Into the Heat

by Tamara Lush

  Nicole shuddered in a breath. “But I guess you’re right that you deserve a say in this. I just try to take charge and help out. I try to be adult, try to keep things moving, try to treat you the way that I think Mom would have wanted me to treat you. But that’s like a child, like how she thought of you. It’s time I stop doing that. You’re a grown woman who’s accomplished a lot.”

  Jessica nodded, her cheeks wet from tears. “I just want to stay on the island for a while. With you. I need you, whether you know it or not. You’re all I’ve got. I don’t want any more change right now.”

  Nicole walked out from behind the desk and embraced her, and Jessica hugged her sister tighter than she ever had.

  “Okay, Jessie-Bessie. I mean, Jessica. Okay. We’ll try it your way. You’ve more than earned a shot.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The next evening, Jessica found that Leo had slipped his room key under her door with a note that said simply, I forgot to give you this earlier. Thank you for the room.—L.

  He hadn’t even knocked or wanted to talk with her.

  The blocky, black handwriting was stark against the paper, which Jess picked up and then sank onto the couch. Earlier in the day she’d made Leo a gift, hoping to give it to him that evening. She’d had an old photo of the two of them professionally printed, and had placed it into an elegant silver frame. It had been taken by one of their parents early in that vacation five years ago, and Jessica flashed back to that moment as she sat on the sofa and held the photo in her hands.

  “You two, stand over there.” Leo’s dad had pointed and waved at her and Leo, indicating they should stand next to each other on the hotel terrace. “Closer. Closer. Leo, she’s not going to bite you.”

  Leo’s shoulder pressed against hers, and she’d laughed. She didn’t know how else to respond to such intense desire.

  “This is called the golden hour,” Jessica’s mom chimed in. “Do you see the light? It’s golden. Beautiful. You two will look back on this photo and thank us for taking it, because you both look young and perfect right now.”

  Things were now as far from perfect as they could possibly be.

  She had to win him back. Had to get them back to that beautiful, perfect place where they were tangled up in each other in bed. Jessica choked back a sob. It had been so recently. Only two days ago. Their night of intense, wild, tender sex had been only forty-eight hours ago. It seemed like a lifetime.

  What they’d had as teens was special, but what they could have as adults was sublime. More than ever, Jessica knew that the connection she felt for Leo was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and she wasn’t going to give up on that easily. But what could she do?

  Maybe the best thing was to let him cool down for another night, and then she’d try apologizing again in the morning. She didn’t want to chase him or put more pressure on him. He’d looked devastated. Maybe he just needed a bit of space.

  Frustrated, she opened her mother’s journal and continued to read. The passage she picked made her raise her eyebrows.

  JUNE 12: Jessica continues to be pissed at me over Leo. I didn’t think it was possible for a teenage girl to hold a grudge this long. I thought prom and graduation would make her forget about Leo, but she didn’t go to prom and she spent all of graduation day moping. It’s been months. I keep telling her that all I want is for her to be her own woman before falling in love. To be self-sufficient and independent. I don’t want her to rely on a man at such a young age. I don’t want her to be like I was. Young and stupid.

  Tears stung Jessica’s eyes again. Why hadn’t her mother just trusted her enough to share her past experiences, to share how Adam had broken her heart? Maybe if she had, Jessica would have understood the whole situation more. Maybe they could have made a smart decision together.

  Jessica kept reading. Her mom’s journal continued on for several more years, but after that one entry, her words and thoughts about Jessica and Leo disappeared. And as the years went on, her mother wrote less and less. The journal became something of a quick log of mundane events, then tapered off and left out entire seasons. Jessica skimmed the remaining words, looking for something, anything that felt relevant.

  The last entry was from a couple of months before Mom died.

  JAN. 23: Sometimes when I look at Jessica and Jacob I feel some regret. I don’t like him much, but I’m not going to interfere. She’s a woman now, a college graduate, and I’m proud of her. She has to make her own decisions. Her own mistakes. I do wonder if I made a mistake with Leo, and I hope she someday forgives me for my decision about that. What if I kept her from her one true love? I worry about that. I wonder what happened to Leo, if he was sent to the Middle East with the Marines. I pray not.

  But the past is behind us, and we all have regrets to set aside. Regrets of the past are a waste of the spirit. We have to trust that the ones we love will succeed, and we have to forgive them when they trip. It’s the only way to go forward.

  Jessica folded over, crumpling into a little ball. She wept harder than she had in months. Sadness poured out of her, and for the first time she understood that grief wasn’t a linear process. After nearly a year, she finally grasped that she would never be able to ask her mother for advice on anything again. It hit her hard—how she missed her mother, and how she regretted not making the most of the time they’d had together.

  She shuffled into her bedroom, feeling lower and more depressed than ever. Life was too short, she thought as she drifted off. And everything was so damn complicated.

  That night she dreamed of Mom. They were walking on the beach, and Jessica was asking her all of the questions she had amassed in her brain since her mother passed so suddenly. In the dream, her mother refused to answer. She smiled and walked next to Jessica, looking on the ground and pointing at shells near the ocean’s blue horizon. In the dream, Jessica felt herself getting frustrated by her mother’s silence, and her questions soon turned to pleas and then to desperate anger. Why wouldn’t her mother answer?

  Her mother stopped, her back to the surf, her green eyes identical to Jessica’s.

  “Forgive and trust,” she told her daughter. “It’s the only way to go forward.”

  Jessica woke up, her cheeks wet. She checked her phone. It was one in the morning, but she knew what she had to do.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “Leo?”

  This was odd. The bakery door was open. She’d come here out of desperation, just in case he’d decided to sleep here despite the asbestos.

  She called his name again, and the sound bounced off the big, industrial appliances. All of the lights were on, so when she stepped into the bright bakery kitchen she expected him to be inside, baking or cleaning. But, no. He was gone.

  She opened two doors—a bathroom, a storage closet—and then a third. There was a staircase, which must lead up to his apartment. Surely he was up there and just had forgotten to turn out the lights. But she really didn’t want him sleeping here with all that toxic dust in the air.

  The hall light was on, and she walked carefully up the wooden steps as if they would give out under her weight. At the top of the stairs, she knocked softly on the door. Then she knocked again, harder. Nothing.

  She tried the doorknob and it turned easily.

  “Leo?”

  Opening the door, she took in the sparse apartment beyond. One entire wall was ripped out from construction and sealed off with large, heavy sheets of plastic. She tried not to breathe deeply, because of the weird, dusty smell in the air, and she felt a wave of annoyance at him and anger at herself. This was crazy. Leo was so damn stubborn, staying in a place with asbestos that might kill him. She’d do anything to convince him to return to the hotel once she found him. If only she hadn’t been so harsh.

  She tiptoed around, calling his name. When he wasn’t in the living room, kitchen or bathroom, that’s when she began to move faster through the apartment. The knot in her stomach became tighter. Where was he?

&
nbsp; She paused in what she guessed was his bedroom. There was a futon on a frame with tangled white sheets atop the mattress, but no Leo. Heart pounding, she walked to a desk where a laptop was open. Her hand shook as she tapped the mouse, making the screen flicker to life.

  The words on the screen made her scowl. It was a news article about an arson at a Marine recruiting center in New Orleans. An awful event, she’d seen it on CNN. That must have made him feel terrible, after having served his country, but where the hell was he?

  She walked quickly out of the bedroom and out of his apartment, went straight outside and looked for his truck and his Harley; he’d told her that he parked both in the alley. There was the Harley, gleaming and still under the streetlight, but his silver F-150 was gone from its usual space. And Leo had left all the lights on and the door open, and it was close to two in the morning? Her stomach felt like it was trying to digest ground glass.

  Running to her VW and firing it up, she drove around the island. There weren’t many places he could logically have gone, and she could easily hit all the possibilities because Palmira was so small. No bars were open at this time of night on the island. Had he gone over the bridge to Fort Myers? It wouldn’t make sense if he did. Not such a long drive. Leo was too meticulous and careful to leave the bakery and his apartment open like that, wasn’t he? What if something had happened to him?

  She swallowed back tears, gripping the steering wheel to stop the trembling in her hands and turned down the street near the beach where the sand sculptures were. There she slowed her car, and there, in a parking space, was his truck.

  Jessica pulled in beside it, peering to see if he was in the cab. Nope. So there was only one place it seemed he could be.

  Practically sprinting to the sculpture, she saw him on the sand, kneeling. As if whispering to the beautiful, ethereal mermaid he’d carved.

  “Leo? Leo!” She rushed to him then stopped. His eyes were shining in the moonlight but looked vacant. Distant. Spooky. And he didn’t acknowledge her presence.

  “Oh my God, I think you’re sleepwalking,” she whispered, mostly to herself.

  What could she do? She’d read somewhere that you weren’t supposed to wake a sleepwalker. Was that a myth? She wasn’t sure.

  Leo muttered a few words, and Jessica watched in horror and confusion. Most of what he said was unintelligible, but some made it clear he was talking about Afghanistan. He muttered something about the desert and the dry heat. Then he repeated one phrase.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Kneeling before him, she said his name in a soft whisper. Repeated it several times then touched his thigh. He stopped talking and moved forward, resting his forehead on Jessica’s shoulder. She embraced his broad body as if he were fragile, and she thought that maybe, just maybe, he was waking up from his dream.

  She caressed his back and found his T-shirt soaked through with sweat. She blinked away tears, wondering if this was what he’d wanted to keep from her. Was he embarrassed? He seemed so damaged. All of this had to be from his PTSD. From serving his country. From trying to be a man and then being yelled at by her for abandoning her when they were teens.

  She fought back a sob. “Leo, baby, we need to get you some help.”

  He wrenched himself from her arms. His eyes were wild and feral, and he reared back, panting. “What? Who—? Jessica! Where—?”

  “It’s okay.” She gently put her hands on his arms and repeated herself several times, almost as if she were the one who needed convincing. “Just breathe slow.”

  “Jess.” His voice broke. “It’s not okay.”

  He scrambled to his feet and walked toward the ocean, and she followed.

  “It will. It’ll be okay. It’s okay now.” She realized she was barraging him with words but she didn’t care. All she wanted was her Leo back.

  He turned to her, and she realized a single tear had slipped down his face.

  “It’s not,” he said. “I haven’t told you everything.”

  * * *

  By the time he was finished explaining to Jessica the extent of his PTSD, his night terrors and the recruitment center arson, it was three in the morning. They sat on the sand next to the sand sculpture of the mermaid, cross-legged and facing each other. The ocean air was thick with the smell of salt water and sadness.

  Jessica pushed out a breath. “I didn’t know people could sleep-drive,” she said.

  “Yeah, it does happen sometimes when people take certain sleeping pills. I took one last night, hoping to be able to drift off. Now I’m here. It happened to me a few times before the fire in New Orleans, too. Once I found myself in the backyard of my dad’s home, about to walk into the pool. That was scary as shit.” He shifted toward the ocean and stretched his legs out straight.

  “But, how are you certain that you set that fire? Let’s go over the evidence again.”

  She was trying to bargain with the facts, just like he had for a few weeks now. It was time to move toward acceptance.

  “I don’t have to. I’m sure they have my DNA on the T-shirt. I need to do the honorable thing and turn myself in. The paper said an arrest was imminent. Which means they know it’s me. For a while, at first, I thought I could run away. But I can’t do that. Can’t have that on my conscience. I’m going back tomorrow. Well, today, I mean. I’ve made up my mind. I’ve gotta turn myself in.”

  Without saying a word, she scooted so she was sitting in his lap, straddling him and sinking onto his muscular thighs. She wrapped her legs and arms around him and held him tight. “I love you. I’m going with you.”

  “What? Jess, no.”

  “Yep. I am. I’ve seen what happens when you abandon the person you love. It never works out.”

  He scowled. “I’m sorry for not telling you the truth. I’m sorry for—”

  “Stop. It’s insignificant now. Let’s go back to my place, and we’re going to try to sleep for a few hours. Then we’ll put breakfast on for the guests and ask Nicole to take over for as long as possible. I think she’ll understand. She’ll have to. Then we’ll get on the road.”

  She pulled back and traced his eyebrows with her fingertips, but he couldn’t return her gaze.

  “Hey,” she whispered. “Open your eyes.”

  He did and reluctantly met her gaze. Even though her eyes were puffy from crying, the moonlight shone on her skin, making her look angelic.

  “This isn’t your fault. This happened because of the war. Because of what happened to you over there. We need to tell a judge that.”

  “I’ll try,” he said, exhaling.

  “No. We’ll try. We’re a team now.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I want to. Whatever you’re going to face up there, I’m going to be with you. I figured something out today.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That we’re a lot alike. You went along with our parents all those years ago because you wanted to make them happy. Thought it would be better for everyone. Thought it would be better for me and my relationship with my mother.”

  He nodded. “That’s exactly what I thought. I was wrong. I should have fought for us.”

  “No. Maybe. But I understand now. You want to please people. I do, too. And now I think it’s time we put each other first. We just have to trust each other with the truth—and forgive each other when we make mistakes. Let’s go to my apartment. You’re not going back to that asbestos trap.”

  She rose and held out her hand for him, and he let her pull him upright. Then they silently walked to the street and each drove separately to her hotel.

  Once inside, he closed himself off in her bathroom for a while, needing time to recharge. He splashed water on his face then looked at the bags under his eyes in the mirror. Somehow, he felt a little better after telling Jessica everything, but his muscles still tensed every time he thought about returning to New Orleans. About giving up his freedom and any hope of happiness.

  He opened the bathroom door
and saw Jessica sitting on the bed wearing a short and filmy white nightie. The outline of her breasts was visible, and despite his exhaustion and terror and sadness, he wanted to hold her. Wanted to be inside her. Wanted to love her.

  Shaking and stripping off his clothes, he walked to the bed. She smiled as he approached, and he had a rock-solid erection by the time he took her in his arms. It was clear what she wanted, and he couldn’t resist. He eased her onto her back and caged her with his arms and legs, raining kisses down upon her skin. First her lips, then her jaw, then the soft column of her neck. Her breathing quick, she made those little moaning noises he loved to hear.

  “I’m sorry for everything,” he whispered, stroking her hair away from her face. “I’m sorry for not standing up to our parents back then, and I’m sorry for not telling you the truth about my problems. I’d totally understand if you didn’t want anything to do with me ever again.”

  She sniffled then reached out to cup his jaw, angling his head toward hers. “You have nothing to be sorry about.”

  “I love you,” he said, and he lifted her nightie.

  She wasn’t wearing anything underneath. His hands roamed her body, pausing to stroke her nipples with his thumbs. When he slipped the gown over her head, a little sob escaped her lips, and he paused, confused.

  “Do you not want me to—?”

  “I want you to do anything you want with me.”

  Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, and the sight made his heart so heavy that he wasn’t sure he could take any more. He brushed his lips over the wetness streaking her temples, then softly kissed her cheeks, her mouth. Then he glanced down, shuddering as he took in the view of her beautiful, naked body.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered a second time in her ear, caressing a long strand of her hair.

  “Don’t ever apologize again. For any of this. I’m sorry for pushing you away. For being nasty. For not trusting you. I’m learning how to forgive, Leo, and I forgive you for all those years ago. And I trust you going forward.”