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  “Sometimes my emotions and muscles have been known to fly into action before my brain gets into gear,” Jace admitted. “But it’s been a long time. And I just don’t see any point in confronting him. It sounds as if the guy could be dangerous.”

  “But, as you pointed out, he’s there and I’m here. And I think he should know that he can’t put something over on me just because my memory is missing,” she argued stubbornly.

  “But if you aren’t going back to modeling anyway—”

  “I haven’t decided that for certain.”

  “Perhaps it’s just hopeful thinking on my part,” he admitted.

  “But what else could I do? Modeling is apparently all I know.” This wasn’t the first time she’d confronted that fact. She smiled wryly. “Not that, at the moment, I actually know anything about modeling, either.”

  “You could work at Damascus.”

  “And do what?” Katy asked.

  “I’m sure we could find something.”

  “I do seem to know a little about computers,” she said. “I managed to find my way around on the one my mother used.”

  “Really?” He sounded surprised but accepted the information as if that settled everything. “Well, then, that’s it. You can work in our office. The pay isn’t great, but the boss is awesome. Take a memo, Miss Cavanaugh. Remind the cook that not all one hundred cases of that tomato sauce have to be used up by the end of the month.”

  Katy laughed, and the mood lightened. He pulled back onto the gravel road. At the ranch, Katy stayed in the pickup, enjoying the scents of sun-warmed corral dust, sweaty horses, and fresh-cut hay lying in neatly raked rows in a nearby field, while Jace inspected the whiteface calves. A blacksmith was shoeing a horse by the corral fence, and she watched, fascinated, as he heated a metal horseshoe red hot and then plunged it into a bucket of cold water with a sizzle of steam. Jace and the rancher loaded the frisky calves into the back of the pickup, where they immediately made Katy laugh by poking their noses through the slats and smearing the rear window of the pickup.

  On the way home Jace sang a deliberately nasal version of Git along little dogies, repeating the line because that was apparently all he knew of the song, and Katy laughingly joined in. But when he dropped her off at the house, he turned serious again.

  “Katy, promise you won’t let Barry come out here again. Just tell him to buzz off, that you’re not interested in him or his agency. I really think he could be dangerous.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. Back in New York he was probably just blowing off steam after I humiliated him at the cocktail party. And here, except for that one tiny moment, which I may have imagined anyway, he couldn’t have been nicer.”

  “I’d still rather he stayed back in New York where he belongs.”

  “Jealous?” she teased hopefully.

  “Maybe that’s all it is,” he granted. “But sometimes guys who make threats carry them out.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  There were no threats or messages of any kind from Barry, and after a few uneasy days Katy relaxed. Apparently he’d decided pursuing either a personal or business relationship with her was a lost cause.

  She attended Sunday services in the chapel two weeks in a row. The second time she heard a newly arrived boy whisper to another boy, “Who’s that lady with no hair?” and the answer was, “That’s Mr. Foster’s girlfriend.” Jace didn’t comment, just looked at her and grinned, and she didn’t know whether to be insulted at the “no hair ” description – she did have some hair now! – or joyful at being identified as “Mr. Foster’s girlfriend.”

  Joyful, she decided recklessly. Because she was falling in love with him. No doubt about it. Love was in the air. And in her heart, soul, and bones!

  Jace drove her into Yreka for the appointment to have the cast removed. After a final X-ray to be certain the leg had healed properly within the cast, the doctor got out a little saw and buzzed merrily through this stiff companion she was only too glad to be rid of. But when the cast fell away, and she stared at what was underneath, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. This wasn’t a leg. This was a pale, wimpy noodle, its long length interrupted only by a bony bump pretending to be a knee. Now she wished she’d worn long pants, but she hadn’t, and she had to return to the waiting room with the leg fully on display in shorts.

  Jace gallantly made no “pale noodle” comparisons, simply gave her a reassuring kiss on the nose and took her to the best steakhouse in town to celebrate.

  ***

  Back home, she tottered carefully to the bedroom to rest for a few minutes. Freedom from the cast felt wonderful, and she was already planning all the things she could do now, but at the moment she had to admit to being exhausted. She’d barely stretched out on the bed, however, when the phone rang. She waited for Mrs. L. to pick up, but after six rings Katy reached for the phone. “Hello.”

  “Hi, Kat.”

  She recognized his voice instantly. “Katy,” she corrected sharply.

  “You don’t sound very glad to hear from me.”

  She sat up, swinging both legs to the floor. “Actually I am, Barry. I have something to discuss with you.”

  “Good. I’d have called sooner, but I wanted to give you space and time to work things out. But I remembered that today the cast was supposed to come off, and I wanted to find out if everything went okay.”

  In spite of her antagonism toward him, Katy was reluctantly impressed that he’d remembered this date and sounded so concerned.

  “Everything’s fine. The leg is still weak, of course. I lost a lot of muscle. But I’ll be exercising and walking to strengthen it.”

  “Good,” he repeated. “I hope what you wanted to talk to me about is when you’re coming back to New York?”

  “Not exactly.” Bluntly she repeated everything Stephanie had told her. With no effort to be tactful she said flatly, “You lied to me, Barry. About both our personal and professional relationship.”

  If she thought, cornered by the truth, that he’d cower and grovel, she was mistaken.

  “You’re accepting Stephanie’s word over mine, just like that?” Barry challenged. “Doesn’t it occur to you that she could be lying?”

  Katy returned a challenge of her own. “Stephanie doesn’t know I have amnesia. How could she possibly think she could convince me things happened differently that they really did? As far as she knows, I know exactly what happened, because I was there.”

  Barry retreated fractionally. “I wouldn’t say she’s necessarily lying. But she wasn’t at the cocktail party, and rumors and gossip have a way of expanding and changing shape.”

  True, Katy conceded. “But Stephanie was there, in the flesh, when you stormed into the apartment and threatened to kill me!”

  She detected a moment of surprise when he realized she knew about that threat, but he hid it smoothly. “You have to remember, Katy, that Stephanie was furious with me because I wouldn’t sign her with the agency. And you know the old saying about the fury of a woman scorned. She’s been out to get me for a long time. And the last thing she wants is for you to return to New York. You’re too much hot competition for her, and if she can alienate you from me, there’s much less chance you will come back.”

  Yes, Stephanie was vindictive, Katy had to admit, remembering the state of her possessions in those cartons. Not that Katy herself would win any awards for sterling character, she also had to admit ruefully.

  “Yes, I was upset when I came to the apartment,” Barry continued. “That cocktail party was important to me. Influential people were there, and I was angry and hurt at what you said and did. But I knew you’d had too much to drink and weren’t really responsible for your actions. And Stephanie has made her own overblown, overdramatized interpretation of what happened there at the apartment. I suppose I did mutter something about being mad enough to kill you. But it was nothing more than what a husband might grumble about his wife, suc
h as ‘If that woman interrupts my football game one more time, I’m gonna murder her.’ Vicious sounding, if taken literally, but really quite meaningless.”

  Katy frowned and rubbed her palm across her pale thigh. “What about the ring?”

  “It’s true that at the cocktail party you rather flamboyantly returned the first ring I gave you. But you apologized and accepted another one, and it was four carats, Katy, if size matters to you.” He sounded reproachful. “And that wasn’t our contract you made such a melodramatic display of ripping to shreds at the party. It was an instruction manual for my new camera. Not that I was very happy about losing that.”

  He laughed lightly, and Katy had to admit there was a certain humor in making high drama out of ripping up camera instructions. If it was true, of course.

  “Katy, you’re not really afraid of me, are you, just because of that meaningless threat?”

  She swallowed. “I’m not sure.’

  “Don’t be. Because I love you. And I’m not giving up on us.”

  His voice was low and fierce with determined passion, and confusion tinged with guilt rolled through her. Had she too readily accepted Stephanie’s virulent accusations?

  “Are you afraid, Katy?”

  She noted the rephrasing of the question, now asking not if she was afraid of him but simply if she was afraid. She hesitated, then reluctantly admitted, “Sometimes.”

  “Of what? Tell me, Katy. I want to know.”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes I just feel uneasy. Apprehensive. As if . . . things may not be quite what they appear to be. Without a memory I feel so vulnerable.”

  “Be careful, Katy,” he said suddenly, with an odd urgency. “Don’t be too trusting of anybody. That old housekeeper who got the big bucks in the will and that boyfriend of hers who’s always skulking around – who knows what they’re up to? That son of hers, what’s his name? The pint-sized Dry-Cleaning King who she thinks is so wonderful he could walk on water, which isn’t half as wonderful as he thinks he is?”

  Katy cut into the tirade with a surprised question. “You know Evan?”

  “A little. I met him when I flew out to talk to you about the big cosmetics company deal just before you took off to catch amnesia.”

  “You don’t catch amnesia.” This whole conversation was turning ridiculous, but Barry wasn’t through yet.

  “Then there’s that whole gang of teenage delinquents from across the road. I’ll bet a raid on that place would turn up enough knives and weapons made out of pitchfork tines or something to fill a truck. And most of all, watch out for that religious nut you had the big blowup with about the land deal.”

  “Barry, those are good kids at Damascus! And if you think flinging accusations against my friends is going to make me feel any more loving toward you—”

  “I’m not accusing. I’m just saying be on guard. Who knows what any of them are up to? The religious nut would like nothing better than—“

  Katy had had enough. She angrily slammed down the phone without saying goodbye. She was not going to listen to this! At this point she wasn’t certain who was lying to her, Stephanie or Barry, about what had happened in New York. But she was not going to listen to Barry making ugly accusations about her friends and the man she loved!

  Chapter Fifteen

  Katy determinedly practiced the strengthening exercises the doctor had recommended and gradually lengthened her daily walks. Jace often joined her in the evening, usually scolding protectively that she was trying to do too much too soon.

  But there was so much she wanted to do! She’d been imprisoned in the cast for most of her remembered life, and she wanted to do everything she’d missed. Walk and run, drive and climb!

  The pale leg tanned in the summer sun, filled out, and strengthened. She climbed the stairs to her mother’s studio, cautiously walking upright on two legs rather than scooting on her bottom. She flexed her skills on the computer, worked in the garden, took the convertible out for short spins. She talked to Mrs. L.’s son again, beginning to believe that if anyone could jog her memory, it was probably Evan. A couple of times they spent over an hour companionably talking about their childhood together. Nothing broke through, but several times she felt an almost-glimmer of familiarity, and she urged him to come visit anytime.

  During one of those conversations, she started to say goodbye, then remembered she wanted to ask him about meeting Barry. Evan hemmed and hawed on the subject of her ex-fiancé, which was what Katy considered Barry now, dodging direct comment by saying he’d been busy helping his mother around the ranch and really hadn’t gotten to know Barry.

  Finally Katy realized what was going on. She laughed. “Okay, I get the picture. You’re using that old guideline ‘If you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything at all.’”

  Which made her wonder how she could remember some old saying like that but not remember her own past. Frustrating.

  Evan’s answering laugh sounded guilty. “Could be, I guess. I don’t like to run people down. Actually I suppose he was okay, maybe a little, well, New York-ish for a Texan like me. But the two of you were fighting about something, and I kept wanting to jump in and protect you, but Mom said don’t play Lone Ranger out to rescue the helpless maiden, that it was none of my business.”

  Katy laughed again. From those photos she’d seen of Evan, she could indeed imagine him galloping in for the rescue. Then she asked a serious question. “By the two of us fighting, Barry and me, do you mean anything physical?”

  “As far as I know, it was just words, although sometimes he sounded angry enough to add something physical. I was concerned, but I had to leave before he did, and I guess it turned out okay. Mom said you got so disgusted with him that finally you just kicked him out.”

  Another small point Barry hadn’t bothered to mention, Katy thought wryly. “Do you remember my saying anything to you about leaving the ranch and going off somewhere with a friend or friends?”

  “You did mention something once about just getting away for a while to make some decisions about your career and life, but you weren’t specific about it. I had the impression from Mom that actually doing it was an impulsive decision you made after I’d left the ranch.”

  ***

  She knew there were still decisions she must make about her modeling career and, if she wanted to return to it, how. From what she could determine so far, she hadn’t exactly left a red carpet of good will in New York. She also knew she couldn’t wait indefinitely for the dark pit in her mind to open. She might simply have to acknowledge that it wasn’t going to happen and get on with her life. Yet every night when the insects sang their summer song in the meadow, the word cricket came back to haunt her and raise questions. She knew her procrastination was also connected to an uncertainty about how Jace felt about her. He was fond of her and strongly attracted to her, she was certain, but were his feelings moving toward the love already blossoming within her?

  She drove herself into Yreka for a scheduled checkup on the leg, and she passed that final exam with flying colors. On the same day she went to a beauty shop Mrs. L. recommended. The hairdresser hadn’t much to work with, but she managed to coax a bit of shape into Katy’s spiky blond bristles, and that evening Jace approvingly complimented the results.

  Two days later the school threw a big Fourth-of-July celebration, and people came from all over for the barbecue and games and fireworks. The afternoon sun blazed white hot in a cloudless blue sky, just what a Fourth of July should be, Katy thought, happy and exhilarated as she and Mrs. L. walked across the road to join the milling crowd. Cars and pickups already filled the pasture beside the barn.

  Katy wandered the grounds in her pink shorts, T-shirt and flowered hat, curious about everything, glad a tiny wisp of curl showed from under the hat now. The sound system blared music, everything from lively gospel to country and western, with Mac’s rich voice interrupting occasionally to announce games or
give their results. Horses whinnied from the corral, enthusiastic yells cheered competitors in the games, and kids playing tag dodged through the crowd like small, erratic missiles. Over it all hung a warm haze of summer dust and fun and the fragrant, smoky scent of barbecuing chicken.

  She saw Joe herding kids through the small petting zoo of calves, lambs, chickens and ducks, found Shirley and Alice dispensing lemonade and soft drinks, spotted Mac speaking from a stand built over the games area. But where was Jace?

  Then she heard other sounds. Thunks. Splashes. Shrieks. She followed the sound and there he was, just climbing out of the water, wet jeans clinging to long legs, glistening rivulets of water running down bare chest and off the wet hair hanging in his eyes. He climbed back to a perch above the dunk tank and crossed his arms in challenge. “Okay, you sharpshooters, let’s see what you can do!”

  Thunk!

  The ball hit to the left of the target. “I knew you couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn, Jerry,” Jace jeered cheerfully.

  Thunk! The ball slammed the metal target dead center, Jace plunged into the dunk tank with a tidal splash that rolled water over the side, and the boy named Jerry jumped up and down with glee.

  “Sheer dumb luck,” Jace called with exaggerated exasperation as he climbed from the tank. And promptly went down again as another boy clobbered the target with the ball.

  Suddenly Jace spotted Katy in the crowd. “Hey, let the lady through!” he called. “I need some rest up here!”

  The boys made way for Katy, but she shook her head. Someone thrust a ball into her hand. Then someone shoved her, and there she was, up front on the firing line. Reluctantly she tossed the first ball. It slopped ignominiously into the tank, far from the target.

  “See, what’d I tell you? Now I’m safe as a baby in a cradle!” Jace swayed his arms in teasing imitation of rocking a baby.

  Oh, yeah? Katy threw another ball. She missed the target, but the ball clunked solidly on the backstop. She paused, concentrating. A faintly-remembered something came over her. She hauled her arm back, gazed narrow-eyed at the target, and down he came!