Gus depended on her to manage things, though. She decided that she would call Amanda instead, and tell her to call the girl and reassure her about the money. As for the business about the car, she would stall Jamie along for a time. After all, it was a very old car and could plausibly have all sorts of mechanical ills. That decided, she gave herself over to the life-or-death situation being played out on the television screen. The mine shaft was filling with water. And Pamela was losing consciousness.
Chapter Twenty
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, Miss Montgomery called Jamie to report that the mechanics at the motor pool had not been able to get her car started. The fuel pump needed to be replaced. A replacement had been ordered from Amarillo, but it would be several days before it would arrive-perhaps longer what with a winter storm on the way.
It began snowing that evening. The weather reporter on the evening news warned that both the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles could expect blizzard conditions. Jamie groaned. “Looks like there will be no walks for us tomorrow,” she told Ralph.
By the following evening, the drifts on the north side of the house had buried the back door. Miss Montgomery escorted Jamie and Ralph on brief forays in front of the house. The housekeeper would wait on the top step while Jamie-fighting the wind with every step-walked the dog down the driveway and back. “Like she thinks I’m going to run off in a snowstorm,” Jamie would mutter under her breath.
After one of the outings, Jamie asked the housekeeper if she’d found out about the money.
“Amanda said that she would call you and explain about the arrangements,” Miss Montgomery said.
“I want something in writing,” Jamie said. “And I want it signed and notarized.”
The snow continued off and on for three days, and even when it was not actually snowing, daylight was reduced to a flat gunmetal gray. The snowdrifts on the north side of the ranch house were so high that the first-floor windows were completely covered. Even though the furnace continued to function, Jamie wore her coat all day long and wore long johns day and night. There would be no mail deliveries, she realized. No fuel pump for her car.
She waited until a thaw had set in before asking Miss Montgomery if the repairs had been made.
“It’s such an old car,” Miss Montgomery said. “The head mechanic said he hasn’t been able to locate the right part.”
Jamie thought of all those afternoons helping Joe work on his Jeep and Granny’s Chevy. She wasn’t an ignoramus when it came to cars. The small-block V-8 engine used in Chevys of that era was probably the most popular engine in automotive history. A fuel pump for such an engine would be quite easy to locate in a city the size of Amarillo.
But she said nothing.
That night she made sure her set of car keys was still under the lining in her grandmother’s sewing stand. They were-along with her stash of cash, ATM card, grandmother’s ring, and the remote-control gate opener she had taken from Lester’s truck.
She put the ring on her finger for a minute and admired it. Someday maybe she would wear it on a special date with a nice normal boy. But would she ever be a nice normal girl? The “nice” part she could handle, but would she ever feel normal again?
She put the ring back in its hiding place and returned to the bed, which had grown icy-cold in her absence. It was stupid to worry about what some imaginary boy would think of her, she told herself as she tried to find a position of maximum warmth and ease for her pregnant body.
First she had to assure herself that she had a future to worry about.
Miss Montgomery had lied to her. Obviously the housekeeper didn’t want her anyplace near the car. But why? Did she think that in spite of all the surveillance and the security gates Jamie was going to run away?
Not that the thought hadn’t crossed her mind. She had, after all, intentionally hidden a spare set of keys to her car and the remote gate opener that she had taken from Lester’s truck. And she had memorized the access code for the ranch-house alarm system.
But she had done those things just in case…
In case what?
In case she decided it was not in her best interest or that of the baby to honor the contract she had signed.
If indeed, as doddering old Mary Millicent had insisted, Amanda’s dead son was the father of the child Jamie carried, and if Amanda planned to raise this child as her own natural-born offspring, then she might very well worry that the biological mother of the child could present a threat. Amanda’s life would certainly be tidier and more comfortable if the baby’s birth mother ceased to exist.
And even if Amanda herself did not harbor such thoughts, her brother might. And if Jamie were to believe Mary Millicent, Gus Hartmann had the power to do anything he wanted and never pay the piper. If that were true, would he really allow her to drive away in her old Chevy?
And there was the other consideration. The most important one of all. What was her responsibility to this baby?
Jamie put her hands on her stomach and thought of how her grandmother, as a woman well past seventy, had taken in a seven-year-old child. Granny had done that because it was the right thing to do.
The next morning, Jamie called the security office for an escort, explaining that she wanted to take a walk and stop at Hartmann City on the way back.
A burly, middle-aged man named Hugh picked her up, explaining that Lester had the day off.
Jamie headed down the driveway. Ralph was ecstatic and took off at a dead run. Even though the temperature was above freezing, the biting wind cut right through her. Still she struggled on for fifteen more minutes before waving at Hugh.
She opened the door, and Ralph jumped inside. “Dogs ’posed to ride in the back,” Hugh said.
“Not my dog,” Jamie said as she got in. “I’m ready to go to Hartmann City now.”
When Hugh stopped the truck in front of the ranch store, Jamie told him that she would be at least an hour. Maybe he should return for her later.
Amazingly Hugh didn’t object. Apparently no one had briefed him as to the limited extent of Jamie’s privileges.
“What about the dog?” he asked.
She reached in her pocket and pulled out a leash. “He’ll be fine.”
With Ralph at her side, she walked into the store and bought a small coffee. At noon, men began drifting into the store, buying sandwiches and soft drinks and congregating on the wooden benches grouped around a pot-bellied stove. Jamie meandered around the store for a few minutes before leaving through the side door.
The front office of the motor pool was empty. Ralph followed her as she walked the length of the building, past vehicles in various states of repair, smiling and nodding at two mechanics working on the motor of a John Deere tractor, making her way to the back corner where her Chevy resided. On blocks.
The car was covered with a thick layer of West Texas dust.
Jamie turned on the lamp and knelt beside the old woman’s bed. “Mary Millicent, it’s Jamie,” she said.
“I don’t know anyone named Jamie,” Mary Millicent said without opening her eyes.
“Jamie, the girl from downstairs.”
Mary Millicent’s eyes fluttered open. “You had the baby yet?”
“Not for six more weeks. Has Amanda said anything to you about the baby?”
“She told me it’s Sonny’s baby. A baby boy. She’s going to let me hold it if I behave myself. I want to hold a baby again. I love babies.”
“Tell me what else Amanda said.”
“She said that it was all God’s plan. The baby is God’s chosen. She said that maybe the baby will pray for me and get me into heaven after all. I wonder if my husband still loves me. He never knew that I fooled around on him. God wouldn’t tell, would he?”