, and yet she felt the oddest sensation, as if the very phone lines prickled. The fine hairs on her arm prickled in response, and she swallowed convulsively. There was her imagination in overdrive again. Determinedly she set the peculiar feeling aside and started over. “I was opening some cartons, you see, and—”
“Kat?” he interrupted. “Kat?” He sounded not just surprised, but incredulous.
Apparently they did know each other, although he certainly didn’t sound overjoyed to hear from her. She thought about explaining that she used the name Katy rather than Kat now, but at the moment that detail seemed irrelevant. The chest of drawers on her leg was getting heavier by the moment.
“Yes, Kat Cavanaugh. I’m really sorry to bother you but—”
“Is this some kind of trick?” he demanded.
“Trick?” she repeated, taken aback by the odd question that sounded more like an accusation. Nice and neighborly had definitely vanished from his voice. So much for judging character by phone-answering technique. “No, of course not!”
“Are you . . . here?”
“Mrs. L. came for me, and we arrived last night. My leg is broken and in a cast. I was unpacking some things in the bedroom a few minutes ago and accidentally knocked over a chest of drawers, and now the cast is trapped under it. Mrs. Lennox is gone and won’t be back for several hours, so I was just wondering if someone could come over and lend me a hand.”
Again that peculiar, penetrating silence. Katy felt mildly indignant. Mrs. L. had said that was a Christian ranch for boys over there across the road. Weren’t Christians supposed to be helpful and nice? Jace Foster appeared in no rush to be either. In spite of the fact that the trapped leg was beginning to ache, a quicksilver shiver of apprehension rippled through her, and she had a quick impulse to hang up.
Too late.
“I’ll be right over.”
“Don’t—” She didn’t get the remainder of the Don’t bother out before he broke the connection, now giving an impression of sudden haste.
She replaced the receiver with the uneasy feeling that the phone call had been a big mistake. Something was definitely odd here. Yet he had seemed so pleasant at first. . .
Until he found out who she was.
Now what did that say?
She briefly comforted herself with the thought that perhaps he wouldn’t come after all. He’d sounded more astonished and resentful than concerned about her predicament. But in less than five minutes a vehicle roared into the driveway. A moment later the front door opened.
“Kat?” The sound of the tense male voice erased a tiny hope that the vehicle might be Mrs. L. returning early.
Her fingers dug into the carpet as her apprehension climbed like a panicked cat scrambling up a tree. This was no eerie, imagined moment of irrational fear. This was real. She was trapped, vulnerable, flat-on-her-back helpless. And she’d blithely informed a total stranger of this. She jammed a knuckle against her mouth. She wouldn’t respond to his call. Maybe he’d go away—
No, not going away.
Footsteps crossed the polished hardwood floor of the living room. A spot in the floor beside the staircase creaked. And then a tanned hand and muscular arm shoved the bedroom door open wide.
Chapter Four
He hesitated, then strode across the room to stare down at her. He loomed over her, legs impossibly long, fisted hands heavy and dangerous, shoulders broad enough to fill the room and block the ceiling. She felt like some wild creature, trapped and helpless in the dark headlights of his hostile gaze, that strange prickle she’d felt on the phone line a skeletal finger jabbing her spine now. If she were not already pinned to the floor, his hostile eyes would have done it.
She fought a frantic urge to close her eyes like a frightened child and pretend he wasn’t there. Even in those first dazed days in the hospital she had never felt so alone, so helplessly vulnerable.
Desperately she tried to bluff an air of self-confidence, as if this were an ordinary conversation between two equals. “I’m sorry I had to bother you.” But her voice couldn’t manage the pretense. Her breathing was too shallow, air barely reaching her lungs. The words sobbed out in a stammer when she got to, “Th-thank you for coming.”
“What happened to you?” he demanded without preliminaries.
“I told you, I was unpacking cartons, and I accidentally knocked over the chest of drawers—”
“No, I mean this.” His rough slash of hand took in everything from her shorn head to her sock-covered foot sticking out of the cast. Then, as if coming to the tardy realization that this was no time to stand there demanding explanations, he muttered, “Never mind.”
He knelt and leaned over her to plant a two-handed grip on the chest to lift it, and with her hands and good foot she propelled herself backwards in a scooting crab-walk as soon as she was free. He manhandled the chest of drawers to a standing position with a single masculine grunt and slammed shut the drawers that had slid open. With a few swift gestures he gathered up the fallen mail and photos and several pieces of broken glass.
“I wouldn’t walk around barefoot in here,” he advised. “There could still be slivers of glass in the carpet.” He skirted the dark stain on the carpet as he crossed the room to a wicker wastebasket.
Katy, thinking she wouldn’t feel quite so vulnerable if she were on her feet, grabbed a brass leg of the bed and levered herself upright.
He wasn’t quite as oversized as he had appeared from her flat-on-the-floor position staring up at him, but his brawny size was still intimidating. At least six foot two, probably a hundred and ninety pounds of lean, lick-his-weight-in-wildcats muscle, a square jaw that shouted stubborn, thick brown hair. The green-gold glints in his hazel eyes offered no more warmth than had his voice on the phone, but at the moment his expression also appeared more reluctantly curious than menacing.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m fine.” She wasn’t positive of that, but she didn’t want him lingering to investigate. She ran her free hand over her scalp, wondering if in the past running her fingers through her hair had been some automatic reaction to a nerve-frizzing situation. “I appreciate your coming. I can manage by mysel
f now.”
“Did the cast crack or break? You should probably see a doctor for x-rays.”
He took a step toward her, as if he planned to inspect the cast himself, and hastily she said, “Yes, I’ll see about that as soon as Mrs. L. gets home.”
Anything to get rid of him. She felt as unsteady as a wind chime in a storm and desperately wanted to sit down, but she wasn’t about to reveal any further weakness by collapsing in front of him. She clutched the brass rail at the foot of the bed and determinedly remained on her feet. Foot.
But he wasn’t going yet. He hooked his hands in the pockets of his khaki pants and eyed her appraisingly. “What did happen to you?”
“I was in an . . . accident.” She couldn’t bring herself to use the phony car accident that Mrs. L. had suggested, but “accident” alone was relatively accurate without being overly revealing. “The doctor had to cut my hair in order to work on the scalp wounds. And my leg, of course, is broken.”
“Have you made a decision about the ranch?”
“Decision? What decision?” she asked warily.
“My offer is still open.”
He sounded as if he were expecting some specific response to that statement, perhaps even challenging her to make that response. She simply felt confused. Was he saying she’d been thinking about selling the ranch, and he’d offered to buy it? The treacherous potholes of this conversation were suddenly too much for her; she was too exhausted to cope with them. Without knowing exactly how she’d gotten there, she also realized she was now slumped on the edge of the bed after all.
For a moment she was tempted to blurt out, I don’t know you, and I have no idea what you’re talking about! But instead she said lamely, “Well, uh, thank you. I’ll think about your offer.” Perhaps Mrs. L. would know what this was about.
He crossed to the bed in three long strides, strong hand on her shoulder, steadying her as if he thought she might crumple to the floor. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes. I just feel a little woozy occasionally since the accident.”
“Can I get you something? Glass of water? Medication?”
He sounded concerned but reluctantly so, in the same way that he was reluctantly curious about her injuries. She wanted to say simply, No, go away! But her mouth did feel cottony dry.
“Yes, I’d appreciate a glass of water, please.”
He turned, saw the open bathroom door, and headed there rather than the kitchen. His muscular silhouette filled the doorway when he went through, the paper cup from the bathroom dispenser looking absurdly tiny and fragile in his hand when he returned.
“Thank you.” She gulped a swallow of water, her wary eyes never leaving his face. As if aware of her uneasiness he stepped back and folded his arms. He apparently wasn’t planning to take advantage of her vulnerable situation. She finished the water in two thirsty swallows, and he took the empty cup and tossed it in the wastebasket with the shards of glass.
“Thank you,” she repeated.
Her breathing was almost back to normal now, and she was reluctantly curious about him. Beyond the name, Jace Foster, who was he? Why the hostility and air of wary suspicion? Yet, without giving away the peculiarities of her own “little memory problem,” she could hardly start firing questions at him.
Her first frightened fixation on his size had distracted her from the observation that he was a good-looking man, with strong, clean-cut features, age perhaps thirty or so. A slight, crooked jog in the line of his nose, as if it had perhaps been broken at some time in the past, somehow only added an attractive ruggedness to his good looks. Sun-crinkles creased the tan around his eyes, as if he did not spend all his time in an office, and his hands looked weathered and competent. Again, more questions to ask Mrs. L.
“I’ll be okay now,” she said. “Thanks again for coming.”
He acknowledged the thanks with a noncommittal nod. He seemed oddly reluctant to leave in spite of her polite dismissal. The fact that she was uncertain whether this was concern for her physical condition, curiosity, or something more sinister brought another wave of uneasiness.
“Why did you change from the name you’ve always used, Kat, to Katy?” he asked unexpectedly.
“I’m not sure.” She smiled, trying to defuse the hostility that still crackled like a high-voltage wire loose in the room. “I guess I just thought it went better with the new hairdo.”
“That’s a hairdo?” For a moment he sounded almost teasing, as if he were on the verge of a smile himself, and for an equally brief moment the unlikely wish that she could make him smile flitted through her.
“It cuts down considerably on blow-dry time.”
He almost laughed, but instead frowned slightly. “You seem . . . different,” he said.
His eyes appraised her again, like someone suspiciously peering into the magician’s hat to find the trick behind the rabbit. Then his gaze shifted to the photo of her he’d propped on the chest of drawers. Comparing them? Knowing she was an imposter?’
But I’m not an imposter! she silently corrected herself instantly. I’m Kat. Katy. Kathryn Anne Cavanaugh. And she did not want to get into any discussion about differentness. She didn’t even think before, still trying to distract him, she said lightly, “Maybe it’s the hair again. Maybe, like Samson, I lost all my power when it was shorn.”
That statement obviously surprised him. He came close to doing a sitcom double take. But it certainly didn’t surprise him any more than it did her. What did she know of Samson or any other biblical character? How did she even know Samson was a man from the Bible?
He apparently decided not to ask that question, however, merely shrugging to dismiss the subject of her missing hair. “Yeah, maybe so.”
“Thanks again.”
“Sure. Tell Mrs. Lennox that Joe was going to pick up a new filter for her car today, and he’ll be over to change the oil for her later.”
“I’ll tell her. Thank you.”
Her gaze followed his exit, her heart flipping nervously when he paused at the door to look back at her. For a moment she thought he was going to stalk back and . . . do what? But, after a moment of standing in the bedroom doorway with another faint frown, he kept going. She heard a reverse of the noises he’d made when arriving: squeak of floor by the stairs, front door opening, roar of engine. When she was sure he was gone, she let herself collapse sideways on the bed.
A strange encounter, she reflected as she lay there slowly regrouping both mentally and physically. Strange and disturbing. The odd way he kept studying her, the hostility, the feeling that there was more here than showed on the surface.
Yet when Mrs. L. returned home and began answering her questions, Katy had to admit there was reason for Jace Foster’s hostility.
Chapter Five
They were in the kitchen, Katy delighted with the flower-trimmed, floppy-brimmed hat Mrs. L. had brought her in addition to the new cotton pajamas. She slipped the hat on her head and struck a coquettish pose.
“I feel very Southern belle-ish,” she said.
Mrs. L. smiled, obviously pleased that Katy liked the little surprise. “Good. Because we’re having Southern fried chicken tonight.”
Katy knew she was going to get a scolding when Mrs. L. learned about the accident, and she sat there fidgeting with a ribbon flowing from the hat while she tried to figure how to ask questions about her visitor without revealing why he’d come to the house.
Finally, with careful casualness, she said, “A man from across the road dropped in for a few minutes while you were gone.”
Mrs. L., standing on a kitchen stepstool to put groceries away, shoved a carton of oatmeal into an upper cupboard. “Joe?”
“No. His name was Jace Foster, although he said Joe would be over later to change the oil in your car.”
Mrs. L. turned so suddenly on the stool that she had to grab a cabinet door to catch her balance. “Jace came over here?” She sound
ed almost as surprised as Jace had by Katy’s phone call. “Why?”
“It’s unusual for him to come here?” Katy asked. He’d seemed to know his way around the house.
“He used to come over fairly often, but now. . . I can’t imagine him just dropping in on you.”
“Actually,” Katy admitted reluctantly, “I had to call for help, and he was the one who came.”
“Help?”
Then Katy had to tell the whole story about her minor disaster, and she did get scolded for her carelessness.
“Why, you might have smashed the cast and broken your leg again! After this I’m not leaving unless I can find someone to stay with you.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” Katy grumbled, although today hadn’t offered much proof of that. “I’m fine.”
Mrs. L. went over the cast like a NASA inspector searching a space rocket for microscopic flaws. She Band-Aided the cat scratch, inspected Katy’s scalp, and would have bundled her into the car for an instant trip to the doctor until Katy persuaded her that with no pain and the cast intact it was unlikely there was a problem with the leg.
Finally, after all that, as Mrs. L. calmed her nerves with a cup of chamomile tea, Katy had a chance to ask the questions that had led her to admit to the accident. First, exactly who was Jace Foster?
“I suppose his title is manager or supervisor or something like that. He started the boys’ ranch a year or two before we came here. He was a professional football player before that.”
“Do you know him very well?”
“He was Thornton and Mavis’s friend, and I’ve only talked to him a few times since their deaths. But I see him taking the boys on hikes or horseback riding, sometimes playing ball or working in the garden or building fence with them.”
“Is he married?” Now why had she asked that question, Katy wondered, annoyed with herself.
“No. I think Damascus is his life. I know your parents thought very highly of him and his work with the boys. They were planning to donate forty acres of this place to add to the school grounds.”
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