Carbon Copy Cowboy. Arlene James

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      Chapter Two

      They had seen to it that Belle had a private room with all the monitoring equipment and nursing care that she needed, but if she even knew those things, no one could tell. Jack spoke to her as if she could hear him, telling her about the day’s adventure. She appeared to sleep peacefully through his monologue, her long auburn hair spread out on the pillow beneath her head, the gentle rise and fall of her chest the only sign that she lived. As always, Jack sat beside her bed and prayed.

      Oh, Lord, please let her wake up and be well. Please. And the blonde lady, too. She obviously needs a helping hand right now.

      He added pleas for clarity on the issues troubling the family before rising to kiss his mother’s smooth forehead.

      “I’m sorry, Mama,” he whispered, for perhaps the thousandth time. “Please come back to us. We need you more than ever.”

      Feeling low, he trudged out to his dirty, white pickup truck and slid behind the steering wheel. Then he started the engine and drove out to the ranch. As he turned the truck through the massive gate with its rock columns and metal arch displaying the Colby Ranch brand, Jack thought again of the lovely blonde back there in the hospital.

      No doubt, she worried about where she would stay and how she would live until her memory returned. Without money, she really had no options. Grasslands didn’t have a homeless shelter because it didn’t have any homeless. She couldn’t stay at the clinic for long, either, but someone would surely take her in—someone with plenty of room.

      Sighing as the imposing ranch house came into view, Jack mentally cataloged the house that he, his mom and two sisters occupied. There was room for her. That didn’t mean that he had to offer a bedroom to the pretty amnesiac, though, even if he had been the one to rescue her from a car wreck.

      Of course, it didn’t mean that he shouldn’t, either.

      He supposed they could open one of the old, unoccupied cabins on the place, but it didn’t seem wise for a woman with a head wound serious enough to cause amnesia to stay alone. Too bad the hotel in town was closed temporarily because the couple who owned and operated it had been called away on a mission of mercy to help family members who had been burned out by wildfires in the central part of the states. Jack went so far as to consider calling the pastor at the Grasslands Community Church to see if he could find a host for the woman, but in the normal course of things when temporary shelter was needed, the first phone call that the good reverend would make would be to the Colbys.

      “Aw, come on, Lord,” Jack grumbled aloud. “Don’t we have enough trouble as it is?”

      Unfortunately, the Lord, as was His habit, didn’t say a word. Jack heard Him, nevertheless.

      Jack turned the truck through the gate in the wrought-iron fence that separated the main house from the rest of the compound, parked and climbed out, trudging into the house through the carport door. He’d barely set foot in the back hall before Lupita, the housekeeper and cook, stuck her head out of the kitchen.

      “Dinner in five minutes.”

      “Already?” he asked, hanging his hat on a peg fixed to the wall. He pulled his phone from his pocket to check the time. Man, this day had flown. “I’ll wash up,” he muttered, heading for his room.

      For some reason, he swiped his thumb across the bottom of the screen on his phone and watched as the blonde’s photo popped up again. He stopped in the dining room, aware that his sisters—he still couldn’t get over the fact that there were two of them and how alike they looked now that Maddie had taken to jeans and boots—busily laid the table for the evening meal.

      “Oh, good, you’re home,” Violet said, smiling as she placed a napkin beside a plate.

      “Uh-huh.” Disturbed by his compulsion to stare at the picture on his phone, he tossed the small device down at his regular place. “Y’all ought to know that we could be having company soon.”

      “Oh?” Maddie said, closing a drawer in the breakfront. “Who? Have you heard from Grayson?”

      Jack made a face at the mention of his brother. “No, I haven’t heard from Grayson, and I don’t expect to. Why would I?”

      “He is your twin,” Violet pointed out.

      “So? I’m not talking about him. This is someone different.... A person was in a car wreck today.”

      “Oh, wow!” Violet exclaimed. “Anyone we know?”

      “Some woman who didn’t make the curve at the bottom of Blackberry Hill,” Jack answered carelessly. “She’s going to need a place to stay when Doc says she can leave the hospital.”

      “When will that be?” Maddie asked.

      He shrugged. “Soon, I expect.”

      “Will she need nursing?” Violet queried apprehensively.

      “No, nothing like that,” he assured them, more gruffly than he’d intended. “I’ll explain later. If it comes to it, I mean. She might stay somewhere else. Now, I better wash up.”

      He walked off toward the back staircase. The very moment that he rounded the corner, he heard Violet say, “I might have known.”

      Drawing to a halt at the note of concern in her voice, he retraced his steps to the doorway and saw that she’d picked up his phone and unlocked the screen. She and Maddie stood huddled together beside the dining table, as alike as two peas in a pod, staring down at the photo of the blonde woman now at the clinic.

      “She’s СКАЧАТЬ