That wasn’t to say she wouldn’t seriously consider trading all of them away if it meant having Jack with her again.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she muttered to herself as she finished unpacking in the guest room. She was perfectly fine on her own. If she was the type of woman who needed a man to make her happy, she wouldn’t have come to Wyoming alone to stay in an isolated house.
She did feel a fondness for that little house, though. This one was much larger and nicer, with two stories and a basement. In addition to water and electricity, she had a washer and dryer, a microwave and a working phone.
But this home belonged to a family who would be back soon. Lisa felt like an interloper, as though she should tiptoe through the rooms lest she disturb someone. Which was ridiculous, because there was no one there to disturb.
When she finished unpacking, she carried her dirty clothes down to the laundry room in the basement. While they washed, she wandered the rooms on the main floor, staying out of the private areas, such as the housekeeper’s room off the kitchen and the office off the living room. That left the large kitchen, formal dining room and living room. It was odd how much a person could tell about a family just from those three rooms.
The old chrome-legged table in the spotless kitchen seated ten, and the floor was worn beneath the chairs. They ate here often, together. Family was important to them. The high chair in the corner was old and made of wood, and spoke of new beginnings, of continuity, as if this wasn’t the first generation of Wilder children to use it. But there were recipe boxes piled on the seat, and a wooden bowl of wax fruit sat on the tray. The children had outgrown the high chair, but it wasn’t put away. Perhaps it waited for the next baby.
Lisa stroked her belly and wondered if back in Denver, at the address on her driver’s license, a high chair waited for her child to be born and grow big enough to sit in it. She wished she knew. She wished she had a large loving family like the one she sensed lived in this house. But surely she didn’t have a family, or at least not much of one, or she wouldn’t be here in Wyoming alone, separated from them, with a baby on the way.
In the formal dining room the gleaming table was made of maple and seated a dozen. The walls were lined with portraits and photographs of what she assumed were past and present generations of Wilders. Big rugged men, women who looked deceptively dainty and delicate—until you looked in their eyes and saw the strength and determination.
It hurt to look at all those family members and believe that she had no family of her own. She turned away from the wall of portraits and wandered into the living room.
This room, too, shouted family, with the ragged teddy bear on the long sofa, the bucket of plastic horses beside the big-screen television. Side by side on the coffee table lay two magazines, one about quarter horses, the other about the Internet. The incongruity made Lisa smile.
If she had to invade this home, she could at least make certain it was as clean when the Wilders returned as it had been when they left. Not that it was dirty, but they’d been gone for several days, and a light coating of dust had settled over the furniture. She would ask Jack when they were due back and make sure it was clean by then.
That was assuming, of course, that she saw Jack again. He hadn’t said anything about it when he’d left her here. He hadn’t said much about anything other than to show her where things were in the house.
Naturally he would have a lot on his mind. There was a ranch to manage, cattle to check on. Lisa had no idea what those duties involved, but she was sure it was a great deal of work.
There was a knock on the back door. Then the door opened and Jack called, “Lisa?”
Something warm and tingly swept through her. “Jack!” She was halfway across the kitchen when he crossed the mudroom and stepped into the kitchen doorway.
Jack stopped and stared in awe. A thousand times or more he’d come through this doorway and seen first his father, then later, Ace, being greeted this way by a woman. Jack had looked on indulgently and thought it was nice.
He’d had no idea what it could do to a man, to have a woman rush toward him this way with a smile in her eyes, her cheeks flushed, his name on her lips. Men had killed for less important things. Had died for them.
He’d been wrong. It wasn’t nice. It was…shattering. Because it wasn’t his, and he’d suddenly discovered that he wanted it to be. He wanted, badly, to come home at the end of another brutal day and find a warm smiling woman—his woman—waiting for him. She would greet him with a kiss and he would take her to his bed—their bed—where they would make sweet hot love, then fall asleep wrapped in each other’s arms.
He’d never done that before, slept all night with a woman. He’d never awakened in that cold dark hour before dawn to warmth and softness. And he wanted to. Standing there now looking at Lisa, with her beautiful face, her body bulging with the miracle of new life, he wanted it all. The woman. This woman. With a child on the way. A family.
“Jack?” Her smile faded. “Is something wrong?”
Jack mentally shook himself. “No.” Hell of a daydream, but that was all it could be. If he wanted a woman to love him, he would have to love her back, and he’d had the ability to love anyone other than his brothers and sister burned out of him a lifetime ago. No way was he going to offer himself to some woman only to be scornfully rejected. No way in hell.
“Are you sure?” she asked, her face slipping into a frown.
“Yeah,” he said firmly, “I’m sure.” He tugged off his coat and hung it on a hook on the wall of the mudroom, then jammed one heel into the bootjack beside the door. “I just couldn’t find anything to eat at my place. There’s usually plenty of food up here.”
Together they searched the pantry and freezer and found that Jack was right—there was more than enough food for a good-size army. Seeing all the food available made Lisa smile.
“Something funny?” he asked.
“No.” She took two cans of beef stew from a shelf in the pantry. “But seeing all of this tells me I can cook something other than oatmeal.”
“You remember how to cook?”
She shrugged and carried the cans to the counter. “I just know that I know how to cook. In fact, I think I love to cook.” She proved it during the next few minutes by grinning the entire time she mixed together the ingredients for corn bread without having to look for a recipe.
“A day or so ago you mentioned other men here,” she said as Jack set the table. “What are they doing about supper?”
“Stoney’s eating at the bunkhouse and Trey went home.”
“Trey’s your younger brother, right?”
“Right.”
“He doesn’t live here on the ranch?”
“He does, but he lives on the north side so he can be near his crops. Trey’s the farmer in the family.”
“There’s no reason for him or Stoney or anyone else to have to cook after working all day. I’d be glad to cook for them.”
“Are you sure? Shouldn’t you be taking it easy?”
“I’m sure,” she said. “If I take it any easier, I’ll be in a coma. I’ll thaw a roast for tomorrow night.”
Jack nodded. “All right, but supper only. I might come up and rummage around for something to eat for lunch now and then, but half the time I take something out with me so I don’t have to come back.”
“What about breakfast?”
“No way,” he protested. “You’re not getting up at five in the morning just to cook for the rest of us.”
“I wouldn’t mind. Honestly.”
“I would. We will not be here for breakfast. End of discussion.”
She gave him a mock salute. “Yes, sir.”
His lips quirked. “Good enough, then.”
While the stew heated and the corn bread baked, Jack reached for the phone on the wall beside the back door. “I’m going to call and check on the boys.”
“Your nephews? Where are they?”
“They’re
at my sister’s. Donna, Belinda’s housekeeper, took them up there to stay with Rachel and Grady’s five-year-old, Cody, while Ace and Belinda are gone.”
Lisa didn’t actually eavesdrop, but she couldn’t help overhearing Jack talk with his sister, then each of his nephews. His love and genuine affection for them came through clearly in his voice and on his face, as he asked each boy in turn about his day, did he get to play in the snow, was he minding Aunt Rachel and Donna, was he behaving in school, was he having fun.
She wondered if his nephews knew how lucky they were to have such a large loving family.
The roast the next night was a big hit with Stoney, Trey and Jack. Almost as big a hit as Lisa herself.
Trey shook his head, marveling at her. “My hat’s off to you,” he said. “If I had to walk around not knowing who I was or anything about myself, you’d have to lock me in a padded cell. I’d go crazy.”
Lisa liked Trey. She liked Stoney, too, but it would have been impossible for her not to like Trey, who looked, spoke and acted so much like Jack. The family resemblance was unmistakable. Trey had that same black hair, those same dark blue eyes, the same rugged features.
She smiled at him. “It’s pretty frustrating to recognize all the advertising jingles on television when your own name sounds foreign to you.”
Trey shook his head again. “All that, and she can cook, too. I vote we keep her.”
Lisa laughed, as she knew was expected, but she couldn’t keep her gaze from shooting to Jack. She couldn’t keep the blood from rushing to her cheeks.
She couldn’t keep her heart from whispering, Yes, keep me, Jack.
She jerked her gaze away. She couldn’t believe that thought had even crossed her mind!
Mind? What mind? She’d obviously lost hers when she lost her memory. She had to stop these crazy yearnings for Jack. She had a baby on the way, a life to recover, if she could. She couldn’t handle any more complications, and if ever there was anything on earth designed to complicate matters, it was the human male.
Oh, good grief. There it was again, that negative attitude toward men. Her past history with the opposite sex must be dismal indeed if such cautions survived her memory loss.
“Go on with ya,” Stoney said. “Look, you’ve embarrassed the poor thing.” He reached across the table and patted Lisa’s hand. “Don’t you pay him no never mind, Miss Lisa. What he meant to say was that if you’d a mind to stay, we’d sure enough find a place for you, and that’s a fact. And not just ’cause you can cook. Why, we’d be happy just to look at your pretty face every day.”
Jack jabbed his fork into a chunk of roast on the platter and moved it to his plate. If anything, Lisa’s face was redder now than before. “Sure glad you didn’t wanna embarrass her,” he said to Stoney.
This time when Lisa laughed, Stoney’s face was as red as hers.
“Well,” Stoney said, “she can cook if she wants.” Then his twinkling eyes narrowed on Lisa. “As long as you don’t cook up any of that sissy food.”
“Sissy food?”
“Fancy stuff, like shrimp casserole or something.”
Lisa crossed her heart and held up her hand. “No shrimp casserole. Got it.”
“Did anybody check the highway today?” Jack asked, changing the subject after the round of laughter.
“I did,” Trey said, “when I drove out to the mailbox. Road’s clear, as long as the wind doesn’t pick up and blow snow all over it again. You needing to get to town?”
When Jack answered Trey, his gaze was on Lisa. “I need to haul Lisa’s car in so she won’t be stranded out here.”
Lisa started to object. Jack had too much work to do already, what with the snow and the cattle and all. But the truth was, she would feel a whole lot better if she had a car at her disposal.
“How bad is it?” Trey asked.
“I didn’t get a good look, but I’m betting the radiator’s busted.”
Lisa winced. That sounded costly. But what the heck. She had all that cash, and her car had to be repaired. Later tonight she would check her wallet again for an insurance card. Surely she had insurance. Maybe it would help pay for the repairs if they were very expensive.
“Thank you, Jack. I hadn’t even thought about how I would get it fixed.”
When supper was over and the others left, Jack lingered. “There’s another reason I want to go to town tomorrow,” he told her. “I’d like to take you in and let a doctor look you over.”
Once more Lisa wanted to object, but she couldn’t. He was right. She needed to see a doctor to make certain her accident hadn’t harmed the baby. And maybe a doctor could tell her if and when her memory might return.
Please, God, let it be soon.
She gave Jack a smile of thanks. “My car and I will be grateful to be hauled to town and checked over.”
The next morning Jack hooked up the tow bar to the back of his rig, and he and Stoney drove to the section house and hauled Lisa’s car out of the ditch and over to ranch headquarters. The radiator was definitely shot.
Back at the house Stoney climbed out of Jack’s rig and Lisa got in, and they drove to Hope Springs, the only town in Wyatt County.
They stopped first at Curly’s Auto Garage and left her car. Curly promised to call the ranch no later than the next day and let them know a cost and time estimate on the repairs.
From there Jack took Lisa to the hospital. He stood in the waiting room and watched as Lisa, with her medical records in hand, disappeared into an exam room.
He was still there an hour later when she came out.
“What did he say?” he demanded as he held out her coat for her.
Lisa slipped her arms into the sleeves, then turned and beamed at Jack. “Dr. Carver says the baby is fine. No apparent ill effects from the accident.”
Jack nodded. “You can trust him. Will’s a good doctor. What about you?”
“I’m not a good doctor at all,” she deadpanned.
“Very funny.” He tweaked her nose.
Lisa laughed. “I’m okay. I’ve suffered a mild concussion, which accounts for my memory loss. He says this is pretty rare, but not unheard of. I’m not supposed to try to force any memories. He says it won’t help. I have to let them come back on their own.”
Jack slipped on his own coat, then placed his hand at the small of her back and guided her out the door into the bright cold sunshine. “Are you all right with that?”
“I’m trying to be,” she said. “I might as well be, since there’s nothing anybody can do about it.”
“It’s way past lunchtime. How about something to eat?”
Lisa blinked, then laughed. “Until you said that I hadn’t realized I was hungry, but now I’m starved.”
“Then let’s eat.”
Lisa had seen the sign at the edge of town stating that the population of Hope Springs was an even 2,022 people. She hadn’t realized how small that was until they drove from the hospital at the edge of town to the café in the center of town on Main Street. The entire trip took three minutes. During that short drive, several people waved or honked at Jack, and he waved back.
“Do you know everyone in town?” she asked, teasing.
“Pretty much.”
Oh, my. He wasn’t teasing, he was serious. He really did know just about everyone in Hope Springs. Lisa wondered why she found that endearing.
Harvey’s Café was sandwiched between a dry cleaner and a video-rental store. When they entered, a bell jingled above the door. Jack helped her off with her coat, then hung it and his, along with his hat, on the coat tree provided. He led her to the front corner booth, and within seconds a waitress appeared with ice water and menus.
“Hey, Jack, how’s it going?”
“Fair, Arlene. How about you?”
“Countin’ the days till my vacation.”
“How soon do you leave?”
“Seven months and twenty-three days.”
Jack laughed. “Eager to go, are y
ou?”
“What gave you that idea? Can I bring you some coffee? Tea?”
“I’ll have coffee. Lisa?”
“Do you have decaf?”
“Sure do. I’ll be right back.”
Jack looked across the table to find Lisa smiling at him. “What?” he asked.
“You really do know everyone in town, don’t you?”
“It’s not hard. There aren’t all that many people to know.”
Jack didn’t need to look at the menu. He was having the day’s special—roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, and green beans.
That sounded like more than Lisa wanted to eat, so she opened her menu to see what else was available. She began to smile.
“See something that looks good?” Jack asked, curious about her smile.
“Actually it all looks good, but I just realized that I have one more piece of information about myself that I can file away.”
“What’s that?”
“I love Mexican food.”
When Arlene returned with their coffee, Jack ordered the special, Lisa the enchilada platter. When the food arrived, Lisa leaned over her plate, closed her eyes and inhaled the fragrant steam rising from the spicy food.
“Oh, yeah,” she said with feeling. “This is going to be great.”
While they ate, Jack told her about the time he and Arlene had met. Arlene was a couple of years younger than Jack, but she had a brother Jack’s age. They were in high school, attending a football game, and her brother, Ken, had been giving her a rough time about dating a guy from Pinedale in the next county. Arlene had gotten fed up and went to punch Ken in the nose, but Ken had ducked and she’d hit Jack, instead.
The way Jack told the story had Lisa laughing so hard she had to hold her sides.
Then he pointed out one person and then another on the street and told funny stories about them. Once he even winked at her.
In that moment Lisa doubted she’d ever been happier. Despite the frustration of her memory loss, things couldn’t have been better. Her baby was healthy, the sun was shining, and Jack Wilder was flirting with her.
Oh, she knew he didn’t mean it, but that was all right. Today didn’t count. It was a day out of time, a day for pretending that, for now, everything was wonderful.
A Child on the Way Page 9
