Margaret Daley - Carbon Copy Cowboy

“Sounds good,” she said, greatly relieved. “Thank you.”

The doctor nodded, first at her, then at Jack. “Wait here. I’ll send Nurse Hamm over with a few things—a kind of parting gift we give our patients. Toiletries, mostly.”

“Thanks again,” she murmured.

“See you soon,” the doctor told her, adding pointedly, “Kendra.”

She smiled because of his kindness but also because she found it surprisingly easy to think of herself as Kendra. Now, if she only knew what kind of a person “Kendra” was.

* * *

I ought to let Doc examine my head while I’m here. Jack was walking beside “Kendra” across the clinic parking lot. His mood pretty much matched the overcast day. He couldn’t help feeling somewhat responsible for her, and with the only hotel in the area temporarily closed, he had no choice but to take her home with him until George said she could leave. That didn’t mean he was happy about it, though. He would have felt better about the underling if he hadn’t had her on his mind the entire day long. For once, he couldn’t seem to focus his thoughts where he focused his energies, and that bothered him. He told himself that it was because of the unusual circumstances. Amnesia! How often did that happen? At least she wasn’t in a coma.

Turning off thoughts of his mother, whom he’d visited before walking over to the clinic, he opened the passenger door of the truck for Kendra—he really had no other way to think of her—and handed her up inside, making sure that she didn’t bump her head along the way. Tucking the small plastic bag of bottles and tubes into the floorboard, she murmured her thanks and reached for her safety belt.

“You okay with this?” he asked. When she gave him a blank look, he turned toward her. “I had a buddy who crashed his car back in college,” Jack explained. “It was weeks before he could bear to ride in the front seat of a vehicle again.”

“I don’t remember the crash, so it doesn’t bother me,” she said with a shrug.

“Right. Well, that’s one good thing about amnesia, I guess.”

She frowned, looking so sad that he wanted to bite his tongue.

He searched his mind for something helpful to say and came up with “My sisters can lend you some things to wear. But, um, not jeans, I imagine. You’re pretty tall.”

“Am I?” she asked, looking down at herself.

Man, if she was faking amnesia, she was doing a good job of it. Jack couldn’t quite believe that to be the case, however.

“You’re for sure taller than my sisters,” he told her, his gaze sweeping down the length of her legs. Long, slender legs. “I’d say five-eight, maybe five-nine.”

“I see.”

“We can stop by the ranch supply store and pick up some things, if you like.”

She shook her head, long blond hair cascading against her shoulders. “I’d rather wait until I can pay.”

“Whatever you say,” he told her doubtfully.

“Let’s wait another day or two, anyway,” she decided. “In case the police come up with something.”

He told himself not to be too pleased that she hadn’t jumped at his offer to buy her some new clothes. Still, that made her more believable.

Her slender brows drew together. “Did anyone look in the trunk of my car for a suitcase?”

“Not while I was there,” Jack answered. “You feel up to going to take a look now?”

“Oh, yes. Please,” she said eagerly.

“Car’s over behind the gas station,” he said, closing her door. He hurried around the truck and got in behind the steering wheel, thinking that maybe seeing the car would jar loose her memory of herself. Maybe the Lord was just waiting for her to see that sleek red car before He opened the door to her past.

And maybe, just maybe, God had something else in mind entirely.

Chapter Three

“Grasslands is such a small town that we don’t have a real police impound,” Jack explained.

“Grasslands,” she echoed thoughtfully.

“Does that sound familiar?” he asked, starting up the engine.

“I don’t know,” she said as he backed the truck around, “but I keep wondering why I was headed here.”

“Are you sure you were?”

She heaved a great sigh. “I just don’t know, but George said that the road I was on doesn’t go anywhere else.”

“Well, it’s true that Franken Road dead-ends right here in town, but there are other roads leaving town, you know.”

“So maybe I was just passing through,” she muttered.

“Could be.”

They discussed where she might have been going, if not Grasslands, but none of it really made any sense. If she had been headed for Lubbock or any point in between, there were much more direct routes. Same for Childress and Wichita Falls. She’d been traveling in the wrong direction for her destination to have been Amarillo, Dimmitt or Muleshoe.

When they got to the gas station, which was also a convenience store and mechanic’s shop, Jack pulled around back. As he suspected, the car had been left unlocked. He found the remote trunk latch inside and popped it.

“Nothing,” Kendra announced, sounding deeply disappointed.

Jack reached into the backseat and grabbed the veil to show her. “There’s this.”

“This was in the car?” she asked with a frown as she reluctantly took the long, sheer piece of lace-edged fabric into her hand.

“You were wearing it when I found you.”

Her jaw dropped as the gossamer material filtered out of her hand and wafted on the breeze. “Wearing it?” She stared at the wide, satin-covered headband to which the fabric was anchored, then looked down at her jeans and athletic shoes. “I don’t understand.”

“Well, that makes two of us. Maybe you were running from your wedding.”

“Why would I do that?” she demanded.

Jack shook his head. “Don’t know. You aren’t wearing an engagement ring.”

She checked her left hand, verifying the truth of his statement. “I’m so confused.”

“You don’t recognize the car, even?”

Walking slowly around the driver’s side of the bright red coupe, she shook her head, but when she came to the front, she stopped and stared at the crumpled bumper.

“Was I in the backseat?” she asked after a moment.

“No. You were driving.”

Her eyes grew wide. “No! I—I remember being in the backseat! And there were other people in the car.”

“Not this car,” Jack stated firmly. “You were alone, behind the wheel and wearing that veil when I got to you.” He pointed to the fabric now crumpled in her arms.

“Maybe they ran away before you got there,” she proposed.

“No way. I arrived right after the crash. Besides, the car was suspended over a ditch. No one could have gotten out of this car without help. Doc had to make a bridge from a ladder and planks to get to you.”

She gulped. “But I had this flash of... I could see the backs of their heads, and the car was sliding so fast.”

“Could be you imagined it,” he surmised, “or maybe it’s a memory of another accident. Think back. Who are these people you remember?”

Frowning, she seemed to turn her gaze inward. After a moment, she shook her head. “I don’t know. It was just a flash. Two people in the front seat and me in the back.” Her face screwed up with the effort to remember. “There’s nothing else. Nothing.”

She looked so helpless that he had to quell the urge to slip a comforting arm around her. Instead, he said, “We ought to get on our way. Lupita will have supper ready soon.”

“Lupita?” she asked in a dull voice.

“Our housekeeper and cook.”

“Hmm.”

She barely seemed to notice that he turned her toward his truck and opened the truck door for her. He had to take her by the arm and all but lift her up into the seat.