I'LL REMEMBER YOU

by Barbara Ankrum

  With an absurd grin, he shook his head. "Hell if I know."

  A bark of semi-hysterical laughter escaped her. She collapsed helplessly against the steering wheel, her shoulders jerking rhythmically. But it wasn't long before he saw tears dripping off her face and onto her lap.

  Oh, damn. "Hey." He reached out with one hand to comfort her. "Don't cry."

  She sniffed, finally lifting her head. Her eyes were red, her nose puffy. "You're right. What's the point? It's only a career. I mean, those people on the Twilight Zone never cried when they woke up in an alien world, did they? Or when they discovered they were just characters whose lives were being tapped out by some typewriter on the roof. Right? But that's what I feel like. Like I've just stepped out of my life and into somebody else's."

  She looked at him, wiping her cheeks. "My life is very … ordinary, you know? I mow my lawn. Pay my taxes. This sort of thing just doesn't happen to people like me."

  He wished he knew if it did to people like him. Hell. He put his hand on the door handle. "It's over," he said. "I go, you drive to the police station, tell them I forced you. Tell them whatever you want. Then forget you ever saw me."

  He was offering her a way out. Whether or not it made any sense, the offer meant more to her than the possibility of walking back toward the reality she'd left almost two hours ago.

  The door clicked open.

  "No." Tess reached across and pulled it shut. Heaven only knew what she was getting herself into. But whatever was out there waiting for him was not going away. And she was in it now, too. "No," she said more firmly. "You wouldn't make it half a mile."

  "I'm okay."

  "Yeah, 'cause you've been pumped full of fluids and drugs. But in a while those'll wear off. And then…" She noted the sweat beading above his lip. "I'm not leaving you."

  He gave her his full attention then, sliding his unfathomable gaze from her eyes to her mouth and back again. "You always been this stubborn, Doc, or is it just me that brings out this unreasonable streak?"

  The night's events had roughened his voice, but she imagined the raw sex that vibrated from him was a natural part of who he was. Whoever he was.

  "Don't flatter yourself," she said lightly. "I don't take orders well. It's a long-standing character defect of mine."

  "Why doesn't that surprise me?"

  "Because I suspect we're very much alike in that regard."

  With his face only inches from hers, she could hardly miss the intensity that darkened his eyes and troubled his expression. Not gratitude, or even apology. More like an anarchy of emotion. She couldn't blame him. She felt nearly as confused as he must. Slowly, she eased away from his closeness.

  "That bullet in your shoulder's not going anywhere on its own." She took a deep breath and stared past him into the darkness of the alley, the hollow ache of a tremor coiling inside her. "We're just going to have to trust each other for now. That's all. Take it one minute at a time. All right?"

  He rolled a look at her with those Paul Newman blues. "Anybody ever tell you you're certifiable?"

  "Anyone ever tell you that flattery was not your strong suit?" A hint of a smile tugged at her mouth.

  "I wish I knew."

  "Right," she said, taking in the glistening pallor of his skin. "So … Jack. May I call you Jack?" He shrugged in reply. She turned the key in the ignition until the Honda purred to life, then she backed out into the alley. "So, Jack," she said, shoving the car into gear, "I've been thinking … L.A. is getting a little crowded lately. What do you say we make ourselves scarce?"

  * * *

  Chapter 4

  «^»

  Dawn tinged the horizon before they reached their destination. Late August heat lurked over the mountains, waiting for sunrise, and the air blowing against Tess's face through her window carried the redolent scent of summer. She watched the ponderosa pines that picketed the sides of the road pass by in a blur as memories of other trips up this winding highway replayed in her mind like photographs.

  Click.

  Cara, her best friend, laughing and boogying behind the wheel to the beat of some eighties disco band, which had made Tess laugh and fear for their lives as the steep edges of the road had loomed ever closer.

  Click.

  Adam, teasing a kiss from her on the night of their wedding, with the gearshift poking her hip and the two of them falling into a hopeless fit of giggles.

  Click.

  Silent rides with Adam as the years edged them farther and farther apart. The mountain trips, their last-ditch efforts to repair the damage done.

  Tess tipped her head out the window and inhaled deeply. The wind tore at her hair and burned her eyes. The moisture there, she told herself, was from the sting of the wind, not the memories she'd worked so hard to put behind her.

  She turned off the main highway onto the familiar unpaved road that wound through a stand of paper birch. The deep green leaves shimmered almost magically in the dawn light, reminding her why she'd brought Jack here. It was part of her. The place she'd always come to heal.

  A car passed them from the other direction, and she saw Jack shrink down in his seat and turn his face the other way. The driver gave a friendly wave. She returned it, hoping whoever it was didn't recognize her or her car. She was practically a local here, she'd spent so much time at Cara's cabin in the last few years. Cara was in Brazil on a film shoot, teaching Matthew McConaughey how to samba in her off-hours as a dialogue coach. She'd called to rub that juicy fact in less than a week ago. So there was no chance she'd drop in for the weekend. But Tess wondered how Cara would feel when she found out her best friend had involved her in this whole mess.

  She couldn't think about that now.

  Her left front wheel caught the edge of a pothole in the dry gravel road. From beside her, she heard Jack hiss in pain.

  "Sorry," she said, looking over at him. He sat with eyes closed, head tilted back against a too-low headrest. He'd barely moved or spoken during the whole ride. "You okay?" Stupid question. He chose to ignore it.

  "How long?" His eyes rolled beneath his closed lids and he swallowed thickly. "Till we get there."

  "We're here. It's just down the road. Hang on."

  He was. By his fingernails. The drugs had, indeed, worn off, as had the fluids they'd pumped into him. Time was against them. That bullet had to come out. Blood had seeped through the bandage at his shoulder and he was shivering. Dear Lord, she couldn't think about that, either. She cranked the heat up to high and gunned the car toward the end of the lane, where Cara's cabin peeked through a stand of pine.

  The driveway wound around the side of the house and ended with a spectacular view of the lake. Smooth as glass, with morning fog still drifting over it like smoke, the lake looked the same as it always had. The pines around it hadn't changed, nor had the place where the sky met the tree line beyond. But somehow everything looked different. And she had the distinct and uneasy feeling that the same was true for the rest of her life.

  Tess parked and came around to Jack's side. She helped him out and he staggered against her, woozy and unbalanced, before finding his feet. Dawn lent color to the unnatural pallor of his face.

  He glanced out at the lake. "Where are we?"

  She helped him up two worn wooden steps. "My friend Cara Barrington's cabin. I come here a lot."

  That brought his head slowly around. "Who else knows that?"

  She shrugged. "No one will know where I am, if that's what you're thinking. Cara's out of the country. Her husband's an ex, and I don't really talk about this place much. It's kind of … well … private."

  "What about th' neighbors?"

  "Weekenders. Not many permanent residents up here."

  He pressed his back against the doorjamb, eyes squeezed shut, as she felt beneath the potted geranium for the key Cara always left there. Sweat was trickling down the side of his face and drawing crescents of moisture beneath his armpits. She fumbled with the key.

  "Tess—" />
  "This dumb lock always sticks," she said, wrestling with it.

  "Hey … Tess—" His voice was a little weaker this time.

  "I'm getting it. It's almost—" She practically fell through the door as it swung open. Jack followed her. But not the way she'd hoped.

  Behind her, she heard a loud thud. She turned to find him sprawled facedown on the black-and-white linoleum floor. Out cold.

  "Ohh, Jack. This is not good."

  The sight of him lying there had numbness spreading up her legs and moving toward her throat. She'd been doing all right until a minute ago. Now the whole awful night pressed in on her like a giant fist, shutting her down one function at a time. She stood frozen in the empty kitchen with the stainless steel Paul Revere teakettle winking at her in the morning light and the stale scent of old pine fires hanging in the cool air. Another day, another moment like this, sneaked into her consciousness:

  "Don't go in there, Tess," Paul Wyler, her second-year resident, warned her. "Somebody is on the way."

  She couldn't breathe. Why couldn't she breathe?

  Through the glass, she could see the nurses and paramedics swarming around the man on the ER table. A chin. A profile. Like a brick, it hit her squarely in the center of her chest.

  Oh, God. Not Adam. It can't be Adam.

  She could feel Paul tugging at her arm.

  "Who?" she'd shouted. "Who's coming? When? He's dying! Let me go!" Paul couldn't, perhaps wouldn't, hold her. She pulled rank, barged in, took over. The other attending was gone. Surgery, they said. It was up to her to save him. Only her. Oh, God, Adam! Don't die. Don 't die!

  In Cara's kitchen, Tess shivered, her breath coming in shaky gasps. It was a nightmare that visited her regularly at night, but rarely like this in the light of day. Tears welled up in her eyes. Dammit! Don't cry.

  Swiping at the moisture in her eyes, she wondered what had made her think she could do this by herself. What crazy impulse had told her to steal this man out of a hospital with the looney notion that she could help him? She couldn't even get him in the house, much less do what she needed to do to save his life.

  "Jack?" She touched his back, felt the slow rise and fall of his breathing. "Don't you dare die on me now. We've come too far for this. I mean it. I'll never forgive you. Jack? Wake up!"

  He didn't so much as twitch.

  She pressed her lips together and sat back on her heels. "Great. Thanks a lot for your help. I can see that you're going to leave this all up to me. Well, let me just tell you something here, pal. I'm no good at this. You know? I'm really not. In fact, I'm so bad at it that I quit it. Long ago."

  Tess got to her feet and stalked out to find a quilt in the blanket chest by the couch. "That's right. Quit. Q-U-I-T. Get it? Finished. Never to so much as touch the frail human body again with a scalpel."

  She stomped back to him and spread the quilt on the floor beside him. "And you know, Jack, that was … that was the right decision. I'm really happy in research. Content, you know?" Tess rolled Jack over onto his back on the quilt. He didn't blink an eye.

  "No torn ligaments," she continued, "no stab wounds at three in the morning. No compressed skull fractures or battered wives with cheekbones that look like broken eggshells on the X rays."

  Gathering the quilt in her hands, she pulled hard, and miraculously dragged him a couple of feet. "Nope. None of that. Just … me and my microscope. And my – uhh – research. You know? That's productive. I can really make a difference in people's lives that way. I don't do this anymore, Jack. You get it?"

  She tugged backward, nearly stumbling over her own feet as he slid across the linoleum. "If I'd wanted to keep losing this battle, I would have gone back to practice myself. Long ago." She hit the carpet in the living room, and Jack's forward movement screeched to a halt like a bad brake job. She put all her weight into the effort. She heard stitches in the quilt rip as she slowly pulled him across the floor.

  "So, I want you to know that I really appreciate the help you're giving me here. I had high – uhh – expectations of you, Jack. And here you are. Out cold. Not so much as a 'Buck up. Be brave. I know you can do it, Tess.'"

  "I know you can do it, Tess," he mumbled as she pulled him to a stop in front of the river-rock fireplace.

  Breathing hard, Tess slipped backward and landed hard on her behind. An embarrassed flush crept up her cheeks. "How much of that did you hear?"

  He ran his tongue over his dry lips and gave her a halfhearted grin. "Got any whiskey?"

  They stared at each other for a protracted moment, until she had to look away. He'd heard enough. And for some reason that mortified her.

  "Whiskey. Great idea." She got to her feet and headed toward the kitchen. "I could use a drink."

  "Tess…"

  She stopped, but didn't have the nerve to look back at him. "What?"

  "I trust you."

  "You shouldn't, you know," she said, suddenly very tired. "Ask anyone."

  * * *

  The roaring fire spit heat into the cold room where Jack was easing into intoxication the way any man who'd lost the volume of blood he had would – quickly. Tess sat with her back to the fire, absorbing the warmth and watching the bottle meet his mouth.

  It was, she thought without impunity, the sexiest mouth she'd ever seen on a man. Full, sensual lips that curved naturally up into a "frankly-my-dear, I-don't-give-a damn" grin, even when he wasn't smiling.

  Like now.

  She dragged her gaze away from his mouth and turned her attention to the mass of bruises on his bare torso. It made her shudder to think what he must have gone through. "Somebody really worked you over."

  He drew one jean-clad knee up gingerly as if to alleviate the pressure on his bruised ribs. "Either that," he said, wincing, "or somebody mistook me for a landing strip." He followed her gaze to the myriad of scars on his torso.

  "That looks like an old knife wound," she said, running her finger along the ridge of skin. "Someone did a bad job of stitching it up. You in the habit of having near death experiences?"

  "You tell me."

  "I think so. The question is, why?"

  He lowered the half-empty bottle, grimaced as the whiskey went down, and let his head fall back against the pillow she'd put there. Perspiration beaded his upper lip, where a dark shadow of stubble blended with the bruises on his battered face. "You think too much, Doc. Why don't you get this bullet out of me now?"

  Pulling her gaze away from his chest, she asked, "Are you drunk yet?"

  "Since I still understan' the question … no."

  "I want you unconscious."

  He hummed in amusement. "Bet you say that to all the guys."

  She wrinkled her nose with a false smile.

  "Yer hands're shaking."

  Tess clenched them in her lap. "No, they're not." She glanced up through her lashes at him. "Okay, maybe they are. I haven't done this in a long time."

  "What? Watched someb'dy get drunk?"

  She tipped her head sideways, annoyed that he could be making light of this, considering what she was about to do. "This is no laughing matter, Jack."

  "No? What the hell is it, then? A funeral?" He took another gulp.

  "I don't think that's funny." Tension slid up the back of her neck. The nausea that had been threatening roiled earnestly now in the pit of her stomach, while her nerve folded up like a piece of origami. Fear took hold, the certainty that she would fail – fail herself, fail the promise that she'd made to herself never to risk another person's life, and worst of all, fail Jack.

  Tess shot to her feet and paced to the window with her fingers pressed over her mouth. "This is crazy," she said. "What are we doing here? I could kill you just trying to get the damn thing out. I have no equipment, no anesthetic…" And the antibiotics they'd given him at the hospital weren't working as well as they should. He had a fever. That meant infection. If nothing else should have compelled her to take him back, that should have. "Look," she said, "I shouldn
't even be operating on you with—"

  Halfway to his mouth, the bottle stopped. "Tess—"

  "—a fever, which I can't treat here. I should take you back to a hospital."

  He dropped his head against the pillow and shut his eyes. "Ahh, geez."

  She shook her head. "I'm sorry. It's true. I'm not equipped. I thought I could do it, but I—"

  "Forget what you don't have." He gritted his teeth. "Use what you've got. You're a doctor, for crissakes."

  "Was!" she almost shouted. "Was a doctor."

  He let out a snort of derision. "What're you so damned scared of? Any two-year-old could do this."

  A bark of laughter escaped her. "Oh, you think so? Any two-year-old?" She gestured at the pine-plank door. "Maybe I should try to find one. Surely there must be an available toddler in some nearby cabin!"

  For a long moment, he just stared at her, comebacks poised on the tip of his inebriated tongue. In the end, he simply lifted one side of his mouth in a lopsided grin before allowing his eyes to slide shut again. "I like you better mad than … scared."

  She shifted uneasily, hands on her hips. "Are you finished?"

  "I dunno," he mumbled. "Are you?"

  The anger leaked out of her. Damn him for being right. There he lay, with a bullet festering in his shoulder, while she complained about something she could no more change than she could stop the day from coming. This wasn't about her or her cowardice. The only thing that mattered was saving his life. Forget what you don't have. Use what you've got. His words rang truer than he could have ever imagined.

  "You're right," she said. "I am scared." She walked over and knelt beside him. His skin was flushed and warm. Too warm. "Because I may just finish what that bullet started."

  His hand wrapped around her wrist and held her fast, the teasing gone from his expression. "Then so be it. But if you don't try I might as well've … given it up on that damned road last night. 'Cause I'm gonna die. And I'm gonna do it on the friggin' floor of your friend's cabin. Is that what you want?"

  "I'm sorry," she said, shaking her head. "Very bad form for a doctor to … scuttle a patient's confidence that way. I, um, I want you to know that I've done this very operation dozens of times." Unfolding the towel beside him, she stared down at the sterilized instruments she'd stolen from the hospital. Just not without anesthetic and all the amenities of an operating room. "I can get that bullet out, Jack, but we're going to have to trust each other. Can you do that, Jack?"