from his shoulders. She remembered. She was going to be all right.
She ran her hand over the smooth percale sheets and the thick plaid comforter. “This is your bed, isn’t it?” She spoke slowly, her brain still befuddled. “Where did you sleep?”
He pointed to the chair. “Right here.”
She frowned. “How did I get here? What happened to the truck?”
The image of the truck smashed into the tree flashed in front of Josh’s mind. “Don’t worry about the truck. I brought you here in my car. When you didn’t show up, I got worried about you.”
She closed her eyes, and it all came back to her—the letter, the road, the rain... Sorrow, mingled with pain engulfed her body. How could he tell her not to worry after they sent her that letter. “I have to worry about it,” she said. “So tell me what happened.”
“You smashed the truck into a tree on your way down a hill. It wasn’t the best day to be out driving around on steep, slick roads,” he reprimanded her gently. He could afford to be gentle today. Yesterday he had been a maniac, afraid she was dead or seriously injured. Today she was safe in his bed with only three broken ribs and destined to remain there for some time whether she liked it or not. And from the look on her face she didn’t like it.
Catherine saw the unperturbed expression on Josh’s face, and she summoned her strength to pull herself up and glare at him. “What did you expect me to do after I got the letter? Let you come and get it? Let the whole village watch while the bank took it away?”
“What are you talking about?” be asked.
“Where are my clothes? The letter’s in my pocket. Don’t tell me it’s not from your bank.”
He found the bag the hospital had given him and opened it. In her jacket pocket was the letter. She watched his face while he read it.
“It’s a form letter,” he explained.
“I know it’s a form letter and I know what it means. I promised you I’d bring the truck back if we had to miss a payment.”
“You should have known this was a mistake. This is a final notice.” He pointed to the words on the top of the letter. “Somebody pushed the wrong key on the computer. You were supposed to get the first letter because you missed one payment. The letter that asks you nicely if there’s a problem to let us know so we can reschedule your payments. Why didn’t you let me know?”
Tears welled up in her eyes. “I couldn’t. The mailman got his truck stuck in the mud until yesterday.” She blinked back her tears impatiently and lay there for a long time, gripping the edge of the comforter in her fingers and staring out the window, avoiding his gaze and feeling stupid.
“Is that why you were on the road yesterday, without the women or the produce, because you thought we were going to repossess the truck?” he asked incredulously.
She nodded and a tear slid down her cheek. “And now I’ve smashed it.”
“Don’t worry. You have insurance on it. I’ll send somebody to tow it back to town.”
“I should have known better.” She twisted her fingers together, wishing she didn’t have to meet his gaze. She stared out the window without noticing the morning sun shining on the mountain. “It was still raining in the valley when I left. The vegetables were rotting in the fields. There was nothing we could do. And then the letter came. I took off without thinking.”
He sat on the edge of the bed and wiped a tear off her cheek with his thumb. “You’re alive and in one piece. Well, almost one piece. That’s all that counts.”
“What about the payments. We missed a payment. If it doesn’t quit raining, we’ll miss another one and then...”
“And then we’ll sit down and talk about it. Change the schedule, alter the interest rate. We don’t want to take the truck back. We want to see you succeed.”
She met his gaze at last, pressed her lips together and nodded gratefully. The look in his eyes told her more than his words how worried he’d been and how relieved he was that she was all right.
“I probably ought to be getting home now.” She pulled herself up on her elbows. “Everyone will be worried about me.
He shook his head. “I’ll send word back to the village with some of the women in