Open Arms (7 page)

She glanced up at the faces all watching her intently. She smiled.

“You’re quite right, Jake,” she said to the tall man with the dark hair and the massive shoulders. “You did see a wolf.”

“Yeah, I thought so. I saw it pretty clearly.”

“OK, so. What does this mean?” Phil asked.

Kimana shrugged. “For all of you? Nothing much, I imagine. I mean, it
is
a bit surprising for the wolf to come right up to the stables and the Big House like this, but it’s not totally unheard of or crazy behavior. Probably new to the area and checking it out and got curious about the horses and the lights and cabins. But I can’t see any danger to anyone around here.” She looked at the tracks in the snow, leading away and up the path to the Rockies. “Long gone, I expect.”

“And for you?” Mattie asked.

“Me?”

“Yes, hon. What does it mean for you? For your work. Your mission.”

Kimana was surprised at both the question and the interest. This woman was so gentle, and those amazing silver eyes just glowed with inner light. She studied the woman’s open, kind face and decided that she liked Mattie very much.

“Well, I’m not sure yet. I’ve spent years trying to get a growing wolf population here in Colorado. Maybe it’s finally happening.”

They all nodded; Phil looked pleased. He knew just how much this meant to her.

“So, I’ll just follow these tracks for a bit, see if maybe I can get a sense of where the wolf went.”

“Do you want us to come with you?” Jake asked.

“No, thank you. I do better on my own.”

“You mean, we’re too damn noisy to take tracking.”

Kimana laughed. “Well. Are you?”

Jake and Phil grinned, a bit sheepish.

“Oh, yeah. For sure.” Jake looked down at his massive work boots, knew that any animal would hear him coming a mile away. “I wouldn’t be very helpful.”

“OK, then,” Mattie said. “You go do what you need to do, then you come on back here for something hot to eat and drink.”

“Oh, Mattie, there’s no need –”

“There is
every
need, honey. You go in to the main building when you’re done, and ask the reception staff to show you to the restaurant. I’ll make sure they know you’re coming.”

Kimana thought about the contents of her wallet. She didn’t think she had more than thirty dollars in there, and it had to last until the end of the week. How much would a meal cost in a place like this?

As if hearing her thoughts, Phil said, “Julie made it clear to me after the meeting this morning that your meal is her treat, as a thank you for coming all the way out here. She also inquired about your fee. Have you got a number in mind?”

Kimana was startled. It had never occurred to her to
charge
for her time or help. Protecting and helping wolves was her passion, her life blood, her spirit. To just be close to one here in Clarity was a joy and an honor and a privilege.
You don’t charge money for joy and honor and privilege.

“I won’t ask a fee, and decline with thanks,” she said. “But I will be happy to accept a cup of coffee and a bowl of soup.”

“Maybe some pasta?” Jake said.

“Maybe.” She smiled at him, admiring his cheekbones and curved mouth.
What a gorgeous man
.

“Well, that’s fine then,” Mattie said. “So, you go and find your wolf. We’ll see you later.”

Kimana unwrapped her bright scarf and handed it to Mattie. “You mind taking that for me?” She pulled a brown one from her small backpack and tied it around her neck, concealing her lower face against the chill and the wind. “OK, I’m ready.”

The others watched her walk away through the knee-high snow, towards the foot of the mountains.

Jake turned to Phil. “She’s great, man. How do you know her?”

“Oh, I’ve known her a while, through friends in my support group,” Phil said. “She’s got wolves on the brain, they told me, but she’s really just passionate about them.”

The wind picked up again and Mattie shivered. Jake looked at her with concern. At almost sixty-three years of age, Mathilda Velasquez was one of the most vibrant and wisest people he had ever known – but she was starting to slow down. Jake knew her hands hurt sometimes, and her knees didn’t support her as well as they had when he first met her seven years earlier. Her eyes, though. Those calm, silver eyes still gazed out of her lined face with humor and love and warmth.

He threaded her arm through his and she smiled. “Are you going to escort me back to the stables, young sir?”

He tipped an imaginary hat. “Indeed, ma’am.”

Phil grinned and the three of them went off through the snow. The horses were waiting for a bit of exercise before lunchtime, and it was time to give them some attention.
**
Julie and Jake were in the restaurant eating lunch and waiting for Kimana to return. Julie turned to him.

“So Tammy went in to town alone today.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You know, I really think she may be getting there. She may be OK in the end.”

Jake smiled at her. “Time, baby. More often than not, it’s all about time.”

She fiddled with her salad. “I guess.”

Jake studied her; he knew her every expression now, and she wasn’t totally relaxed and sure about what she was saying.
Do I push?

She raised her eyes and met his, and she knew that he saw her disquiet. “The thing is, Jake… she hasn’t remembered yet. She doesn’t remember what happened in the alley.” She looked out the window. “That worries me. A lot.”

Jake leaned back and thought about that. Yeah, maybe Julie had a point there. Tammy didn’t have the full memory of the brutal attack, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t lurking around in there somewhere, biding its time, waiting to burst out, unexpectedly. And when that happened, what then? Did Tammy go back to zero, in terms of the progress she had made? What if she saw the man’s face? She would be haunted by it, he imagined.

“When it all comes back to her,” Julie said. “It’ll be awful. But it
needs
to all come back to her, I think. She wants it to come back, even.”

“She does?” Jake asked.

“Yeah. The night she stayed at my place, we were talking, and she said that she
wants
to remember the guy. She wants to help the police catch him, Jake, and right now, she can’t offer anything. She’s angry and upset that he’s still out there, maybe hurting other people, and that maybe his face is locked away in her memory.” Julie shrugged. “She was talking about hypnosis. To help her get the memory back.”

“Really?” Jake was surprised. He thought of hypnosis as a scam of some kind, on the same level as fortune tellers and palm readers and those women who had late-night TV ads offering to tell your future by telephone for five bucks a minute.

“Yeah. But I think it’s about more than helping the police catch the guy.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you don’t know Tammy that well,” Julie said. “But the thing about her is that she likes to be able to choose for herself. OK, most of her choices have been…. ummm… not great. I mean, her decisions about school and work and most especially about guys. But she knows that, see. She
knows
that it was her call in the end, and so she takes all the consequences and fallout and responsibility. She never pins what happens to her on anyone else.”

“OK.”

“That’s why she’s struggling so hard with this, I think. She believes – way deep down – that something she did or said got her beaten up.”

“But that’s ridiculous. No way she did anything to deserve what happened!”

“I know. And she knows that she didn’t
deserve
it – but she does think that something she did
caused
it. See the difference?”

“I guess so. Yeah.”

Julie sighed. “That’s Tammy. That’s Tammy, all over. She wants to be the one who chooses and has some control. And so if she goes for hypnosis and a doctor manages to retrieve the memory? It would be like – like Tammy was the one who controlled when it all came back to her. She didn’t just sit around and wait for it to happen. It didn’t just – just spring out on her while she was at work or driving or sleeping. You know? No ambush.”

Jake thought about that. “Well. Actually, it’s not a terrible idea. I mean, she’d be somewhere safe with a trained professional who could be there after, when she remembered. You’d be there for her.”

“The fact is that it will come back to her at some point. Maybe in an hour, maybe in ten years. Nobody knows and nobody can predict. But if she actively calls it all back? She still feels in control, to an extent. Though I have no idea what might happen after.”

“So you really think she’s going to do it? Get hypnotized?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. She’s starting to think about it more and more. It’s because she’s doing better. She’s getting stronger. And I think she feels she can handle knowing the whole story.”

Jake took her small hand in his large one. “And do you think she’s strong enough? She’s ready?”

“I have no idea,” Julie said. “But in the end, it’s not up to me. Tammy will either remember on her own, or she may ask for help remembering. My job is to be there, either way. When the time comes.”
**
Tammy hummed as she parked the pickup in the Open Skies parking lot. Her shopping trip to Clarity had been a success, in her humble opinion. She had found a few cute t-shirts on sale, and scooped them up. They were snug on her small breasts and clung to her slim curves; she wondered if Rob would notice her in the purple one – it was the exact color of her eyes.

She gathered up the bags, stepped out of the truck, locked the door. She turned, her mind on what Manny had made for lunch, and stopped dead in her tracks.

A wolf – it
had
to be the same one, right? – was sitting just beside the main building, and it was watching her. It was huge, gray, long and muscled. A powerful body, strong limbs. The animal was staring at her intently.

She screamed, dropped the bags, fumbled for the keys, dropped those too. She didn’t want to take her eyes off the wolf, but she had no choice: she bent down for two seconds, found the keys, stood up again, struggled to get them in to the truck door. She felt panic rising in her chest and her hands shook.

Finally,
finally
. The key slid in to the lock and she turned it frantically. She swung the door open and climbed in, banging her elbow on the steering wheel. She slammed the door. Looked out at the wolf.

It was just sitting there, watching her. It hadn’t moved an inch the whole time she was screaming and freaking out and generally losing her damn mind. Tammy tried to catch her breath as she stared right back at the animal.
What the hell is it doing?

Time stood still for a few more seconds as they gazed at each other. Then the wolf stood up, stretched, and ambled away towards the mountains, as casually as a person wandering out the door of their favourite café. Tammy watched it go in rising confusion. Hadn’t Kimana said that it was probably long gone? What was the thing
doing
, hanging around the ranch and hotel? Around all these people and cars?

Well, no way was she climbing out alone, not with that giant beast roaming free. She pressed her open palm on the horn and held it there for a few seconds. Then she did it again, and again.

The door to the main building opened and she saw a blond head poke out and look her way.
Rob. Oh, thank God.

Rob stared across the back parking lot in confusion: why was Tammy sitting in the truck honking the horn? Then he saw her face – white, terrified – and he ran across the snow and ice to her.

She opened the door. “The wolf. It was right here!” With a shaking finger, she pointed to where it had sat.

Rob glanced over, saw the massive footprints in the snow. “Oh, God. Are you OK?”

She nodded, then shook her head.

Rob carefully reached in to the truck, grasped her around her waist. “Come here. I’ve got you.”

A soft sob left her as she allowed herself to be lifted down. Her feet touched the ground and her legs shook beneath her. Rob wrapped his arms around her, pulled her in close and tight.

Tammy closed her eyes and held on to him. His body was the most amazing thing she’d ever touched: warm and strong and gentle. She loved being where she was, pressed up against him, his lips so close, his breath on her hair. She took a deep, shuddering breath and felt her body relax, turn soft and pliant in his embrace.

Rob stroked her long black hair, murmured comforting words, all the while keeping an eye out for the wolf. Why had it come back? And why was it all the way up here now, far from the horses? Why would an animal
want
to be so close to people, especially during the day?

He held on to Tammy until the shaking lessened, and then he gently held her body away from his, his eyes assessing her for damage. She looked right back at him, wishing that he’d kiss her until her breath was ragged and harsh, until her knees gave out and he carried her to a bed and pinned her down with his body. She felt her centre moisten at the thought of his fingers on her breasts and thighs, at the thought of him rising above her, plunging in to her, filling her with his hardness.

Rob’s gaze travelled up and down her stunning face, noting the faded bruises –
they’re almost gone now
– and her teary eyes and trembling lips. He focused on her mouth, wondering how it would taste. She’d be sweet, he thought; sweet and hot. His cock twitched and to his horror, he found himself getting hard right in front of her.

He stepped back from her now, trying to keep some degree of control. Tammy noticed that her body didn’t like to be farther away from his; she felt cold and small and alone without his arms around her. But it was clear she was just a friend to him, and he was offering comfort and safety. Not anything else.

She tried to smile, and he smiled back. “Let’s get you inside, OK?”

“OK,” she said.

He picked up the shopping bags and put his other arm around her shoulders. “How about a shot of whiskey?”