Until Spring (33 page)

Schmidt added that Furgott will probably be charged with kidnapping and assault with intent to kill.

Jane let the newspaper drop to her lap. She felt a rage of murderous proportions. After all this time of not knowing what had happened to her, now she knew. She could dredge up no actual memory of Harry Furgott or his act, but the knowledge of it hit her hard. She allowed herself to feel anger, to feel hate, to feel disgust for someone who would hurt another human being. He had done more than injure her physically. He had robbed her of her past, left her with no present, and jeopardized her future.

The drone of the public address system speaker directly over her head jarred her out of her thoughts.

"Passenger Celeste Norton report to Gate Two, passenger Celeste Norton report to Gate Two," the voice said, and Jane, feeling slightly nauseated, stood up. At the last minute, she scooped up the fallen newspaper and stuffed it into her purse. She would want to read the article again.

"You may board Flight 832 to Cheyenne," the ticket agent told her, and she hurried through the jet way to the plane.

As she sat in her seat waiting for takeoff, her mind flowed with replays of her life since she encountered Harry Furgott on that fall day seventeen months ago. The hospital, kind Dr. Bergstrom, and that awful social worker who had been supposed to help her. The shelter for battered women, and her job in the little restaurant in Apollonia. Her bewilderment at being forced out onto the street, and the places where she'd slept. Being fired from job after job because she had no identity. Finding Amos and hiding him in the recesses of her coat in the Chicago library, where she had so often gone to keep warm. Losing her coat in Saint Louis, and the truck driver who had given her a ride in Wyoming. She was overcome with the unfairness of it all. But finally she'd found Duncan. Oh, how happy she would be to see him again!

But what about this man, this Harry Furgott, who had virtually stolen seventeen months of her life? He had certainly wronged her. She was amazed to discover that she felt no malice toward him. The huge surge of anger that hit her after reading the article was gone. Even when she looked deep inside herself, she could dredge up none of the earlier rage.

Harry Furgott would surely be brought to justice for his crime. And she—she had a future again. She had no intention of jeopardizing it by hanging on to her anger. It was best to let it go. She hoped she already had.

The flight to Cheyenne seemed mercifully short, and Jane was surprised when the captain of the plane spoke to them over the plane's public address system and told them that they were landing just ahead of a powerful snowstorm that was sweeping out of the west. She edged forward in her seat to look out the window as they descended. The sky was the color of lead.

Her heart sank. She knew all too well from personal experience how severe a Wyoming snowstorm could be. By the time she'd claimed her luggage, no one was leaving the airport. Visibility was near zero.

Gazing out the airport window at the blowing snow, Jane told herself stoically that at least it looked as though it would be a long time until spring. Duncan wouldn't insist that she leave until then. That had been their bargain, and he was a man for keeping his word.

At first she held out hope of being able to contact Duncan at Placid Valley Ranch, but long before nightfall it became apparent that this was impossible. No vehicles were leaving or arriving at the airport. She soon learned that all hotel rooms in the area were booked by delayed passengers, which meant that she spent the night arranged across several hard seats in the airport. She slept better than she'd expected, but then there had been many a night in her past, the past she was so eager to forget, when she'd found worse accommodation. If it hadn't been for the snores of the woman on the row of seats beside hers, she would have had a good night's sleep.

In the morning she tried calling the ranch again, but there was still no answer on any of the telephones—Duncan's, Rooney's, or either of their landlines.

When someone told her that the roads would soon be clear enough for buses to get through, she elbowed her way to a counter and managed to buy a ticket for a long-distance bus that was bound for Rock Springs on 1-80. Perhaps she could talk the driver into letting her off near Durkee.

The bus was crowded, but in spite of the storm, or perhaps because of it, a holiday atmosphere prevailed, and someone offered her a chicken leg from his sack lunch, which kept her from being too hungry. Two lanes of the interstate highway had been cleared of snow, and although their progress was slow, it gave Jane time to watch out the window for wildlife. Her seatmate, an elderly man, pointed out rabbit tracks at the side of the road, and twice they saw deer turning tail and leaping away over the snow banks.

Even though he was reluctant to do it, the bus driver let her off at an interstate highway rest stop not far from Durkee. She used her cell phone to call Duncan. It alarmed her when there was still no answer.

"Towers are down," said the rotund caretaker at the rest stop. "Lines are down. It was a hellacious storm."

"Do you know how I could get to Placid Valley Ranch? Duncan Tate's place? Maybe you know someone local who could drive me there?"

"Duncan Tate?" said the caretaker. "I know him. Happens my sister went to elementary school with Duncan. You really want to go out to the ranch?"

Jane assured him that she did, and he rubbed his chin and allowed as how he could take her there when he got off his shift in an hour or so if she didn't mind riding in his pickup truck with the heating system on the blink.

Jane said no, that wouldn't bother her at all, and for the next hour she huddled against the tile wall in the women's rest room, turning the hand dryer on from time to time for warmth.

They set out from the rest stop at a crawl, and Jane thought they would never reach the Placid Valley exit. They kept passing abandoned cars, dark hulks barely visible beneath the snow. Her anxiety grew, and she hoped that Duncan, Mary Kate and Rooney were all right. It was upsetting that she hadn't been able to reach them.

The highway past the ranch entrance had been plowed, and they were able to increase their speed. The heater in the pickup kept switching on and off with a thump, and Jane frequently blew on her hands for warmth, eliciting profusely apologetic looks from the man who was giving her the ride.

When they finally reached Placid Valley Ranch, Jane was pleased to see that although the mailbox at the entrance of the driveway was mounded with snow, the driveway had been plowed. She clambered out of the truck, pulling her suitcase after her.

"If you want me to drive you down to the house, I will," said the man, peering anxiously out his side window at Jane, who was hopping from one foot to the other trying to keep warm. But the pickup's engine had developed an ominous knock, so Jane waved him off and, carrying her suitcase, began to trudge resolutely toward the house.

In the distance the mountains shadowed blue-tinged billows of snow, and the roof of the barn peeked over the trees. It seemed so long since she'd walked this road, so long since she'd seen Duncan! Her heart began to beat faster at the prospect. She wondered if he would welcome her with a kiss, or if the love he had felt for her had changed. She didn't think it would have died, not so soon, but she knew very well that it could somehow have taken a different shape, could have cooled into a feeling more akin to friendship. For friends were what they had been before they became lovers. Best friends. And she knew that friendship was not all she wanted now.

When she was halfway there, she set down her suitcase on the packed snow and rubbed her aching hands together. A puff of smoke from Duncan's chimney wended its way lazily up through the trees, and she took heart. Someone was home, someone was here; despite the unanswered phones, nothing could be wrong if there was a fire in the fireplace.

At the front gate she abandoned the suitcase and ran, mindful of icy spots after her last fall, to the front door of Duncan's house. She knocked, quietly at first, then more loudly.
Duncan,
she said to herself.
Finally I'm going to see Duncan.

He opened the door. He was wearing his old flannel shirt, a familiar one with a frayed collar. And he wore his boots, so that he seemed even taller than she remembered. He stared down at her, nonplussed, his eyes drinking her in. He shook his head slightly as though he couldn't believe she was really there.

"It's me," she said quietly, all the meaningful things she had planned to say scattering to the four winds. "I'm home. Can you forgive me, Duncan?"

He didn't say anything, only opened the door wider and engulfed her in his arms. And then she was laughing, he was smiling and she was sobbing, and Amos came and twined himself around their ankles, purring so loudly that Jane wiped her eyes and bent to pick him up.

"I'm beginning to enjoy snowstorms. They usually bring you," Duncan said, wrapping his arms around her. Amos was crushed between them, but he seemed not to mind.

"Oh, Duncan, they found my van," she told him as he drew her inside where it was warm, and then she told him about the newspaper story that named Harry Furgott as her assailant.

"Schmidt called a couple of days ago, and I tried to call and tell you about it, but our phones have been intermittently out of order because of the weather, and I gave up trying," Duncan told her. He couldn't believe his happiness at seeing her again.

"That explains why I couldn't reach you," she said as they sat down together in front of the fire. She was overjoyed to be near him and to be back in this house, which now seemed like the only real home she'd ever known.

Amos jumped down from her lap and sat purring at their feet. It was almost as if she'd never left.

"Why didn't you wait to come when it would be easier to travel?" Duncan asked, holding tightly to her hands. He almost expected her to disappear if he didn't.

"I hadn't heard about the storm when I left for the airport. All I knew was that I had to get here. I was worried, Duncan, because of a phone call I got from Mary Kate," and she related how Mary Kate had called and told her that Dearling had been sold.

Duncan's eyes became solemn. "I would have stopped Rooney if I could have," he said. "By the time I knew about his selling Dearling, he'd already clinched the deal. Dearling's new owner is a fellow over in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. He wrote and said he suddenly had a hankering to have a llama for a pet, and Rooney called him up and told him he had a nice, tame, trainable llama available. They agreed upon a price over the phone, and the guy showed up right away and hauled Dearling away."

"Mary Kate is heartbroken," Jane said. She was sad too.

"I know, and there's not a thing I can do about it. Rooney is punishing her for letting the llamas out of their pen."

"But such a cruel punishment! Dearling was everything to Mary Kate."

"I agree. It's a shame. I'd personally give my right arm to get Dearling back, but there's no way. Anyway, I couldn't have overruled Rooney's decision. He was disciplining Mary Kate."

"Mary Kate needs love and attention, not harsh punishments," Jane said with conviction.

"I agree with you, and even Rooney admits that he was wrong. He'd like to get Dearling back as much as anyone, if only to improve Mary Kate's disposition." Duncan paused and studied her carefully. "Is Mary Kate the only reason you came back?" he asked.

"No," she said honestly. "No, it's not. I missed you, Duncan. Terribly."

She was gratified when he enclosed her in his arms. She inhaled his familiar pine scent and closed her eyes as he stroked her hair. They sat like that for a long time, and then he stood up, gently took her by the hand, and led her upstairs to his bedroom.

"We'll move your things in here, okay?" Duncan said, murmuring against her temple.

She pulled away. "I've just thought of something, Duncan. I left my suitcase out by the gate!"

He laughed, a low rumble deep in his throat. Then he unbuttoned the top buttons of her sweater and impatiently pulled it over her head.

"We'll get it later, my love," he said. "Much later."

Then he took her to bed.

Chapter 17

The next morning when Jane was passing by her old room, she noticed a large box on the bed. Curious and wondering if it was for her, she investigated and discovered from the sales slip tucked under the bow that the package was from Alice Beasley's shop.