Yesterday Lost Page 13

  “Down there?”

  “San Francisco. I drove down Monday morning and just got back a couple of hours ago. You remember I told you I thought we were getting a corporate grant to buy new computers?”

  She nodded.

  “It all fell through. I went down to try to salvage the situation, but it didn’t help.”

  “Oh, Jace, that’s too bad. Why did they change their minds? Surely they could see what a worthy cause Damascus is!”

  He tilted his head forward and massaged the back of his neck. “It wasn’t anything to do with the school. Just number-crunching from the accounting department that showed profits were down. So this billion dollar corporation decides it can’t afford a few thousand to buy some underprivileged boys a few computers after all.” He lifted his head and smiled wryly. “I guess I’m whining after all, aren’t I?”

  “It seems so unfair!” She set a dish of cobbler in front of him and made a second trip with the coffee. She’d refined her crutch skills to the point where she could manage with just one for a few steps now, if she was careful.

  “That’s just the way things go. Anyway, I’m glad to be out of the city and back home. In spite of the song, I did not leave my heart in San Francisco.”

  A little hesitantly, Katy asked, “Jace, is the school having financial difficulties?”

  “We’re always short on money. It’s our standard state of existence. But the Lord always provides and meets our needs one way or another.” He smiled. “A big soup company just gave us a hundred cases of canned tomato sauce because the label was slightly off color. So be prepared for tomato everything the next time you eat with us. Tomato soup, tomato casserole, tomato cake, tomato pudding.”

  She smiled. “Tomato pudding sounds yummy. Am I invited for this Sunday?”

  “Katy, you are always invited.”

  He dug into the cherry cobbler and moments later handed the empty dish back for seconds. “I feel better.”

  Katy found herself hoping there was truth in the old adage that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. However, conscious that she’d been putting on a few pounds lately, not a wise move for a model, she ate only one small dish of cobbler herself. Then she had an idea.

  “Maybe you’ve been approaching this computer situation from the wrong angle,” she suggested thoughtfully.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Katy attended Sunday services in the chapel and stayed for the tomato-rich spaghetti dinner. Afterward, as Jace was driving her home, he casually asked if she had a Bible.

  “I’ve never seen one around.” Although she’d never looked.

  “I’ll bring you one. You might browse in Isaiah 49, or the thirteenth chapter of Hebrews. And the psalms are always wonderful.”

  “You can bring it, but I’m not going to read it.”

  He gave her a sideways glance. “Apparently you’ve read the Bible sometime, or you wouldn’t know what you do about what’s in it.”

  She couldn’t argue with the fact that she did seem to have some unexplainable biblical knowledge. “Knowledge isn’t belief,” she stated flatly.

  “God is working on you,” he said with an annoyingly serene assurance.

  The next day, when he arrived to take her back to the river with the boys, he had a Bible for her. She tossed it into the living room, not watching to see where it landed. Jace exaggerated a cringe at her irreverent handling of his gift, but all he said was a cheerful, “God’s Word has endured much worse and survived.”

  It was a fun afternoon, the hottest day yet. The boys splashed and paddled with noisy exuberance, sometimes deliberately dumping themselves out of a kayak and into the water, and they joined together to toss Mac into the river to celebrate his birthday. With the cast enclosing her leg like an itchy trap and perspiration plastering her T-shirt to her back, Katy worked up sufficient courage to sit at the edge of the calm section of the river and cool one foot in the chilly water. The savage, churning white water on the far side of the river still distressed her, but she was okay if she kept her gaze close to her own feet.

  Later in the week Jace reported that he’d acted on her suggestion and contacted a computer company about a direct donation of computers, and they sounded receptive to the idea. He said he might make a trip to Texas later to pitch the idea in person. He also thanked Katy for the idea.

  On Saturday, when Mrs. L. returned from Wilding with the mail, she handed Katy a letter with a New York postmark and unfamiliar handwriting. Katy opened it with the buzz of excitement always aroused by the possibility of some revelation that might jolt her memory out of hiding. Inside was a scrawled note reading. “We’ve never received reimbursement for the charges when we shipped all your stuff. $169.25. Please!!!” followed by the signature Stephanie swirling with look-at-me loops.

  Katy showed the curt note to Mrs. L. “Is this one of my roommates?”

  Mrs. L. slapped her own cheek with a stricken expression. “Oh, my! I must not have sent them the money to pay for shipping your things out here. How could I have been so forgetful? I guess I just had so much on my mind.”

  “It’s no big deal,” Katy assured her. “I’ll do it right away. In fact, I’ll call her right now and tell her the money is on its way.”

  Mrs. L. looked in her address book but couldn’t locate the phone number of the apartment where Katy had lived in New York, but Katy found it scribbled in the back of the phone book. She dialed the number from the kitchen phone, and a very young, chipper voice said, “Hi!”

  “Stephanie?”

  “No, this is Nikki. Stephanie’s out.”

  Did she know Nikki? Cautiously Katy said, “Hi. This is Katy . . . Kat Cavanaugh.”

  “Oh, hi. You used to live here, didn’t you? I’m the new roommate. I just moved in with Steph and Linda a few weeks ago. Actually I’ve only been in New York a couple months. The agency may send me to Paris.” Nikki giggled as she chattered as if she were on the giddy adventure of a lifetime. “Oh, hey, hold on. Steph just came in.”

  An unintelligible exchange of words, and then a sultry voice spoke into the phone. “Hello, Kat.”

  The words sounded more like a claws-bared challenge than a greeting between old friends. Katy drew back, dismayed at the open flare of hostility, and she was suddenly reminded of what Barry had said about her former roommates’ envy. She decided she was not going to be drawn into some unpleasant exchange.

  “I just called to apologize for not sending the money earlier to reimburse you for the shipping charges. I’ll put a check in the mail immediately.”

  “Oh. Well, thanks.” Stephanie sounded as if this unexpected cooperation tipped her off balance.

  “Ánd I appreciate your going to all the trouble of doing the packing and shipping. Again, I’m sorry about the delay in getting the money to you. Things have been rather . . . unsettled here.”

  Brief silence, as if Stephanie was perhaps remembering the careless packing, which had resulted in the ruin of several expensive items. Katy had no intention of mentioning the damage, although she had to admit hoping Stephanie was feeling at least a few pinpricks of guilt.

  “That’s okay,” Stephanie said. If there was any guilt, it obviously wasn’t pricking very deeply. “We were surprised when you wanted everything shipped out there. You hadn’t said anything about not coming back when you left. How are you doing?” Now the voice held reluctant curiosity.

  “Just fine.”

  “What do you do there? Isn’t it terribly isolated?”

  “It is rather isolated, but I like it. Mostly I’ve just been reading and thinking, doing some cooking.”

  “You, Kat, the one who said housework was for peons, stooping to cooking?”

  “Actually, I go by the name of Katy now,” Katy said, startled by both the reminder of her own snobbish attitude and the sneer in Stephanie’s voice.

  She half expected the other woman to make some derisive comment about the na
me adjustment, but instead Stephanie jumped to what she apparently considered a more important subject. “You don’t have any intention of coming back to New York?”

  “I’m not sure. Barry Alexander flew out a few days ago to talk to me—”

  “Barry! Surely you’re not thinking about going back to that loser!”

  “Loser?”

  “Oh, come on, Kat. He’s putting up a big front, but everybody knows his agency is going under. Even you finally admitted you’d made a big mistake signing with him and that you should have dumped him long before you did. I’d have dumped him the minute he came up with that pathetic little engagement ring.”

  “I don’t think I’d call four carats a ‘pathetic little ring’!” Katy retorted, suddenly annoyed with Stephanie’s superior scorn. She had a sudden sharp suspicion that the slipshod packing of her belongings may have been more deliberate than careless.

  “Four carats?” Stephanie laughed gleefully. “C’mon Kat, get real! That diamond could barely make half a carat. If it even was a diamond.”

  This whole conversation was so petty, so astonishingly mean spirited, that Katy was disgusted. And ashamed that she’d risen to the bait of Stephanie’s taunt about the ring. Barry was right about her roommates. No wonder she’d wanted out of that apartment. She started to hang up but paused, attention suddenly darting back to Stephanie’s earlier statement.

  “Are you saying I quit Barry’s agency?” she asked cautiously.

  “Quit? Kat, that scene you threw at his oh-so-ritzy cocktail party was a classic. Tearing up your contract with him, burying that ring in the shreds, soaking the whole mess in champagne, then wadding it into a ball and throwing it at him!” Briefly Stephanie sounded admiring, an admiration that appalled Katy, although not as much as hearing what she had done appalled her. Then Stephanie’s tone turned mocking. “Yes, Kat, I’d say you definitely quit both Barry and his nickel-and-dime agency.”

  Katy tried to swallow her shock. “What did Barry do?”

  “What could he do? You were the only model he’s ever had who wasn’t a complete nobody. He laughed and tried to pretend it was just a little lovers’ spat.”

  “Were you there?” Katy asked. “Or is this all just some gossip rumor you heard?”

  “No, I wasn’t there,” Stephanie admitted. “But I was here when he stormed in after the cocktail party, grabbed you around the throat, and threatened to kill you!”

  “Kill me?”

  “He thought the two of you were alone, I suppose, and he sure looked and sounded mad enough to do it. But he backed off when Sean and I came out of the bedroom and I ran for the phone to call the police. I guess he came to his senses then and decided the agency was in enough trouble without that kind of publicity.”

  Katy remembered the moment of fear she’d felt when Barry was here at the ranch and she’d thought he was going to strike her. Was he capable of actual violence?

  “Why are you asking about all this?” Stephanie suddenly demanded suspiciously. “You were there. You know what happened. And you sound odd. What is this, Kat, one of your sly little I-just-can’t-remember-anything-about-that games? Like the time you borrowed my Anne Klein dress without asking and somehow couldn’t remember ruining it with that awful wine stain? Or the time you insisted you had no idea Linda was crazy about Dave Arnold or you’d never have gone out with him? Or how you could never quite remember when it was your turn to vacuum the apartment or take out the trash?”

  Katy swallowed, knowing the incriminating list would probably go on and on if she let it. Apparently her roommates had accumulated plenty of ammunition to fuel their vindictive handling of her belongings. “Actually, I was in an accident.”

  Stephanie didn’t wait for details or offer sympathy. Digging into memories of Katy’s past misdeeds had apparently revved her anger, and it exploded in fury now. “Oh, were you?” she snapped. “An accident. How unfortunate. But it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person. Look, just send the money, okay? And then stay out of our lives!”

  The phone slammed down. Katy numbly replaced the receiver at her end of the line.

  Barry had lied to her. Katy did not really trust Stephanie, but her former roommate’s description of events had the savage snarl of truth. But when Barry discovered Katy now had no memory of those past actions, he’d glibly decided to take advantage of her amnesia and pretend no split had ever occurred between them, personally or professionally.

  “Katy, Sweetie, are you all right?” Mrs. L. touched Katy’s arm anxiously. “Oh, dear, I know I shouldn’t have been listening, but you started to get so pale.”

  What had happened when Barry came to the ranch several months ago? That would have been after the break between them. Had he come to try to patch things up? Or carry out his threat? Had there been another ugly argument? And what had her response been?

  Katy wobbled to the breakfast nook and gave Mrs. L. the details of the phone conversation. “Do you remember what happened when Barry was here? Were we arguing?”

  Mrs. L. tilted her head thoughtfully. “Maybe things were a little tense. I remember you stomping away from the breakfast table one morning, and when I came in to get the dishes, he was wiping something off his face.”

  Probably, Katy thought in dismay, because she had thrown it there. “How long was he here?”

  “Well, let’s see. Two or three days, I think. But I really don’t remember for certain, sweetie.”

  “Did he know I was planning to go away for a while?”

  “I have no idea, hon.”

  Katy briefly wondered whether it would be possible to check through old records of the airlines and find out if Barry had actually flown back to New York immediately after leaving the ranch. Then she dismissed that entire line of thought as ridiculous. What was she speculating? That instead of flying back to New York, he’d stayed out here, intercepted her meeting in Redding, followed her, and three months later tossed her in the surf on the Oregon coast? Preposterous. He may have been furious with her for the personal and professional dumping she’d given him, but he had a modeling agency to run in New York, and stalking her for three months was crackpot stuff.

  Yet he could have flown out from New York again later …

  “You okay, Sweetie?” Mrs. L. repeated anxiously.

  Katy tried to smile. “Just my imagination working overtime. Maybe I need my afternoon nap.”

  The phone rang again, and she jumped nervously. Barry hadn’t contacted her since leaving the ranch. Was he calling now? Or Stephanie calling back with further angry accusations? But no caller I.D. on these phones. Mrs. L. squeezed Katy’s arm and picked up the phone. She listened a moment and then held it out to Katy.

  “Jace,” she said with a reassuring smile, and Katy took the phone gladly.

  Jace said he had to go look at a couple of calves a nearby rancher was willing to sell the school at a good price for their livestock project, and would she like to come along?

  Katy’s first instinct was an instant yes, but, only half teasing, she asked, “Are you going to preach at me? Or give me a test on last Sunday’s message?”

  “I might. Or I might ask if you’ve been studying that Bible I gave you.”

  “I glanced at a few pages, but I didn’t really study it.”

  Actually, she’d read the complete book of Ruth, drawn to this inexplicably familiar-sounding narrative of how God faithfully guided and cared for a young widow in a strange land. But she’d slammed the book shut in anger when she reached the end. Maybe God worked that way for a few special favorites, but others he ruthlessly ignored or forgot.

  “It’ll grow on you,” Jace said cheerfully.

  “Don’t count on it.”

  “Oh, but I am counting on it. Counting on you and God.”

  ***

  On the drive to the ranch she told Jace about calling her former roommates in New York and what Stephanie had told her about the scene a
t Barry’s cocktail party. She sighed. “Every time I learn additional facts, the more disenchanted I am with myself.”

  Jace glanced sideways at her across the pickup seat. “Barry doesn’t exactly win any gold stars, either,” he pointed out. “He came out here and lied to you about everything.”

  “He could be worse than simply untrustworthy. Stephanie said that after the cocktail party, he came to the apartment and threatened to kill me.” She hesitated. “And once, while he was here, I was a little afraid of him.”

  Jace braked so sharply that the seat belt jolted against Katy’s chest. He pulled onto a wide spot on the shoulder of the road and turned to her. He didn’t even ask what Barry had done to arouse her fear. He simply leaped full blast to her defense. “Katy, why didn’t you tell me? If I’d thought you were in any danger, I’d have been over there before you could set the phone down!”

  One glance at the dark anger in Jace’s eyes told her he wouldn’t be making polite conversation with Barry, and the harsh bite of his hands on the curve of her shoulders emphasized his raw strength to carry out the unspoken threat. A ridge of muscle ticked along the sharp edge of his jaw.

  “Fisticuffs?” Katy teased shakily. “From a man of the Lord?”

  He blinked, as if suddenly stepping back from the potent storm center of his emotions. His grip on her shoulders relaxed, and he massaged her upper arms lightly. He grinned ruefully. “The Lord and I do have to hold an occasional conference about my temper. It’s nothing like it used to be, but an injustice or threat, especially to someone I care about, can still push my buttons. Have you been in touch with Barry since he returned to New York?”

  She momentarily lingered in the sweet music of someone I care about before answering his question. “No. But if he does call, I’m going to confront him with this.”

  Jace frowned. “Why don’t you just let it go, Katy? Does it really matter now? He’s there, you’re here, and it’s all in the past.”

  “Fine forgive-and-forget talk from a man who a moment ago sounded ready to tear the man apart piece by piece!”