The Stranger and Tessa Jones

by Christine Rimmer

  In the house, Ash and his parents were sitting at the kitchen table. They rose when she entered.

  His mom smiled. “Tessa. It’s so good to meet you.” Aleta, who was tall and slim with thick brown hair, hurried forward.

  Tessa shooed Mona into the hallway and put Gigi down just as Aleta reached her. She looked into the woman’s blue eyes—eyes like Ash’s, so vivid. So deep. And she knew that here she had a friend.

  Aleta hugged her close, whispered, “I cannot tell you how grateful we are. Thank you, thank you.”

  “I’m…so glad you’re here.” She looked past Aleta’s shoulder and smiled at Ash’s father. Davis Bravo nodded, but he didn’t smile back.

  When Aleta let her go, Ash said, “Well, you’ve met my mom. And this is Davis, my dad.”

  “Hi.” Tessa stepped forward and stuck out her hand.

  Davis took it. Now, he smiled, but it was a cool smile, one that didn’t reach his eyes. “Great to meet you, Tessa. Thanks for saving my son’s life.”

  She kept her head high. “I’m just glad that everything has worked out, that Ash has found his family again. That he and everyone else on that plane—” even Lianna Mercer “—are going to be all right.”

  The evening was…strange. Tessa put together a simple meal and Ash opened a bottle of wine. They ate. Aleta asked Tessa about her family and her life in North Magdalene. Tessa made her answers brief. There was so much that the Bravos had to catch up on. She learned that Ash was CEO of the family company, BravoCorp. BravoCorp was mostly in land development, but they also had oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico and various investments they managed all over the country and in South America.

  Ash. A CEO.

  She sent him a glance. And he gave her a warm smile. Something in her expression must have bothered him. A slight frown formed between his straight black brows.

  But then his father said, “We thought we could drive up to Reno tomorrow and see Lianna. Rachel’s there, looking after her, so we’ll see how she’s holding up, too.”

  Aleta explained to Tessa, “Rachel is Lianna’s mother. She and I went to UT together, in Austin, years and years ago.”

  “Ah,” said Tessa, her throat clutching. She swallowed. Hard. They were driving to Reno to see Lianna.

  And I will not, under any circumstances, burst into tears.

  Ash spoke then in a low, controlled voice. “Dad. I told you earlier. It’s over between Lianna and me.”

  Davis sipped his wine. “Ash. You’ve been through a terrible experience. It’s natural you would be somewhat confused.”

  “No. Not confused. Not on this. Not confused in the least.”

  After that, the men were silent. It was a grim, extended silence. Tessa and Aleta tried to keep the conversation going. They talked of the weather and Tessa asked about the family ranch.

  When the meal was over at last, Ash said, “Tessa. We should take Mona outside, don’t you think? That dog needs a walk.”

  The last thing Mona Lou ever needed was a walk, so what he meant was that he wanted a few minutes with Tessa alone. She felt absurdly dewy-eyed at the idea, even with the way his father looked at her like she was some evil fiancé stealer.

  Davis frowned and started to say something, but Aleta put her hand on her husband’s arm. “We’ll just get settled in upstairs, then,” she said. “Thank you so much for the lovely meal, Tessa.”

  Ash helped her into her purple jacket and put on the one she’d given him from the store. They bundled up in gloves and hats. And finally, they took Mona and went out.

  “And where does Mona want to go?” Tessa asked him as they reached the driveway, Mona waddling along behind them.

  “Down the road toward the highway.” He took her hand. “Don’t pull away,” he said softly. It was a threat, though a tender one.

  They left the lights of the house behind and moved into the shadows of the trees. Maybe twenty feet along the dark road, he turned to her. He captured her face between his gloved hands.

  She caught his wrists, took his hands away and stepped back. “No. I’m sorry. So sorry. But…you have some things to work out. We both know that you do. We can’t just pretend you don’t.”

  His eyes gleamed, dark as night. A low growl of frustration rose in his throat. “It’s over with her. How many times do I have to say it?”

  “Ash. Please. Just…let’s look at this logically.”

  “Logically.” He swore and turned away.

  “If you did break up with her—”

  “If?” He whirled back, pinned her with a hard glare. “Damn you, Tessa. What is this? You don’t believe me, either?”

  She put up a hand. “Poor word choice. I’m sorry. What I’m getting at is that you remember everything now, except for about, what, thirty-six hours before the plane crash and maybe an hour or two after it?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So, you don’t specifically remember breaking it off with her, but you’re certain that you did. That means you had to have ended it at some point during the time that still hasn’t come back to you.”

  “And this is significant because…?”

  “It’s just that everything’s happened so fast. Too fast, I think. According to my Uncle Jack and your dad, Lianna still thinks you’re going to marry her.”

  “She’s lying. Or maybe she doesn’t remember, either. She’s been in a damn coma.”

  “When were you supposed to be married?”

  “Valentine’s Day. Does it matter?”

  “Oh, Ash.” She didn’t know why that made it worse. But it did, somehow. Valentine’s Day, the day for lovers. It was less than a month away. “Was it going to be a big wedding?”

  “Enormous.” He said the word with distaste.

  “I’ll bet your fiancée’s been planning it for a year.”

  “Longer. And Lianna is not my fiancée. Not anymore.”

  “It’s a lot to break up, Ash. A wedding like that. All that goes into it. And then there are your two families, how close your parents are to hers. Whatever Lianna’s like as a person, this has got to be awful for her.” A tear got away from her and trickled down her cheek.

  “Damn it. Tessa. You’re crying. Crying for her…” He tried to reach for her.

  She didn’t allow it. “Listen to me. Please. This time we’ve had…it’s been so special. So precious and wonderful. I’m grateful, for every moment I’ve shared with you. But your real life has found you now. And I think that you have to…” She let her voice trail off. It sounded too much like a lecture she was giving him, on what to do, on how to live his life, now he knew who he was at last. She didn’t want to lecture him. She wanted…

  So much. Everything. A lifetime. With him.

  Could that ever happen? There was no way to know yet. Not until he’d made peace with the life he’d left behind.

  At last, he spoke. “You’re right.” It was an admission. “I hate it, but I accept it.” Through the shadows, she saw his big shoulders were slumped, as if in defeat. “I’ll go to Reno and see Lianna tomorrow, see what’s going on with her. Somehow, I have to figure out this mess.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ash made his bed on the couch that night.

  The next day, while Tessa worked at the store, Ash went to Reno with his mother and father. They were back when she got home at 6:00 p.m. There was dinner, during which Ash and Tessa were mostly silent. Ash’s mom tried to make pleasant, meaningless conversation. And Davis talked of how good it had been to see Lianna recovering, how she’d looked small and frail in that hospital bed, with that scary white bandage wrapped around her head.

  “But as beautiful as ever,” Davis said. “It’s a hell of a relief to know she’s going to be all right.” He spoke to Tessa, as if she needed to know. “Her doctors say she’ll be up and around in no time. Everything will be fine. Everything will work out.” He sent his son a significant look, which Ash took pains to ignore.

  A few minutes later, Davis started in about h
ow eager he was to get back to Texas.

  Ash said flatly, “I can’t fly until I check with the doctor in Grass Valley.”

  “Monday, then?” his father suggested hopefully.

  “I’ll give her office a call first thing Monday morning, see if she can fit me in a day early.”

  Monday, Tessa thought. So soon. Davis had mentioned that the jet was waiting in Sacramento. They could leave Monday after the doctor visit. Or Tuesday, at the latest.

  So soon. Too soon…

  Tessa had Tawny’s bachelorette party that night. The Bravos insisted they’d be fine on their own. So Tessa went over town to The Grill and partied with her lifelong girlfriends. They all teased her about Ash. She told them what a great guy he was and left it at that.

  It was after 1:00 a.m. when she got back to the house. Davis and Aleta were in bed.

  Ash had waited up. They walked down the road in the freezing darkness, side by side, but not touching. He told her that Lianna had cried and said she was so sorry that they’d fought. When the others left them alone, Ash said he had tried to get specifics out of her, to get what she remembered, what they’d said, how he had ended up on the plane when the pilot and copilot said he’d gotten off.

  “But she said she didn’t remember clearly, just that we had fought, just that I was with her when the plane went down.”

  Tessa wrapped her arms around herself against the cold—both outside and in. “She does still think you’re engaged to her, then?”

  He nodded. “She looked so awful, black circles under her eyes. Weak. I couldn’t do it, couldn’t tell her right then and there that it’s over, that it’s been over for a week, whether she remembers it or not.”

  “Ash.” She spoke softly. “It’s okay. I understand…”

  “I hate this.”

  She swallowed, whispered, “Me, too.”

  “She and her mother are going back home tomorrow.”

  “It’s safe, then, for her to fly?”

  “Apparently. Tessa…” He started to reach for her, then carefully put his hands at his sides. “I have to go back to San Antonio.”

  She smiled, though in her heart she was crying. “Of course you do.”

  I love you, she thought. But she didn’t say it. It wasn’t the right time for her to say it.

  Maybe someday.

  And maybe never.

  Monday, Ash got the okay from Dr. McKinley to fly. And Tuesday morning, he and his parents packed up the rented Mercedes.

  Once they were ready, Tessa went out to tell them all goodbye.

  Davis shook her hand and gruffly thanked her for saving his son’s life. “If you need anything. Ever. You give me a call.” He pressed a fancy, embossed business card into her hand, even though Aleta had already given her numbers and addresses for the family ranch and their San Antonio house, and Ash had made sure she had all his phone numbers and the address of his place in San Antonio.

  Then Aleta hugged her. “Don’t be a stranger,” she whispered. “Come see us. Anytime.”

  “Thank you,” Tessa said and meant it, at the same time as she couldn’t help doubting such a thing would ever happen.

  And then Ash embraced her. She wished they could stay like that, arms wrapped tight around each other, forever, wished they could share one last kiss, at least.

  But it wasn’t to be.

  “I’ll come for you,” he whispered. “Don’t doubt me…”

  She didn’t doubt him. She believed in him completely.

  It was only that now their time together was over, the magic and the beauty of it had begun to seem more and more like a dream. He had his real life to go back to. And she had hers, here, in her childhood home.

  Tessa stood in the driveway, Mona Lou at her feet, a brave smile on her face, waving until the Mercedes was no longer in sight.

  After that, she took her dog and her cat and went to open her store. It was a surprisingly busy day for a Tuesday in January and Tessa was glad for the work. It helped to take her mind off of missing Ash. Oggie stopped by in the afternoon. She told him that Ash and his parents had gone and waited for him to gripe and moan that he’d never even had a chance to meet the man’s folks.

  But Oggie only asked, gently, “You gonna be okay, Tessy?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’ll be okay.” She said the words and knew they were true. Somehow, even though her heart was breaking, deep within she felt…stronger, somehow. Better than before she’d known him.

  Maybe real love did that, made you better, truer than before, no matter how it all shook out in the end.

  Real love, she thought. Yes. Exactly. That was the important thing. She loved Ash, she’d given him her heart. No matter what happened, some part of her would always belong to him.

  She cried that night, at home, with only Gigi and Mona for company. And once she’d dried her tears, she sat with the curtains open and stared at the full moon in the clear night sky and wondered if it was a clear night in Texas, too.

  Ash spent Tuesday night at Bravo Ridge. The whole family was there, everyone happy that he’d come home to them safe and sound. He hugged his sisters and got clapped on the back by his brothers. It was good to be with them. They shared a toast to his return. Through the beveled glass windows of the front sitting room, he could see the full moon. It made him think of Tessa and that hurt.

  “Ash. You okay?” asked his baby sister.

  “Never been better,” he lied through his teeth.

  Wednesday, Ash went to his office at BravoCorp and tried to catch up on his workload a little. He also called and cancelled the credit cards he’d lost in the crash. He was promised that new ones would be arriving within a day or two—and reassured that no one had been using the cards since he lost them. If someone had stolen his wallet, they’d had sense enough to be content with the cash he’d been carrying.

  He sat through three endless meetings. And then, at 2:00 p.m., he took off to get his driver’s license replaced. Once he had the new license, he told the limo driver to take him home, where he got one of his own cars and drove to the Mercer mansion in the historic King William district. Lianna was staying there, in her parents’ house, until she fully recovered from her injuries. The housekeeper greeted him and asked him to wait in the foyer. A few minutes later, Rachel Mercer appeared. She took his hands and kissed his cheek and said that Lianna was resting. Could he come back later?

  He went away hating himself for feeling relieved that he didn’t have to deal with his supposed fiancée that day. That night, he and his brother Gabe had dinner together at a restaurant they both liked. Gabe was good company. And he knew when to keep his mouth shut. He asked about Lianna. Ash answered with nothing but a cool look, and the subject was dropped for the evening.

  Later, at home in Alamo Heights, Ash had a last whiskey alone in his study and tried not to think about Tessa. It was no good. He picked up the phone and dialed her number—and then quickly hung up before it had a chance to ring.

  The next day, Thursday, was more of the same. He went to work. After that, he tried to see Lianna. That time she was “out.” He told himself that was good news, if she was well enough to go out…

  He called her that night. She was still “out.” He left a message to call him when she got in.

  Lianna didn’t call.

  The whole thing was getting beyond ridiculous. As if she could put him off indefinitely. What did she think? She could just avoid him until February 14th, when he’d show up at the altar to provide her with the wedding ring to match the huge engagement diamond he’d given her?

  Friday morning, he got up and got out of the house at 6:00 a.m. He was ringing the doorbell at the King William house at 6:15. The housekeeper answered. He didn’t wait for her to tell him that Lianna was still in bed, just wrapped his fingers around the edge of the door and pushed it wide.

  “Mr. Ash!” The housekeeper fell back, dark eyes wide.

  “I want to see Lianna. I do not want to be told she’s a
sleep or out or otherwise unavailable. I’m not leaving this house until I’ve talked to her.”

  “I will…be right back. You wait here, please.” The woman turned for the stairs. Ash fell in behind her. No way was he waiting around to hear how Lianna couldn’t see him now.

  The woman turned halfway up the curving staircase and cast an apprehensive glance back at him. “Please. Wait.”

  He nodded. But when she started moving again, he was right behind her. She reached the top of the stairs and started down the hallway to Lianna’s room. At the end of it, she tapped on Lianna’s door. When no one answered her knock, she called, “Miss Lianna…”

  “Go away!” Lianna’s sulky voice commanded from somewhere inside.

  “But, Miss—”

  “Are you deaf?” Lianna shouted. “I said go. Go. Away.”

  Ash listened to her being rude to the housekeeper and thought, Drama queen.

  And that was when it happened.

  That was when the final pieces of the puzzle that was his life before he found Tessa Jones fell into place.

  In an instant, he saw the days he’d lost. The dinner with Lianna Thursday night, when she babbled on about what she’d bought that day and what she would buy tomorrow and the details she still had to iron out about the wedding. She called him a bastard when she realized he wasn’t really listening. He’d thought how he was trapped and it was his own damn fault, that he would never get away from her. Then there was the going-through-the-motions of the next day, Friday. And Saturday morning, when he woke up and realized he was supposed to be getting on a plane with Lianna in an hour, flying to San Francisco for a romantic weekend together.

  He knew then that he couldn’t do it, couldn’t go there.

  Uh-uh. No more.

  He’d called his mother and told her he was heading for the cabin, that he was turning off his cell and not coming back until Monday. He hung up before she could sputter out a reply or start asking questions about why he wasn’t on his way to California with Lianna. He also called his assistant Melody, disturbing the poor woman at home on a Saturday, to tell her the same thing.