Heartfire

by Karen Rose Smith

  He must have sensed the change in her, the reversal from passion to panic. Her stomach felt queasy. Her heart pounded in her ears.

  His hand left her skin and he pulled away.

  She was afraid to look at him for fear he'd see the truth in her eyes, on her face. Wishing the corner of the sofa was in her flat in London and she could be there with a blink of her eyes, she slid from his lap as gracefully as she could. She couldn't face him now. She simply couldn't.

  Max was silent, and the silence was worse than denials and excuses. He thought their passion was wrong. He didn't have to say it. She knew.

  The orange string confetti sticking all over her sweater reminded Tessa of her foolishness.

  "We have a mess to clean up," Max said in a low tone, his voice husky.

  He shifted on the sofa, and Tessa realized how uncomfortable he must be. "Max, you don't have to say anything. I know you haven't dated since Leslie died and the pressure builds up—"

  "I'm not a balloon ready to pop!"

  She curled up tighter, swinging her legs underneath her. "Max, think about it. This close proximity, the old feelings we shared..."

  "I don't have to think about it," he snapped. "I have to deal with it."

  "And you think I don't?"

  He rubbed the back of his neck. "I suppose the situation is hard for you, too. Neither of us expected—" He inhaled a deep breath. "We only have a few more weeks. Do you know when you're leaving?"

  "November seventeenth."

  He went silent again.

  There didn't seem to be anything else to say. Even if there had been, Tessa couldn't sit still another minute. Too much was going on inside her, and she wanted to escape it all.

  Hopping up, she plucked a long string of confetti from the sofa arm. Moving quickly, she cleaned off the back while Max watched.

  Finally he pushed himself up. His face was still and set, the nerve on his jaw working. "This could wait until tomorrow."

  She had to get them back on comfortable footing or she'd never get through the next few weeks. "Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today."

  He didn't even grimace at the old proverb. Rather, he picked up the cups that had landed on the hearth when they'd begun their confetti battle. With an "I'll load the dishwasher," he strode into the kitchen.

  Tessa sighed with relief. She needed time to be alone. She needed time to think. Maybe she could think her feelings into a semblance of order. She fervently hoped so.

  Chapter Eleven

  Tessa sat on the bed in her room Monday evening, typing notes on the practicality of Americans buying property overseas into her computer. Her fingers didn't fly over the keys as they usually did. Nor did she organize in her head as she went along. Tonight organization seemed impossible. She typed words, statistics, phrases, but the information wasn't jelling.

  Since Saturday night, Tessa had thought about loving Max, she'd feared loving Max, she'd resented the panic that overtook her each time the feelings welled up. She'd tried not to act differently around him. But knowing she loved him changed everything! Except her life. She was a foreign correspondent with a good record and interviewer with high ratings, a reliable reputation and a bright future. But most of all, she had no indication Max felt anything but desire, desire he obviously didn't want to feel.

  On Sunday, they'd taken Ryan roller skating again. And they'd avoided each other. Tonight, Max had driven Ryan to his Cub Scout meeting and had said he'd run errands before picking up Ryan to come home. It was obvious he didn't want to be alone with her. Did she want to be alone with him, knowing what could happen?

  Thinking about it made her body tingle.

  She heard the back door open and before she could even think about shutting down her computer, Ryan pounded up the stairs and burst into her room.

  Max's voice boomed from the stairway. "Knock first, Ryan."

  It was already too late for that.

  "Sorry," Ryan mumbled.

  She smiled and waved him toward the bed. "That's okay. How was your meeting?"

  "Fine." He shifted back and forth on his feet and played with the yellow tie of his uniform.

  "What did you do?"

  "Made a Halloween mask. It's downstairs."

  Max stood in the doorway, one hand high on the door jamb. His jeans were snug and showed wear at the knees. He wore no belt and the waistband rode low on his hips. His red and black flannel shirt clothed his upper torso with rugged, lumberjack appeal.

  His gaze as it found and held hers was as neutral as his expression. He'd make a terrific poker player.

  Ryan came closer to the bed.

  Max said softly, "Go ahead and ask her."

  Ryan looked terribly uncertain. Tessa set her computer on the bed and slid to the edge, dropping her legs over the side. She patted the spread beside her. "Come here and tell me what's going on."

  Ryan glanced at Max, then crawled up beside her. "We're havin' somethin' special at school."

  "It's a pageant," Max explained. "Ryan didn't tell me until tonight that he has a special part."

  "I'm gonna be a Pilgrim!" he declared proudly. "It's about the first Thanksgiving. Dad always comes to watch. Can you come, too?"

  Tessa thought about going into the school again, seeing all the families together, the hordes of kids, the noise and chatter that had always resoundingly reminded her that she didn't fit in, that she didn't have a family to care whether or not she took a part in a play, or a concert, or a pageant. She shivered as old memories haunted her. A half-hour meeting with Mrs. Bartlett was one thing. A few hours smack dab in the middle of all the commotion was another.

  There was something else to think about, too. She and Max and Ryan weren't a family. She was becoming more and more attached to Ryan. How did he feel about her? The more she did things with him and for him, the harder it would be for him when she left.

  Max was watching her closely.

  "Ryan, I don't know. With leaving for New York this weekend, I'm going to be pretty busy."

  "But you're not leavin' till Friday! You marked it on the calendar." His lip quivered. "And the pageant's Thursday night."

  She felt awful. She wanted to give him everything she could. But the truth was—she would be leaving. She'd been entirely available to Ryan and Max since she'd arrived in Jenkins. Maybe that had been a huge mistake—for all of them.

  "Honey, I need to think about it, okay?"

  His face fell with disappointment and he looked to his father for encouragement.

  Max straightened and filled the doorway. "Let Tessa think about it, slugger. You go get your pajamas on. We'll talk about it again tomorrow."

  Ryan's tone was somber. "Okay." He turned back to Tessa. "I really want you to come."

  Tessa's breath caught in her chest. What was the right thing to do? Right for Max and her and Ryan.

  Ryan slipped by his father and went to his room.

  Tessa expected Max to leave, too. But he didn't. Instead, he stepped closer to the bed, his forehead creased, his scowl manifesting his frustration. "How could you do that to him?"

  Tessa felt guilty enough. "I'm not doing anything to him, Max."

  Max advanced on her, his eyes a deepening brown. "He wants you to be there."

  Squaring her shoulders and tilting her chin, a response gathered force and exploded. "And I wanted my mother to be there, too!"

  He looked taken aback for a moment. "So you want Ryan to suffer as you did?"

  Max had the power to rattle her the way no one else could. "I'm not Ryan's mother. And it's not good for him to pretend I am."

  Max cocked his head and studied her for a moment. "You think that's what he's doing?"

  All the defensiveness she'd felt when Max attacked her deflated and she was left with confusion. "I don't know. But if he is, it's got to stop. I won't be helping him, I'll be hurting him. Maybe I've hurt him already."

  Where Max's advance before had been quick and angry, it was now slow and cau
tious. "You can't believe loving him is hurting him."

  "I'm saying his depending on me might be."

  Max eyed her curiously. "What else is going on, Tessa?"

  "I don't know what you mean." She lowered her head a fraction so she wasn't meeting his probing regard. Sliding around on the bed, she shuffled her notes into a neat pile.

  "You're a lousy liar." Max rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "You were jittery when we talked to Mrs. Bartlett. You couldn't sit still or get out of that school fast enough. Was school difficult for you?"

  He was stabbing in the dark. But she knew how unremittingly persistent Max could be. "We all have rough years."

  He wouldn't accept the generality. Before she could take a breath, he stood beside the bed...beside her. "Which year was rough for you? Second grade, like Ryan? Third? Seventh?"

  The papers on the bed next to her became all important. "I'd rather not discuss it."

  His large, warm hand came down on her shoulder. "Look at me, Tessa." When she didn't, he said gently, "You have to stop running from things you don't want to see."

  Now she looked at him, filled with resentment and pain. "What do you know about it? Why do you think you know how I should live my life?"

  He crouched down in front of her, much as he would with Ryan. "What don't I know? Tell me."

  Suddenly she was swept back into being a seven-year-old again, sitting in that echoing hallway while the principal tried to call her mother—the mother she'd never see again. Her hands trembled and she closed them into fists.

  Max covered both of her hands with one of his. "Tessa?"

  The gentleness and caring in his voice undid her. "My mother left me at the school. She dropped me off in the morning and she never came back." Tessa wouldn't open her eyes because she didn't want to see Max's pity. She didn't need pity. She never had.

  Stroking her hair away from her forehead, Max pushed it behind her ear. "And the rest of your school life reminded you of that day."

  She nodded and swallowed the lump in her throat. "Until college. Everything was new there. I felt I could really start to be somebody important, not different. My profs accepted me for who I was, not what I came from."

  "You are somebody important—somebody special."

  Her eyes grew moist. More than anything she wanted to burrow into Max's arms and let him hold her. But they were too volatile together now. "I don't want to hurt Ryan."

  Max's hand kept comforting, stroking, soothing. "Then tell him the truth."

  She reared back away from his touch. "About my mother?"

  Ryan called from his room, "Dad! Tessa! I'm ready."

  Max rose to his feet. "It'll help him understand if you decide not to go."

  Tessa started practicing what she'd say in her head because she knew Max was right.

  ***

  The Pilgrims stood on one side of the long table on the stage, the Native Americans on the other. Ryan, as leader for the Pilgrims, crossed to the Chief and extended his hand in friendship.

  Max's arm nudged Tessa's shoulder and she could feel him leaning forward to watch more intently. He made her feel safe and protected sitting here, and for a good part of the last hour, memories had washed over her not causing their usual pain.

  Tessa had briefly explained to Ryan about her mother leaving her in a school and not coming back. She'd told him how she felt unhappy and sad whenever she entered a school. His eyes had grown huge and round, and she'd thought she'd seen questions there. But he didn't ask any. He'd said quietly, "You don't have to come if it makes you feel bad." It was as if he understood with the wisdom of someone much older. Then and there she'd decided going to his pageant was the best thing she could do for him to show him that her love for him could overcome the past hurts.

  And it had.

  She gazed around again at the audience in the auditorium. Mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. People she'd longed for in her life. Yet, seeing the families together now didn't hurt so much. Tessa watched a toddler two rows in front of her as the child laid her head on her mother's shoulder and popped her thumb into her mouth.

  Tessa had never thought about having children. Her own childhood had been so unhappy. And she'd dismissed marriage. With her career, it would be impossible, wouldn't it? Yet the past few weeks, living with Max, taking care of Ryan, she could almost envision it.

  As the Pilgrims and Native Americans shared a feast on the stage, Tessa realized Ryan loved her unconditionally. She also realized something else that made her shake in her shoes. She'd love to be his mother. More and more, she felt as if she belonged here. Could loving Max assuage the feeling of apartness she'd always experienced? Dare she love Max when he'd belonged to Leslie? Did he feel anything for her besides physical attraction? Sometimes he was so understanding, so gentle... But then, that was Max. He'd act that way toward any woman.

  Exactly what was she contemplating? Changing the life she led? Didn't she want to travel? Fly to exciting new places? Did she dare think about a life with Max?

  Thank goodness she was going to New York this weekend. Maybe she could get some perspective away from here.

  Chapter Twelve

  On Friday evening, Max and Ryan gazed inside the glass and chrome jewelry case in the New Haven department store. Max remembered the chain around Tessa's neck when she'd shown him her mother's ring. It had looked old and worn. The chain he spotted inside this case was shiny, fourteen carat and sparkling as it caught and reflected the light.

  "When are we gonna give Tessa her presents?" Ryan asked as he pressed his nose up against the glass case.

  "When she gets back on Sunday."

  "She marked it on the calendar so I'd know she was coming home that day for sure." Ryan's hands joined his nose on the glass. "I miss her."

  Max couldn't believe how much he did, too. He'd picked up Ryan at the sitter and they'd come home to an empty house. It was an odd feeling. For the past month, Tessa had been there every day. Some days she was cooking, some days on the phone, some days typing on her laptop. But she'd always been there.

  "Dad, Tessa's gonna have her birthday alone."

  "When she gets back, we can have a cake."

  "But her birthday's tomorrow. She'll be all alone."

  The idea didn't sit well with Max, either, especially after Tessa's latest revelation about her childhood. He crouched down beside Ryan as he always did when he wanted to talk to his son about something important. "What do you think about me going to New York and keeping Tessa company?"

  Ryan forgot the jewelry in the case and turned toward Max.

  "I can't go?"

  "New York is mostly for grown-ups. But they do have a museum with dinosaur bones. Maybe another weekend you and I could go look at them."

  Ryan scrubbed the toe of his sneaker against the tile floor. "What are you and Tessa gonna do?"

  "Probably get all dressed up and go to dinner."

  Ryan wrinkled his nose in distaste. Then he said thoughtfully, "New York's not very far away. Tessa showed me on the computer."

  "Not too far. Only about two hours."

  Ryan thought about it. "I think you oughta go and make sure..."

  "What?"

  Ryan ducked his chin. "Nothin'."

  "Ryan, you're sure it's okay with you if I go?"

  "Can Flo and Scruffy come over?"

  "We can ask."

  Ryan took a few moments to decide. "Yeah, you go and bring Tessa home soon."

  ***

  Tessa sat in the most luxurious suite of the best hotel in New York City. Linc Granger always reserved the best.

  They were sitting in the sunken living room area on the beige and blue beautifully covered yet comfortable furniture. Linc’s wife Emma was sitting on the plush carpet with her daughter helping Becky dress an American Girl doll. "She loved the store," Emma said. "I think she would have spent all day there."

  Emma was a pretty woman. Since she married Linc, she had a glow about her that made her absolutel
y stunning. And Linc… He was staring at her and Becky as if they were his world.

  "Talk shop if you want, " Emma said. "I don’t mind. Who have you interviewed lately that I might know?" she asked Tessa.

  Tessa remembered her interview with Emma and the distress Emma had been experiencing at the time when her sister had disappeared. That had been an emotional interview watched by millions of viewers. Emma had been honest and straight forward and the hearts of the television public had gone out to her. Now she looked peaceful and so happy.

  "Well…," Tessa drawled. "I interviewed the First Lady. Does that count?"

  Emma laughed. "A little. Did it air yet?"

  "No. Another month. After the Summit in Oslo."

  Becky tugged on her mom’s arm. "Does this look good?" She’d wrapped a stole around her doll’s shoulders.

  "That looks wonderful. Maybe you’ll be a dress designer some day."

  Becky shook her head and glanced at Linc. "Daddy says I’m gonna be an engineer and build bridges!"

  A proud smile curved Linc’s mouth. "I guess you have to keep your options open. Engineer or designer. That’s a tough choice."

  Becky stood and ran over to him, crawling up on the sofa beside him with her doll. "I’m hungry. Can we eat now?"

  Linc cuddled her under his arm. "As soon as we decide what we want. Though I guess you want a burger."

  Becky thought about it and nodded. "And fries."

  "And something green or orange that might be good for you," Emma added.

  The five-year-old wrinkled her nose. "Okay."

  Something about sitting here in the midst of this family made Tessa’s chest tighten like it did when she was with Ryan and Max.

  Max. It was odd but she missed not being with him.

  Emma rose to her feet and reached her hand out to Becky. "Why don’t we get the menu. It’s in the bedroom. And you can decide if a burger is really what you want."

  Linc crooked his finger at his wife and she crossed to the sofa. Bending down, she gave him a kiss. He touched her face and then she and Becky left the room.