Carbon Copy Cowboy

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.

“You’ve been very kind,” she said suddenly, fixing those hazel eyes on him.

He felt like he was staring straight into her frightened soul. Then her thick brown lashes fluttered down, masking her fear.

Shaken, he once again moved around the truck and got into the driver’s seat. He told himself as they drove through town that he would keep his distance after he got her out to the ranch. His sisters and Lupita could take care of her, make her feel welcome. She shouldn’t be around for long, anyway. Someone was bound to be missing a woman like her. Probably a man, a fiancé, maybe.

For some reason, the idea irritated Jack. But, then, he reasoned, everything irritated him lately.

* * *

Watching the storefronts pass by on the tree-lined main street, Kendra felt an odd sense of familiarity. Yet, she could not recall ever having seen any of the businesses before this moment, not the Grassland Coffee Shop or the Ranch House Bakery or the Corner Drug Store, not the Grasslands Bank or the library or the school. She stared at the Grasslands Community Church as Jack brought the truck to a brief halt at the four-way stop sign on the edge of the small-town green.

The sanctuary was a modest building of all white, from the tip of its tall steeple to the painted concrete steps leading to the white-paneled door tucked beneath a peaked overhang. She stared, transfixed, at the stately chapel, which sat in simple splendor among the pecan trees and graveled walkways on the green lawn. Behind it stood a more modern building, and between the two lay graveled paths winding through a garden of shrubs, rosebushes and flowerbeds. A prayer garden, she surmised, judging by the white cross that rose between a pair of crepe myrtles. Kendra felt a sudden, wrenching need to kneel there and beg God to return her memories to her, but Jack had already started the truck on its way again.

Had this, then, been her destination? But if she had been on her way to Grasslands when she’d wrecked the car, why didn’t someone here recognize her?

She looked down at the veil in her hands and shivered. Had she been running from someone or something? But who or what?

Did someone out there miss her, need her, want her? Or was she as alone in this world as she felt? Alone, except for the cowboy behind the steering wheel. Suddenly, Jack Colby had become her lifeline in a cold and tumultuous sea of confusion.

* * *

“Your ranch is farther from town than I thought,” Kendra remarked.

Jack cocked a shoulder in a truncated shrug. “It’s a big ranch.”

“I see.”

A big ranch apparently required a big gate, for they soon came upon one. Slowing the truck, Jack turned it between the square, head-high rock columns and guided it over the cattle guard beneath the metal arch with a circle at its apex. Inside the circle, three Cs intertwined.

“Is that your brand?” she asked, referring to the letters inside the circle above their heads.

“Yep. The three Cs are for my mom, me and my sister, Violet.”

“I thought I heard you say ‘sisters,’ plural.”

“Uh-huh. The other is Maddie.”

“But she’s not part of the ranch?”

Jack shifted in his seat. “Well, she lives here,” he said vaguely.

Kendra wanted to ask why the brand didn’t have four Cs then, but she decided to keep her comments to herself as the truck accelerated along the straight, graveled drive, barbed wire flanking it on both sides.

A number of structures came into view. First, a corral built of metal pipe on the left. Straight ahead stood a magnificent two-story house constructed of native stone and brown brick. All graceful arches and mullioned windows with a porch across the front, it sat surrounded by mature trees and a wrought-iron fence. Behind it stood a number of cottages, some in better shape than others, several sheds and a large metal barn sprouting corrals and pens on both sides. Sand-colored with a green roof, the barn drew Kendra’s eye. She felt an odd yearning and wondered what animals resided within.

“I see that you keep horses in the barn,” she ventured eagerly.

Jack nodded. “Personal stock, mostly.”

“Cows, too, I imagine.”

He gave her an odd look. “Two at the moment, an ailing calf and a late springer.”

A late springer. “A heifer giving birth later than normal,” she muttered, wondering how she knew that.

“You’ve been on a ranch before?” Jack asked, turning the truck through a second gate, a smaller version of the first one.

“It would seem so,” she told him. “I don’t remember it, though. Do you have any other animals around?”

“Sure,” Jack said. Ignoring the sweeping gravel drive in front of the house, Jack guided the truck around to the side of the building. “Pigs, chickens, goats. We try to be as self-sufficient as possible.”

She nodded, thinking about that. “Are you using the goats for cheese and milk or butchering?”

“Cheese and milk.” He brought the truck to a halt beneath a large covered parking area that sheltered a trio of other vehicles. “You’ve been around animals.” A statement, not a question.

“It would seem so,” she agreed.

“Well, you’re in the right place, then,” he told her, nodding at a dog that trotted into view. “That’s Nipper.”

“Brindle Australian shepherd,” she said, amazed that she knew these things.

A young woman with long auburn hair caught in a ponytail at the nape of her neck followed the dog into the carport, slapping a pair of leather gloves against one jeaned thigh.

“That’s my sister, Violet,” Jack said, opening his door.

Feeling suddenly shy, Kendra slowly slid from the truck to the concrete floor of the carport.

“Hey, y’all,” Violet greeted them as Nipper trotted over to give Jack a doggy grin. He bent to ruffle the dog’s fur.

“Sis, this is our new guest.”

“Call me Kendra,” she said, putting out her hand.