The Surrogate (12 page)

Then she looked again.

Maybe it had fallen in the trash can and been thrown away by accident.

Convinced that the address book was nowhere to be found, she picked up the phone, hoping Lenora’s number was not unlisted. Lenora already knew why she was at the ranch. Surely talking to her would not be a violation of the privacy clause.

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.

A
FTER 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.

Silence filled the cab of the truck as Lester drove to Hartmann City.

At the store, Jamie wandered around a time then sat on a bench and drank her cup of tepid vending-machine hot chocolate while Lester visited with the cashier. After Jamie put the cup in the trash, she walked over to the pay phone. Lester and the cashier were both watching her.

There was no slot for her coins. A sign on the front of the phone said
PHONE CARDS ONLY
. She walked over to the cashier. “I need to buy a phone card,” she said.

“We have to go,” Lester said, taking Jamie’s arm.

“But I need to make a phone call,” Jamie said, jerking her arm away.

“I can’t let you do that,” he said.

On the short drive to the ranch house, she didn’t bother with conversation. She watched glumly while Lester put the truck in gear and headed for the stretch of gravel road that separated Hartmann City from the ranch-house compound. As they approached the security gate, he fished around in the compartment in the door, patted the pockets of his jacket, and felt in the crevice between the seat and the seat back. Then he leaned forward and felt under the seat. “Damn!” he said. “What have I done with the remote? Do you see it anyplace?”

Jamie scrunched down in her seat and folded her arms across her chest. It was his problem, not hers. She had wanted to think that Lester was a friend of sorts, but she had no friends at Hartmann Ranch.

He pulled to a stop in front of the gate, got out, and looked behind the seat. Then he slammed the door, walked over to the intercom, and pressed a button. Jamie watched while he conversed with someone at the security office and the gate began its slow opening arch. Lester continued talking. Probably he was telling on her. The bad girl who tried to make a phone call. Or maybe he was reporting the lost gate opener.

“I probably dropped the damn thing when I had to pull you out of the ditch,” he said as he got back in the truck. “I’ll have to drive back there and look for it.”

“You didn’t pull me out of the ditch,” Jamie reminded him. “I got myself out.”

Once through the gate, Lester drove a little faster than usual, using speed to sooth his frustration. Just before reaching the circular drive to the ranch house, he braked abruptly, and the missing opener came sliding out from under the seat. Jamie glanced at him to see if he had noticed, then surreptitiously dropped one of her gloves on top of it.

When the truck came to a stop, Jamie made a show of looking for the missing glove, then bent over and scooped up the glove and opener together.

Even as she performed this act, she wondered what exactly was motivating her. Perhaps it was just that the opportunity had presented itself. Most likely she would never have any use for the device, but if at some future moment in time she found herself needing to open a gate and drive a vehicle through to the other side, it would be good if she had the means to do so.

“Come on, Ralph,” she said and jumped out of the truck without a thank-you or a good-bye. Before opening the front door, she thrust the opener in her pocket.

When she entered the great hall, she found it abuzz with activity. Boxes of decorations were scattered about the room, and the house staff and gardeners were busy decorating the tree and hanging garlands. Someone had set a boom box on a table, and Elvis Presley was singing “White Christmas.”

Miss Montgomery, wearing a heavy white sweater over a navy dress, was overseeing the decorating. She offered a small nod in Jamie’s direction but did not invite her to join in. Everyone else avoided eye contact with her as she self-consciously wound her way among the boxes on her way to the stairs. She was not a member of the ranch family. She would not be included in their Christmas celebration.

Jamie wondered if Amanda and her husband would celebrate Christmas at the ranch. And Gus Hartmann.

Jamie would be curious to see Amanda. Would she be wearing maternity clothes, or had the problem she’d alluded to during her last visit brought an end to her pregnancy?

If she really had been pregnant in the first place.

As she climbed the stairs, the sound of Elvis singing about glistening treetops and sleigh bells in the snow filled the vaulted space of the great hall. She’d never experienced a white Christmas, which probably wasn’t an unusual occurrence in the Texas Panhandle, but Jamie couldn’t bring herself to care one way or the other if she woke up to snow on Christmas Day. She wished there were some way to banish the day from her calendar. She thought of melancholy prisoners in their jail cells on Christmas Day longing for their families and better times. That’s how it would be for her. Except that she didn’t have a family to long for. “Oh, just stop it!” she told herself as she and Ralph walked past the chapel. Ralph looked up at her. “Not you, sweetie,” she said, bending to stroke his head. “
I
need to stop it. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s self-pity. I have my health and my darling dog,” she said. Then, thinking of Sonny Hartmann, she added, “And a future.”

Back in her apartment, she put the remote gate opener under the lining of her grandmother’s sewing stand alongside the other items hidden there. Then she picked up the phone.

Listening ears or no, she had an almost pathological need to speak to someone from the outside world. And Lenora had encouraged her to call if she had any concerns. Well, she had some now. Of course, maybe all she needed was to hear how stupid her misgivings sounded when she said them out loud. “I need to make a call to the office of attorney Bentley Abernathy in Austin,” she said.

“I have no authorization for you to make a long-distance call,” the man’s voice said.

“How do I get authorization?” Jamie asked.

“You need to speak with either Chief Kelly or Miss Montgomery.”

Jamie put down the phone then fumed for a while, walking back and forth and working up a head of steam. Then she headed back downstairs, anger coursing through her veins, ready for a confrontation.

Square-shouldered, she made her way through the boxes and bustle. People with startled faces were stepping to one side, allowing her to pass. When she reached Miss Montgomery, she said, “I need to speak with you.”

Jamie had expected a reprimand. Instead the housekeeper nodded. “Let’s go into the library,” she said.

Jamie followed her. Every eye in the room was on them as they crossed the hall.

In the library, Miss Montgomery closed the heavy double doors. She turned and, wearing an uncharacteristically benevolent look, said, “I understand that you tried to make a phone call.”

“My, word certainly travels fast around here,” Jamie observed.

“I know you are upset, Jamie, and you have every right to be. I am so sorry. I should have explained things more carefully.”

Taken aback by the woman’s unexpected apology, Jamie studied Miss Montgomery’s face, trying to judge her sincerity. “I was told that I had to have permission to make a phone call,” Jamie said. “Okay, I request permission to make a phone call. I want to call the secretary in the legal office where the contract with that all-important
privacy clause
was created. She already knows who I am and why I’m here.”

“The contract states that you are not to have any outside contacts while you are here at the ranch,” Miss Montgomery said. “Surely you can understand that. Nowadays so many telephones are equipped with caller ID.”

“But Lenora already knows that I’m here,” Jamie insisted.

“But someone else might be listening on the line. I’m sorry, dear, but I just can’t allow it. I should have reminded you that communication of any sort violated the contract, but I didn’t want to upset you—not in your condition. Pregnancy is such an emotional time under usual circumstances, and your circumstances are unusual.”

For a minute Jamie thought the housekeeper was going to put a hand on her arm and took a step backward.

“The Hartmann name is so well-known, Jamie,” Miss Montgomery continued. “Surely you can see how careful we must be. But instead of making friends with you, as I should have done, I have isolated you. That was cruel of me. I can see that now. Could we just start all over again? I will be completely up front with you from this time forward.”

Miss Montgomery was doing her best to sound sincere. The expression on her face was hopeful.

“Okay,” Jamie agreed. “For starters, what about my address book? You took it, didn’t you, to make it more difficult for me to contact someone? And I’ve completed six lessons from the correspondence course and have yet to receive any sort of grade or comment from the professor. You never mailed them, did you?”