Today, she stayed on the opposite side of the highway from Jon Harper’s woodshop as she walked back. Not that she wasn’t aware of the sound of a saw coming from the old carriage house. Today, he had the garage door closed, but she could see a sliver of light stealing from the crack between the two doors.
She thought about what Bessie had told her about Jon. He’d shown up five years ago. What had she been doing five years ago? She had to think for a moment. She felt her pulse jump as she recalled Mia’s graduation from college in late spring. How she’d wished that Danny had been there to see his oldest receive her college diploma. He would have been as proud of his daughter as she’d been.
For some time after the explosion took Danny from her, it had almost been like a game, wondering where he would have gone if he’d been hurt and suffering from a form of amnesia. What would he have done?
He’d always been good with his hands. He could fix anything. Make anything. She’d known that he’d have found a job and wouldn’t have gone hungry. That’s why she’d thought that was him in Nebraska working on a farm.
Being reminded of the mistakes she’d made over the years made her forget to watch her step. She slipped on the ice under the snow and almost fell. As she righted herself, she looked across the highway at the sliver of golden light that shone from the crack between the double carriage-house doors. She had heard the whine of a saw earlier. Now there was nothing but a cold silence. Maybe he wasn’t even over there, and even if he was...
She stood in the falling snow, the wind whipping flakes around her, wondering. The more she’d tried not to think about him, the more she had. Jon Harper wasn’t Danny. But it nagged at her. She couldn’t understand why she’d been so sure that first instant she’d seen him standing in his shop.
The other times she’d thought she’d seen Danny, her heart had threatened to explode from her chest, she’d had trouble breathing, she’d felt the blood rush from her head even, but she’d never fainted. So, why this time? What had it been about this man? Something about his silhouette? Or had it only been the way he was standing?
It left doubt in her mind. She’d been in such a hurry to get out of that room with him, as if she’d been running scared. Not embarrassed. That was later. No, this was a different form of terror that had her racing from that woodshop and out into the storm.
Kate knew she’d have to go back. She’d have to see him again. She couldn’t leave this town unless she was certain, otherwise there would always be that nagging doubt at the back of her mind.
The thought of seeing him again after yesterday and making a fool of herself made her a little sick to her stomach. Jon Harper. A snowplow went flying past in a roar on the highway, kicking up a cloud of snow. She waited until the cloud drifted away before she crossed the paved two-lane.
Her throat went dry as she neared the woodshop. She’d been so sure it was him until she’d heard the rasp of his voice. Not Danny’s voice. Of that she was certain. But what bothered her was that even when he’d been hovering over her, she couldn’t remember if she’d seen the color of his eyes. Danny’s were brown, a warm, soft sable with dark lashes. His hair had been brown, too. Brown eyes and brown hair. Could either be more common?
There was one true belief that she’d held in both her head and her heart all these years. If she ever got to look into Danny’s eyes again, she would know him without a doubt—no matter how much he had changed.
As she paused at the opening into the alley, she saw a new set of tracks. Someone else had been here. Her tracks were nearly indistinguishable from yesterday. These tracks appeared larger. The older man she’d seen yesterday? She remembered seeing him come out again before she’d finished breakfast. It had been the same man she’d seen before. She’d recognized his lumbering gait and his buffalo-plaid coat.
With her tracks from yesterday nearly gone with the storm, it was as if she’d never walked down this alley. Never seen that man. Never thought he was her long-lost dead husband.
Even the older man’s tracks were now sunken shadows in the deepening snow. In a few more hours, the falling snow would erase all trace of both of their tracks. She took a step into the alley, even though the snow now came over the top of her boots.
“Kate?”
The sound of Collin’s voice made her flinch. She turned, startled to see him coming toward her through the drifts that had formed on the sidewalk. He looked upset, as if he’d seen where she’d been headed. Just a few more minutes and she would have been pulling open one of the carriage house’s double doors and stepping inside.
“Are you headed back to the motel?” Collin asked, clearly pretending he hadn’t known what she was about to do. She couldn’t blame him for not wanting to make an issue of it.
“I bought some books at the store to read,” she said, also pretending that she’d only stopped here to catch her breath. She hugged herself against the cold and driving snow, disappointed and yet thinking that he’d probably just saved her from further embarrassment. “What did you hear on the car?” she asked as she joined him.
“Fred’s hoping the used part comes in tomorrow. He thinks he can get the engine fixed and we can leave by afternoon,” he said as they headed in the direction of the motel.
It took all of Kate’s strength not to look back at the carriage-house doors and that slice of light bleeding out. She’d thought she’d heard the creak of one of the doors opening down the alley. Was Jon Harper standing in the doorway watching them leave? If she turned, would she see his face, and would that be the end of it? Or just the beginning?
CHAPTER SEVEN
“YOU WEREN’T THINKING of going back to see that carpenter, were you?” Collin asked after they’d finished the cinnamon rolls. He’d wordlessly eaten most of the two. She’d had only a little of one before handing it over for him to finish. As good as they had smelled, she wasn’t hungry, even though she’d barely eaten her breakfast.
She met his gaze as she wadded up the foil the rolls had been wrapped in and tossed them into the trash. “I have to set my mind at ease. Once I see him again—”
Collin swore and shot to his feet. “Kate, why put yourself through that? Look, you made a mistake. For a moment, something about him reminded you of your dead husband.” He was pacing the small motel room now. “You’re a rational woman. What would he be doing in Buckhorn, Montana, even if he was alive?”
Working with his hands—just as her father had done. But she said nothing, letting Collin pace and talk.
“Not to mention, what a coincidence it would be that we get stranded here and, lo and behold, there’s your thought-to-be-dead husband.”
Kate heard the truth in what he was saying. Jon Harper wasn’t Danny. Yet she found herself silently arguing, why not? Why couldn’t a man with no memory of the past end up here? Buckhorn was the kind of place a loner might fit right in. Bessie had said that his vehicle had broken down—just as theirs had. Why couldn’t this man who was good with his hands find a way to survive here?