Just Beyond Reach

by Candace Irvin

  Given Joe's mood when she'd left the men together, she felt it prudent to count.

  Twice.

  Tess dumped her bag beside that morning's edition of the San Diego Union-Tribune folded lengthwise on the dinette table as well the half-empty mug of now cold mocha beside it and breathed a sigh of relief. At least Joe had spent the night. Whether or not he'd slept was another matter entirely.

  Today was the day.

  She retrieved the mug and carried it into the kitchen. Moving the nailbrush back up to the ledge of the stainless steel sink, she rinsed out the mug, then headed for the pot of coffee Joe had left warming for her.

  Twenty years. Twenty years since some drug-dealing bastard had ripped Joe's and his brothers' world apart. If Joe had even closed his eyes last night, it would have been a miracle. Most likely, he'd spent the night thinking. As she had.

  He really did love her.

  She knew that now. Just as she now knew why he'd never said a word to her before. Never even intimated. His parents. More specifically, his mother. Joe's father had been murdered because he was too honest and too upstanding to accept a bribe, or even to agree to look the other way. But his mother? His mother had been murdered simply because she was married to the man she loved.

  Joe was afraid. Terrified.

  Hell, she wasn't sure which scared him more. The thought that Eddie or someone like Eddie would come after her—or the thought of making love to her. Because if they made love, what was to stop them from getting married? Having kids.

  It was ironic.

  She'd spent the last six years of her life running as fast and as far as she could away from any relationship that even remotely smelled of marriage. Look at Bill. She hadn't broken off their engagement because of what she'd overheard him say to her mother. That had just been the excuse. Deep down she'd known it.

  Bill was a good man. He would've made a great husband. Hell, he had made a great husband—to one of her childhood friends, no less.

  Nope, she'd gotten cold feet. She'd been so afraid of following in her mother's and sister's footsteps, to make the same mistakes they had, over and over again, that she'd failed to see the obvious.

  She and Joe were already married.

  They had been for almost six years.

  No, they weren't having sex. And at the rate things were going, they wouldn't be having it any time soon. Because, frankly, Joe wasn't ready. From what she'd learned about his parents' murders this past week, she wasn't sure he ever would be.

  But they were married.

  After all, what was marriage? Didn't they look out for one another? Take care of each other? Care for each other? Didn't they spend their days together? Weren't they there for each other, no matter what time of the day or night—sometimes before the other even realized they were in need? If that wasn't marriage, what was?

  And if it wasn't, so what?

  She didn't need a piece of paper to prove to the world that Joaquín Cortez was the best thing that had ever happened to her. Just as she didn't need a piece of paper to prove to herself that Joe was never going to leave her. Ever.

  She could break down and marry someone else and have half a dozen kids with the man. Frankly, she now suspected that, on some level, Joe prayed she would.

  Why else had he nudged her into Gray's path?

  She'd spent the last ten hours of her nursing shift reviewing the past six years of her life—and had come up with almost as many nudges through the years. Oh, they'd been smoother, but they were there. She wouldn't put it past him to have personally checked each and every one of them out for that matter.

  Joe should've saved himself the trouble.

  He should've stopped looking outward for the right man for her and started looking inward. He should've looked into the mirror.

  Joe was the man for her. To use his own words, the only man. For always.

  All she had to do was wait until he accepted it.

  Tess scooped the mug off the kitchen counter and carried it out to the table, leaving the coffee within to cool as she headed to the bathroom to remove the tinted contacts. She'd finally gotten used to them. But today was going to stink for Joe no matter how it played out. He didn't need the aggravation of staring into a color that wasn't hers. He always hated that.

  She cleaned the lenses and slipped them into their waiting container, before retrieving the day's birth control pill from the medicine chest. She downed the pill, then capped the tube of the cortisone cream Joe had left out before she headed back to the dinette table for her desperately needed supply of caffeine. She wasn't about to hit the sack until Joe returned and she'd made sure he was okay.

  A quick glance at her watch—his watch—and she was even more worried. Ten minutes to eight.

  Where was he?

  She pulled out a chair from the table and lifted the mug—and promptly burned her tongue. She swallowed a curse and nursed the tip against the inside of her cheek as she picked up the paper. But as she unfolded the front section, the leading headline brought the curse snapping back—and this time it escaped.

  Mother of Two Assaulted in Balboa Park—Man Caught.

  Joe's mother. His increasingly frantic fear for her over Eddie. The endless arguments of the past two weeks—hell, the downright blowout fights.

  Was it possible?

  Even as she traced her fingertips over the smudged ink and wrinkled edges where Joe had gripped the paper fiercely, she knew it was more than possible. Evidently Joe hadn't told her everything he'd seen that fateful day when he'd come home from school early. Ever the Master of Omission, he'd managed to leave something out.

  Something crucial.

  And not only had she just figured what that something was, she now knew exactly where Joe was.

  She was here.

  He did not need to raise his head from his folded hands and search out the row upon row of dimly lit, hand-carved pews behind him to know it, for as always, he simply felt her. However, she was not near. Perhaps as yet at the dark, heavy doors, though they had softly opened and then closed a good five minutes before.

  But Teresa was here.

  He should turn. Acknowledge her presence. Her caring.

  He should. But he was not yet ready.

  It had been difficult enough to strike the match and light the votive candles—first the one, and then the other—and then leave them at the feet of the Virgin Mother.

  Twenty times he had performed the ritual, twenty times he had returned to the pews to bow his head and pray. Twenty times he had finally raised his head to the figure who gazed down upon him. Twenty times he had begged Him for the answer to the question that would forever burn within his heart.

  And twenty times he had received no response.

  Twenty years had passed today.

  Forty candles lit.

  And still, he did not know why. Perhaps this was why he was not yet ready to raise his head and chance a glance upon the crucifix that hung suspended above this altar. For as always, and against reason, the hope lingered.

  And as always, he could not stop his heart from beating faster as he finally gathered his strength, drew in his breath and raised his gaze.

  Once again, there was naught but silence.

  No matter. It was time.

  "Come."

  Though he had spoken softly, he knew she had heard him—for he heard the answering whisper of her tennis shoes as they caressed the shadowed tiles of the center aisle. And then she was there, genuflecting briefly as she crossed herself before entering the forwardmost pew to kneel at his side.

  She did not greet him with words but simply slipped her right hand beneath his reddened forearms to tuck her fingers between his palms.

  Despite the sting, he grasped them tightly, then parted his hands to entwine their fingers as they had already entwined their hearts.

  "She was raped in front of my father." He felt her soft nod.

  "I know."

  He did not question her discovery,
for he had known long before he left the paper upon the table that Teresa was sharp enough to fit the remaining shards of his nightmare together. He merely nodded in return, though he still did not trust himself to look upon her. "Miguel may have located the man."

  "I know that too."

  He did look upon her then—and sharply. "How—"

  She squeezed his fingers softly, calming his words, soothing his heart. "Your brother called while I was changing to come here. I…mentioned enough, and then I acted as though I knew the rest. Don't blame him. He didn't realize you hadn't told me."

  "I do not."

  Truth be known, he was relieved to be spared the telling.

  "Are you joining him when he goes down to verify in person?"

  The bitterness within his heart rose to his lips, no doubt tainting their twist. "Miguel does not wish for my assistance."

  "No, he's afraid of your…assistance."

  "And you? What do you think?"

  She raised her free hand, reaching across to thread her fingertips within the shorter hair he had yet to grow accustomed to as she smoothed it from his brow. "I think you're afraid of your…assistance, too."

  He bowed his head, for this woman knew him well. His heart burned with the irony of it, as well as the unfairness.

  That she could understand him so, love him so.

  How could he leave her?

  In the one way, it would be easy to do. For as much as his brother did not desire his presence, if he insisted, Miguel would relent. And who would question Major Miguel Cortez of the United States Army as he called upon his brother within the DEA for advice and support in Miguel's current capacity in aiding the border patrol with drug interdiction at the US-Mexican border?

  Who indeed?

  And if he did join his brother—and this man Miguel had found was the man? What then? How could he not avenge his father?

  His mother?

  It was not that he feared punishment. Certainly not that which would most likely befall him upon this earth. Not even the eternal punishment which would most definitely follow him into the Hereafter.

  No, it was his obligation to the woman beside him. If he became incarcerated, how then did he protect her?

  He turned to her, allowed his gaze to follow those loosened curls up to that angelic face that had found its way into his heart so many years before. "Tessa, what am I to do?"

  "Trust your mother."

  He closed his eyes and bowed his head once more as the memory from all those years ago burned through him yet again. He did not ask how Teresa knew. Perhaps Miguel had unwittingly confessed this too. Perhaps not. It was enough that Teresa did know. Sí, his mother had lingered. Had spoken.

  Begged.

  And so, he had given his word. Upon his father's death, no less. He had pledged himself against vengeance, swearing instead to fight the scourge. Above all, never to become one with the darkness, the evil.

  As a young man, he had attempted to fulfill his vow to his mother through his duties as a paramedic. But it had not been enough. Every life saved, even taken together, had not succeeded in distancing him from the pain, much less in freeing him.

  Indeed, there were days when even the job he now held with the DEA was not enough.

  He felt the warmth of Teresa's hand upon his cheek, her fingers as smooth and as gentle as his mother's had been all those years before. And as his mother had done, Teresa soothed the salt from his face and promised him all would be well someday.

  But it would not.

  "Joe?"

  He opened his eyes, looked into that soft green, now bright with tears shed and unshed alike, and swallowed. "¿Sí, querida?"

  "I'm not your mother."

  His lips mirrored her sad smile. "I know this."

  But she shook her head. "No, you don't." He was about to disagree, but she withdrew her fingers from his and touched them to his lips. "Just hear me out, okay? I'd decided last night that I was going to wait. That I wasn't going to say this to you today of all days. But now I'm thinking that today is the day you need to hear it."

  He shifted his gaze to the altar, to the length of white linen draped across it.

  But Teresa, being Teresa, would not let it go.

  Would not let him go.

  She grasped his chin gently and returned his attention to her. "Joe, I am not your mother. No one's going to rape me and murder me simply because you love me or because you're married to me. When I die, it's going to be because of illness or old age—or in the line of duty. My duty, not yours. I made my choice years ago, just like you. You can't change that. Just as you can't change the fact that I love you, that I want to make love with you. Today, tomorrow, the day after, next year—" She shrugged. "Or in six more years if that's how long it takes for you to let go of the past. Of the fear."

  "Tessa—"

  "Do you remember how we met?"

  He blinked.

  How they had— "The obstacle course?"

  She nodded. "What happened that day? That night?"

  Again, he blinked—for he was sincerely confused.

  Until his hand contracted in memory. The wall? He had aided her in clearing the wall, if this was what she meant.

  When she nodded, he knew it was.

  And then, he was even more confused.

  She merely smiled, that soft green he so loved softening all the more as she looked back through the years. "I must have tried to clear that wall a dozen times before you stepped up and helped."

  "Sixteen."

  "Sixteen." The gentle rebuke of her dry laughter soothed him. "Thanks for counting." She sobered. "And thanks for waiting—and for helping. The seventeenth time and all the times that came later that night, and the next day…and the next."

  He shrugged.

  To his surprise, she came to her feet and held out her hand. Or perhaps he was not surprised, for this was Teresa.

  "Joe, let me help you over your wall."

  He stared at those slender fingers.

  What he would have given to be able to reach out and take them in his, to take her. But she was right. He did see his mother in her. Often. Even now, most especially, in that outstretched hand.

  Madre de Dios, what he would have given.

  "I cannot."

  She simply nodded.

  Then she leaned down to him and pressed her lips to his temple as he had so many times with her when he had felt the need to kiss her, but had feared the temptation of those sweet lips. And then she whispered, "I know. But one day, you'll be ready. And when you are, I'll be waiting."

  With that, she left.

  The candles had long since burned low.

  Though his knees were past numb, Joe did not shift as he drew his gaze from his hands and settled it once again upon the length of pure linen on the altar before him. He studied the trailing edge of the cloth a moment, then drew his attention to the left to lay yet another prayer at the serene feet of the Virgin Mother. It was becoming increasingly difficult to make out the detail in the sculpted marble folds of the robe that pooled about her sandals, for the day's shadows had already stretched the extent of their length and settled firmly into the early hours of night. Even Padre Vicente had taken his leave, asking only that Joe lock the door behind him when it was time for him to take his own.

  He would. Soon.

  But not until those twin, dwindling flickers of light slipped into the puddles of melted wax beneath and snuffed out altogether. Only then would the vigil be done.

  Only then would he be done.

  Twelve hours.

  Very nearly the whole of the day. All spent within this wooden pew, on his knees in prayer and contemplation of these twenty years past. Though truth be told, it had not taken even half that time before the answer had finally come. His decision was made.

  Indeed, his decision had already been made.

  But not today. Here, in this church.

  Not even last night during the calls he placed to his two youngest b
rothers, as well as their aunt and uncle. As had he, the others had also recounted the inane details of their lives to one another, never mentioning that which was truly on their minds, engraved upon their hearts. No, his decision had not been forged then, nor even as the last call had been severed, and there was naught left to do but sit and wait for the one he had wanted to speak to all along.

  Teresa.

  Miguel was correct; his place was with his woman. He had finally come to recognize this. Just as he had come to realize that he had already made his decision, his choice. He had made it earlier in the evening as he confronted the technician in the pharmacy. In threatening the man as he had, he had ensured that Hernández would no longer seek Teresa out—but would come to him instead. Thus, he must trust in Miguel.

  More importantly, he must remain at Teresa's side.

  In truth, it was not such a bad place to be.

  Indeed, far from it. It was Heaven itself. For she was surely an angel.

  He did not even need to close his eyes to see her standing beside him as she had so many hours before. Dios mío, she was so very beautiful. The length of her hair spilled down within his mind, like a cloud of dark fire that spun softly about her shoulders as if just for him. To warm his very world. But there was so very much more to his woman than her hair, her face and her body. For it was not Teresa's beauty that had snared his heart that day all those years ago.

  It had been that sixteenth attempt.

  It had been the knowledge that, though he did not yet know the lovely woman with the slender, straining arms and softly muttered curses making yet another attempt to scale that slippery wall, he had somehow known she would not give up until she succeeded. And so, he had turned back upon clearing the wall himself and had helped her to do the same. How could he not help but fall in love? And how could she honestly believe he found her anything but desirable?

  But he knew.