Her bone-deep fatigue forgotten, she raced out of the woods and started across the wet, muddy, open range. Thunder rumbled and lightning crackled in the dark sky, but the rain had slackened enough for her to see where she was going. With instincts coming from a place she couldn’t identify, she headed for the ranch house. She could use the telephone to call for help for Max.
She tripped and fell, splashing into a hole of dirty water, then she dragged herself to her feet, tears joining the rain on her face.
Her lungs burned and her legs threatened to give way beneath her. But she ran on, repeating Max’s name over and over in her mind like a mantra.
At last the house and barn came into view. The rain had diminished to a light drizzle, and she staggered forward, gasping for breath as she riveted her gaze on the back door of the house.
A hundred feet... fifty ... twenty more feet to go....
Josie burst through the back door, instantly losing her footing and sprawling facedown on the floor with a sharp cry of pain.
“Josie!”
She raised her head. “Granddad!”
Josie scrambled to her feet and launched herself at Joseph, hugging him tightly. He wrapped his arms around her, oblivious to the wet mud covering his expensive suit.
Josie moved back and clutched the lapels of her grandfather’s suit jacket.
“Oh, Granddad, please,” she said, fresh tears spilling onto her dirty cheeks. “You’ve got to help Max. He came looking for me because I... It’s all my fault that he’s hurt and...a tree in the woods...the lightning... Granddad, please, Max is pinned beneath a tree. He’s unconscious, but he’s alive, and I promised him I’d get help for him. Please, Granddad, please. I love him. He’s my Max. Please, you’ve got to—”
Joseph gripped her shoulders and gave her a small shake. “Josie,” he said sternly, “calm down. Take a deep breath. Are you all right?”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine, but Max—”
“Why didn’t you contact me? What’s going on here?”
“I bumped my head and had amnesia. Granddad, I’ll explain everything later. Max is hurt, don’t you understand?”
“Yes, I hear you,” Joseph said, nodding. “I will have the answers to all my questions, but first things first.” He released Josie and turned toward the living room. “Rusty, Mason, get in here. We have an emergency situation on our hands. I want my orders followed to the letter. Snap to it. Now.”
Josie lowered herself onto a chair in the Muskogee-hospital waiting room and watched absently as her grandfather shook the hands of the four members of the Search and Rescue Unit. The diminishing fury of the storm had made it possible for the unit to come to the Single C by helicopter. They’d picked up Joseph and Josie, then flown to the edge of the woods where Josie directed them.
Instructed to stay in the helicopter after telling the men where Max lay injured in the woods, Josie waited for what seemed like an eternity before seeing the group emerge from the woods with Max on a stretcher.
She’d sat next to a still-unconscious Max during the flight to Muskogee, holding his hand, staring at his scratched and bleeding face.
At the hospital, Max had been whisked away, his hand torn from hers.
Exhaustion fell over her like a heavy shroud, making it difficult to breathe. She leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes, telling herself to inhale, exhale, inhale—
“Well, we’ve done all we can,” Joseph said, sitting down in the chair next to her. “It’s up to the doctors now. Josie, here—drink this tea.”
Josie opened her eyes and reached for the plastic cup with a trembling hand. She sipped the hot liquid, feeling its soothing warmth flow through her.
Joseph waited until he saw some color return to her face beneath the streaks of dirt. He frowned as he flicked at the dried mud on his suit, then gave up the attempt to make himself presentable.
“Well, Princess,” he said, “let’s start at the beginning, shall we?”
“Oh, Granddad, not now, please. I’m so exhausted and so very worried about Max. Couldn’t we discuss all this later?”
“No.”
Josie sighed, drained the cup, then placed it on the table next to her.
“What do you want to know?” she said.
“Everything.”
A bubble of near-hysterical laughter escaped from her lips.
Everything? she thought. No, her darling granddad did not want to hear about the exquisite lovemaking his precious Princess had shared with Max Carter. In Joseph Wentworth’s eyes she was still his little girl. There were definitely some details of this bizarre story she was going to leave out.
“Josie,” Joseph said, an edge of impatience in his voice, “I’ve put in a hellish month worrying about you. I had enough to deal with because of Jack’s death. I find nothing funny about this situation, young lady. I want my answers and I want them right now.”
“Yes, of course, I’m sorry.” Josie straightened in her chair and drew a steadying breath. “Okay, here goes. When I returned to my apartment after my stay with you, I found a box of Jack’s personal effects that Trey McGill had mailed to me.”
Joseph propped his elbows on the arms of the chair, made a steeple of his fingers and rested his hands against his lips. He stared straight ahead as he listened.
“Among Jack’s things,” Josie went on, “was a letter addressed to a Sabrina Jensen, care of Max Carter at the Single C Ranch, a picture of Sabrina and a diamond ring in a blue velvet box.”
“What?” Joseph said, looking at her.
“I read the letter,” Josie said, “but I wasn’t certain from what Jack wrote whether or not he was in love with Sabrina and planned to ask her to marry him.”
“Marry? Jack?”
“I know, Granddad. It was hard for me to believe, too. But if Jack was in love with Sabrina, I felt she should be made to feel welcome in our family. Plus, you could have talked to her, shared things about Jack. I didn’t want to get your hopes up, though, so I decided to talk to Sabrina myself before I told you about her.”
“I see.” Joseph resumed his earlier pose, staring straight ahead. “Go on.”
“I found the Single C Ranch and Max Carter, but Sabrina wasn’t there. Then I apparently—I don’t remember exactly—fell in a hole made by a tree stump that Max had removed from the ground. I hit my head and wound up with amnesia.”
“I’ll sue him,” Joseph said tightly. “That cowboy can kiss his postage-stamp-size ranch goodbye.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Josie said, her voice rising. “It wasn’t Max’s fault that I fell in the stupid hole. I was in one of my snits and... You will not sue Max Carter, Granddad or give even a fleeting thought to taking his ranch from him. That land is his life, his reason for being. It would destroy him if you—”
“Enough,” Joseph said, flicking one hand in the air. “I was just checking. I won’t sue Max Carter.”
“Checking what?” Josie said, confused.
“Nothing. Continue.”
She shrugged. “There’s not much else to say. I was regaining my memory in bits and pieces, but I still didn’t know who I was until today.”
“Josie, you must have introduced yourself when you first met Carter. Plus, you were carrying a purse with all kinds of identification.
“In addition, I was able to locate you because a ranch hand acknowledged your car as being the one that had been behind a shed on the Single C for several weeks.
“Max Carter obviously knew who you were the entire time you had amnesia. He deliberately chose not to tell you your identity. Why?”
Josie lifted her chin. “Granddad, I don’t know why, but I intend to find out. I’m asking you—no, correct that—I’m telling you to step back and let me pursue this on my own. It’s between me and Max.”
Joseph coughed, and Josie had the impression he did it to hide a smile. But what on earth was he smiling about?
“Fine,” he said.
Josie’
s eyes widened. “Fine? Just like that? No argument? No renewed threats to sue Max? Take away his ranch?”
“No.”
“Why not?” she said, eyeing him warily. “This isn’t like you at all, Granddad.”
“I’m mellowing in my old age.”
“Ha!”
A nurse stepped into the room.
“Max?” Josie jumped to her feet.
“No,” the nurse said. “There’s no word yet on his condition. There’s a telephone call at the nurses’ station for Mr. Wentworth.”
“Oh.” Josie sat back down on her chair with a weary sigh.
Joseph followed the nurse to the station and picked up the receiver.
“Wentworth.”
“Mason. I ran a quick check on Max Carter like you asked me to. He’s squeaky clean, dull as dishwater. The guy has a mortgage on his land, no other outstanding bills, has never even had a traffic ticket.”
“Excellent,” Joseph said. “You’re still at the Single C?”
“Yes.”
“Stay there until you hear from me. Pack Josie’s belongings, but don’t leave until I find out Carter’s condition.”
“Yes, sir.”
Joseph hung up the receiver and allowed a full-blown smile to break across his face as he returned to the waiting room.
Twenty minutes later Jeff Wilson came striding into the waiting room.
“Jeff!” Josie jumped instantly to her feet. “How did you know—”
“Rusty called the house and Sally had me paged here. I was in to see one of my patients. Are you all right, Josie? You look like you fought in a war.”
“Yes, I’m fine. My memory’s fully restored, too. Jeff, please, how is Max?”
“Joseph Wentworths,” Joseph interrupted, extending his hand to Jeff when he reached Josie’s side. “I’m Josie’s grandfather. She’s forgetting her manners, I’m afraid.”
“Dr. Jeff Wilson,” Jeff said, shaking Joseph’s hand. “I treated your granddaughter when she received that bump on the head.”
Joseph nodded. “Send me a bill.”
“Max took care of it,” Jeff said.
“Jeff!” Josie was nearly yelling. “How is Max?”
“He is one very lucky man. He doesn’t think that’s true at the moment, but he really is fortunate. The ground was so wet that it cushioned the impact when the tree hit him. He sort of sank into the mud and didn’t get the full force of the tree’s weight.”
“And?” Josie clutched her hands together tightly.
“He has a concussion, which, as you well know, means he has a roaring headache. His ribs are badly bruised and very sore. But the thing that has him hopping mad is that his right leg is broken.”
Josie’s eyes shimmered with tears. “Max has a broken leg? Oh, that’s terrible, just awful.”
“Not when you consider that he’s lucky to be alive,” Jeff said.
“Well, yes,” she said slowly. “If you look at it that way, I guess he—”
“Is he bedridden?” Joseph asked.
Jeff nodded. “Indeed he is. I’m going to have to see about getting a nurse out to the Single C to tend to him for a while, until that leg has healed enough for a walking cast. I told Max he couldn’t get of bed, then hightailed it from the room before he could get his hands around my throat. He’d probably be bellowing right now, except that his head and ribs hurt too much for him to holler.”
Jeff chuckled. “Max is fuming silently,” he added, smiling. “He’s sort of like a volcano waiting to erupt.”
“May I see him?” Josie asked.
“You’re a brave lady, Josie. But, sure, you can say hello to him. Don’t stay too long, though. He needs to rest and he’s looking at a night of being poked awake to check on that concussion. He’s down the hall. Third door on the right.”
“Thank you, Jeff, for everything. Oh, and please tell Sally that I said goodbye and it was wonderful spending time with her. I’ll be returning to Freemont Springs with my grandfather.”
“We’ll miss you, Josie,” Jeff said.
“Thank you. I’ll miss you, too. Goodbye.”
Josie hurried from the room and Jeff turned to do the same.
“Wait a second, Jeff,” Joseph said. “I’d like to speak with you, if I may?”
“Certainly, sir. What can I do for you?”
“Come sit down,” Joseph said, placing one arm across Jeff’s shoulders. “I have a proposition to make.”
On the way to Max’s room, Josie ducked into a bathroom, grimacing as she saw her mud-splattered face in the mirror. She scrubbed off the dirt with a wet paper towel, finger-combed her hair, then sighed in defeat.
Why was she concerned about her appearance? Max Carter was a rotten liar, a miscreant, a self-serving, conniving...
She sighed again.
Then there was the flip side of the coin. If she had stayed in the house and confronted Max with the discovery of her purse, he wouldn’t be hurt. But oh, no, she’d gone running off like a child throwing a tantrum and Max had come after her, resulting in his injuries.
Good grief, this was confusing.
A part of her wanted to call Max every name in the book, then tell him to go straight to hell.
Another part of her was eager to apologize for being the cause of his current condition.
Well, she’d wing it Just wait and see what came out of her mouth when she saw him. She was far too exhausted to think it through or decide on a plan of action.
All she knew for certain was that she had to see Max one last time before she left for Freemont Springs. Before she walked out of his life forever.
Outside the room Jeff had directed her to, Josie drew a steadying breath, lifted her chin, then rapped lightly on the door before pushing it open.
Max was sleeping, his dark lashes fanned out against tanned skin that had a gray hue in the glow of the small light above the bed.
His face had a multitude of nasty scratches and bruises. A tented blanket was above his right leg, the leg broken because of her childish behavior.
“Max?” she said softly. “Max?”
He opened his eyes and her breath caught as she saw the physical pain radiating from their dark depths.
“Oh, Max,” she said, fighting against threatening tears. “I’m so sorry, so very sorry. This is all my fault. Can you ever forgive me?”
“Forgive you?” he said, then moaned and splayed one hand on his chest. “Damn. Josie, I should be asking for your forgiveness. I was the one who concealed your identity from you.”
“There is that,” she said, frowning. “You definitely owe me an explanation, Max Carter. On the other hand, maybe not. There’s nothing you could say to... It was a despicable thing to do and... Then again, I feel just terrible about what happened to you when you came into the woods and—”
Joseph Wentworth came into the room without bothering to knock on the door.
“Max Carter?” he said, stopping at the foot of the bed. “I’m Joseph Wentworth, Josie’s grandfather.”
“Oh, hell,” Max said, rolling his eyes heavenward. “Let me guess. You’re going to sue my butt.”
“Sue you?” Joseph said, raising his eyebrow. “Whatever for? My dear boy, I’m in your debt for what you did for my precious Princess.”
“What?” Josie and Max said in unison.
“Heavens, yes,” Joseph said, smiling. “Why, there Josie was with no memory, no way to know she could contact me to come for her, and you provided her with a safe haven. A port in the storm, if you will.”
“Hold it,” Josie said, raising one hand. “Granddad, this man concealed my identity from me. He hid my purse with all my identification in the back of his closet, for crying out loud.”
“I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for that, Josie,” Joseph said. “But we don’t want to tire Max out by demanding to know what it is at the present time.”
“We don’t?” Josie said, planting her hands on her hips. “Yes, we do. We m
ost certainly do.”
“The fact remains,” her grandfather said, glaring at her, “that you were safely tucked away with Max on the Single C while you had no idea who you were. You could have been wandering around the streets of Muskogee or somewhere. The very thought gives me cold chills. I intend to repay Max for his kindness to you.”
“But—”
“Therefore,” Joseph went on, “I’ve just had a lengthy conversation with Jeff. Tomorrow Max will be flown by air ambulance to Freemont Springs. I’ll also make arrangements to have extra ranch hands sent out to the Single C to tend to the chores under Rusty’s direction. Those men will be paid by me, of course. It’s the least I can do.
“Wentworths always pay their debts, Josie. You’d do well to remember that.”
“Meaning?” she said, narrowing her eyes.
“Max cared for you when you suffered the injury to your head. It’s time to reciprocate. Max will be settled comfortably in your apartment until the day he is able to return to work on his ranch.”
“The hell I will!” Max exclaimed, then groaned in pain.
“That’s crazy!” Josie shrieked.
“What it is,” Joseph said, “is settled. Max, your personal physician is writing the orders in your chart right now. You have no choice, really, but to accept my heartfelt offer. A private nurse staying at the Single C would be a strain on your finances that, quite frankly, you can’t afford.”
“But I don’t want to have Max there,” Josie nearly sputtered.
“You’re a Wentworth, who is beholden to this man for your well-being. You’ll set that debt to rights. Understood?”
“I...” Josie said.
“Good.”
Joseph strode out of the room.
“I don’t believe this.” Josie shook her head. “I do not believe this.”
“All I know,” Max said, “is that your grandfather doesn’t plan to sue me and that the Single C is being taken care of properly.” He nodded. “That’s enough to satisfy me—at least in my present condition.” He closed his eyes. “Go home, Josie. I have a rotten headache.”
“But—”
Max opened one eye. “Oh, and be certain everything is ready for me, Florence Nightingale. I’m arriving on your doorstep tomorrow.”
The Rancher And The Amnesiac Bride Page 11
