When she punched zero, a recording informed her that the ranch switchboard was closed and that outside lines were available between the hours of eight A.M. and eight P.M. After-hour emergency calls should be made through the security office.

Probably she didn’t want to use the ranch phone system anyway, Jamie thought as she hung up. Someone might be listening in.

God, she was getting so paranoid.

But just to make sure, she would call Lenora from the pay phone at the ranch store. Tomorrow.

Still restless, she opened the door onto the balcony. Immediately a bone-chilling cold ripped through her flannel gown. But she stood there for a minute hoping the cold would clear her brain. Ralph was whimpering behind her.

When she closed the door, he continued to whimper and stand by the door to the hall, his way of informing her that he needed to go outside.

“Oh, Ralph, are you sure?”

His whimpering became more insistent. Jamie pulled on her coat and shoes then picked up the phone and punched in Miss Montgomery’s number.

“What’s wrong?” the housekeeper’s voice demanded.

“I need to take the dog out,” Jamie said.

“At this hour?”

“I’m sorry, but he’s pretty insistent.”

“Very well. I’ll meet you at the back door.”

Miss Montgomery was wearing a plaid bathrobe, her hair in two long braids, a put-upon look on her face. Placing herself carefully in front of the alarm so that Jamie could not watch, she punched in the security code and opened the door. “I’ll wait here for you,” she said. “Please hurry.”

Jamie wrapped her coat closely around her body as she waited for Ralph to race around and find just the right spot to relieve himself. Then he ate grass. For a long time he ate grass. Jamie could almost feel Miss Montgomery’s displeasure radiating through the back door.

Finally Ralph raced up the steps. Jamie followed and tapped on the door.

“He has an upset stomach,” Jamie said before the housekeeper could complain about the length of time. Miss Montgomery said something that sounded like “hurrumph” and turned around to activate the alarm. Jamie stood on her tiptoes and watched over the woman’s shoulder.

It was a simple code. Three fours and a five.

Chapter Sixteen

AFTER RETURNING TO her bed and spending the next hour trying to fall asleep, Jamie had given up and crept down the hall, past the chapel, down the stairs. The night was moonless, and the library’s soaring windows admitted only a lesser degree of darkness. She could just make out the silhouette of the dictionary stand. Jamie felt around on the shelf below the dictionary for the leather-bound atlas she knew resided there and carried it back to her room.

Sitting at the desk, she carefully drew a replica of the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles and their environs, showing each town and road. She put a dot where she thought Hartmann Ranch would be and a line that represented Hartmann Road, which eventually connected with U.S. Highway 54, then angled its way across the northwest corner of the vast Texas Panhandle before crossing into the narrow strip of land that made up the Oklahoma Panhandle.

Once her task was done, she carefully folded the paper and put it in an envelope, which she taped to the bottom of a dresser drawer. Then she carried the atlas back downstairs.

Back in bed with her thoughts, she asked herself just what that little excursion had been all about. Of course, it was always nice to have a better geographical perspective on one’s location. And she was going to drive away from this place at some point in the future and would need a map to guide her.

But she was months away from leaving the Hartmann Ranch-unless she changed her mind about staying.

She tried to put her situation in perspective. How much would it matter if Sonny Hartmann was indeed the father of the child she carried?

The following morning, the aroma of freshly cut evergreen greeted Jamie before she reached the top of the staircase. An impressively large Christmas tree was awaiting decorations in the middle of the great hall. She was aware that the month of December had begun, of course. More than a week ago. When she had turned the page on her calendar, she decided that the only significance she would attach to the month was that midway through it she would reach the halfway mark of her pregnancy. But there was no escaping the season, she realized.

She and Ralph were waiting on the front steps when Lester arrived. “It looks like rain,” he announced.

“I know, but I just have to get out for a little while,” Jamie said.

She jogged down the lane toward the road then waited while Lester pointed the remote opener at the large metal gate. She wondered just how much electrical current ran through the fence. Ralph sometimes scooted under with no ill effect. Maybe only the top part was electrified.

As soon as the gate had swung open a few feet, she and Ralph went through and headed north on Hartmann Road.

Ralph ran ahead of her like a beast possessed, flushing out a jackrabbit then racing back and forth across the road in search of other prey. Jamie trotted along after him. Her body was no longer sleek, but it felt good to push herself a bit. When her life was back to normal, she would enjoy getting back into shape.

Back to normal. That was all she wanted. To be away from this place. To put this time of her life behind her.

As she jogged after her exuberant dog, her breath condensing into white clouds, she willed herself to stop thinking about Sonny in the tower and her missing address book and her growing disquiet with her entire situation and tried instead to imagine what her life would be like after she left Hartmann Ranch.

She would run a couple of miles every day and work out three or four times a week at the student fitness center. After nine months of solitude, it would be wonderful to be in such a busy, bustling place, filled with other young, athletically inclined people like herself. Maybe a guy would invite her to play handball. Or maybe she would invite him. Afterward they would walk over to the union together for coffee.

Thoughts of this imaginary guy occupied her mind for a time-until he started to turn into Joe Brammer and tiny bits of ice began to strike her face. The sleet promised during last night’s weather report had arrived. She continued on, struggling against the biting wind until the sleet began to come in sheets. As she turned to wave at Lester, she lost her footing on the frozen ground and slipped into the drainage ditch that ran along the side of the road. Almost immediately Ralph was beside her licking her face, and the truck was sliding to a stop on the road above her. “Are you all right?” Lester yelled as he jumped out of the truck.

“I’m fine,” Jamie said.

Lester grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. “You need to watch where you’re goin’, girl,” he said, brushing dirt off her coat. “Kelly will have my hide if anything happens to you.”

“I am fine,” Jamie repeated, pushing his hand away. “Your concern for my well-being is touching.”

She climbed out of the ditch and headed for the truck, her head ducked down to protect her face from the sleet.

Lester maneuvered a tight U-turn and headed back toward the ranch. “I still want to go to Hartmann City,” Jamie said.

“I don’t have clearance to take you there,” Lester said.

“Clearance!” she said angrily. “You take me to the store right this minute or I am going to get out and walk over there. I don’t want to go back to the ranch house. I am sick and tired of the damned ranch house! I want to go to the store and walk up and down the aisles and drink a cup of hot chocolate. Is that too much to ask, for God’s sake!”

“All right. All right,” he said.