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
