The Stranger and Tessa Jones

by Christine Rimmer

  No. The screaming had only been inside his mind.

  And then he remembered: This was the woman who had saved him…

  He lifted his head, straining, off the sweat-drenched pillow, and whispered her name on a rough husk of breath, “Tessa,” as she came to him.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she promised in a gentle whisper.

  He felt her cool hand on his sweaty brow, drank in her soothing voice. It wasn’t enough. He came up off the pillow again and grabbed for her, needing the feel of her, the living reality of her.

  The warmth.

  The softness and the strength. He wrapped his arms hard around her, buried his face against her sweet-smelling throat.

  She didn’t resist him, didn’t try to pull away. She only stroked his back and let him hold her way too tight and whispered, again, “Okay. It’s okay…”

  He was breathing like he’d just run a damn marathon, his sore ribs aching as he gulped in air. The sweat poured off him.

  “You’re okay. You’re safe,” she whispered. “You’re here. In my house. Safe…” In spite of his powerful grip on her, she managed to reach out and turn on the lamp.

  Still struggling to catch his breath, he blinked against the sudden brightness. But then, in no time, his breathing began to even out and his eyes adjusted to the light. He shifted his hold to her sweet face and cradled it between his palms. He stared hard into her beautiful eyes.

  “It’s okay,” she promised him, meeting his gaze without wavering, seeming to will him to trust her. To believe. “It’s all right. All right…”

  Slowly, he came back to himself—whoever that self was. He released her. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to grab you. So damn sorry…”

  She only plumped the pillows against the headboard for him. And then she poured him fresh water from the pitcher. He drank. She took the glass when he was finished and set it back on the nightstand.

  “Better?”

  He nodded. “I was dreaming. It was a nightmare, that’s all.”

  “A nightmare about…?”

  He tried to remember, but it was pointless. “I have no idea. I heard a woman screaming. And then someone shouting. It woke me up, the shouting. Then I realized the shouting was coming from me.”

  “What else?”

  “Nothing. That’s it. That’s…all.”

  She asked, so gently, “Who are you, really?”

  Her question was the toughest one, the one that brought pain. He waited for the ice pick to go to work on his brain. But there was nothing. Only emptiness.

  His own life was lost to him. He wished he had an answer for her. And for himself.

  She prompted, “Do you know who you are?”

  He opened his mouth to lie, to remind her that his name was Bill and yeah, damn right he knew who he was. But then he realized he couldn’t do it. It seemed…wrong, somehow. Disrespectful. To keep on trying to hide the truth from her. If not for her, he’d be curled up in a snowbank somewhere. Dead.

  He confessed, “I have no clue who I am. Or where I came from.”

  She made a low sound of sympathetic distress, a world of kindness and understanding shining in her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be. You, of all people, have nothing to be sorry about.” He clasped her shoulder, thinking again how much he liked touching her. “Bill, okay? I’m serious. Let me be Bill. I’ll be a better Bill than that other fool. I swear it. I would never leave you at the altar.”

  She frowned, clearly confused. “The altar? Bill Toomey didn’t leave me at the altar.”

  Maybe it hurt her too much to admit it. He back-pedaled. “Well. Okay. I must have, er, misunderstood.”

  “Misunderstood what?”

  “Tessa. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Well, yeah. It does. I want to know where you got the idea that Bill and I were engaged.”

  “Out in the snow. When you were breaking the dishes? You talked about ‘the wedding,’ how Bill had promised you he’d be there for the wedding.”

  A low laugh escaped her. “Oh, that.”

  “Yeah,” he said gruffly. “That.”

  “I meant the wedding of a friend of mine. Bill promised he’d come to town for it. It’s Saturday, the twenty-sixth, two weeks from today.”

  “Saturday.” So strange. Not even to know what day it was. “It’s Saturday, today?”

  “That’s right. Saturday the twelfth.”

  “Of?”

  She gave him one of those looks of hers—a look of sweet and tender understanding. “January.”

  “Well, all right. And so your friend’s having herself a winter wedding?”

  “Uh-huh. Tawny—Tawny Riggins, my friend and my second cousin by marriage—always wanted a January wedding, even though everyone kept telling her she was crazy, that bad weather could ruin it. But Parker Montgomery, her fiancée, who also happens to be a second cousin by marriage, only a different marriage…” Her voice trailed off. She slanted him a look. “Sorry.”

  “What for?”

  “More information than you could possibly have needed or wanted.”

  “Did I say that?”

  She shrugged. “No. You were being polite.”

  “Not so. I’m hanging on every word.”

  She laughed. “Oh, I’ll bet.”

  “Honest truth.”

  “It’s only…small towns, you know. Everybody’s related to everyone else. Anyway, it’ll be a winter wedding and Bill said he would be my date for it.”

  “So it’s not as bad as I thought, then.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “The idiot didn’t jilt you.”

  “No. He only dumped me. But I broke half the dishes he gave me. That really helped me put things in perspective. I’m so over him.” She laughed. “All of a sudden, I can’t even remember his name.”

  “Wait a minute. The fool gave you…dishes?”

  “Oh, yeah. FestiveWare, it’s called. It comes in all these great colors, used to be popular back in the nineteen-twenties and thirties. They started making it again in the nineties. I told him I always wanted a place setting in every color. So he bought them for me. I was thrilled at the time. That was when our love was new, you might say.”

  “Back when you could still remember his name, you mean?”

  “That’s right, during the first week we spent together, when I went to Napa to tour the wine country last summer.”

  “And Bill drove the tour bus…”

  “I’ve gotta say. Your memory is certainly crystal clear on the subject of…what was his name again?”

  He grinned. “You, in the snow, throwing dishes. That, I’ll always remember. Every plate you threw, every word you said.”

  “Great.” She sounded resigned.

  “Tell me the rest.”

  “The rest of what?”

  “Well, how did you find out about the showgirl?”

  “Seriously, you do not need to know.”

  “I do,” he insisted. “Tell me.”

  “You should be resting.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Oh, fine.” She wrinkled her nose. “A letter. He broke up with me in a letter. I suppose I should count my blessings. At least he didn’t do it by e-mail.”

  “You got the letter today, then?”

  She nodded. “I heard the storm was coming in, so I closed up my store—I own a shop on Main Street—and I picked up my mail at the post office and I came home. I’d seen the letter in the stack and I was all excited, looking forward to hearing from him-whose-name-I-can’t-recall. I sat at my kitchen table and put the bills and junk mail aside. And read the letter. After I read it, I burned it. Then I got the dishes he gave me and lugged them out into the snow…and the rest, you know. I suppose you might say I kind of lost it, went a little crazy, when I read that letter.”

  “A little?”

  “Okay. It was more than a little. I went crazy…a lot.”

  “Luckily, though, you’re past all that now
.”

  “I am. It’s a miracle. My broken heart is totally mended.”

  “So call me Bill. Take me to the wedding of Tawny and Parker. After all, you did tell everyone that I was coming…”

  She laughed. And then she grew serious. Gently, she reminded him, “We just met. You’re not well. And two weeks is…a long time from now.”

  He couldn’t argue with that one. “Fair enough. For now, I’ll be satisfied if you’ll just call me Bill.”

  “Bill,” she said. “All right. Bill.” When she looked at him like that, he thought that being some guy named Bill wouldn’t be half-bad. “Tell me,” she coaxed, “I mean, if you feel up to it. Tell me what you do know. What you remember…about your life. About yourself.”

  “That’ll be over nice and quick.”

  “I would like to know.” The bulldog, which had been sitting in the doorway until then, lumbered over. Tessa bent and scratched its wrinkled head. “Unless you’re too tired…”

  He couldn’t refuse her. “I’m okay. Really.” She was, after all, his hero, the one who had saved him from certain death. “I remember riding in a big rig down Highway 49. That was today, some time before noon…” He shared what little he had to call memory—the ride into North Magdalene, the driver who tried to help him, the trek through town and along the highway to the tree-shaded road that led to her house. As he’d predicted, it took hardly any time to tell: the sum of his life, all he could recall of it, in a few sorry sentences. At the end, he shrugged. “The rest you know better than I do.”

  She laid her palm, as she had twice before, along the side of his face. “It will be okay. You’ll see. It will all work out.” She spoke fervently.

  He put his hand over hers. “Whatever happened to me before this, I finally got lucky. I found you.” Okay, it sounded sappy as hell. But too bad. It was the truth.

  Tessa gazed at him so tenderly—or she did until she seemed to catch herself. She pulled her hand away, sat back from him a little and cleared her throat. He knew she was striving for just the right words—words that wouldn’t hurt his feelings, but would make it clear she wasn’t interested in getting anything romantic going with him.

  He changed the subject before she found a way to tell that lie. “Two things I want now. Don’t say I can’t have them.”

  “Well, that depends,” she said, all brisk and business-like, “on what they are.”

  “Solid food.”

  A tight, careful smile. “I can do that.”

  “And even before food, I really need a shower—and don’t give me that look.”

  “What look?”

  “Doubtful. Worried. I can hack a shower.”

  “Your bandages…”

  “A bath, then. I can be careful of my knees and my head. I mean, if you’ve got a tub…” The bathroom he’d used earlier only had a shower stall.

  “There’s a tub in the hall bath.” She still looked unsure. But then she sighed. “I suppose if your bandages get wet, we can just change them.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And I’ve got some sweats that are a little too big for me. They might fit you, or close enough. And some wool socks left here by…never mind.”

  “You’re blushing.”

  “I am not.”

  He teased, “I want to know all your secrets, Tessa Jones.”

  She made a humphing sound. “Only if you tell me yours.”

  “Too bad I don’t have any—at least, none I can remember.”

  She gazed at him so intently. “It’ll come back, your memory. In time. You’ll see.”

  He liked her simple faith in positive outcomes. She made him think of those bumper stickers that commanded, Expect a miracle. Only she was the miracle.

  “A bath,” he said again. “Please.”

  “All right. If you really think you have to…”

  She gave him a stack of stuff to take in there with him: the sweats, the socks, a toothbrush, toothpaste. “There are clean towels on the rack and shampoo and soap in the cabinet.” She even offered one of her pink disposable razors and a can of feminine shaving cream. He took it all with a grateful smile.

  Once the tub was full, he sank into it with a long sigh, careful to keep his bandaged knees above the water. He could have stayed in there forever, soaking his aches and pains away. But his stomach kept complaining. He needed food. So he washed and got out and shaved with the razor she’d given him, lathering with her shave cream that smelled like tropical flowers. He brushed his teeth and put on the sweats, which fit well enough, although given a choice, he would have gone for something that wasn’t light purple. The socks—whoever they’d once belonged to—were thick and warm.

  And the bandage on his forehead was coming loose. He pried it off the rest of the way and studied the injury in the medicine cabinet mirror. It wasn’t pretty. It also wasn’t bleeding anymore, so he figured he’d just go without a bandage for now.

  In the kitchen, she told him he looked fabulous in lilac. She took his boxers to wash, disappearing downstairs to start a load. When she came back up, she checked the wound and agreed it was probably okay to leave it uncovered. She gave him half a roast beef sandwich. He wolfed it down and she passed him the other half. And an apple. And a tall glass of milk.

  By then, he was tired again. But he was also enjoying himself. A lot. He was warm and his stomach was full. His headache seemed to have taken a break. Sitting there with her at her kitchen table…well, he couldn’t think of anywhere else he would rather be.

  True, he didn’t have a lot to compare the moment to, given that he couldn’t recall being very many places: the highway known as 49, the town called North Magdalene and this small, plain house of hers. They were his whole life, as of now. They were all he knew, all he’d ever known.

  It was damn scary.

  But when he looked across the table at her, all he could think was that he never would have met her—if whatever had happened to him hadn’t happened. That seemed impossible, not to have met Tessa Jones. Impossible and wrong.

  From where he sat, he could see most of her great room. The bulldog was asleep on a rag rug a few feet from the woodstove. There was a white cat on the sofa. An old-fashioned clock on the rough mantel over the stove chimed midnight, softly. He’d known her for almost twelve hours. It was forever. It was his whole life.

  She left him to go down to the basement and move the load of laundry to the dryer.

  “You’re drooping in that chair,” she said, when she came back up.

  “Sit down.”

  She shook her head, but she did sit.

  He asked, “What’s the dog’s name?”

  “Mona Lou.”

  “And the cat?”

  “Gigi.”

  “Tell me about your family.”

  “Bill, did you hear me? You should go back to bed.”

  “I will. In a while. Are your parents still alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “Still married?”

  She shook her head. “My mom lives in Arkansas. My dad’s still here, in North Magdalene. He got married again when I was twelve, to Miss Regina Black. Gina was what they used to call a spinster in the old days. She was in her thirties when my dad swept her off her feet. They eloped to Reno. We were living in Arkansas then, but when my dad and Gina married, my mom let us come back home and live with them.”

  “Us?”

  “I have a sister, Marnie. She’s three years younger than me.”

  “Tall and blonde like you?”

  “Not so tall. Brown hair. Completely different personality.”

  “Different, how?”

  “Come on. I know you’re tired…”

  He didn’t budge. “Uh-uh. I want to hear about your sister. How’s she different from you?”

  She gave him a long look of disapproval. But in the end, she did answer his question. “Marnie was a crazy and wild little tomboy with a bad attitude when she was a kid.”

  “You were the good si
ster?”

  “Too good.”

  “No.”

  “Yeah. Too good. Seriously. We were always fighting, back then, Marnie and me. But since we’ve grown up, we get along fine. She lives with her boyfriend, Mark, now. In Santa Barbara. Mark and Marnie have been best friends since they were kids. Mark’s dad is Lucas Drury. He’s a bestselling author. Writes horror stories? And Lucas is now married to my cousin, Heather. But Lucas had Mark by his first wife.” She laughed. “Like I said before, it’s a small town. A girl can’t turn around without running into a relative.”

  He liked listening to her talk and he liked hearing about her family. “And you get along okay, then, with your stepmother?”

  “Gina? I love her. We all love her. My dad was a mess before he got together with her. He was troubled and wild, like most of the men in my family. He drank too much and went out with a woman named Chloe Swan. Big trouble, that Chloe. Once she even shot him.”

  He laughed. “You’re not serious.”

  “Oh, I am. She was trying to shoot Gina, actually. But my dad got in the way.”

  “He took a bullet for your stepmother?”

  “Yeah. That’s love for you, huh?”

  “But he recovered?”

  “Fully. And Chloe went to prison for a few years. Since she got out, she’s had the good sense to leave my dad alone. Guess she finally figured out that Gina is the only woman for Patrick Jones. With Gina, my dad found out how to be happy. With Gina, we all found out how to be happy.”

  “Did they have more kids, together?”

  “Gina and my dad? Oh, yeah. They had three more. My half-sister, Anthea, who’s thirteen now, and two boys, Brady and Craig, nine and eight. They’re my brothers and I love them, but they are holy terrors. Jones boys always are.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You would have to know the Joneses.”

  “I will know the Joneses. As soon as it stops snowing. I think you should prepare me for that.”

  “I’d be happy to, tomorrow. But now, it’s your bedtime.”

  He sat back in the chair. “Kind of bossy, aren’t you, Tessa?”

  “It’s your health I’m thinking about.” She pinched up her mouth at him.

  He laughed. It felt good. Yeah, it made his head hurt. But so what? A good laugh was worth a little pain.