The men conversed very little during the ride back to the compound. The rain was more mist than droplets, but days of bad weather were getting them down. Again Chuck and Matt rode side by side, and occasionally one of them would remark about something. But they, too, were mostly silent. Physically weary and emotionally sapped, the group rode huddled in their ponchos, with the brims of their hats low on their foreheads and their heads down in attempts to keep rain off their faces. They were tired of mud, flooding creeks, the added bulk to their ordinary clothing of rain gear, and standing water that was dangerously deep in spots and not to be taken lightly.
Their work today had been successful; all the cattle on the ranch were munching wet grass on high ground. Ordinarily, moving small herds was a simple job, but the horses and cattle had slipped and slid so much in the mud that work that should have taken only a few hours had kept Matt and his crew out until late in the day. In fact, night began falling before they reached the ranch compound.
They were still about a mile away, when Matt narrowed his eyes and squinted in an effort to see the ranch more clearly through the dreary, drizzly twilight. There weren’t any yard lights on, he realized after a few moments, which meant the electricity was out again.
He muttered a frustrated curse, then said to Chuck, “The damned power is off again.”
Chuck looked ahead then nodded his agreement. “Looks like it. Phone’s probably not working yet, either.”
“It’s days like these that I wonder why I followed in my father’s footsteps and kept his ranch from being sold after his death,” Matt said grimly.
“Yeah,” Chuck said, putting total understanding in that one drawled word.
“I wonder how long Hope has been without electricity,” Matt said.
“Do you think it would scare her?”
“I think anything scares her, Chuck. Her grasp on reality is pretty thin. Have you ever known an amnesiac?”
“Once, way back, there was a guy who’d lost his memory in a car accident. He’d gotten broken up pretty bad, and after he came home from the hospital I remember us kids going past his house and seeing him sitting on the porch just staring at nothing.”
Matt felt a deep chill shoot through his system. “Did he get over it?”
Chuck shrugged. “Truthfully, Matt, I don’t remember. Is Hope your first experience with amnesia?”
“Yes, and it scares the living daylights out of me. I don’t know if I should hand her that newspaper article, let her read it and then tell her what I know about the Stockwells, or if I should just keep my mouth shut about the little I know of her background until a doctor sees her. Is my ignorance making matters worse for her, or is silence the best therapy until she gets medical attention?”
Chuck drew a long breath. “That’s a quandary, all right.”
The two men fell silent, listened to the squishy clip-clopping of their horses’ hooves on the soggy earth and watched the ranch buildings gradually getting closer.
Finally Matt said quietly, tensely, “The family has put up a $50,000 reward for information about her.”
“It said that in that article?”
“Yeah, it did.”
“That’s a fine sum of money. You could sure use a nice sum like that right about now, Matt. Fifty thousand would pay a lot of bills.”
“Sure would,” Matt agreed, “but how does a man take money just for helping a fellow human being? I don’t think I could, Chuck.”
Chuck pondered awhile, then said, “Right now you probably couldn’t, Matt. But if it’s offered when Hope’s back with her family and getting better, I think you should consider it. I probably shouldn’t stick my nose into your business like this but you haven’t tried too hard to keep your financial problems a secret.”
“Hard to keep that kind of thing a secret when I can’t pay the men a steady wage and I have to keep selling off hay and cattle just to cover the utility bills.” After a minute he added grimly, “I’m three months behind on the mortgage payments, Chuck. Maybe you should start looking for another job.”
“Not yet,” Chuck said calmly. “Never can tell what might happen tomorrow or next week, and I like this job just fine.”
“Well, I’d hate to lose you, that’s certain.”
Finally they reached the compound, and they dismounted and unsaddled their horses. “I’ll take care of Dex,” Chuck offered. “You’d better go to the house.” He didn’t say “to check on Hope,” because none of the other men knew about her yet. Chuck figured that if and when Matt wanted them to know, he’d tell them himself.
Matt nodded. “Thanks. See y’all later.”
One of the men called out, “Are you coming to the bunkhouse for supper, Matt? We’re gonna heat up some leftover stew on the propane stove.”
Matt kept walking. “Probably not. I’m beat and I’ll just grab a sandwich at the house. G’night.”
He could hear himself walking as he strode to the house, and his footsteps sounded loud to his ears. His poncho had its own creaks and swishes, and some change in his pants pocket clinked together just enough to become part of the misty, eerie scene. The house was too dark, Matt thought uneasily. Hadn’t Hope lit the lanterns?
He stamped his feet on the back porch mat to rid his boots of the mud they’d gathered that afternoon, then opened the door and walked in. The house was not only too dark, it was too quiet.
Matt’s system went into alert mode, which meant he moved more deliberately and thought through every possible scenario. Hope was ill. No, she’d lost touch with where she was and had numbly walked away, in which case she could be wandering helplessly in any given direction.
Matt’s stomach sank, and he realized that Ms. Hope LeClaire had become more than just another “fellow human being,” as he’d described her to Chuck. It was a surprise revelation for Matt, because he’d been so positive for years now that he would never care enough for another woman to matter, especially a wealthy woman.
“Revelation, my left foot! That was the most stupid thought ever to enter your head,” he mumbled under his breath. “Hope LeClaire is not any more important to you than anyone else, and don’t you forget it.”
He shed and hung his poncho and hat, then sat down in the kitchen just long enough to take off his boots, because they were still muddy. It was too dark inside to see much, so he went to the laundry room for a lantern. His veins got a little icier when he saw that they were all there. Hope hadn’t lit one, which made no sense at all.
Hurrying then, he turned on the fuel valve of one of the lanterns, quickly lit it with a match, picked it up by its handle and went to look for Hope, actually praying that she was somewhere in the house. The bedroom she’d been using seemed to be the most logical place for her to be, and that was where he went.
The room was empty. Swirling, Matt shouted, “Hope? Hope? Where are you?”
She opened her eyes, but was groggy from sleeping so soundly and wasn’t sure she hadn’t dreamed a voice calling her name.
“Hope?” Matt walked into the living room, holding the lantern high to get maximum light from it. His legs got weak when he saw her lying on the sofa with the comforter from her bed tucked snugly around her.
She blinked at him. “Matt?”
“Yeah. Are you okay?”
The anger she’d battled on and off all afternoon because she was so helpless in the dark and cold in this strange place suddenly exploded.
“No, I am not okay! There’s no electricity, no heat, no lights and I’ve been alone for hours. What took you so long?”
“I told you I’d be gone most of the afternoon.”
“I’d say the afternoon is long gone, wouldn’t you? It happens to be night now!”
“It took us longer than I thought. Why didn’t you light one of the lanterns, for God’s sake. Or all of them, if you were afraid of the dark?”
“I tried, but I didn’t and still don’t know how to light those—those prehistoric contraptions,” she shrieked.
“Don’t yell at me,” Matt said through clenched teeth. What in hell had made him think this nasty little woman was even slightly important to him? She’d been trouble since he’d first spotted her out there in the mud, and she was going to be trouble until the day he got rid of her.
“I’ll yell if I want to,” Hope shouted. “You’re not the one stuck in a foreign land without a memory, you big jerk!”
“Good Lord, you’re not in a foreign land, you’re in Texas!”
“It feels foreign, and so do you!” Hope’s anger suddenly dissolved and she began crying. “Everything feels foreign,” she sobbed. “And yes, I’m scared. I don’t want to be, but I can’t seem to do anything about it.”
She sounded forlorn, a woman without a link or a lifeline to anything that made life worth living. Matt’s lifeline was the ranch. Since his downhill financial slide began, he’d wondered many times what he would do if he actually hit bottom and lost his home. The imagery wasn’t at all pleasant, and the worst thing to face was that it could happen.
His and Hope’s situations were not even close in nature, but trouble was trouble, whatever form it took on. His heart softened toward her, along with his expression.
“Let’s get you more comfortable,” he said gently. “Stay under that blanket, and I’ll start a fire in the fireplace. It won’t heat the whole house, but it will make this room nice and warm.”
He’d become an impatient, frequently cynical man, he thought while quickly and easily building a roaring fire in the huge fireplace. But he shouldn’t take out his frustrations with the human race and the unforgiving world of finance on anyone else, least of all a woman who certainly wasn’t under his roof by choice.
“There, all set,” he said as he closed the metal mesh curtains to keep sparks from flying out of the fireplace. He thought of something else and held up his forefinger. “I’ll be right back.” Leaving the lantern for her, which along with the dancing flames provided plenty of light, he walked from the room.
Hope wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She felt terribly remorseful for screeching at Matt. He’d probably saved her life, and how could she be anything but grateful with him? It was just that she’d become so frightened when it started getting dark and Matt and his crew still hadn’t returned. And this place did feel foreign to her. In her mind’s eye she saw the ranch as a house and some barns plunked down in the middle of a vast wasteland. Actually, when she’d looked out the windows today, hoping to see Matt and the men coming back, the word wasteland had occurred to her more than once. Everything was so dark and dreary looking. Surely Texas didn’t look that way when it was dry and the sun was shining, but she’d never seen it that way. Or if she had, she couldn’t remember it.
She’d wept off and on all afternoon, suffering stupefying self-pity one minute and trying desperately to stretch her memory the next. It had been a dreadful day, mostly because the damned electricity had gone off. Even though she couldn’t recite specific recipes, there was a peculiar confidence inside her that had to do with cooking, and if the power had remained constant, she knew that she would have passed the time in the kitchen.
Matt came in, loaded down with bedding and another lantern. “I’m going to fix you a nice bed by the fire,” he told her.
“That’s not necessary. Matt, I—I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
Matt was spreading thick, soft, down-filled sleeping bags on the rug in front of the fireplace, and he stopped to look at her. She certainly wasn’t a raving beauty at the moment, but he saw past her sorrowful red and swollen eyes to the beautiful, unconscious woman he’d undressed and gently washed mud from. The memory made him uncomfortable, and he dropped his eyes.
“Forget it,” he said gruffly, and spread out another sleeping bag on top of the first two he’d laid down.
“Forget it?” she repeated. “I should forget being unforgivably rude to the man who saved my life? Why, Matt? Why do you want me to forget it?”
“Because you’re upset and worried, and who in hell wouldn’t be in your shoes?” Matt shook out a clean sheet over the sleeping bags. “I’ll get some pillows and blankets,” he said, and left while Hope was contemplating what kind of reply a person in “her shoes” could possibly make to his inarguable but still very difficult to accept observation.
Truth was, she couldn’t read between the lines with Matt, she thought with a ponderous sigh. Maybe that was the way she was with all men. Maybe she was that way even with women. God forbid, but what if she was a tongue-tied, giggly bubble brain around attractive men, and a complete moron with intelligent women?
Watching the dancing reflections of firelight on the otherwise dark ceiling, she again felt the pressure of painful questions. Was she educated? Did she work? If so, was her work a career or simply a job? Other than her mother, did she have any family? Was anyone worried about her? Anyone at all?
Dear God, how did I end up on a ranch where no one knows me? There must be a reason for my being in Texas in the first place. I realize that reason could be any number of things, but what on earth brought me to this particular piece of Texas?
Matt returned with pillows and blankets and finished making the bed. “Come on over here by the fire,” he said, “and I’ll scare us up some supper. You’ll be much warmer and a lot more comfortable stretched out on this nice soft bed than you are on that sofa. It’ll only take me a few minutes to put together some eats. Come on, Hope, cooperate. I’m just trying to help.”
In her heart she believed him, but she had so much misery to deal with that she had no desire at all to cooperate with him or anyone else. If there was anyone else, that is.
Tight-lipped, she forced herself to get off the couch and walk to the makeshift bed. Matt didn’t wait to see if she actually lay down, figuring that he’d done what he could and the rest was up to her. He went to the kitchen instead.
Hope was surprised by the comfort of the bed, and the fire was warming and pleasant. She felt the strain of the lonely, frightening day diminishing until she actually began feeling relaxed. If her brain was working even a little, wouldn’t she have been able to figure out how to build a fire and to light those damned lanterns? What if she never recovered and remained a helpless, pitiable creature for the rest of her days?
It was a horrifying thought that brought tears to her eyes, but she didn’t want to be all weepy and self-pitying when Matt returned, so she dried her face and finger-combed her hair back from her face in an effort to look halfway presentable. Her fingertips encountered the healing cut on the back of her head and she wondered if that small injury had actually been the cause of her amnesia. It really didn’t seem very likely, and her mind then struggled to come up with other reasons why a person would lose her memory. Nothing sensible or logical occurred to her, but she suddenly felt icy fingers walk up her spine and instinct told her that whatever had brought her to the McCarlson ranch and caused her amnesia was neither sensible nor logical. Which left what? Something on the wrong side of the law?
Seized by sudden panic, she thought frantically, I’m not a criminal, am I? “Oh, my God,” she whispered.
Matt walked in with a large tray and saw Hope staring into the fire with an expression on her face that looked to be no more than one small step away from severe hysteria.
His pulse leapt in alarm. Setting the tray down on the floor between Hope and the fireplace, he sat next to her on the sleeping bags and blankets.
“I can’t begin to guess what caused this,” he said quietly while laying what he hoped she would view as a comforting hand on her upper arm, “but you can’t let the situation get you down. Amnesia isn’t a permanent condition. Your memory could return in a flash at any moment.”
She turned her head to look at him. “Do you know that for a fact?”
“I’ve never had any medical training, but I’ve read and heard things. Probably everybody has. Amnesia isn’t one of those rare diseases that no one’s ever heard of, you know.”
“Disease? Amnesia is considered a disease?”
She was still on the brink of hysteria, Matt realized. “No—no. I said it wrong. Amnesia is not a disease, it—it’s caused by some sort of trauma to the head. That cut you have—”
Hope broke in. “Did not cause it. I’m positive of that, but what other kind of trauma did I experience that night?” Turning even more so that she was flat on her back, except for her head on two stacked pillows, she dug her hands into the front of Matt’s shirt. “Matt, what happened to me?”
Her eyes pleaded, and Matt felt so much empathy that he nearly choked up. Clasping his own hands around hers, he spoke a bit raggedly.
“Hope, can’t you stop thinking about it?”
“Can’t you give me a better answer than that?”
He knew she was a Stockwell. He knew what the newspaper article said about her being missing. But did he know anything that would relieve her anxiety at this moment? No, he did not.
“If I had a better answer, you’d have heard it before this,” he said gently. “Now, let’s have some supper. It’s nothing fancy, but I’m hungry enough to eat just about anything. How about you?”
Hope sighed. “I guess so.”
Hours later, Matt awoke with a start. He’d been sleeping on the sofa, so he could keep the fire going. He had suggested that Hope spend the night in front of the fireplace and it hadn’t taken much persuasion to convince her.
But he hadn’t slept nearly as well as he would have in his own bed. For one thing, he kept setting his watch alarm to wake him every hour so he could add wood to the fire. Second, he heard each movement and sound Hope made, and he doubted if she slept more than ten minutes through without thrashing about in bed or crying out over some damned dream.
What woke him this time, though, wasn’t tortured whimpers from Hope but an out-and-out bloodcurdling scream. Matt jumped from the sofa and rushed to the sleeping bag bed to gather Hope into his arms. She quieted almost at once, and he simply gave up and stayed where he was. At first he realized that he was back where he’d been last night, in bed with Hope and holding her close. But he was so dog tired that after a while he drifted off to sleep.
Before long the fire died to embers, and Matt was so out of it he didn’t hear his watch alarm when it beeped. Thus, when he felt the chill seeping into the room, he groggily crawled under the blankets and snuggled even more intimately with Hope’s warm body. Somehow, even in his sleep, Hope’s bare legs tangled with his became vaguely and sensuously apparent. She was wearing a long shirt of his, he knew that much, but it had crept up during the night and other than the lacy little panties he’d taken off her that first morning, she was all silky, hot skin and curving femininity.
His arousal was sudden and hot as Hades. Still groggy, he rubbed against Hope’s naked thigh and without direction from his brain his right hand began exploring the incredibly luscious contours of her body. Erotic images formed behind his closed eyelids; he desperately needed to make love, to put out the fire searing his loins.
Hope came awake slowly. Matt’s hand was gliding over her skin in a most delicious way, and she could feel his hard manhood against her thigh and the rest of his long body all but surrounding hers. She felt no alarm. In fact, the heat developing in the pit of her belly was much too pleasurable and demanding for her to do anything but enjoy it.
She blamed her amnesia on the fact that this felt like the first time that a man had ever caressed her so intimately. It couldn’t possibly be true, of course. Her driver’s license indicated that she was twenty-eight years old. Even without a bank of knowledge to draw upon, a twenty-eight-year-old virgin simply wasn’t logical.
Still, as fantastic as Matt’s obviously very experienced hand made her feel—it was definitely getting bolder, now slipping into her panties and between her legs—Hope’s confusion grew over whether she’d done this before. He was sliding down her panties when she began realizing where so much heat and mind-boggling pleasure was heading.
“Matt,” she whispered, and reached down and stopped his hand from attaining its goal.
Her voice, wispy as it was, brought him fully awake. He became very still, his hand in hers, his arousal against her thigh.
“Guess I was sleeping,” he said thickly.
“So was I.”
“Are you angry with me?”
“Not about this,” she whispered. “How could I be when it…felt so good? But, Matt, is it right for us? What if I’m married, or engaged?”
“I don’t think you’re either.” The article had said nothing about a husband or fiancé.
“But you don’t know for sure,” she said softly. “And you know I don’t.” She knew one thing, though. She should move away from him, or ask him to move away from her. But his lean male body pressing against hers was such a fabulous sensation that she didn’t want to put space between them. In fact, she would like to let go of his hand and let him do anything he wanted. What would anything be? she wondered as she battled a feverish desire to find out.
Matt discovered an internal battle of his own. He’d read only one newspaper report about Hope—obviously the first to be published—and he couldn’t doubt that there’d been a new article in that paper every day since. There was no telling what the media had learned by its own methods, let alone what information her family might have given out to aid in Hope’s recovery. If he’d been receiving his newspaper regularly he would know for certain if she’d been involved with someone at the time of her disappearance. As it was, he shouldn’t assume anything, nor should he press her into an intimate relationship.
And not for just her benefit, he thought with a ponderous sigh. His own peace of mind was at stake here, maybe even more so than hers. One spoiled-beyond-belief, rich woman was enough for any man, plus the tragic ending to a tragic marriage that he’d lived through really put a damper on any desire he might otherwise have had to become seriously involved with even a woman of little means.
Hope was right, he thought grimly. They should not be doing this. He withdrew his hand from hers but kept his other arm under her head. “Let’s just sleep,” he said softly. “Would you prefer that I return to the sofa?”
She hesitated, then said, “I’m concerned about expressing my feelings without giving you the wrong impression, but let me try. I feel safe with you next to me. Please stay.”
“I’ll stay.” It took a while, but Matt finally fell asleep again.
Hope, on the other hand, could only pretend to sleep. The feelings Matt had stirred within her would not die down. What kind of woman was she, that all a man had to do was lay next to her and touch her to make her all hot and longing for…for… What was she longing for, a middle-of-the-night affair? Was that something she frequently did? Her aching body told her yes, but there was something in her mind that said no, don’t even think it!
Tears filled her eyes. She was so confused that she felt like screaming, and it was all she could do to restrain herself. How much longer could she maintain her sanity? Completely losing what little mind any amnesiac had left must be his or her greatest threat. Something had to give somewhere—the weather, the phone service, something. If it didn’t, would she fall apart so badly that she could never be put back together again?
Hope’s thoughts turned to the man beside her. Her entire world consisted of Matt McCarlson. Was it any wonder that she would physically respond to his touch when he was her only emotional connection to any kind of reality? And even though the word reality meant very little to her, she knew deep in her soul that it was crucial to her mental health—pathetic as that was—to grab hold of whatever reality she did recognize and hang on to it with every ounce of strength in her body.
She lay pondering that principle until something rather stunning seeped through her thoughts: it was no longer raining.
Getting up cautiously so she wouldn’t disturb Matt’s slumber, she went to a window and looked out. Not only had the rain ceased, the sky was clear and a bright moon hung over the ranch.
Her knees suddenly felt weak. The electricity and phone lines would be repaired as quickly as possible. She was going to have to face the world very soon. Could she do it?
Visualizing herself phoning Madelyn LeClaire, the person named as her mother in her wallet, scared Hope nearly to death. What would she say to a mother she couldn’t remember? And who else couldn’t she remember—sisters, brothers, friends? Would she have to call other people besides Madelyn? Others she had absolutely no memory of?
And then would she have to leave this ranch and go out into a huge, unfamiliar world? She’d told Matt the truth. With him she felt safe. Instinct told her she would not feel safe anywhere else, or with anyone else, at least not until she regained her memory. It would happen, wouldn’t it?
“God, help me,” she whispered, and then turned it into a prayer. “Please help me.”