by Radclyffe
“Busy?” Ella called, somehow looking fashionable in jeans, ankle-high black boots, and a tan linen jacket over a white T-shirt. Her hair was caught back and clipped at the base of her neck, accentuating the long elegant lines of her face. Despite the heat, she looked cool and, as always, calmly confident.
“I suppose I should pretend to be doing something,” Tess said, motioning Ella up to the porch, “but all the pressing work is done and the heat is making me as lazy as my cows. How about you?”
“The crew has another day or two up there, and while the view is beautiful, I think I’ve had enough of it for a while. I was wondering if you’d like to have lunch?”
Tess’s immediate reaction was to say no, her usual response to personal invitations. But watching Ella watch her out of friendly eyes—beautiful eyes—Tess couldn’t think of a reason to say no and several to say yes. Ella had an openness about her that made Tess feel safe—and a directness that made her feel like Ella was totally focused on her. That she was beautiful was a bonus, and as Ella slowly smiled, Tess registered a warm stirring that was a pleasant surprise. Impulsively, she said, “Lunch would be great.” She hesitated, took a breath, and decided to be daring. Everything in her life was so carefully calculated and controlled—the farm budget, the milking-feeding-vetting schedule, the planting and harvesting schedule. For once, she wanted to just follow her urge. “In fact, if you’ve got time for more than just lunch, we could drive up to the lake. Ever been?”
“No,” Ella said, and the golden timbre of her voice was like honey rippling over Tess’s skin.
“My friend Leslie has been asking me to come up, and it might even be cooler up there. Of course, if you don’t—”
“I think it’s a great idea.” Ella glanced at her watch. “Let me make arrangements and we’ll go. Say, half an hour?”
Tess nodded, refusing to second-guess her decision. Ella awakened a spirit of adventure she’d lost, and Ella didn’t scare her deep down inside the way Clay did. She might lose herself to Clay, but Ella she could trust. The excitement felt good, and maybe she’d even be able to forget about those dark lumbering metal beasts tearing up her land, and the woman who’d brought them. “Yes. That would be perfect.”
*
“Kelly will stay on-site and drive you back when you’re finished,” Ella said, “if you’re good with that.”
Clay pulled off her navy ball cap and wiped her forehead on the sleeve of her once-white cotton shirt. Clean that morning, it was streaked with dirt, sweat, and machine oil. “I told you to take the day off—you didn’t even need to come over here this morning. Believe me, I’m safe from cows and wildlife. Besides, Kelly is more than enough help if I need any.”
Ella didn’t bother explaining for perhaps the five hundredth time that being out in the field, even a literal field, was infinitely preferable to sitting around a hotel or even a charming bed-and-breakfast, waiting for a meeting to end or a protectee to decide he or she wanted to go to a movie. She’d had plenty of that endless waiting during her time in the Secret Service. Part of what she liked about this job was the fluid schedule, and the chance to be where she wanted, when she wanted, as long as Clay had adequate protection. Once Kelly had arrived from New York City and Clay’d started working on Tess’s property, keeping watch over both Tess and Clay on the outside chance someone would try to threaten them was a simple matter. Tess rarely left the farm, and when she did it was usually for a quick trip to the Agway or the country store, and Kelly easily followed her at a distance. Ella, perched in one of the ATVs with her iPad, stayed with Clay. No one had seemed particularly interested in what the crew was doing on Tess’s farm, and nothing out of the ordinary had happened since Clay’s accident. Maybe it was just an accident and whoever had been involved had run off to avoid an entanglement with the law. Maybe. But Ella was paid to be suspicious and on guard, and she couldn’t risk another incident in which Clay or Tess might be injured.
“I should be back by this evening,” Ella said. “If—”
“It’s your day off,” Clay said again. “You don’t need to be back until tomorrow morning.” She grinned. “In fact, if I were you, I’d try very hard not to be back until lunch tomorrow. I hope you’ve got something more interesting planned than watching them set up for the balloon festival in the morning.”
Ella smiled. “Actually, I’m getting a guided tour of Lake George.”
Clay’s expression shuttered closed. “Oh? Who’s the guide?”
“Tess,” Ella said.
“Tess.” Clay glanced from Ella down the hillside toward the farmhouse. A few seconds passed, and Clay jumped into the cab of a small backhoe they used to clear scrub before taking a core sample. “Well, she’ll be a great guide.”
“I didn’t think that would be a problem,” Ella said slowly, keeping her voice down so those around them wouldn’t hear. The day after Clay and Tess had had dinner, Clay had explained they’d known each other in the past but hadn’t kept in touch. She’d made it sound as if they were old friends and nothing more, and Ella had been glad. They were likely to be here three or four months, and Tess was intriguing. “Because if I’m misreading—”
A muscle in Clay’s jaw jumped. “Ella, you asked Tess out. Presumably, she said yes.”
“That’s right.”
“Then that’s between the two of you, isn’t it.”
Ella respected Clay, more than respected her, liked her very much, and there was more to the story than Clay had told her. All the same, she had no reason not to take Clay at her word, that Clay and Tess had no current relationship. “Okay. I’ll have my cell if you need me. Kelly will—”
“Go, Ella.” Clay started the engine, the grinding gears nearly obscuring her words. “I’m fine.”
Ella didn’t argue. She wanted to spend time with Tess and didn’t think she was mistaken about the interest she’d seen in Tess’s eyes.
Chapter Eighteen
Tess ended the call and slid the phone into the pocket of her blue and yellow plaid shorts. “Leslie said they’re at her parents’ lodge—about five miles up on the right. Her parents are out of town for the weekend, and Leslie and Dev are watching the place. You’re sure this is okay?”
“It’s beautiful up here,” Ella said, smiling over at Tess. “I can’t believe how undeveloped it still is. And I’m looking forward to meeting your friends.”
Tess looked out the window as Ella drove north on the twisting two-lane road skirting the west side of the lake. Once past the village of Lake George proper, bordering the extreme southern end of the thirty-six-mile-long lake, the tourist areas quickly gave way to less crowded stretches of lakeside homes, cottages, and lodges. Intermittent breaks in the pine forest allowed teasing glimpses of the wide lake with its deep blue waters and hundreds of islands. The temperature was easily fifteen degrees cooler than it had been at home, and the air smelled of wind, water, and pine. Tess’s heart ached at the timeless familiarity. “It never seems to change.”
Ella glanced away from the road for a second, her gaze sliding over Tess with gentle warmth. “Do you spend a lot of time up here?”
“I worked at Leslie’s parents’ most of one summer,” Tess said. “The place we’re going now.”
“Did you live there too?”
“Yes, along with a couple of other girls. We’d just graduated from high school. It was pretty exciting at the time.”
“I can imagine. Just out of school, alone in a place like this—oh yeah.”
“You sound like you would have enjoyed it.” Tess grinned.
Ella’s expression changed and the calm composure drifted into sadness. “I probably would have. My father died suddenly the summer after high school, so I don’t remember a whole lot before I finally looked around and I was in college.”
“Oh, Ella. I’m so sorry.” She brushed Ella’s bare arm. “That’s so hard.”
“Thanks. It was pretty awful—he was a great guy, a fireman. It was on the job—”
Ella cleared her throat and her features lightened as she breathed in slowly. “I was lucky to have had him for a dad.”
Waiting for the sadness to drift away on the breeze, Tess finally said, “Well, I was a little too green to really take advantage of being up here, and working too damn hard, but I managed.”
Ella laughed softy. “Is this where you met Clay?”
Tess tensed. Ella was very perceptive and maybe Clay had told her more about their past than she thought. “Yes. How did you know?”
“Just a guess. Clay doesn’t talk very much about her past, but I know once she graduated from Stanford, she hit the ground running with NorthAm. I don’t think she’s stopped for a real vacation since.” Ella slowed for a long line of motorcycles pulling out of a roadside tavern. “Since the company doesn’t have any interests up this way—or didn’t use to—I just assumed she’d met you during college.”
“Before that. Right before…she left.”
“You two do go back a ways.”
“So long ago, I don’t really know her anymore.” Tess tried to keep her tone light. She didn’t want to discuss Clay or the past with Clay’s colleague. Especially this afternoon, when what she wanted to do most was escape the activity up on the hill behind the house and the constant wondering if one of the figures etched against the sky was Clay.
“I suppose none of us really changes too much, do we?”
“I hope you’re wrong.” Tess smiled wryly. “I hate to think I’ll keep repeating my mistakes.”
“I don’t think we’re destined to repeat ourselves over and over again, but who we are at the core?” Ella shrugged. “I’m not sure we can do much about that except maybe make better choices when faced with similar situations.”
“I like your optimism.”
Ella shot her a smile. “Good.”
Tess studied Ella as she drove. She appeared relaxed behind the wheel but was so clearly aware of everything around her. In control, she radiated strength. Everything about her was attractive. Tess recognized her attraction and sensed Ella’s interest. What she wasn’t sure of was what she wanted to do about it. “You should know I don’t have any real experience dating.”
Ella’s brow lifted and she glanced in Tess’s direction. “I find that pretty hard to believe.”
“Why?”
“I would have thought you’d been on plenty of dates. You’re smart and interesting and quite beautiful.”
Tess laughed softly. “I was thinking something very similar about you.”
“Thank you,” Ella said quietly, her eyes on the twisting road again. “But having established that you’re not a big dater, are you uncomfortable?”
“I’m only uncomfortable because I’m not more uncomfortable.”
Ella grinned. “I don’t usually make women uncomfortable—at least I don’t think I do.” She reached across the console and took Tess’s hand. “And I certainly don’t want to make you uncomfortable. So if I do, just say so.”
Tess looked down at their linked fingers. Except for brief exchanges with friends a lifetime ago, she’d never held anyone’s hand but Clay’s. Ella’s hands were different than Clay’s. Her fingers were longer, slimmer, but just as strong. Just the week before, she’d held Clay’s hand in the restaurant. Her skin didn’t tingle now the way it had when Clay touched her, but Ella’s hand was warm and gentle and confident, like her. Tess tightened her fingers through Ella’s. “All right.”
“All right, what?”
Tess laughed. “All right, I’ll tell you if something makes me uncomfortable.”
Ella drew their joined hands onto her thigh and held them there as she drove. She nodded. “That sounds like a perfect plan.”
*
“We don’t have to stay,” Ella said softly.
Tess stared at the lodge, frozen on the front seat of the SUV. Lost in time. She was seventeen again, on her own, out of place, unsure of her welcome. She gazed down the long slope to the lake, where the huge two-story boathouse with its big square windows opened wide reigned over the beach, and she was there on the dock in the moonlight, waiting for Clay. Anticipation and excitement made her giddy. The roar of a motorcycle engine set her heart racing. She looked past the log lodge and its wraparound porch to the cabins nestled in the woods and heard Clay come in behind her while she cleaned. They’d tumbled onto the just-made bed and she’d let Clay—
“Tess!” Leslie raced across the porch, her smile electric. The door behind her opened and Dev, older, more handsome than Tess remembered, followed Leslie with a welcoming smile on her face.
“You all right?” Ella murmured.
“Yes,” Tess said and stepped out. The scent of the water, the cool fingers of breeze trailing over her skin, the glint of sun on the lake’s surface were so familiar, she half expected to turn and see Clay coming down the twisting drive on her motorcycle. Her heart ached at the memory. And then Leslie was down the stairs, calling her name again, arms open for a hug.
Ella stepped up beside her and Tess took her hand. Ella squeezed her fingers, and the past disappeared.
*
“She seems very nice.” Leslie stood next to Tess at the railing an hour after lunch.
“She is,” Tess said, watching Dev and Ella tinker with the outboard motor on one of the boats moored at the long dock next to the boathouse. “Thanks for letting us barge in on your day.”
“I couldn’t be happier.” Leslie squeezed Tess’s shoulder. “I wasn’t sure you’d ever come for a visit.”
Tess tightened her hold on the railing, struggling to keep the past from invading the present. While the four of them had sat around a picnic table under the trees sharing the sandwiches she and Leslie had thrown together in the big kitchen in the lodge, she’d let the easy conversation sweep her along like a boat drifting in the current. “I didn’t think I would, either, but I’m glad that I did. I had some great times here, and it’s nice to remember that.” She turned, rested her shoulder against the thick porch post hewn from a massive pine, and smiled at Leslie. “You were one of my best friends. Probably my best friend. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you that summer.”
“God, we were young.”
Tess nodded. “We were. So many changes, so fast. Everything so intense.”
“Everything got so crazy at the end,” Leslie murmured, a distant expression on her face as her eyes followed Dev.
Tess had the feeling Leslie wasn’t seeing Dev the way she looked now, tall and tanned and strong and laughing, but the lanky, dark-eyed brooding girl she’d been.
“What happened after I left that summer?” Tess asked.
“I made a colossal mistake,” Leslie said, her eyes brimming with pain, “and I hurt Dev terribly.” She smiled wryly. “One of the major miracles in my life is that she forgave me, and somehow we found our way back to each other.”
“From the way she looks at you,” Tess said gently, “I don’t think she ever went very far away.”
“Maybe not, but we lost a lot of years that I wish I could get back.” Leslie sighed. “But maybe everything happened when it was supposed to.”
“Do you believe in fate?”
“I don’t know,” Leslie said. “I believe in the connections that we make, and the strength of those bonds to persist over time, maybe even beyond time.”
“I wonder what it would’ve been like if I hadn’t gone back to the farm and you hadn’t gone away to school, and Dev and Clay hadn’t disappeared.”
“Maybe we’d be at the same place,” Leslie said. “Or maybe we’d be completely different people.” She paused. “Why did you leave?”
“It all seems so much less earth-shattering now,” Tess said, shaking her head. “Ray—my stepfather—showed up late that afternoon, the day of the party, and said I had to go home. He needed me on the farm. That I had to get my things and leave right then.”
Leslie’s eyes narrowed. “Did he say why it was so urgent?”
“No. I was
n’t used to going against him—never really had.” Tess took a long breath. “And I couldn’t reach Clay. She was supposed to come for me—we had a date—but she was late. I had her phone number, although I’d never called it. She always was the one to set the time and place where we would meet. If I’d been a little less naïve, I might have questioned that. The whole time I was packing to leave here, I kept calling and calling, but she never answered. For days after—” Tess shook her head. “Well. Clay dropped out of sight, and I went home to the farm. I knew you were set to go away to college, and I was just so lost I just—”
“Hey, I get it,” Leslie said gently. “Things were falling apart up here too. Talk about a perfect storm of massive proportions all the way around. But we survived, right?”
Tess shook off the melancholy as Ella turned, looked up the slope toward the lodge, and waved. Tess waved back. The sun slanted through the trees and painted the lawn and lake in glimmering gold. The air vibrated with life, and Tess remembered all the things she loved about this place. She grinned at Leslie. “We did survive, didn’t we.”
“And I’m really glad you’re here,” Leslie said.
“So am I.”
“Hey,” Ella called, standing hipshot with one hand covering her eyes, “everything is in working order down here. Are you ready for a ride?”
“Yes,” Tess called down, and she was ready, finally, to take the past back too. So much of what she’d loved had been buried in pain and loss, and she wanted it back. She’d taken back her dreams of the farm, even when everyone said she would fail, and now she was going to take back the memories of the good times she’d let die with her dreams.
“Tess?” Leslie asked. “Are you coming?”
