Until Spring (28 page)

Duncan shot her a worried look when he slid in behind the steering wheel.

She smiled weakly. "Duncan, don't look at me like that," she chided. "If I wasn't feeling ready to travel, I'd tell you."

"You still seem a little dazed," he said.

"You would, too, if you'd fallen as hard as I did. Besides, I think I bit my tongue," she said, but she didn't mention the headache that was burgeoning right behind her eyes. She couldn't recall having headaches since she'd arrived at the ranch, and she hoped that the fall hadn't precipitated their return.

To set Duncan's mind at ease, she tried to carry on a conversation as they left Tyree.

"I wonder if we really accomplished anything here," she said softly as Duncan accelerated on the open highway.

"It was a start," he told her, and she was pleased that he seemed willing to forget the fall she'd just taken in the parking lot.

Her head didn't stop hurting all day. If anything, the pain was aggravated by their many stops as they related Jane's story and left Duncan's business card in several gas stations and convenience stores. Jane surreptitiously took two aspirin, but they afforded little relief. She refrained from mentioning the pain in her head to Duncan, knowing that it would only worry him. Instead, she tried to concentrate on their task.

Surprisingly, the people to whom they spoke had often heard about Jane and knew of her initial search for her identity during the time when she was a patient in the hospital in Tyree, but they were able to shed no light on the mysterious circumstances of her appearance in Carlton Jones's ditch.

Sometimes when they'd had a chance to study Duncan's business card for a moment, they expressed more interest in the llamas than they did in Jane.

"I'd better talk to Rooney about hauling a bunch of llamas to southern Illinois," Duncan joked after they'd left a store where the woman behind the counter had become overly enthusiastic about llamas but paid scant attention to Jane and her plight. "I bet we could sell quite a few around here."

"You haven't phoned Rooney since we left the ranch, have you?"

"No, and I haven't heard from him either. He said he wouldn't bother me so I could concentrate on our search, but I'll call him tonight," he said.

That night found them staying in a motel in a small town not far from the Indiana state line, and after dinner, during which they each unsuccessfully tried to bolster the other's hopes, Duncan called Rooney.

Jane, still fighting her headache, tugged at his sleeve. "Don't forget to ask about Mary Kate," she urged in a whisper.

Duncan surprised her by asking after Mary Kate as soon as Rooney answered the phone, and as he listened to Rooney's reply, his expression immediately become more serious. "She did?" he asked sharply. "Are they all right?"

Sensing something amiss, Jane sat up straight. It sounded as though Mary Kate was in trouble again.

"Well, it doesn't surprise me that Dearling stayed around. She's a tame one. Yeah, it's a good thing none of them wandered over by the highway. Okay, I'll call you again soon. Right. Goodbye, Rooney."

"What has Mary Kate done?" Jane asked with a certain sense of foreboding.

Duncan looked angry. "She left the gate open on the pen beside the barn and the breeding females got out. Fortunately, Rooney's managed to round up all of them. That Mary Kate! Why can't she behave herself?"

"She can't help it," Jane sighed. "Anyway, the latch on the gate isn't particularly reliable."

"It's reliable enough for the rest of us. Mary Kate is the only one who seems to have trouble with it," Duncan said with exasperation.

"Mary Kate might be in need of attention right now. With both of us gone, Rooney is busy running the ranch. Mary Kate didn't want me to leave in the first place, and now she's probably very lonely."

"Lonely or not, she has no business letting my llamas out. Above and beyond what could happen to them, her carelessness could have cost us thousands of dollars. Many of my breeding females are pregnant, and their offspring are potentially worth quite a lot of money. Mary Kate had better thank her lucky stars that nothing happened to those llamas."

"I'm sorry, Duncan. I'm glad they're all right."

"So am I. Rooney says he's going to devise a severe punishment for Mary Kate."

Jane's heart sank. In her mind she pictured Mary Kate's defiant face the last time Rooney had imposed punishment by restricting contact with her beloved Dearling. She knew that it was only right that Mary Kate face the consequences of her irresponsible action, but nevertheless her heart ached for the child.

Both Jane and Duncan were exhausted by their busy day, and the troubles at Placid Valley Ranch weighed heavily upon both of them. The bruises she had suffered in her fall kept Jane from falling asleep until late, and when she woke up, she still had a nagging headache.

Although neither of them had slept well, they struck out early that morning, determined to pay a visit to a newspaper in nearby Terre Haute that had published a story about Jane when she had still been a patient at Tyree Township Hospital. Jane hoped that the sympathetic reporter who had written the story might be interested in writing a follow-up, and they both thought that any publicity would aid their search.

They had stopped for gas in a Terre Haute suburb and Jane got out of the car to stretch her arms and arch her stiff back. As she was about to get back in, she was almost blinded by the glint of bright sun on the chrome bumper of a car in front of theirs. At first she held up her hand to shield her eyes, but she felt such a sharp pain in her head that she decided to look for a water fountain so that she could take two more aspirin.

Her head swam, and even the cold outdoor air didn't clear it. She headed toward the gas station where Duncan was studying the snack vending machines but found herself turned around going the other way. The pain throbbed inside her head, and she couldn't see where she was going. She heard a shout and felt the breeze from the passing of a car too near, but she was confused and didn't know which way to go and turned around again, looking for Duncan.

"Lady, get out of the way!" somebody yelled. She dug her fists into her eyes because they hurt so much, and when she took her hands away, there was a pink dress in a store window, and she wanted to buy it for Mary Kate. Then she crashed headlong into a solid object and rebounded. She heard herself sobbing, and the next thing she knew, a woman was holding a cool cloth to her forehead and saying, "There, there, you'll be all right. Just a little dizzy spell, wasn't it, dear?"

Jane swallowed and felt someone squeeze her hand. She pushed aside the cloth on her forehead to see Duncan looking pale and worried. She summoned the strength to smile at him.

"Jane, you scared me half to death," he said.

"What happened?" she asked, bewildered. She had never seen this woman before, and as for the plaid couch on which she was lying and the room where she found herself—well, nothing gave her a clue. Where was she, anyway?

"This nice lady, Mrs.—"

"Alice Beasley," the woman supplied as she returned with a hot cup of tea.

"Mrs. Beasley was in the window of her shop and arranging the merchandise when you came reeling across the street in front of a car, and when a bicycle on the sidewalk almost hit you, she opened the door and brought you inside," Duncan explained.

"I couldn't see," Jane said, remembering how the reflection of the bright sun on the chrome had affected her.

"I knew something was wrong," Alice Beasley said with great certainty.

"My headache's gone," Jane said in a tone of amazement.

"You never said you had a headache," Duncan said accusingly.

"I didn't want to worry you," she said.

"You should have seen a doctor after that fall. I knew it," he said. "We need to get you to a hospital right away."

"No, Duncan, and don't be angry. I feel better now. I know it sounds silly, but I'm fine." Indeed, she felt a resurgence of energy, and the cloud of depression that had hung over her that morning seemed to have disappeared.

"Now listen to me, Jane. If you've started having those headaches again, you must see a doctor," Duncan said.

"I know a good one. Dr. McKelvey. He's been my doctor for over thirty years. I'll call and make an appointment for you," Mrs. Beasley volunteered.

"That sounds like a good idea," Duncan agreed. He was torn over going to a doctor's office or to the hospital's emergency room, but he knew he had to make sure that Jane got medical attention.

"No," said Jane. "No doctor."

"Jane—"

"I'll just drink this tea and we'll be on our way. And that pink organdy dress in your window—what size is it?"

"A girl's size twelve, dear. But should you be thinking about that? Shouldn't you see how you feel in half an hour or so?" Mrs. Beasley's face wrinkled into a maze of concern.

Jane surprised them both by swinging her feet off the couch. She felt more energetic than she had in days. Weeks, even. She wasn't sure just what had happened to her, but there was no doubt in her mind that it had been beneficial.

"I want to see that dress," she said firmly.

Duncan and Mrs. Beasley exchanged looks. Finally, as though humoring an invalid, the reluctant Mrs. Beasley said, "Well, I'll take the dress out of the window, dear, but if I were you, I'd rest."

Jane paid no attention. Instead she followed Mrs. Beasley to the window and stood entranced as the store owner divested the mannequin of the pink dress.

"Wouldn't that be perfect for Mary Kate?" she asked Duncan.

Duncan, who wasn't sure that Jane was entirely well, eyed the dress doubtfully. It had large puffed sleeves, a satin sash, and dainty white lace edging above the hem. He couldn't for the life of him imagine such an exquisite dress on a child whose knees seemed to be permanently skinned, whose hair hung in limp clumps, and whose fingernails were more often than not rimmed with dirt. Anyway, did someone as careless as Mary Kate deserve such a fine present? As exasperated as he was with her irresponsible behavior, he didn't think so.

"You've got to be kidding," he said. He stood close to Jane in case she became dizzy again, although he had to admit that she looked perfectly healthy. In fact she looked wonderful. Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes alert. He couldn't imagine what had come over her.

Jane was enthusing over the dress. With its delicately embroidered bodice and its petal-pink petticoat sewn of the finest batiste, it was even lovelier than she had thought, and it looked close to Mary Kate's size. What else had Mary Kate said? Oh, yes. The dress was required to have transparent sleeves. These, made of organdy, would fit the bill.

Jane turned to Duncan. She was pleased that she could move her head without feeling that awful dull ache behind her eyes. "Duncan, you don't understand. Mary Kate asked me to bring her a pretty pink dress, and I promised I would. It may be a little too big for her, but with a few tucks here and there I could make it fit," she said.

"This dress was handmade by one of our consignees," Mrs. Beasley told them. "In fact, all of the things in my shop are handmade. Do you do crafts as well as sew?"

"I'm a weaver," Jane said without thinking, then was astonished at the words that had come out of her mouth. Duncan stared at her, unable to move. He was flabbergasted.

She looked at him, still stunned and scarcely believing what she had said. She was a weaver! Not merely a spinner of yarn, but someone who wove it into cloth!

The edge of a memory fluttered somewhere on the outskirts of her mind, and she tried to draw it toward her. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't grasp it. It kept eluding her.

"Well, dear," Mrs. Beasley went on in a conversational tone, unaware of the astonished but silent byplay that was going on between Jane and Duncan, "since you're a weaver, you really ought to stop by Shanti Village while you're here. If you feel up to it, of course. I notice from your car license tags that you two are from out of state. Well, I always tell visitors to go to Shanti Village. It's kind of an attraction around here. They have all these crafts people who live and work there, and sometimes you can go right into their houses and watch them work."

"Shanti Village," Jane said. Suddenly a flash of memory, no longer than a second or two, flared in her head. It was of a smiling, deep-voiced, deep-breasted woman who wore a gold Egyptian ankh charm on a chain around her neck, whose laugh was not only frequent but loud, who worked at a loom while her baby slept in a rush basket on the floor beside her.
Moonglow,
Jane thought.
That woman's name was Moonglow. And we used to ride together in a blue van when we went grocery shopping.

"Yes, I'd be happy to give you directions to Shanti Village, if you'd like. Now, how about the dress? Would you like me to wrap it up for your little friend?" asked Mrs. Beasley.

"Yes," Jane whispered, the way she uttered the word drawing sharp looks.

"Maybe you'd better lie down in the back room again," Alice Beasley said solicitously.

"I—I'm fine. And I do want the dress. Only—only could you tell me how to reach Shanti Village? Here, I'll pay you for the dress, and you can wrap it and we'll pick it up later." Jane fumbled with her purse.