The Edge of Recall (37 page)

“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 shrugged.

“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.

Throughout the room, on the various shelves, pottery and glass sculptures erupted spontaneously from the foliage of so many plants the place seemed to have been overtaken by the mountain. He examined one elongated clay piece glazed in blues and purples, turned it over and saw
Vanessa
scratched into the base. Her mother’s name, wasn’t it?

“Look here.” Bair motioned him over to the three-tiered cupboard, where Genie had directed him.

Smith joined them. The project models he’d created were intricate, scaled representations and fine work in themselves, but Tessa’s model labyrinths were art, each stone, each plant as real as if a garden had been shrunken to fit the base.

“Planning and development,” Genie said. “Tessa does it over the winter unless she’s consulting. She sees the labyrinths that way in her mind, as if she’s flying over.”

Bair replaced an intricate hedge garden on the shelf. “Has she, um, built them all? I mean … in a real location?”

“Not all.”

Smith turned to see Tessa in the kitchen watching his reaction. “Very nice.”

She ducked her chin. “We’re ready to eat.”

Smith set the labyrinth back on the shelf, and they gathered around the square pine table. Tessa’s broiled chicken with rice and miniature carrots, cooked with sprigs of something she’d snipped off a plant in the window, made a disgrace of Bair’s roast.

“This is excellent.” Bair beat him to the compliment.

“Thanks.” Tessa turned. “How’s your head, Smith?”

“Never better.”

“You need to take it easy. The doctor was clear.”

“Didn’t you know?” Genie’s eyes developed a dark gleam. “All doctors are ogres.”

“Genie had her gallbladder removed.” Tessa sent her a glance. “Her recovery was a little like yours—heavy on the whine.”

“Hey,” he and Genie chorused while Bair chuckled.

Tessa laughed, and he might have believed it—except for the shadows behind her eyes.

CHAPTER

34

“I’ll clean up.” Genie sent her a meaningful glance. Balance was important to her, and when one of them cooked, the other washed up afterward. Just one of the quirks that indicated a need for order in her deceptively easygoing style.

“I’ll, um, clear.” Bair stood up and started stacking plates.

Tessa hoped they would make it to the sink, but left Bair and Genie to it when Smith tugged her to the couch. He stretched out and motioned her down beside him. The fire crackled. Her heart rushed. He’d said life could end abruptly; why waste the time they had? Because she needed answers. She could not dream until she had finished the nightmare once and for all. When she had, he might realize he didn’t want her at all.

Bair’s phone rang. It took him moments to wrestle it off his belt, then he brought it to Smith and mouthed,
Rumer Gaston.

Smith took it. “Yes, hello.” A pause, then, “Sorry, I can’t get to my phone. It’s on the property and I’m in Colorado recuperating. Doctor’s orders.” He winked.

Her fears of Rumer Gaston seemed like another life. He was not her nightmare monster, only an odious man with an overinflated ego.

“That’s generous,” Smith said, “but I’m not sure I’m up to the stress of the tables.”

“Gambling tables?” she whispered and Smith mouthed,
Black
Hawk.

Please don’t let him demand it. She had to finish this.

“I’m sorry. It’s just not possible.” He rolled his eyes. “Yes, as soon as I get word that we’re clear to proceed.” He nodded. “The moment I know something. Good-bye.” He handed the phone back to Bair, then rested his head back in the crook of his arm. “I could get used to this.”

Tessa startled.

“What?”

“My dad used to say that. I just remembered him standing outside with his arms spread wide, snow falling in his face, hollering, ‘I could get used to this!’ ” The image was heartbreakingly clear.

“Other memories are coming as well?”

“Maybe they’ve been trapped behind the other and as it corrodes they slip past.”

Firelight danced on his lenses as his gray eyes settled on her. “The good memories might cushion the difficult one.”

“Or make it that much harder.” She swallowed the dread. “Maybe I blocked the happy memories so the guilt wouldn’t crush me.”

“You can’t believe you’re guilty. Nothing you could have done at that age makes you culpable.”

She drew a ragged breath. “It feels like it, Smith.”

“Apply logic.”

“That from the man who just proposed marriage?”

He sighed. “That wasn’t any decent sort of proposal.”

“And now that you’ve applied logic?”

“I’d say it again.” He looked surprisingly sincere. “More elegantly.”

She shook her head. “How did we get into this mess?”

He threaded her fingers with his. “Think of it as a complicated path leading to a predetermined point at which something of value will be gained and brought back.”

Her jaw fell slack. “You get it.”

“Your explanation made perfect sense. If it’s a labyrinth, no matter how difficult, the way in also leads out.”

“So entering the memory will also provide a release.”

“I hope so. I pray it will.” Shifting more to his side, he settled her against his stomach, turning her so she could see his face. “I want this to work. I want you free to move forward, to let go of the fear and guilt. I meant what I said before about the Father’s love. I see your yearning.”