“Spiking, are we?” She smiled at Smith, then turned to Tessa. “Can you keep some cool cloths on his head while I page the physician?”
“Sure.” Tessa went to the bathroom and wet a washcloth.
Smith jolted when it touched his skin, half expecting it to sizzle. She settled him with a gentle hand to his chest. “Lie still. You need to stay calm.”
He looked into her face, wanting to take back everything he’d said. How had he thought he wasn’t ready to love her?
“So, I’ve some things to work on,” Bair told Smith. “I’ll leave you in good hands.”
“Thanks, Bair. Can you catch up on my mail, as well?”
“Sure thing.” He went out.
Smith refocused on Tessa. “I want to tell—”
“I’m leaving if you keep forcing it. Whatever you have to say can wait. I have something to tell you too.”
He groaned. “What?”
She shook her head. “Not now.”
He gripped her hand. “Tell me.”
She slid her hand free and flipped the cloth on his forehead. It was almost imperceptibly cooler on the new side, but he didn’t want her to go even as far as the bathroom to refresh it. “Tell me, Tess.”
“I need to go home.”
“What?” His fears materialized.
“I’m starting to remember something.”
“I promised to be there.” How had things gotten so far from that night in Laughlin? He dragged air into his boggy lungs. “It’s just too soon.”
“Smith—”
“I’ll take you, but I need some time.”
“I’m not asking you to. You’ve been stabbed. You have pneumonia. You’re not going anywhere.”
“Give me a day to get out of here.” His vision blurred.
“Gaston wants you on-site.”
“Gaston can get stuffed.” He didn’t care about the job or the owner. All he knew was that Tessa should not face this thing alone. “Please.”
“Things aren’t the same, Smith. You said that before Danae— before you got the chance—”
“That’s not the chance I want.”
“I’m not sure you know what you want.”
“I know I don’t want you to go back alone.”
“It’s not your problem.”
“Tess.” He pressed a hand to his face.
She sighed. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
As the nurse came in to remediate his fever, Tessa slipped out behind her. What were the odds she’d be back?
CHAPTER
32
Tessa stared out the window while Bair drove her back to the inn. He had also taken a room there, reluctant to return to the trailer, even though Donny was gone. Maybe he wanted to be closer to Smith. Or to her. She would have to be careful not to encourage his feelings.
Bair held the door open. As they stepped inside, Nan clasped her soft white chins between her soft white hands. “Is it true? You caught the ghost?”
Tessa tensed. “I don’t think you can catch ghosts.”
“Insufficient matter,” Bair said, and she wanted to hug him.
“Oh, I know that.” Nan waved a hand. “I mean the creature people thought was a ghost. Was he arrested? Is he in jail?”
Time to set the rumor record straight. “He was taken to a secure care facility for psychological assessment.”
“What’s wrong with him? Heard tell he’s all, you know, deformed.”
“He has some physical issues.” It had taken a great effort not to show her revulsion at first sight, but it had diminished when she recognized his suffering. “I really don’t know anything else.”
With Bair flanking her, Tessa mounted the stairs. At the station, she’d overheard talk about other complaints against someone matching Donny’s description. The stories must be flying if it had reached Nan already.
Bair stopped at her doorway. “I’m going to pick up some dinner. Would you, um, would you like me to bring you something?”
“I don’t know, Bair. I’m not really hungry.”
“You’ve been shaken up.”
“Mostly I just need to think.” Or, more accurately, keep herself from thinking, remembering. Donny’s attack had caused ripples in her mind that lapped at dark shores. Smith’s interlude with Danae had cast her adrift toward those shores. He thought he could still help her, but a champion’s heart could not be divided.
“I’ll drop something by and leave you to your thinking.”
“Thanks.”
A while later, Bair knocked on her door, bearing a fish sandwich and coleslaw. He dropped the napkins and bumped her head when they both went down to pick them up, sputtering an apology while she assured him she was fine—although she wasn’t. Already the night pressed in, and she did not trust her subconscious to hold its secret.
The nightmare in the cell the night before and the memories that kept forcing her to the point of recall conspired to keep her eyes open until the sun rose on another clear day. She took a path to the bank of the river just beyond the cultivated gardens. It had no rhythmic pattern, no ordered steps, no intrinsic mystery. She did not practice any of the exercises she often used to unclutter her mind and open her soul on a labyrinthine prayer walk. Instead, as she stood on the river’s shore, she attempted Smith’s style of communication with a personal God. “Father …” It took moments to get past that word alone. “I can’t do this myself.”
She’d intended to say more, but the whole idea of God as father overwhelmed her. She was unprepared to probe that relationship, emotionally or spiritually. Dr. Brenner would tell her to explore that feeling. What makes you uncomfortable? And she’d tell him guilt, an overwhelming, crushing sense of guilt.
She drove herself to the hospital and entered as the doctor attended Smith. She waited until he’d finished listening to Smith breathe, checking and rebandaging the incision, expressing optimism and caution—coughing stressed the wound, but was required to clear the lungs and so on. She took the doctor’s place when he left. Smith cast her a look that tugged the ropes of her heart into a knot.
Smith reached for her hand. “I’m glad you’re here. I wasn’t sure you would be.”
“I’m not sure I can stay.”
“I’d like you to.” His eyes said more than his words.
Shying from what she saw there, she said, “The doctor sounded encouraging. Your fever’s down.”
“I don’t want to talk about me. I want to know about your memory.”
She could at least tell him that. “It started at the inn after the sheriff ordered me not to leave and Dr. Brenner thought I’d gone over to the dark side. When I thought you were dead.” Her throat constricted. “I kept seeing you lying in the rain, and I just couldn’t take it anymore. In my mind I lay down beside you, and the monster charged.” She knew it sounded bizarre. “First it was like the minotaur. Then it was Donny. Then I saw the man in my dream who said I couldn’t tell.”
Smith searched her face. “And what doesn’t he want you to tell?”
“What I saw.” She looked away.
“What was it, Tess?”
Tears pooled in her eyes. “I think something happened to my dad.”
Smith tightened his grip. “What happened?”
She couldn’t answer.
“How old were you when he disappeared?”
“Not quite six.”
“That’s pretty young to remember anything with certainty.”
“I know. But I have to try.”
Smith drew a swampy breath. “Whatever you need to do—” he wheezed—“I want to be with you.”
“I can’t wait, Smith.”
“One more day. Please.”
She looked away. “I think some distance would be good.”
“It won’t. I need to be there for you.”
“I have no idea how you mean that.”
“In every way you can think of, I mean it.”
“You’re hankering for veggi
es?”
His laugh started a cough that lasted agonizingly long. He laid his head back and fought for breath, then rasped, “You’re what I want and what I need.”
“We’ll talk about that when I don’t wince every time you say something.”
“Promise you’ll wait.”
“Smith—”
“Promise or I’ll sic Bair on you.”
“Bair’s on my side.”
He dropped his head back, eyes closed. “I dreamed about you. I never dream.”
“Everybody dreams. It’s how the mind processes the junk of real life.”
“I never dreamed about Danae.”
“She’s a custard, too smooth and creamy to cause psychological indigestion.”
He pulled a wry smile. “I love your amazingly odd remarks.”
“You introduced the food metaphors.”
He turned his head to look at her. “I’m asking … with everything in me … for you to wait.”
If that wasn’t sincere, she would never know it when she saw it. He had been honest in sharing his struggle to let go of Danae. She appreciated that he didn’t love lightly, but she’d never felt so vulnerable. She nodded. “Okay.”
Relief softened the fatigue etched into his face. “Would you do one more thing?”
“What?”
“Show me how we were in your mind.”
She had a moment of confusion, then realized what he was asking, that she put herself physically beside him as she’d been in that moment of despair.
He caught her hand. “I want to hold you.”
Warmth jellied her legs and made her chest quake. No one had ever said that to her without serious ulterior motives. She could not for the life of her guess Smith’s. “It’s not exactly private.”
“That’s a good thing.” He pulled a sideways smile.
She swallowed the churning emotions. Would she have hesitated if he hadn’t told her about Danae? If she appreciated his honesty, she shouldn’t hold it against him. But it wasn’t resentment that held her back. She didn’t want to close her eyes and see him again.
“The last time I climbed into a hospital bed my mother died.”
“I’m not dying.”
But he could have. She freed her hand and put the bedrail down, climbed in next to him, and laid her head against his chest, hearing the rattle of his slow exhalation. His arm came around her. Hope and hurt pressed in. She drew a breath almost as ragged as his and realized she was not willing to let him go.
With Tessa nestled against him, Smith prayed. He had made a hash of things, but he knew what God expected of him. It had nothing to do with their relationship or their future, or his desires or hers. She had said her mandate was the labyrinth, and maybe all that had happened was part of that, but his was to shield and protect her from a wholly different monster.
Not Gaston, not Donny, not a figment of her imagination or nightmares, but a real person and quite possibly a real event no child should have witnessed. She had been young enough that maybe she had misinterpreted what she saw and her father was alive somewhere. But the degree of trauma that had persisted suggested otherwise.
He stroked her arm lying along his chest. At first she had felt stiff and awkward beside him. Within moments she had relaxed, and now he sensed her slipping into sleep. The ordeal had been physically taxing on them both, but was also an emotional and perhaps spiritual battle for Tessa. One night in jail and another in fearful recollection. Had she even slept? Her deepening breaths suggested not.
Holding her broke through restraints he’d established after allowing Danae to drive the pace and direction of their relationship, a flimsy defense for his choices. He did not lay the blame on Danae. He had willingly followed her lead and, in consequence, left behind some element of himself that could not be recovered. He regretted that.
Like the prodigal, he had repented and returned, and the Father had received him with open arms. Now it remained for him to walk once again with integrity. The love he felt, holding Tessa, seemed a purer, less self-serving love. He wanted to protect and honor her, yet there was no denying his desire for her. Somehow he had to keep a balance.
He put a finger to his lips some time later when Bair came in, though Tessa slept so soundly he doubted a fire alarm could wake her. He had dozed a little, but mostly basked, premature as that may be. “I don’t think she’s slept much,” he whispered.
Bair agreed, then told him, “Gaston’s been calling. The office line forwarded to me and I told him what happened. He offered his condolences for your injury and wanted an update.”
Smith rolled his eyes.
“I told him you weren’t able to talk.”
“Good.”
“But he’s insistent. He wants to be kept in the loop.”
“There are some things he doesn’t need to know.” Smith shifted and winced. “One is that Tessa needs to go home. I think she witnessed something as a child and it’s surfacing now.” A coughing jag caught him, but he quelled it. “I’m going with her.”
“Sure you are.”
“As soon as I’m out.”
“Not holding your breath, are you?”
“Funny.” He wheezed.
“While you’re gone, should I put the project out for bid?”
Smith considered that. “Until the business with Donny is ironed out, I’m not sure we can begin construction. Tell Gaston we’re clearing some obstacles before proceeding.”
He would revise the schedule when they were through this. Surprising how the project that had seemed so vital had lost significance. He hoped he’d be able to rekindle the earlier enthusiasm, though a little matter of life and death had put it in perspective.
Bair tipped his head. “How are you?”
“Up and down.”
“Tessa?”
“Fragile. Yet strangely resilient.”
“Not as resilient as you might think.”
“I know, Bair. Believe me.”
Moments after Bair left, Tessa opened her eyes. Her disorientation was adorable. “It’s all right,” he said, but she pushed up to sit.
“I cannot believe I fell asleep.”
“That’s what happens when you haven’t had any rest.”
“How long was I out?”
“A while.”
She rubbed her eyes, then let her hands fall to her lap. “At least no one saw me.”
“That’s not … exactly true.”
She turned, dismayed. “Who?”
“Only a nurse or two, and Bair.”
She groaned. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
“And spoil the first good sleep you’ve had in how long?” He took her hand. “If it’s any consolation, the last five hours did more for my healing than anything since you pulled me out of that hole.”
She slanted him a look. “Tell me you didn’t say five hours.”
“I slept for half of them.”
She expelled a long, slow breath. “I outslept the patient?”
“I had somewhat of a head start, a few days’ worth.”
She slipped off the bed. “I should have known better than to lie down. Although the last thing I thought I could do was sleep.”
“I told you I’d take care of you.” The look she gave him pierced his heart. Was that so hard for her to believe?
Two long days later, Tessa met Bair outside Smith’s door. “How is he?”
“Impatient. He’s never been hurt before. No broken bones, no teeth knocked loose. He thought he’d be walking out long before this.”
“Have they said when?” She tried not to sound as anxious as she felt, but the wait was draining her.
“Probably tomorrow. The important thing is for him to realize he’s not a hundred percent. But Smith, you know, he always thinks he’s a hundred and ten.”
She did know. She touched Bair’s arm in passing and went inside. Smith’s color had improved; his breathing seemed less strained, but his hair stood out around the cowlick
and he looked irritable.
She smiled. “Hi.”
He reached for her hand. “Tell me you’ve brought my release papers.”
“I wish I could.”
“I know you’re tired of waiting, but there’s a conspiracy to keep me bedridden.” He dropped his head back, exasperated.
“You’re not helping by stressing everyone out.”
“Stressing them? I’m the one being told to breathe into this, cough into that. Rest and relax while we poke and bleed you.”
“Hmm.” She untangled his call button. “I would have guessed you a stoic patient.”
“I don’t know what more they want from me. I walk, I talk, I eliminate.” He winced as he shifted position. “Besides, I thought you wanted to go.”
“I need to.”
He reached over and took her hand. “Come here.”
She moved closer.
“All the way.”
She shook her head. She had not climbed into the bed since that first time. Lying next to Smith had all but eliminated her defenses against the feelings she had for him, and the shell that was left could crumble without warning.
His tone softened. “Are you all right?”
She shrugged. “I need to deal with it.” She had kept the nightmares at bay by hardly sleeping more than an hour or two at night. She could not go on indefinitely.
He said, “I’d leave now if they’d let me out.”
“Then stop spiking a fever so they do.” And so she wouldn’t keep worrying that maybe they’d missed something, maybe this wasn’t over, maybe a million other things could go wrong.
“I can’t stand doing nothing.” Smith rubbed his eyes under the spare pair of rimless glasses Bair had brought in.
She hadn’t noticed his other pair missing until she saw him straining to read the pocket New Testament Bair had brought him early on. He must have lost his glasses in the attack, because the rain had pooled in his eye sockets. That image might never fade.
“Do you want your laptop?”
“Bair brought it.”
“Phone?”
“Your friend Donny pinched it.”
“It’s probably in the cistern.” She wrinkled her brow. “Unless they’ve cleared it out. Did the sheriff tell you?”
The Edge of Recall Page 26