The Edge of Recall

by Kristen Heitzmann

  “No. Since I didn’t press charges, and Dr. Brenner took away his suspect, he seems to have washed his hands of it.”

  “I wonder how he is.”

  “The sheriff?”

  “No. Donny.”

  “Please don’t expect me to commiserate.”

  She didn’t. How could he? “What do you think they’ll do with the books and things he collected?”

  “Give them back to their rightful owners.”

  “It was his whole world.”

  “Except for all the places he nicked the things.”

  “But the cistern meant everything to him. That’s why he had to defend it.”

  Smith sighed. “All right, I pity the culprit.”

  “Who’s also a victim.”

  Smith took her hand. “But still capable of choices.”

  “He could have killed us and no one would have known about his secret place.”

  “If you weren’t so compassionate, we would not have made it out.”

  “He didn’t want to hurt us, Smith.”

  “You, he didn’t want to hurt. He had no qualms about dunking me in the well.”

  She smiled. “I’ve wanted to dunk you a few times myself.”

  “That goes without saying.” He tugged her by the arm until their faces were inches apart. “There’s one medicine I’m missing.”

  Her heart thumped. “The therapeutic kiss?”

  “Quite.”

  “You haven’t charmed it out of the nurses?”

  “Very few sources are curative.”

  “Did you learn that in school?”

  “From my mother, the originator of the therapeutic kiss. However, I’ve outgrown that variety.”

  The last person who had kissed him was Danae, and she had no doubt it was the adult version.

  He saw her hesitation and guessed its source. “Can we put that business behind us?”

  “I’m trying to.”

  “Some therapies work both ways.”

  “I’m not sure I can take that medicine.”

  “We could start with a small dose and work our way up.”

  She shook her head. “There’s no small dose.”

  He sobered. “I know that, Tess.” His fingers brushed her cheek, slid down, and raised her chin. “I’m willing to take it like a man, if you are.”

  She drew a ragged breath. “I don’t have that capacity.”

  “Then you should take it like a woman, because I can’t wait one minute more.”

  She leaned in and touched his lips with hers. Then it was certain overdose, but she didn’t care because she was not willing to lose him to Danae or anyone else. She had to stand firm and fight, not run a—

  She staggered back, gripping the rail.

  “Tess?”

  Panting and crying, she ran through the woods, no labyrinth path to lead her, only moonlit pines and fear. She slipped and rolled into the hollow of a large stone. Gasping, she pressed herself into the hole too little to hold her. Hide me. Hide me.

  “Tessa, what’s wrong?”

  She blinked back her tears. “It keeps coming when I don’t expect it.”

  He pulled her back. “Tell me.”

  “I’m running away, trying to hide, but he finds me, Smith. I know it.”

  Smith sat up in the bed and brought her head to his chest. “It’s in the past. You only need to acknowledge it.”

  “I can’t.”

  He threaded her fingers with his. “Do you find it odd that intimacy triggers it?”

  She looked away. “It was thinking I would fight for you that triggered it.”

  “It was?”

  “I didn’t fight the other time. I ran away.”

  “You were a tiny little girl.”

  “I loved my dad.”

  “But there was nothing you could do.”

  “What if there was, Smith? What if that’s why I won’t remember?”

  CHAPTER

  33

  With room to spare, Smith stretched out. The only seats available on a flight without multiple connections and significant hassle had been first class. Tessa had balked when he procured them, until Bair said, “It’s no hardship for him, Tessa. Let it go.” It wasn’t a hardship, and cramming his long legs into coach would have been. Nevertheless, he was glad when the flight ended.

  Though a painful hitch still warned him when he’d moved too suddenly, he felt fairly strong as they deplaned in Colorado Springs. No convincing anyone else of that, however. Bair shouldered both carry-on bags, moving through the crowd like a lineman. Tessa had suggested he come along instead of waiting by himself, and Smith could think of no reason to say otherwise.

  He hoped she didn’t still feel the need for a buffer, though she’d been distant and ragged since they’d kissed. She looked exhausted as well. He could only hope once everything came to light, she could let it go. Please, God, let her find answers.

  They stopped at the luggage carousel, where Bair moved forward to snag Tessa’s suitcases as they tumbled down and circled. Since she was going home, she had brought all the clothing she’d had with her from the previous project to replace it with more seasonally appropriate things. He hoped that was the only reason she’d brought everything back home.

  While they waited, a woman came toward them with a loosehipped stride. Her multiple bracelets and India cotton pants matched her black mane of hair, olive-toned skin, and almond eyes. She and Tessa hugged briefly; then Tessa turned. “Genie, this is Smith Chandler, the architect on our project. And his intern, Bair.”

  “I finally meet the infamous Bair?” Genie cocked a dark eyebrow.

  Bair lost the capacity for speech and gave her a sheepish grin.

  “Bair,” Tessa said with more affection than necessary, “this is my assistant, Genie.”

  They piled into the aged but rugged Jeep Wagoneer that Genie had parked in the short-term lot and headed across the city to the mountain pass that would take them to Tessa’s home in Green Mountain Falls. The red granite slopes cloaked with dark pointed pines were splendid, but from his seat in the back, Smith watched Tessa stare silently out the windscreen while Genie drove.

  As the Jeep climbed the mountain, ragged white clouds overtook the peaks and spit slivers of snow.

  “It is October, isn’t it?” Bair mumbled.

  “October in the mountains,” Genie said over her shoulder. “But it’s not supposed to do much until the weekend.”

  They followed a dirt road to one of the higher properties tucked a quarter of the way up the mountainside. Genie parked and they all climbed out. Natural stone chimneys flanked the sizeable cabin with a broad front porch situated for gazing across the valley. The log walls blended with the pines surrounding it. The green shingled roof across the front rose to a second or loft level farther back. Neat, compact, with warmth and character in the hewn logs and shutters with pine-tree cutouts.

  A small animal pen at one side stood empty, but a large orange cat waited on the porch to be let in out of the weather. “I see Roscoe’s returned.” Tessa scratched the cat’s outstretched neck.

  Genie nodded. “The day you said he would.”

  Smith joined Bair at the Jeep’s hatch, but Tessa turned. “Leave the bags, Smith. We’ll get them.”

  Another cheery reminder of his less-than-fit condition. Admittedly the travel had taken more out of him than it should have. He joined Tessa on the porch as she unlocked and opened her front door. When she hesitated, he put a hand to the small of her back. “You all right?”

  “Yes.” She straightened and led them into the cozy, colorful great room. It looked warmer than it felt, and Genie went directly to the woodstove on the left and started laying a fire.

  “No furnace?” Smith searched for ductwork.

  “Just the stoves.” Genie fed small hewn logs into the bright yellow blaze.

  At the back, a rustic kitchen was surrounded by brick-red ceramic countertops. Plant-covered shelves flanked dun-colored
couches and red-and-green overstuffed chairs. Several built-in bookshelves reached the ceiling around the outer walls.

  Bair muscled the luggage inside as the gusty wind whirled white snow dust around his head. Genie pointed him toward the split-log staircase. “You guys are up there. I’ll show you.” With their two bags Bair followed her up.

  Tessa rolled her bag to a room adjoining the great room on the main level. A scent of woodsmoke drew him to that doorway, and he hovered there while she lit another wood-burning stove. She looked up and saw him.

  He smiled. “May I?”

  “Come in. This was my parents’ room. Now it’s mine.”

  Spacious, yet homey, with a slanting board roof and windows all across the wall opposite the bed. A conglomeration of glass and copper hummingbird feeders partially obstructed the view of a dense grove of white-trunked aspen. An alder-wood drafting table sat in front of the center window, and he pictured Tessa working there with jewel-toned hummingbirds hovering just outside the glass.

  She closed the stove and straightened, absorbing the warmth with outstretched hands. “It shouldn’t take long.”

  “It’s a well-designed house.”

  “I thought you’d like it. Mom was woodsy, not fussy, so it skews masculine.”

  “How much of it is you?”

  She looked into his face. “Enough.” She was holding herself together by a thread.

  “Come here.”

  She buried herself in his arms. “I don’t know why I thought I could do this.”

  He stroked her hair. “What’s making you think you can’t?”

  “I just … maybe it’s better not to know.”

  “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, Tess.” What did it matter that they’d flown out there to settle the matter once and for all? She knew what she could handle and what she couldn’t.

  She pressed her face against his chest. “What if knowing is worse?”

  “It almost never is.” He raised her face. “But, Tess, it’s far from certain we’ll find anything.”

  She drew a calming breath and nodded. “I have to look. I know it.” She stepped back, folding her arms and grasping her elbows. “I should tell Dr. Brenner I’m back—”

  “Or not.”

  She searched his face. “What do you have against him?”

  “I can’t put my finger on it. Probably that he occupies so much of your thoughts.”

  “He’s treated me for a long time.”

  “I’m not sure you need treating.”

  She sighed. “You haven’t seen it, Smith.”

  “Actually, I have.”

  “Well, now I have coping skills. When Mom died, I didn’t.”

  “He should recognize the skills you have and terminate the therapy.”

  “It’s my call.”

  “Then make it.”

  She walked to the window and stared out. “It’s not that easy.”

  Who was he to tell her what she should or shouldn’t do? “I know it’s not my business. Only …” He turned her from the window, caught her face, and looked hard into her eyes. “I want it to be.”

  “I can’t replace Dr. Brenner with you. If I get through this, I have to find a way to cope on my own.”

  “No one copes alone. We were created to support and encourage each other. I want to do that for you.”

  “ And what do I do for you, Smith?”

  “Besides saving my life, you mean?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Yes, Tessa, you did. I don’t know how long I’d have held on. I could not convince him to let me go. You did.”

  Her forehead puckered. “Is that it? You’re trying to reciprocate?”

  He spread his hands. “Reciprocate? What’s gotten into you?”

  “I don’t know.” She wrapped herself in her arms. “I can’t understand why you’re here.”

  He couldn’t understand what was going on inside her head. From the moment she’d approached the house, she’d begun disintegrating. “What’s the matter, Tess?”

  She looked away. “You don’t owe me.”

  Her gaze shot back looking bruised.

  He raised her chin. “You said you’d fight for me, but now you’re pushing me away. Why?”

  “Because I’m not … I didn’t …”

  The thought rushed in. “It’s guilt, isn’t it. Guilt or blame or condemnation. That’s why you expect to be disappointed.”

  She pressed her hands to her face. “It’s overwhelming me. I can’t sleep. I can’t think without pieces of it pushing in.”

  “Let me help.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  He slid her hands off her face and held them between his. “Start by believing I care.”

  She swallowed. “Okay.”

  He slid his fingers into her hair. “Now, believe I love you. I don’t say it easily.”

  She closed her eyes.

  “Look at me, Tess.”

  “You don’t understand. I saw inside, and it’s … wretched.”

  “I’ve been there, just as wretched.” Did she think she was the only one? “And it was my own choices that made it so. This thing of yours … You’re not responsible.”

  She opened her eyes. “Then why am I so afraid?”

  He couldn’t answer that, just drew her to his chest and held her. He pressed his face to her hair. “We’re going to get through this.” His head spun, and he swayed.

  She looked up. “You’re woozy.”

  “I feel a little …”

  “It’s the altitude.”

  “No. It was the thought that entered my mind.”

  “What thought?”

  “How easy it was to say we were going to get through this. And I thought of the night we made our design and how we could do anything. We could get married.”

  She startled. “What?”

  “Life can end in a moment, one thrust of a blade. What are we waiting for?”

  “You’re not over Danae.” Her statement crushed his enthusiasm.

  “I am, Tess.”

  “Seriously, Smith. You need to sit down. You’re pale, and you do not need altitude sickness.” She led him back to the great room where Genie sat with Bair, a large album on the table before them. Landscape photos by the look of it. Tessa’s, no doubt.

  Bair looked up. “Have you seen this?”

  Smith shook his head. He’d hired her on reputation and memories. He dropped down next to Bair, who slid the book his way as Tessa went into the kitchen, looking fragile. What had induced him to spring that on her? He had not proposed to Danae when it would have been natural to do so, yet now he popped the question with no preparation or forethought?

  Tessa returned with a glass of water and instructed him to drink it all. “You need to hydrate up here to keep your brain oxygenated.”

  “Thank you.” She had an alarming capacity to bury her distress. Moments ago, it had overwhelmed them. Now she carried the glass back to the kitchen as though she hadn’t just admitted a pervasive terror consumed her—or that his proposal might have scared her even more.

  He paged through the collage of landscapes and labyrinths that showcased Tessa’s talent. They’d been awesome that night, working Gaston’s plan, and these photos showed even more what an asset she would be if he could bring her into the firm—he and Bair and Tessa.

  Except she lived here. In her parents’ house, with her parents’ things. And it was nice, very nice, but was it healthy? She and her mother, and then Tessa by herself, living as though they hadn’t lost each other. Would anything induce her to leave it, to stop immersing herself in the past?

  A dish clattered in the kitchen, and Genie went to help. She was dark and dusky, with wide, flat hips and a generous but melancholy mouth. There was, overall, an edge to her that was not unattractive but might keep a man on his toes.

  “Nice on the eyes,” Bair murmured.

  “Have you spoken to her?”

  Bair shr
ugged.

  “Well, trust me, verbalizing has its pitfalls.” He glanced into the kitchen, where Tessa and Genie worked at supper.

  “Put your foot in it again?”

  “I mentioned marriage.”

  “In a theoretical sense?”

  “In a suggestive sense.”

  Bair crowded him. “As in ‘let’s do it’?”

  “Fairly close.” Smith dropped his hands on his knees.

  “You can’t just bandy marriage about,” Bair snapped in a low tone.

  “I didn’t say it lightly. Bad form and timing, but honestly I see a future with her.”

  “You’ve hardly seen a present.”

  “We had three years of preliminary friendship.”

  “Far from stellar for Tessa.”

  Smith frowned. “The end was bleak but the substance was there. You said it yourself: who carries a grudge for six years without substantial feelings behind it?”

  “Sure this isn’t about Danae coming, some knee-jerk reaction?”

  “I haven’t thought of her once. Seeing her, even kissing her—”

  Bair expelled his breath.

  “Let me finish. I think she was feeling out the possibilities, in case Edward doesn’t work out. I think she wanted me to know she still has feelings. I didn’t realize it at the time, but as soon as she’d gone, she was gone. I don’t need or want anything from her.”

  “You told her you’re in love with Tessa?”

  He swallowed. “Not yet.”

  “You see?”

  “I do see, Bair. Tessa means the world to me. I’ll do anything for her.” Saying it aloud created such a certainty he felt more alive than ever before. This he was meant for, not just to help or protect her, but to join himself to her, to love her in a way he could never properly vocalize and had no chance of making clear to Bair.

  He got up and walked around the great room, studying framed drawings that must have been Tessa’s childish rendering of chipmunks, birds, and trees. Even then, she had a skilled hand and an eye for detail, though frequently the subject was less elaborately rendered than the plants and branches around it, emphasizing the environment necessary for the animal’s survival.

  No matter what Bair or anyone thought, he was in love with her. He had never felt such purpose, and it had nothing to do with nearly dying. Or maybe it did. Maybe that experience clarified what mattered. Danae had given him the chance to boast of his success, and it had seemed insignificant. The need to impress her, gone. His proposal to Tess had sprung from something far more real.