The Texan's Future Bride

Chapter Two

Amid the silence, Doc caught Jenna’s attention. She expected him to ask her to leave, but he merely nodded an acknowledgment. Maybe it was going to be okay. Maybe there was nothing to be concerned about.

The lawman said to the patient, “I’m Deputy Tobbs. The sheriff assigned your case to me.”

“Do I have a record?” the stranger asked bluntly.

The deputy shifted his weight. “No, you don’t. Your fingerprints aren’t on file, but I’m going to investigate further. I’ll do my best to uncover your identity and discover what happened to you. I’ll be questioning everyone in the area, in case you work around here or were visiting someone.”

“Someone who hasn’t noticed that I’m gone?”

“It could have been a surprise visit and you never made it to your destination. It could have been a number of things. I’m inclined to think that you were assaulted and robbed, possibly carjacked, which would account for you wandering around on foot. But we’ll have to wait and see what turns up.”

The stranger tugged a hand through his hair, stopping short of his injury. “It could be worse, I guess.” He addressed Doc. “Are you going to sign my release papers now?”

“Yes, but first we need to figure out where you’re going to go.”

The stranger replied, “Is there a homeless shelter in the area?”

The deputy answered the question. “There’s one in the next county, about thirty miles from here.”

“Then that will have to do, if they’ll take me.”

“I can give them a call,” the deputy said.

No way, Jenna thought. She wasn’t going to let him go off like that. She would worry about him. Still, did she have a right to intervene? Regardless, she couldn’t seem to hold back.

She said to the stranger, “You can stay at the Flying B until you regain your memory or until Deputy Tobbs finds out who you are. We’re turning the ranch into a B and B, and we have guest rooms and cabins on the property.”

“I can’t stay there.”

Jenna persisted, especially now that she’d made up her mind about saving him, or whatever it was she was trying to do. “Why not?”

“I just can’t. I shouldn’t.”

“Sure you can,” Doc said, supporting her idea. “It would be a good place for you to recover.”

“I don’t know.”

Jenna frowned. “What’s not to know? Just say yes.”

He frowned, too. “Are you always this insistent?”

Was she? “Sometimes.” Considering from the time that she and Donna were kids, the one lesson their father had always taught was to go after what they wanted. “But Doc agrees with me, so you’re outnumbered.”

“Consider it part of your treatment,” Doc said. “I could keep a better eye on you, and being surrounded by fresh air would be a heck of a lot nicer than being holed in a homeless shelter.”

The deputy interjected. “Sounds like you’ve got it worked out.”

“We do,” Jenna assured him.

“Then I’m going to take my leave.” He placed his card on the rolling stand beside the bed. “Call me if you have any questions,” he told the man with amnesia. “And if I need to reach you, I’ll stop by the Flying B.” The deputy turned to Jenna. “You should introduce him to everyone at the ranch. It’s possible that someone there will recognize him.”

“I will, just as soon as he’s feeling up to it.”

He turned back to the patient. “You take care.”

“Thank you,” came the polite reply.

Deputy Tobbs said goodbye to everyone and left the room, a hush forming in his absence. Jenna wondered if Doc was going to depart, too. But he stayed quietly put.

She said to the stranger, “You’re going to need another name, other than John Doe.”

His dark gaze caught hers. “Some people have that name for real.”

“I know. But it’s doubtful that you do.”

“Then you can pick one.”

“You want me to name you?”

“Somebody has to.”

Jenna glanced at Doc. He stood off to the side, clutching a clipboard that probably contained “John Doe’s” charts. Anxious, she crossed her arms over her chest. Doc’s silent observation created a fishbowl-type effect. But he had a right to analyze his patient’s reactions.

Was he analyzing her, too?

She’d been bothered by the John Doe reference from the beginning, but now that she’d been given the responsibility of changing it, she felt an enormous amount of pressure.

Could Doc tell how nervous she was?

She asked the stranger, “Are you sure you don’t want to come up with something yourself?”

“I’m positive.”

He sounded as if it didn’t matter, that with or without a makeshift name, he still considered himself no one.

Reminding her of how lost he truly was.

As he waited for the outcome, he thought about how surreal all of this was. He felt like a ketchup jar someone had banged upside the counter, with memories locked inside that wouldn’t come out.

Emptiness. Nothingness.

His only lifeline was the pretty blonde beside his bed and the doctor watching the scene unfold.

“What do you think of J.D.?” she asked.

“The initials for John Doe?”

She nodded. “I always thought that using initials in place of a name was sexy.”

He started. Was she serious? “Sexy?”

She blushed, her cheeks turning a soft shade of pink. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Intrigued, he tilted his head. She’d gone from being aggressive to downright shy. “How did you mean it?”

“That it’s mysterious.”

“Then I guess it fits.” Everything was a mystery, right down to his confusion about dating her. Was she the type he would’ve dated in the past? Or did he even have a type?

“So we can start calling you J.D. now?” she asked, obviously double-checking.

He nodded.

“And you’re going to stay at the Flying B?”

He nodded again, still feeling reluctant about being her houseguest or cabin guest or whatever. As far as he was concerned, a homeless shelter would have sufficed.

She said, “When I first saw you, I assumed that you were a cowboy, maybe an employee of a neighboring ranch. I hadn’t considered a carjacking, but I wondered if you might be a hitchhiker. I’m glad the deputy is going to talk to everyone in the area about you. Then we’ll know for sure.” She glanced at his clothes, which were hanging nearby. “You were certainly dressed like a local cowboy, except that you didn’t have a hat. But I figured that you’d lost it somewhere.”

He followed her line of sight. The T-shirt, jeans and worn-out boots he’d been wearing were as unfamiliar as the day he’d been born. “I don’t have a recollection of doing ranch work.”

“You don’t have a recollection of anything,” she reminded him.

“I know, but wouldn’t I have a feeling of being connected to ranching? Wouldn’t it be ingrained in me if that’s what I did for a living?” He turned to the expert. “What do you think, Dr. Sanchez?”

“I think it’s too soon to be concerned about that. You just need to rest and let your feelings fall into place when they’re meant to.” He smiled. “I also think you should start calling me Doc.”

“Okay, Doc.” He preferred less formality, too, and already he’d gotten used to hearing Jenna say it. A moment later, he shifted his gaze back to his unfamiliar clothes.

Jenna said, “You put some miles on those boots.”

“I must have thought they were comfortable.” He noticed that the toes were starting to turn up. “I guess I’m going to find out if I still like wearing them.”

“Yes, J.D., you are,” Doc said, using his new name. “In fact, you can get dressed now, if you want. I can send a nurse in if you need help.”

“No, I can handle it.”

“All right. Then I’ll go get your papers ready, and Jenna can step out of the room and come back when you’re done.”

J.D. got a highly inappropriate urge, wishing that he could ask her to stay and help him get dressed. He even imagined her hand on his zipper.

Hell and damnation.

He should have insisted on going to a shelter. Clearly, being around Jenna wasn’t a good idea.

She and the doctor left, closing the curtain behind them. J.D. got out of bed and walked over to the closet, still thinking about Jenna.

He cursed quietly under his breath, stripped off the hospital gown and put on his Western wear. He grappled with his belt. He fought the boots, too. They felt odd at first, but he got used to them soon enough.

Curious to look at himself in the mirror, he went into the bathroom. He didn’t recognize his reflection, with him wearing the clothes. He was still a nowhere man.

Luckily, the hospital had provided a few necessities, like a comb, toothpaste and a toothbrush. Still standing in front of the mirror, he combed his hair straight back, but it fell forward naturally, so he let it be. They hadn’t provided a razor, so he had no choice but to leave the beard stubble. It was starting to itch and he wanted it gone. Or maybe it was the image it created that he didn’t like. It made him look as haunted as he felt, like an Old West outlaw.

J.D. the Kid? No. He wasn’t a kid. He figured himself for early thirties. Or that was how he appeared. But he could be mistaken.

Blowing out a breath, he returned to his room and opened the curtain, letting Jenna know that she could come back.

She did, about five minutes later, bringing two cups of coffee with her.

“It’s from the vending machine,” she said. “But it’s pretty good. I had some last night when I was waiting for your test results.” She handed him a cup. “It has cream and sugar. I hope that’s okay.”

“It’s fine. Thanks. I don’t have a preference, not that I’m aware of, anyway.” He sat on the edge of the bed, offering her the chair. “You’ve been putting in a lot of time at this place, hanging out for a man you barely know.”

“I’m starting to get to know you.” She smiled. “You obviously like coffee.”

“So it seems.” He drank it right down. “I had orange juice with breakfast, but this hits the spot.”

“We have gourmet coffeemakers in the guest cabins. You can brew yourself a fancy cup of Joe tomorrow morning.”

“That sounds good, but maybe I shouldn’t stay there. You don’t need the burden of having a guy like me around.”

“You can’t back out. You already agreed. Doctor’s orders, remember?”

Yes, but his recovery didn’t include the stirrings she incited. Even now, he wanted to see her blush again. He liked the shy side of her.

“When this is over, I’ll repay you for your hospitality,” he said.

“Just get better, okay? That will be payment enough.”

“You’re a nice girl, Jenna.”

“And you seem like a nice man.”

“You thought I was drunk off my butt when you saw me stumbling around. I remember you telling me that I had too much to drink.”

“I retracted that when I saw that your head was bleeding. How is your head, by the way?”

“Still hurts a little.”

“How about your feet?”

He squinted. “My feet aren’t injured.”

“I was talking about your boots. How do they feel?”

Oh, yeah. The boots. He glanced down at the scuffed leather. “Fine.” He motioned to hers. “You’ve got yourself a fancy pair.”

“These are my dressy ones. Sometimes I go dancing in them, too.”

“I have no idea if I know how to dance.”

“You can try the two-step and see.”

“Right now?” He teased her. “Up and down the hospital corridor?”

She laughed. “Later, smarty, when you’re up to par.”

Were they flirting? It sure as heck seemed as if they were. But it didn’t last long because he didn’t let it.

He knew better than to start something that he was in no position to finish. She seemed to know it, too. She turned off the charm at the same instant he did.

Tempering what was happening between them.

As a bright and bouncy nurse wheeled J.D. out to Jenna’s truck, he said, “I’d rather walk.”

“It’s hospital policy,” the chipper lady said. “Everyone leaves in a wheelchair.”

He made a face, and Jenna smiled to herself. Machismo. He certainly behaved like a cowboy.

She stopped smiling. She was actually taking this man home with her, and she knew darn well that he was as attracted to her as she was to him.

But they weren’t going to act on it. They were both cautious enough not to let it take over. So it would be fine, she assured herself. He would be a recuperating guest, a patient of Doc’s, and nothing more.

She turned on the radio, and they listened to music instead of talking.

Finally, when they were on the private road leading to the ranch, he glanced over at her and said, “Déjà vu,” making a joke about repeating his car-ride experience from yesterday.

She tried to make light of it, too. “Your first encounter with it.”

“That I’m able to remember. I probably had déjà vu in my old life.”

His old life. That made it sound as if he’d become someone new. She supposed that, at least for now, he was a different person. But since she didn’t know who he was before, she couldn’t compare the old with the new.

“I wonder if I should put you in the dream cabin.”

“The cabins have names? Is that part of the B and B thing?”

“No. The dream cabin is what everyone on the ranch has been calling it, for years, amongst themselves. So we call it that, too. It has an old feather bed that used to belong to our great-grandmother. She had the gift of second sight, and her visions came in the form of dreams while she was sleeping in it.”

“Interesting family history.”

“The bed is magical.”

He openly disagreed. “Your great-granny having visions in the bed doesn’t make it magical.”

“Other people have had vision-type dreams while sleeping in it, too. Tammy had dreams about Doc. Then later, he had a life-altering dream about her, and he wasn’t even at the cabin when it happened to him. But we figured that her dreams triggered his, so the feather bed was still part of it.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t put me in that cabin.”

“Why? Don’t you want to have a dream that might come true?”

“It just seems like something that should stay within your family.”

“Doc wasn’t in our family until he and Tammy got engaged.”

“I’m not going to get engaged to anyone.”

Their discussion was barreling down an uncomfortable path. She struggled to rein it back in. “I wasn’t insinuating that you were.”

“I don’t understand the point of me sleeping in the bed.”

“You might have a dream that will help you regain your memory.”

“I can’t imagine that.”

She parked in front of the main house. “Anything is possible. Wait here and I’ll get the key to the cabin.” She went inside, wondering why he wasn’t more interested in the bed. Didn’t he want to regain his memory?

She returned with the key, and he sat in the passenger seat, looking tired and confused.

He said, “I don’t mean to offend you, Jenna, but I don’t know if I believe in magic.”

Ah, so that was it. He was a skeptic. “You just need to recover, J.D. and let the rest of it happen naturally.”

“Magic isn’t natural.”

“I didn’t used to think so, either. But I’ve become open-minded about it since Tammy and Doc had their dreams.”

He didn’t respond, but it was just as well. She didn’t want to discuss the details of Doc and Tammy’s romance with him.

She took him to the cabin. They went inside, and she showed him around.

“This place was locked up for a long time,” she said. “But we aired it out and put some modern appliances in it.”

“Like the gourmet coffeemaker?”

She nodded. “Eventually we’re going to use it as one of the rental cabins. We think people will be fascinated by the magic associated with the bed. Of course we can’t guarantee that they’ll dream while they’re here.”

“You can’t make that guarantee for me, either.”

“No, but I think it’s worth a shot.”

They entered the bedroom, and since the bed had already been presented as a focal point, it stood out like a sore thumb, even though it had been designed to look soft and inviting. The quilt was a soft chocolate-brown, with a sheepskin throw draped across it.

He ran his hand across the sheepskin. “Have you ever slept here?”

A sinful chill raced up her spine. Suddenly she was imagining sleeping there with him. “No.”

“If you believe in the bed’s magic, why haven’t you tried it yourself?”

“There’s nothing I need to dream about. Besides, there’s another story about someone who stayed here that’s been bothering me.”

He frowned. “Who?

Jenna winced. She should have kept her mouth shut. “Someone named Savannah Jeffries. She was my uncle’s girlfriend when they were younger.” She was also the woman who’d had a scandalous tryst with Jenna’s father, but she wasn’t about to mention that part.

“Did she dream while she was here?”

“I don’t know. Tammy accidentally discovered a secret Savannah was keeping, though, and now my family has been talking about hiring a P.I. to search for her.”

“Why? Did she go missing?” He wrinkled his forehead. “Was there foul play involved?”

“No. She left town on her own. When Tammy first discovered her secret, all of us girls—Tammy, my sister Donna and I—tried to find out things about her on the internet, but nothing turned up.”

“Sounds like you want to find her.”

“I’m curious about her, but I’d just as soon let sleeping dogs lie.” She purposely changed the subject. She wasn’t prepared to discuss Savannah’s secret or the possible ramifications of it. “Doc will have my hide if I don’t let you rest, so I’m going to get going. But I’ll come back and bring you something to eat. I’ll bring some extra groceries and stock the fridge for future meals, too. Oh, and I’ll see if I can drum up some clothes that will fit you.” She motioned to his rugged ensemble. “You’re going to need more than one shirt and one pair of jeans.”

“You don’t have to fuss over me.”

“I don’t mind.”

“You’re going above and beyond.”

“I want you to get well.” She left her cell-phone number on the desk. “Call if you need anything.”

“How long are you going to be gone?”

“Probably a couple of hours. You should try to nap while I’m gone.” She walked to the door and glanced over her shoulder at him.

He stood beside the feather bed, looking like a man in need of magic.

Chapter Three

After Jenna left, J.D. didn’t know what to do with himself. He didn’t want to take a nap, even if he was supposed to be resting. He glanced around the room, then eyed the landline phone.

Already he felt like calling Jenna and telling her that he needed something. But what?

Companionship, he thought. He was lonely as hell.

He sat on the bed, then went ahead and reclined on it. Damn. The feather mattress was heavenly.

J.D. considered his whereabouts. He was hellishly lonely on a heavenly bed? Talk about an odd combination.

The amnesia was odd, too. He couldn’t remember anything about himself, but he knew what year it was, who was president, what the world at large was like.

He closed his eyes, and unable to resist the bed, he dozed off.

He awakened hours later, the red-digit clock glaring at him. He hadn’t dreamed. His subconscious hadn’t created any thoughts or images.

He got up and waited for Jenna to return.

She arrived with a light knock at the door. He answered her summons eagerly.

Her hands were filled with grocery bags.

“I’ll take those.” He lifted the bags and carried them to the kitchen.

She went out to her truck and came back with containers of fried chicken and mashed potatoes.

“I’m not much of a cook,” she said. “This came from the diner in town. I picked it up when I got the groceries.”

“I hope you’re going to join me. It looks like there’s plenty for both of us.”

“Sure. I’ll eat with you.” She walked into the dining room to set the table.

After the plates and silverware were in place, she returned to her truck for the rest of the stuff she’d promised. He could see her from his vantage point in the kitchen.

Upon reentering the house, she called out to him. “The clothes belong to a ranch hand who, I think, is about your size. I’ll put them on the sofa for you. There’s a nice little satchel with toiletries, too. Donna had them made up for the guest rooms and cabins. She’s handling the marketing end of the B and B. She’s been redecorating, too.”

Interested in talking to her, he crammed the grocery bags in the fridge and met her in the dining room.

“What do you do, Jenna?”

“I’m a horseback riding instructor. It was my profession before I came to the Flying B. I’ve always been a country girl, even when I lived in the city. I grew up in Houston.”

“I assumed you grew up here.”

“No. Tammy, Donna and I inherited the ranch from our grandfather, and Tammy’s brothers inherited some undeveloped land on the west side of the property. All of us were rewarded money, too, with stipulations of how it’s to be used. The girls are supposed to keep the ranch going, which we decided includes the inception of the B and B. And the boys are supposed to take advantage of the mineral rights that go with the land, so they’ll be commissioning a survey. Our grandfather left us a portion of his legacy, but we barely got to know him before he passed away. Our families were estranged from him and each other.”

They sat down to eat. Curious, he asked, “Who was estranged, exactly?”

“Our dads. They’re twin brothers. They hadn’t spoken to each other or to Grandpa since…”

She didn’t finish her statement, and he wondered if the rift had something to do with Savannah Jeffries and why she’d left town.

He said, “Who knows who my family is or if I even have one.”

“Everyone comes from somewhere.”

“Yes, but I forgot who they were. I mean, how important can they be?”

“You have a head injury. That’s not your fault.”

He popped open a soda can. “It still feels personal.”

“Your life will be back on track before you know it.”

Would it? At this point, he couldn’t see past his amnesia. He couldn’t imagine who he was. “I fell asleep while you were gone.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Did you dream?”

“No.”

She seemed disappointed. “Maybe you will tonight.”

He didn’t reply.

A short time later, they finished their meals and went into the living room. They sat on the sofa, and he checked out the clothes, which consisted of a handful of shirts and a couple of pairs of Wrangler jeans. He noticed a package of unopened boxer shorts, too. “Where did these come from?”

“I bought those at the emporium in town. I took a chance that you wore that type. I took a chance on the size, too.” She paused, a sweetly shy expression on her face. “I hope it wasn’t too forward of me.” She quickly added, “I got you socks, too. Did you see those?”

“Yes, thank you.” But buying him socks wasn’t nearly as intimate as buying him boxers. “I appreciate everything you’ve been doing for me.”

“I borrowed the clothes before I went into town, and then, while I was shopping for groceries, it hit me that you might need those other things, so I made a quick trip to the emporium.”

“I feel badly that you’ve been spending money on me.”

“It wasn’t that much.”

He begged to differ. He knew how expensive it was to live these days. He returned his attention to the clothes, glad they hadn’t cost her anything. “These should fit. What’s the ranch hand’s name who loaned them to me?”

“Caleb Granger. He isn’t aware of the loan, though. He’s out of town on a personal matter, but he left some of his things behind.”

“You borrowed them without his consent?”