by Mary Brady
A moment later, they were backing out, Nell very aware of her parents still standing on the porch, watching them go.
* * *
COLIN KEPT AN anxious eye on Nell during the drive home. She stared straight ahead, her hands locked together on her lap.
A block or so from the Dubeau home, he observed, “Not quite what I expected.”
“No” was all she said, in a small, almost stricken voice.
He stayed silent after that, thinking she needed time to absorb the reunion with her parents.
But when they got home and she immediately headed for the staircase to the apartment, he said brusquely, “You don’t need to be alone yet, Nell. Come and have a cup of coffee with me. We can talk as much or as little as you want.”
She stopped, her back to him. It was a long time before she turned and nodded. Even given that the outdoor lighting leached color from the scene, her face was ghostly pale, her eyes huge and dark.
Colin took her arm again, more to reassure himself that she was here and real than because he thought she needed the physical support.
He left her in the living area while he put coffee on to brew, but was able to watch as she wandered, studying the books on his shelves rather than sitting down. When he joined her, she glanced at him.
“You’re a reader.”
“I am. I use the library plenty, but I like owning books, too.”
“You haven’t graduated to an eReader yet?”
“I’m digging in my heels,” he said, going for relaxed. If she needed to ground herself with the commonplace, that was what they’d do. “If I did a lot of traveling, I’d probably want one. As it is, I like the feel and look and smell of books. I’ve never been a fan of reading lengthy documents on my computer. You?”
“I love books, too.” She gave a small, choked laugh. “I guess you know that.”
He smiled. “You dropped some at my feet the first time we met.”
“So I did.” Her smile widened, then faded as she searched his face with huge, desperate eyes. “Thank you for coming with me. I might have chickened out if you hadn’t been there.”
“Dragging you up to the door?” He smiled again. “You marched right up there without any pressure from me. You’d have done it, Nell.”
She jerked one shoulder. “Maybe. I don’t know. I panicked at the end. You probably noticed—I practically ran out.”
“The whole visit was awkward.”
“Yes.” She nibbled on her lower lip. “I was afraid they’d weep and want to clutch me, but...instead they were so stiff. I don’t know which is worse.”
He understood. She had to be wondering right now how glad her parents were for her to come back from the dead.
“Maybe my being there inhibited them.”
She looked away. “If you had spent years fearing your sister was dead, and she came knocking on your door, would you even notice another person was with her?”
A question he didn’t want to answer. “What matters is how you felt, Nell. Did alarms go off? Memories stir? What do your instincts say about their reaction?”
He knew he’d taken the right tack when the most obvious of her distress eased and her eyes unfocused, as though she were replaying a movie in her head.
“Let me pour the coffee,” he said.
Returning a minute later, he set both mugs on the coffee table, but chose to sit in a chair facing her rather than beside her on the sofa. Some distance might be healthy for him. He was feeling entirely too much for a woman he had seen briefly two weeks ago, then had dinner with tonight. Barely an acquaintance.
Except, he reminded himself, for those half-dozen phone conversations, some which had been an hour or more long. Except for the fact that he’d kept the photograph of fifteen-year-old Maddie hanging where he could see it daily for twelve long years.
Nell cautiously sipped her coffee, then offered him a hesitant smile. “You remembered how I like it.”
“Being observant is a requirement for my job,” he said, too abruptly.
Her smile went away and after a moment she nodded.
“Yes, memories stirred, but nothing meaningful. When I saw the house, I knew it. I could have walked in, closed my eyes and gone right to my bedroom, or to the drawer where Mom keeps the silverware. If I’d opened the refrigerator, I wouldn’t have had to think to know the milk would be on the door and which shelf the margarine would be on.”
He nodded. Memories like that were as much physical as anything. Like riding a bike, something you could do without even thinking.
“I could see the ways they’d aged since then. And...okay, I never even thought of casting myself into their arms. Which would suggest they never were huggers.”
“Probably.” He hoped someone since then had loved her enough to give her plenty of hugs. The contained way she carried herself made him doubt that had ever happened, though.
“No alarms,” she said. “I mean, it all felt scary. You know?”
Colin nodded. She had hidden her fear, but he’d known it was there.
“I think, if either of them had ever hit me or...or anything like that, I would know.” Those big caramel eyes pleaded for his agreement.
“Is there anything like that in the memories you do have?”
She shook her head. “But none of them are important memories. The kind of thing you expect to hold on to, like birthdays or winning the big game and Daddy grinning with pride, or...” She seemed to run out of ideas. “They’re random bits. A voice, the way Mom turned her head to look at me. Dad telling me what to do. Sometimes the memory is more me in relation to them than actually seeing them, if that makes sense. Like when I passed the turnoff to Mount Bachelor. I felt myself slumped in the backseat of the car, wishing I could have stayed home because I hated my ski boots and knew I was going to be cold and that I’d be stuck alone anyway because I was scared of the steep runs. I knew Dad especially was disappointed because I was timid and not the kind of athlete Felix was, and Mom would be irritated because I’d probably forgotten something like my gloves or goggles or I’d have to go to the bathroom even before we headed up the hill and they’d all have to wait for me.”
He had no trouble seeing skinny, almost-homely Maddie sunk in misery. The unhappiness infusing her voice rang painfully true. Her body language had changed as she talked, too. She had curled into herself, as if she’d gotten lost in the memory until she couldn’t separate who she was now from the young Maddie.
What she was describing wasn’t abusive by anyone’s standard, but it fit with the unhappiness and doubt he had seen in her eyes back then, in every photo published in the newspaper or on the ubiquitous flyers that said, Have You Seen Our Daughter?
“But surely I wouldn’t have run away just because my parents weren’t the warmest people on earth.” Lines crinkled her forehead as she looked at him in perplexity. “And...wouldn’t I remember if there was something really bad? Wouldn’t it make more sense if that was what I did remember?”
“No.” He knew he sounded harsh, but he was battling an inexplicable desire to blunder over to her and take her in his arms. “When memories get repressed, it’s always the bad stuff, Nell. We can stand a lot of unhappiness. It’s the unbearable that gets shoved deep.”
She shuddered. “I’ve always known,” she said after a minute, “that what I don’t want to remember is bad.”
Colin had never much liked touching other people or being touched. Too many years on his own, he guessed. He liked sex as well as the next man, but never let relationships become intimate in other ways. Sitting on the sofa at the Dubeau home tonight, holding Nell’s hand, he’d been stunned by the realization that he hadn’t held anyone’s hand since Cait was a little girl. But Nell... He wanted to touch her.
Or was it Maddie?
Because she reminds me
of Cait?
Being confused like this didn’t sit well with him.
He didn’t like seeing her scared and sad and not being able to do anything about it, either.
“I picked up a tourist brochure for you that has a map of town. Not every street is on it, but enough to get around.”
She blinked and then nodded, and he realized that reverting to practicalities had been exactly what she needed.
“Thank you,” she said meekly.
“Part of me wants to trail you everywhere you go,” he admitted.
“Of course you can’t do that.”
“I want you to be careful. Have you ever taken a class in women’s self-defense?” That’s right, scare her even worse.
Her pointy chin rose stubbornly. “Actually, I have.”
“Practice what you learned. Be self-aware. Don’t head out to your car without looking around—make sure no one is watching you. Look inside before you get in. Lock your doors before you even drop your purse on the seat beside you. Don’t meet anyone in an isolated spot.”
She stared at him in bewilderment. “I don’t understand. You’re the one who convinced me to come for a visit. I left twelve years ago. That’s a long time, Colin. Why are you suddenly...” She seemed to be searching for a word.
“Getting nervous?” He managed an apologetic smile. “Because it’s an occupational hazard?” Pleased to see that relaxed her, he continued with a greater truth, because, damn it, he did want her to take every precaution. “Because I keep thinking about the evening when I cornered you at the library. Your fear ran deep, Nell. It wasn’t the kind of fear a teenager feels when she’s running from an abusive parent. Whatever or whoever you were running from is likely long gone or no threat, but...a lot of people you would have known are still here in town.” He finished with a shrug. “That’s why I’m nervous.”
So much swirled in her eyes, he felt a familiar ache in his chest, but she sounded sturdy when she said, “I’ll be careful.”
“Besides lunch with your mother, do you have any plans yet?”
“I thought I might go by the high school in the morning and find out who my teachers were that last year or two, and which of them are still around. If they remember me, they might be able to give me a better idea of what I was like. Who I hung out with. If I could track down some friends...”
“Back then, your parents said your best friend was a girl named Emily Henson. She might be married or have moved away, but it’s worth checking to see if her parents still live in the same place. In fact, let me go grab the phone book.”
He found their names for her, and Nell asked if she could take the phone book until she could pick one up. He told her to use his since he rarely did.
Finally she gave him a smile that was made pert with that freckled nose. “So, Captain McAllister, does my itinerary for tomorrow meet your approval?”
He clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “As long as you plan on dinner here so I can hear what you’ve learned.”
“You truly want to know?”
“Yeah.” He cleared the gruffness from his throat. “I truly want to know.”
She studied him with a puzzlement and worry she couldn’t hide, but nodded at length. “I could cook, if you want to tell me when to plan dinner for.”
“You’re sure?”
“I enjoy cooking. Plus...” Her shoulders jerked. “I owe you. And no,” she said before he could argue, “don’t bother saying it. Of course I do. Making dinner is the least I can do.”
“Okay, but let me give you a key to the house. No, don’t argue. You’ve got a microwave and two burners up in the apartment. No oven, and a minimum of cookware. I’ve got staples here, plus the pans and what have you that you’ll need.”
Although alarmed at the idea of entering his house when he wasn’t here, in the end she surrendered, took the key and added it to the ring that held her apartment and car keys. He helped her with her parka, although unlike at her parents’ house he could tell the small courtesy flustered her. It was mutual, since touching her flustered him.
She said good-night, and he watched her cross the short distance to the garage. He waited until he saw a light come on before he went back inside and locked the front door.
And yeah, seeing that light kindled a warm spot in him that had never made itself known before.
He lay in bed for a long time before he slept, thinking about the tense reunion at the Dubeaus’, about Nell’s unease, about her plans and the sense he had that she didn’t know what to make of him.
He grunted, there in the darkness, because he didn’t know what to make of her, either. His fascination with Maddie he understood, but it wasn’t Maddie he was thinking about when he worried about her, or savored the idea of coming home tomorrow night to a woman in his house and good smells coming from the kitchen—and especially not when he found himself eyeing Nell’s subtle curves and wondering what she was hiding beneath too-loose clothes.
And then he thought about what she’d hinted at when she talked about her first months trying to survive on the streets of an unfamiliar city, and his gut clenched. He had a bad idea he knew how Maddie had learned to suppress the memories of home, and when he put that together with some ugly experiences with men when she was on her own... There was a reason, he thought, for those damn sacky clothes. Despite her pleasant demeanor with library patrons, Nell Smith had an aloofness he doubted many people had ever challenged.
It occurred to him she might not have been flustered when he insisted on holding her parka for her. She might have been scared because he was standing too close.
He swore under his breath.
Had Nell Smith ever trusted anyone?
Had Maddie?
CHAPTER SIX
“MADDIE DUBEAU.” MRS. Chisholm shook her head. “It’s really you.”
She’d said pretty much the same thing three or four times already, but Nell supposed her shock was understandable. Unfortunately, it made Nell feel like squirming. She hoped she got over it. Everyone who’d known Maddie was going to react pretty much the same way.
Of the teachers she had the fall semester when she disappeared, only three still taught at the high school. Two of those hadn’t awakened even a flicker of memory in her.
But the moment she saw the name Eva Chisholm, she’d pictured a raw-boned woman with no sense of style at all pacing in front of the class. Nell felt as though, if she strained, she could hear what Mrs. Chisholm was expounding on that day. In Nell’s memory, Mrs. Chisholm was just starting to gray, which made her old in Maddie’s eyes. Now, Nell realized the teacher might not even have been fifty.
Nell had slipped into the classroom after a bell rang and the classroom emptied. At the sound of the door, Mrs. Chisholm had glanced over her shoulder from where she was wiping a whiteboard clean. She had taken a couple of stumbling steps, then all but fallen into her chair.
“Maddie?” she had whispered. “Maddie Dubeau?”
Nell was having trouble moving her past the shock.
“You must have a class,” she said. “I was hoping I could arrange a time to talk to you.”
“This is my planning period. My goodness.” She pressed a hand that was large for a woman to her chest. “I can’t believe this. We all thought—”
“I know.” Nell smiled apologetically. She had already given an encapsulated explanation of the missing years. “I’m hoping...well, to learn more about myself by talking to people who knew me then. The minute I saw your name, I remembered you. That encourages me.”
In one way it did. In another, it scared her. Uncovering her history sounded like a good idea. It did. The reality of actually remembering made panic take wing inside her.
“I’m flattered,” Mrs. Chisholm said. She was almost homely, with t
he large bones and big feet and hands Nell remembered. But she also had kind eyes and a rich voice that belonged on public radio. The moment she’d said “Maddie,” Nell remembered the way she had read aloud so her students could hear the music in great literature.
“I have a minor in English,” she blurted. “I majored in psychology. I think I might have chosen English if I hadn’t been trying to figure out my own problems.”
Mrs. Chisholm beamed. “That certainly makes sense.” She paused. “Out of all my students, you’re memorable partly because of what happened, of course.”
Nell nodded her understanding. Mrs. Chisholm gestured to her to pull a chair up to the desk. It was, of course, a hard wooden chair with a straight back, the kind you hardly ever saw anymore except in a school. She found herself sitting primly, knees together and hands clasped on her lap. Like a slightly intimidated parent at an after-school conference? Or a student called in to explain her transgressions?
“I would have remembered you anyway,” the teacher continued slowly, as if reaching into the past. “You were very bright, of course, and you actually paid attention.” She chuckled suddenly. “You were one of the very few students I’ve ever heard read a part in Romeo and Juliet with passion and understanding. Only the once, and after that you were careful to plod along like all the other students did.”
“I was teased.” Oh, God, she remembered. Emotions came with the memory—embarrassment, but also pride, because Maddie knew she’d been good. Four or five kids had actually applauded when she finished, and they were some of the cool kids. Her cheeks had been hot when she finished, and she had ducked her head both then and as she was leaving the classroom, when someone had muttered, “Suck-up.”
Someone else—she could almost see his face—had laughed, not nicely at all. “She’s dreaming of being Juliet. There’s a joke. What guy would kill himself over her?”
Her humiliation had been so acute that she had vowed never to draw attention to herself in class like that again.
She gave an involuntary shiver at how vivid that particular memory was. For a second, she’d been fourteen again. She even knew they had read Romeo and Juliet first semester freshman year, not the semester of her disappearance.