The Edge of Recall (24 page)

“And that is?” He caught up.

She didn’t have an easy answer. Closing him out would hurt. Not doing that would hurt more. She gripped herself in her arms. A moment later Smith’s jacket came around her shoulders. She said, “You’ll get soaked.”

“Do you think I care?”

“I don’t know, Smith. That’s the problem.” He’d meant it differently, but the words were out and she meant them, so she let them stay.

“I care, Tess. I don’t know how else to tell you.” He wiped the rain from the back of his neck. It was hardly more than a drizzle now. “I gave Bair the blazes for making you believe otherwise.”

“He didn’t make me believe anything.”

“Just dropped seeds of doubt into your verdant expectations of disappointment. Really, Tess, what chance do I have?”

She raised her eyes from the ground. “What chance do you want?”

“I’m open to possibilities. Are you?”

She searched his face. “Were you really worried?”

“What do you think? Besides the violent thunderstorm and the dense woods, our prankster is still out here. And I don’t know what his game is.”

She shivered. She hadn’t thought of that, hadn’t thought at all, just reacted. At some point, she would have to stop reacting and make conscious choices. She only hoped she could make the right ones.

CHAPTER

22

“I’m driving you back.” Smith left no room for argument, though Tessa didn’t mount much resistance.

“You’re overreacting.”

“So what if I am?” He set his jaw.

Her teeth chattered as he wrapped her in a thick blanket and tucked her into the passenger seat, not unlike the times he’d rescued Bair from equally unwise decisions. Tess maintained the position that she hadn’t required rescue. She had merely run for the woods in a lightning storm instead of joining them in the trailer. If she was that skittish, how could he make any of this work?

He got in and started the car, as annoyed with himself as with her. He had complicated an already tenuous situation, mixing business and personal matters, and had quite possibly compromised the project. Moreover, he’d endangered a consultant by creating a hostile environment she had avoided by exposing herself to hazardous weather conditions—a litigator’s dream. But that wasn’t the crux. The crux of it was letting down the people he cared about.

Smith gripped the wheel and backed out. Danae had temporarily derailed him, his lapse upsetting both Bair and Tessa. He couldn’t help that Bair couldn’t stand Danae, but now Tessa thought she would have to play second fiddle. Maybe it was still too soon to move on—except the feelings he had expressed to Tessa were real.

That was what he wanted her to know. His heart had nearly stopped when he’d seen the Bobcat standing empty in the field with lightning striking all around and rain pummeling the ground. He’d thought all kinds of awful things and nearly gone out of his head when her line kept going directly to message. Only by grace had he found her. And maybe that grace would help him now.

He believed, so help him, that they’d been brought together again for a reason, that it was bigger than either of their personal desires. He wanted her to know she mattered to him. But she had processed the emotions with someone else and returned to her dim view that nothing could ever be good and worthwhile. Why did Dr. Brenner allow her that dismal default position? To keep her dependent on him?

Smith scowled. He’d never done battle with someone’s psychiatrist, but he would if it came to it. He wanted Tessa to believe, to accept the possibility of happiness. Even if he wasn’t the one to give her that, he wanted her to know it was possible.

When they reached the inn, he said, “I’ll wait in the foyer while you shower and change. Then we can talk.”

“You’re as wet as I am.”

“But not muddy.”

She went up, unaware perhaps of the bedraggled state that made her look more vulnerable than ever. Foolishly, he imagined washing the mud from her hair, feeling the water stream through the tresses, the scented lather, his fingers stroking her scalp. He tried not to imagine the rest of her, clean and wet, and forcefully dragged his mind to the issues between them.

After a while, she came back downstairs fresh and dry, her hair temporarily and disappointingly controlled by a clip. She held out a bulky, faded sweatshirt.

“No offense, Tess, but I don’t think your clothes will fit me.”

“It’s my dad’s.”

“Your … dad’s.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “I keep it with me. And wear it sometimes.”

At a loss for words, he took the sweatshirt. His shirt had mostly dried as he’d waited, but he pulled on her father’s sweatshirt, soft and wooly inside from years of washing. “Thank you. Are you sure?”

She studied him. “It fits.”

“And it’s warm.” The gesture touched him because their relationship so far had been his reaching out and her reluctantly accepting. This was the first time she’d made an overture, and it exceeded expectation.

“I know it’s weird.”

“It’s not weird.”

She slanted him a look.

“Well, a slight degree on the weird scale. But more poignant. Touching, actually.”

She huffed a soft laugh. “Pretty soon you’ll be patting my head like a puppy.”

“I try to resist the vicinity of your head. Your hair has a deleterious effect on my self-control.”

“Bair said you have—”

“Do you think we might forget whatever Bair told you and let me speak for myself?”

“I suppose.” She folded her arms. “Could we do it over food?”

“Definitely.” He pressed open and held the door. “Anything in particular?”

“Crab cakes?”

“Brilliant. I know just the place.” He drove past small strings of homes, a couple churches and businesses and lots of woods to a whitewashed cinderblock building. The crumbling parking lot failed at the dock that reached out into the brackish waters where the Potomac joined Chesapeake Bay.

Tessa scrutinized the dubious edifice with neon beer signs in the windows and not one car in the lot. On this wet, stormy night, it hardly looked open. But it served the best crab cakes, fried softshell, and broiled flounder he and Bair had found—before Bair’s fixation with Katy had locked them into Ellie’s.

“Come on.” He ushered her toward the door. “The owner’s a waterman. What his wife cooks tonight, he caught in his nets this morning.”

Inside, a white-haired, ruddy-faced man in a ball cap cast them a blue-eyed stare as they took a place at one of the red cloth–covered tables. After a while he ambled over with menus, but Smith told him they’d have crab cakes and fries.

He nodded. “I like this date better than the last.” The owner headed for the kitchen with their orders.

Smith shot a glance across the table. “He means Bair.”

She nodded. “I assumed so.”

Would they ever reach a point where damage control wasn’t foremost in his mind? Only if she reached the point where disappointment wasn’t foremost in hers.

“Do you have other things of your dad’s?”

“Yes. Mom and I never got around to disposing of them.”

“Because he might come back?”

“We just liked having them.”

“And your mom’s things?”

She shrugged. “I only carry a piece or two when I’m going to be away awhile.”

Her vulnerability found the sensitive spot between his chest and abdomen. “They’re a comfort, then.”

“And a reminder. I like to think of her. Of them both. Even though Dad left.”

“You’re not bitter.”

“Mom made sure. She never showed me her anger. We worked through the hurt together. I guess I kept the disappointment, though.”

As with their conversation on the jet, she divulged personal matters with a self-effacing honesty that amazed and refreshed him. He reached over and took her hand. “I’ve never known anyone so transparent.”

“As a jellyfish.” She looked up. “And like jellyfish, I sting.”

“In self-defense. But you don’t have to protect yourself from me.”

She started to pull away, but he tightened his hold.

“I need you to know that even if Danae showed up on the doorstep, begging”—which she never would—“I wouldn’t want that relationship. Not any—”

The owner brought their plates to the table—golden crab cakes, shoestring fries, slaw, and a dinner roll so flaky it looked as though it might take wing. “Anything else?” He fixed his gaze on Tessa.

She met it with a smile. “This looks great.”

Smith thought so, too, but the man didn’t seek his opinion. With his attention firmly on Tessa, he waxed talkative. He’d been written up in a book about notable people in Maryland. Like his father and grandfather, he net-fished the waters off his pier, and his daily recordings of things caught and things seen had garnered the interest of the Smithsonian Institute.

Smith waited for the fisherman to finish his anecdote and walk away, then bowed his head. “For what we are about to receive, Lord, make us grateful. In communication, make us humble. In affection, generous. Amen.” He looked up to find tears in Tessa’s eyes and remarkably recognized them as good tears. “In two years, I never saw Danae cry.”

“Never made her cry?”

“That either—incredibly.”

A little pinch formed between her brows. “You must think I’m a faucet.”

“I prefer a leaky tap—unless I’m the cause. I like that things touch you and you’re not afraid to show when something matters. In all the time we were together, Danae only showed what she wanted me to see.”

“You must have liked what you saw.”

“As far as it went,” he conceded. “Then I hoped to see the real Danae, but maybe I had. Maybe she was all striving and surpassing.”

“What am I?”

He cocked his head. “There is a lot of reacting and retreating. But your self-knowledge and revelation intrigue me.”

She dug her fork into the crispy, golden crab cake, shooting steam up like a geyser.

In just that way words erupted from him. “I like seeing your delight, your excitement, even your distress, written across your face. Danae was a literary tome of hidden meaning.”

“And I’m crib notes?”

He looked into her face. “You’re the pulp novel I can’t put down even when I have to prop my eyelids open.”

Joy flashed in the corners of her eyes where the lashes came together and laugh lines would one day reveal these moments. He thought of her growing older and said, “I want to spend time with you, Tess. Lots of time. I can see spending my life with you.” He might be out of his mind, but this was the sanest he’d felt in a long time. “I know that sounds premature, but I won’t date anyone again that I can’t imagine growing old with.”

The worry returned to her brow. “Even if you mean that, it won’t last.”

“I’d like to show you it could.” Or shake her until she saw in herself what was so readily apparent to him. She might seem fragile and reactionary, but there was something solid and achingly real inside her. Maybe that was what he’d really been afraid of, but he wasn’t anymore.

He leaned in. “I’m so thankful you called last night, that you trusted me.”

She sipped her iced tea and set down the glass, but didn’t let go. “I’m trying to.”

“That’s all I ask.”

“Don’t you see how frustrated you’ll be? Look how angry you got today.”

“It’s true. I don’t remember the last time I shouted at someone. It was quite purgative actually.”

Amusement touched a finger to her mouth.

He spread his hand. “Maybe I need airing now and then. You’ll be good for me.”

“Someone to holler at?”

“It’s not my preferred mode.” He took a hearty bite of crispy, tender crab, savoring the buttery, aromatic flavor. “I regretted it almost immediately. Especially when I saw you’d disappeared.” Finding her soaked in the woods had torn him up. He couldn’t imagine
not
finding her. “Next time we fight, could you not go so far?”

“Next time?”

“Or in such inclement weather? Maybe we should only holler on clear days.”

“Fair-weather fighters?” She laced her hands and rested her chin.

“Quite. And I’d appreciate you talking to me before you call your shrink.”

“He hates that term.”

“As well he should. But head-shrinking in this instance seems appropriate. He wants to keep you in his box.”

“That’s not true.”

He thought it could be, but didn’t argue. “From now on, beat your fists on my chest.”

“You walked away.”

“I won’t do that again, no matter how irrational you become.”

She licked the salt from her lips, putting thoughts into his head. Well, why not? They had the place to themselves. He leaned across and kissed her. Salty and crabby and sweet. “I think, impossibly, I love you already.”

After an amicable evening together, Smith escorted her to the inn door. “If you don’t mind my taking the car, I’ll fetch you in the morning.”

She nodded, reluctant to go inside and spend another night where the monster had found her. “That’s fine.”

He cocked his head. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” She made it show in her face since he read her like a paperback.

“Well, then. See you in the morning.” He leaned in for a soft kiss that deepened only enough to express a desire to linger.