Carbon Copy Cowboy. Arlene James

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СКАЧАТЬ offered his hand then, saying, “Jack Colby.”

      Just as she slid her hand into his, George prodded, “And your name would be...?”

      She opened her mouth, but the words weren’t there. “Huh,” she said, frowning. “My name is...” A great void swamped her, a vast sea of absolutely nothing. “That’s ridiculous,” she muttered, straightening her legs again. “My name is...” She looked up, on the verge of panic, switching her gaze from one face to another until it came to rest on Jack Colby. “What is my name?” she asked, reaching out to clasp a handful of his shirt when he gave his head a short, truncated shake. “Please,” she pleaded, her voice rising.

      “I didn’t find anything in the car with you,” he said apologetically, “no purse, no driver’s license, no registration papers, nothing.”

      “But that doesn’t make any sense!” she exclaimed. As the full import of her situation hit her, she swung her legs off the hospital bed, letting them dangle above the floor. “I don’t know who I am. I don’t know who I am!”

      “Nurse,” the doctor directed.

      The patient quickly found herself lying flat on her back again while the doctor examined her and rapped out orders.

      “I’m going to need a CT and a blood workup. Let’s start an IV and administer a sedative.”

      “I don’t know who I am,” she repeated, trying desperately to find a way around that awful truth.

      A hand fell on her shoulder. She turned her head to find the too-handsome cowboy, Jack, gazing down solemnly.

      “It’s okay,” he told her gently. “We’ll figure it out.”

      “I’ll put out some feelers,” George said. “Even without a license plate on the car, we ought to get something off the VIN.”

      “What? No license plates?” she asked. “How is that even possible?”

      “That’s what we was hoping you could tell us,” the sheriff pointed out, adding, “you’re gonna need to stick around until we figure this thing out. I’ll see if there’s any stolen car reports or missing persons in the area that fit.”

      “Stolen!” she gasped. “B-but I would never... That is, I can’t imagine...” Yet, how could she know what she’d do when she didn’t even know her own name?

      “It’s just a formality,” Jack Colby assured her, looking pointedly at George, who waved a hand.

      “SOP. Standard Operating Procedure. Now, why didn’t I think to bring along a camera? Doc, you got any way to take her photo so I can circulate it around?”

      “Here, I’ll do it,” Jack said, pulling out his phone. While he snapped the photo, George grumbled about the city refusing to buy him and his deputies the latest smartphones. “What’s your email address?” Jack interrupted, saving the picture to his phone. George told him, and the cowboy sent the photo off with a swooshing sound.

      “That’ll sure make things easier,” George told him. “Won’t even have to scan it up before sending it out.”

      The subject of the photograph didn’t know whether to hope someone recognized her or not, considering that her likeness would be going out to law-enforcement agencies.

      As if he sensed her dilemma, George smiled and patted her hand. Then he ruined the gesture by saying, “Just don’t leave the county, little lady, until I tell you it’s okay.”

      Her eyes widened as a whole new problem emerged. “Where am I going to stay? Do I even have any money?”

      “Didn’t find any,” Jack murmured sympathetically.

      “You’ll be staying right here for the time being,” the doctor decreed. “I want you here for observation at least for tonight.”

      “That’s good enough for now,” George decided. Turning to leave, he doffed his hat, saying, “I’ll be in touch.”

      Her mind whirling, she closed her eyes. “Lord, help me,” she whispered fervently. “Lord, help me.”

      She felt a warm, gentle touch at her throat and looked up to find Jack Colby fingering a small gold cross at the end of a delicate gold chain looped about her neck. Looking at that cross gave her a small sense of peace; yet she couldn’t recall ever having seen it before this moment.

      “Well, you’re a believer,” Jack said, smiling crookedly. “That’s a help.”

      She gave him a tremulous smile. “Yes, that’s a help.”

      He dropped the cross. “I’ll say a prayer for you, then.”

      “Thank you,” she replied. “Uh, f-for everything.”

      “Aw, I didn’t do anything special,” he said, moving toward the open doorway. Pausing, he swept back his hair with one hand and plunked his hat down over it with the other. “I wouldn’t worry too much if I was you,” he said kindly.

      “Your memory’s apt to return on its own at any time,” the doctor added helpfully.

      “But what if it doesn’t?” she had to ask.

      “George will figure it out,” Jack reassured her, “or somebody will come looking for you.”

      She gulped, wishing that made her feel something less than terrified.

      * * *

      Well, that was that. Jack stepped out onto the graveled parking lot of the medical center. Car wrecks and amnesiac blondes made for an exciting first Monday of the month. He hoped this wasn’t a sign of how the rest of September would go, though. July and August had been dramatic enough, what with his mother’s accident, his sister Violet meeting her previously unknown twin Maddie, his own still-unknown twin Grayson off on an undercover assignment, their supposed father disappearing, a half brother he’d never met overseas with the military... Jack had more questions now than he’d had the day of his mother’s accident.

      If all that weren’t enough, Violet had become engaged to Maddie’s former fiancé, and now Maddie was going to marry the Colby Ranch foreman, Ty. Jack couldn’t imagine why anybody in his right mind would get entangled in a romance under such circumstances—or any other, when it came right down to it. That way, as he well knew, lay heartache.

      Automatically, his thoughts went to his former girlfriend Tammy Simmons, but then another face flashed before his mind’s eye. Taking out his phone, he tapped the photo icon. Her image instantly came up. She looked small and frightened with that bandage on her forehead and her big, deeply set hazel eyes begging him to tell her who she was. He didn’t think he’d ever forget how horrified she’d looked when she’d realized that she couldn’t recall her own name.

      He knew a little of what she was feeling. He and his sisters had gone to Fort Worth in search of answers about their past. They all needed to understand why their parents had split up the family and kept it a secret from them. According to an old neighbor, Patty Earl, her late husband, Joe, was his and Grayson’s real father. It didn’t make sense for Brian to raise Grayson in that scenario, but Brian’s disappearance felt awfully СКАЧАТЬ