Until Spring (26 page)

"Things didn't work out in Apollonia," Jane managed to say smoothly. "I moved to Chicago. Lately I've been staying in Wyoming, and I hope to live in California before long. I still don't know my real name."

"You poor thing!" Rosemary said, her eyes widening in dismay.

"That's why I'm visiting Tyree. I was hoping that you might remember something about me, anything at all. I'm trying to get some ideas about where I came from or where I was going when I landed in that ditch," and she went on to relate Ollie's new information about the blue van.

Rosemary pursed her lips in thought. "I don't know anything about a blue van in connection with you, Jane. As for anything else—well, I'm sorry, but I draw a blank."

"Was there anything I mentioned while I was here, or that I seemed to be interested in, or something that didn't seem important at the time that might make a difference now?" she asked.

"I'm sorry, but I don't think so. It was so long ago."

Jane felt as though she had reached an impasse. "If you think of anything about me that seemed the least bit unusual, will you let me know?" She told Rosemary that she was staying at the Prairie Rose and gave her one of Duncan's cards with the Wyoming address, his email address and phone numbers in case she needed to reach them after they'd left town.

When Jane made it clear that she had to leave, Rosemary said, "I'll walk you to the lobby. I feel so awful that I haven't been able to help."

Jane smiled at her. "You were kind and wonderful to me when I was a patient here, and that's what counted then," she assured her.

They reached the front door of the hospital, and when Jane turned to say goodbye to Rosemary, she saw that her forehead was knotted in thought.

"There was just one thing," Rosemary said slowly.

"Yes?"

"That purse you carried," she said.

"Purse?"

"It was handmade, like something you might buy at a crafts show. I noticed it because I have an aunt who used to have an old loom at her house. It belonged to my grandmother, and Aunt Frances knew how to use it. I still have a blanket she wove. Your purse reminded me of that hand-woven blanket. The same kind of pattern."

"I don't have the purse anymore," Jane said. Still, she remembered it well. The handbag had been large and rectangular and had been woven of variegated shades of dark wool with a wide fringe at the bottom. Even though it had grown old and worn, Jane had kept it until the night of the snowstorm; she must have lost it in her flight from the truck driver. There was no telling where it was now.

Rosemary's face fell. "Well, it's not much of a clue, I guess. But you did want to know if there was anything about you at all that was different, and that purse was the only thing. I know we looked inside it when we were trying to figure out who you were, but it was empty. There wasn't even a label on it, which is another reason that I thought it was probably handmade."

Jane bade Rosemary goodbye, and as she slowly walked back toward the Prairie Rose, she tried to figure out if the purse was a real clue. She'd lived with the purse until she lost it, never thinking that it might signify something important about her past life. It had been old and out of style, and the reason that she'd kept it had been that it was so big that she could carry many of her belongings in it when moving from place to place.

Duncan arrived at the Prairie Rose shortly after Jane, and he looked hopeful.

"Schmidt's going to use his resources to try to uncover any irregularities involving a blue van around the time that you were found," Duncan said. "He says that even though whole cases have pivoted on information like that, then again it might not mean a thing."

"What should we do now?" Jane asked.

He touched her shoulder. She looked drained. "Let's see if we can turn up any information about that van ourselves," he suggested.

They spent the rest of the day riding from one service station to another both in Tyree and Apollonia, asking questions about a blue van. Several people told them that they had let too much time pass before looking for such a van, and others gave them a quick brush-off. When they returned to the Prairie Rose that evening, both Jane and Duncan felt discouraged.

Jane was quiet over their mediocre dinner of Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes and lime Jell-O in the Prairie Rose's coffee shop, and Duncan tried to lift her spirits.

"It must have made you feel good when Rosemary Sanchez was so happy to see you," he prompted.

"Yes, but..." She bit her lip.

"But what?"

"I couldn't help but think what a difference it would have meant in my life from the time I left the hospital until the time you found me, if I had felt free to go to her for help. I mean, I knew she liked me, but I thought it was a professional interest."

"It probably was, but she would surely have helped you when you were down-and-out if she could have. Don't you think so?"

"I didn't at the time. I was sick, you see, and—well, the loneliness was awful. I was sure that no one in the world cared about me."

"I can imagine," he said evenly.

Her eyes searched his face. "Can you imagine it? Really?" she asked softly.

"Oh, yes. I've been lonely. Not the way you have, of course, because I've always had a home and enough to eat. But—well, it wasn't easy for me after Sigrid left. And before I married her I didn't have anyone except Rooney, and the ranch is so isolated that I didn't often have visitors."

"You and Rooney are such good friends," Jane said.

"He and Mary Kate are my family now, and that's a great thing." He paused and bit his lip before speaking again. "Once I thought that the only true friendship existed between man and man or between woman and woman. I didn't know it was possible for men and women to be friends."

"And now?"

"You've shown me that it's possible for men and women to develop close bonds, something that I couldn't have imagined before. What we have feels like a real friendship to me, Jane. I have to thank you for that." His eyes were clear and steady upon her face.

Jane didn't know what to say. She looked down at her plate, embarrassed. But she found his words singularly beautiful.

"Have I said something wrong?" he asked quietly.

She shook her head. The tears in her eyes had begun to blur her vision.

"What's the matter, Jane?" he said.

"You give me all the credit for our friendship, when you should be the one," she said in a quavering voice.

"Me?"

She blinked the tears away and lifted her head. He was regarding her with all the care and concern that she had grown to expect in his dealings with her. There was no doubt in her mind that she could count upon Duncan's help no matter what the situation. She had angered him, lied to him, borrowed and even stolen from him, and yet he had always treated her in the same fair-minded way.

She had known, for instance, that she couldn't really count on Rosemary Sanchez when the chips were down. Rosemary might have cared, but not enough to do anything about the circumstances in which Jane found herself—on the streets, out of a job, and down to her last dime. On the other hand, when Duncan cared, he cared with his whole heart. Thinking about it, she realized in that solemn moment that Duncan Tate was her best friend in the world.

"You see people as basically good, Duncan. You saw me that way, too, even though I was—well, maybe acting up the way Mary Kate does, except that my actions grew out of the wish to survive in a hostile world. You were almost too good to be true, and I couldn't quite believe that you were real. I had to test it."

"I cared about you from the beginning." His eyes were deep and dark.

"When you cared, it was with all your heart. Not halfway."

He looked stunned, then his features softened. "You say it so well, Jane. I can't improve on it. I still care with all my heart. More than you know." He wished he could elaborate on that, but he didn't think this was the time.

As Jane gazed into Duncan's eyes, she was overcome with certainty that whatever had gone wrong in her life, it was about to be corrected.

"I do know that you care," she said with growing wonder. "I think I've always known." Her heart seemed to be brimming over, just as her eyes would in a moment or two.

"You've always known that I love you?" He spoke softly and with great tenderness.

She stared with astonishment and happiness into his caring eyes, his endearing face. "Yes," she said. "Yes."

* * *

There was no way that either of them could finish eating dinner. In fact, they were oblivious to everyone and everything except each other, and as they left the restaurant, Duncan barely remembered to pay the check.

They stood outside on the sidewalk, shivering in the chill.

"What now?" Jane asked. "I'm not sure I know how to act."

"Where can we go? I wish we were back at the ranch," Duncan said.

She smiled at him, knowing how he felt. "I'm sorry about the—the inappropriateness of our surroundings. It's definitely my fault." She reached out and slid her hand into his.

He laughed but immediately became serious. A man stopped his car in the street and hurried to the newspaper-vending machine outside the coffee shop; he took a newspaper from inside it and released the door with a loud clang. Duncan lowered his voice so that the other man wouldn't hear. "I would very much like to kiss you," he said. "But not here."

"Not here," she agreed, and smiled again. It seemed that she couldn't stop smiling.

Above the vintage neon sign of the coffee shop, the sky was velvety dark and slitted with stars. An air of expectancy hung between them almost as tangibly as their frosty breath.

"Do you want to go for a drive?" he offered.

"Let's walk," she suggested impulsively. "There's a park down the street. I passed it on my way to the hospital today."

They headed down the main street of Tyree. Not much traffic was out, and with the exception of a few passing cars, they were alone.

It seemed to Jane that she could feel the warmth of Duncan, even though a wide space separated them. Perhaps he felt it, too, because he put his arm around her and pulled her close.

"We fit together walking," he said with satisfaction.

She laughed. The notes of her laughter sparkled in the clear cold air.

"It's important to fit together walking," he assured her seriously, and she laughed again, which seemed to please him. When she looked up at him, her face was alive with joy.

Around them the park was peaceful and serene under its snowy blanket, and snow shimmered like crystals in the light of the street lamps. But Duncan's eyes were all for her. "How lovely you look," he murmured.

They stopped walking, and slowly her hand went up to touch his cheek. It was warm to her touch, and she laid the flat of her palm along it, soaking up his warmth. But that was what she had always done, soak up his warmth. Now she knew that it had been something more, perhaps from the very beginning.

"Duncan," she began, overwhelmed by the force of her feelings for him.

"Shh," was all he said. "Don't talk." And then he took her into his arms, drew her close and brought his lips down to hers.

His lips were sweet and demanding, and Jane ached with the knowledge that she had been missing this during all the past weeks. She touched her fingertips to the strong line of his jaw, felt the smooth texture of his skin, the rough abrasion of his beard. All of it so familiar and yet so new, and she wanted to memorize everything about him, to hold him in her heart forever and ever.

He pulled her closer, unwilling to allow even a small space to widen between them. "You needed time," he said. "I knew that."

"But you were my best friend! Do people often fall in love with their best friends?"

"I don't know, but they should," he said, smiling down at her.

"I wasn't ready to be in love with anyone before," Jane said. "It still seems odd to have found the other half of myself before I've even found my real
self.
Maybe I'm not ready for this."

"Well, if you're not, is it all right if I go on being your best friend?" Duncan asked lightly, and she looked up to find that he was grinning at her in good humor.

She took heart from this and pulled slightly away. "We should talk about this," she said gravely. The last thing she wanted to do at the moment was talk, but she knew it was necessary. And she knew that although Duncan might not agree with her, at least he would listen.

"You're serious, aren't you?"

"Very," she said. "I'm having problems coming to grips with knowing that what I feel for you is love. I had your role in my life all figured out; you were my friend. And now—"

"And now that notion is shot all to blazes, right?"

"Right. And it puts everything—living at the ranch, conducting this search—in a new perspective for me."

"Which affects me," he said.

Full of doubts, she lifted her face to his. "I suppose it's asking a lot to expect you to be patient. But—" She made a little gesture of helplessness with her hands, finding her thoughts hard to put into words, as she had so often since her accident.