Her Miracle Man

by Karen Sandler

  Mia took a sip from her water glass, waited for him to continue. He let out a breath, heaviness in the sound.

  “The week leading up to that night is…difficult.” He leaned his arms on the table. “For the past four years I’ve made sure to spend that time alone. For privacy. This is the first year…”

  “Someone’s been with you.”

  “What you saw Friday night…” His hands tightened into fists on the table. “That’s not the worst of it. That was only the prelude.”

  She wanted to rub his shoulder, put her arms around him. But he was so taut, she was afraid if she touched him, he’d explode. “I can’t imagine how hard it must be to lose someone you love so dearly.”

  “If it was just grief…” He laughed, a hollow sound. “You want desperately to retrieve your memories. I would give anything to forget. To wipe away everything from that night.”

  He said the last savagely, shoving to his feet. Grabbing their dishes, he stacked them together with a clatter. He all but threw them into the sink, and she could hear one shatter against the stainless basin.

  Hands propped on the counter, he considered the mess he’d made in the sink. “Just to be clear—what happened between us Friday night shouldn’t have. It’s all I can do to hold myself together.”

  Reaching for the broken plate, he dumped the shards into the trash. Mia felt as if he’d discarded those moments in bed together along with them.

  “I’m sorry.” Her throat ached, tears burning at her eyes. I shouldn’t have—”

  “It has nothing to do with you.” His head swung toward her as a tear spilled down her cheek. “Dammit,” he muttered, then pulled her into his arms. He held her against his warm, strong body, an anchor against the whirlwind.

  “Don’t ask me for anything else, Mia,” he murmured into her hair.

  Later they sat together in the great room, Jack in the recliner pretending to read a magazine, Mia curled up on the sofa with her sketch pad. She’d found a bag of some fancy cinnamon tea in the cupboard, something Dawson must have brought on one of his visits. She’d brewed enough for both of them and had finished hers; his cup had grown cold on the end table beside him.

  Watching her, he knew he was only fooling himself if he thought he could touch her, comfort her, without wanting far more than that. As fractured as he was becoming as the days unwound to Christmas Eve, he still wanted Mia back in his bed, her naked body against his. Even now, it took everything in him to keep from carrying her off into the bedroom.

  Of the few women he’d slept with in the years since Elizabeth’s death, none of them came close to matching what he’d felt with his late wife. Joanna Sanchez, for all her professions of undying love, had been cold and distant in bed, the sex act no doubt just part of the job for her. Thankfully, she’d left the details of their intimacy out of the articles she wrote about him.

  But Mia…he could still feel her body closing around his, could still hear her cries as she climaxed. Different than Elizabeth, more intensity, less abandon. But even as his emotions disintegrated inside him, his mind kept returning, again and again, to Mia’s slender body in his arms.

  Only because he longed for Elizabeth, because the anniversary loomed, a monstrous caricature of a Christmas gift waiting for him. Any other time of the year he could have disciplined himself, sublimated sexual desire with work. He’d done it for five years, the times he’d given in to passion a calculated effort to satisfy needs past the boiling point.

  She sighed, leaning back to study what she’d drawn. She sat facing him—troubling because he could see every emotion on her face in the firelight—the pad hidden on her lap. After those first few sketches of trees and landscape, she hadn’t shared her artwork. He hadn’t asked, leaving it to her to offer, though he didn’t like her evasiveness.

  If he had chosen to take a woman to bed, to release that physical tension, it shouldn’t have been someone like Mia. Even without knowing her true identity, he knew that for her it wasn’t just sex. She would want commitment, the kind of forever-after he’d given up believing in.

  He fixed his gaze on the fire’s orange glow. Sunday night. The twenty-first of December. Five years ago today, he’d left the conference in Seattle and driven to Redmond to visit his sister and celebrate Christmas early. After his father deserted the family, his sister, Heather, a decade older than Jack, had all but raised him. After their mother died, he and Heather had lost touch, and spending those few days with her had been his way of mending fences.

  He’d called Elizabeth when he’d arrived at Heather’s, and the wounds they’d inflicted on each other two days before had healed. He’d still felt a guilt his apologies couldn’t seem to mend. Elizabeth had seemed anxious about something, and he still hated himself for not pushing the issue.

  Mia’s gasp brought his attention back to her. He saw the light of realization in her face. “He’s the one from my nightmares.”

  “Someone you drew?” He rose to take a look.

  She slapped the pad shut. “No. The one I saw during the relaxation exercise.”

  He sat opposite her on the sofa. “He’s not your husband, not a boyfriend. Could he have been a stalker?”

  Hand spread, she moved it across the cover of the art pad as if contemplating what she’d drawn. “I suppose. It would explain him turning up at my classroom. He could have broken into my house.”

  The blood chilled in Jack’s veins. “Is that what happened?”

  “I have no idea.” Exasperation was clear in her tone. “I’m only guessing.”

  She dropped the art pad on the coffee table, stretched out her legs. She wore yet another pair of Elizabeth’s socks, these a whimsical lime green dotted with penguins. Elizabeth had never worn them. He’d bought them for her not long before she died.

  “I’m a science teacher somewhere it doesn’t snow,” she said. “At a middle school—the kids looked too young to be in high school. I have a talent for sketching and crossword puzzles. I’m single.”

  “And your name is Mia.”

  “Is it?” she asked, as she had a week ago.

  “Why else would you be wearing that bracelet?”

  “When I saw myself in a classroom, I knew that was right. Knew I was a teacher. I’m so comfortable with the science and art—a pencil feels natural in my hand. But Mia…” She wove her fingers together. “It still doesn’t feel like my name.”

  It startled him. He’d thought she’d accepted the name, that he’d helped her excavate at least that small part of her identity. And if indeed she wasn’t Mia, if they didn’t even have a name for her, how would they discover who she was?

  What if they didn’t? What if she truly had nowhere else to go, no other life to return to?

  He squelched the joy inside him before it could so much as gain a toehold. That was the wrong damn direction to a-low his thoughts to go. Mia’s future had nothing to do with him.

  “Have you heard anything new about the road?” she asked.

  “They’re making progress, but the snow slowed everything down. Dawson said he might be able to get a crew up here from Arizona.”

  Her eyes widened. “Arizona. I’ve been there.”

  “Is that where you’re from?”

  He could see her struggle to retrieve the memory, her hands reaching out as if to grab it. Then she flung herself back against the arm of the sofa, her lost expression wrenching his heart. “I don’t know.”

  He should have left it at that. Tell her she should get some sleep, that with some rest she might be able to think clearer.

  But he couldn’t muster the words to send her away. He wanted to lie beside her, gather her up, feel her breath against his cheek.

  He had enough sense to resist that temptation. Instead he slid toward her on the sofa, settled her feet into his lap. Massaged her arches, the balls of her feet, her toes. Listened to her sighs of pleasure as he had Elizabeth’s.

  And he smiled, a tentative happiness welling up inside him.
A fragile, delicate thing he knew he couldn’t count on, wouldn’t last. But for the moment he let himself enjoy it.

  Chapter Eleven

  Monday and Tuesday, Jack didn’t hide from Mia as he had over the weekend. He’d share meals with her, sit with her in the evenings while she sketched or read. But she could sense the tension in him mounting hour by hour as Christmas Eve grew closer.

  Knowing what he faced with the anniversary of his wife’s death, reluctant to put her troubles on his shoulders, she kept to herself that her nightmares had returned. Her terror of falling asleep kept her reading in bed Monday and Tuesday nights until one and two in the morning, afraid to pick up the sketch pad, fearful of what her hand might draw.

  Seven-thirty Wednesday morning, her eyes gritty from lack of sleep, she dragged herself from bed and stumbled into the bathroom, a change of clothes bundled in her arms. As she twisted on the shower spray, she spied the crumbs of soap in the dish and remembered she’d meant to ask Jack for another bar. She checked underneath the sink, then opened three vanity drawers before she finally spotted a familiar wrapper.

  As she reached for the soap, she saw the gleam of gold. The ankle bracelet. She’d set it in here that first night before she took her shower. Had forgotten to put it back on afterward.

  Setting the soap beside the sink, she picked up the bracelet, held it up to the light. Read the name worked in delicate gold. Mia.

  Dimly she heard the rush of water from the other room, felt the air thicken with steam. Stared as the bracelet jiggled and swayed in her fingers as her hand shook. Felt the fear crawling up her spine as if it had escaped her nightmares and crept under the door after her.

  As if burned, her hand jolted, and the bracelet dropped into the sink. It didn’t fall down the drain as she’d feared when she first took it off, but a part of her wished it would just slither out of sight. Because she wasn’t ever putting that bracelet on again. And she didn’t even know why.

  She threw it into the back of the drawer, slammed the drawer shut. Forgot the bar of soap and had to walk back, dripping, to get it. Stayed in the shower far longer than she should have, driven by the need to wash away whatever had clung to her fingers when she’d touched the bracelet.

  When she emerged from the bathroom, dressed and finally feeling clean, there was still no sign of Jack. She started a pot of coffee, sprinkling cinnamon over the grounds, although she couldn’t remember where she’d learned that trick. Then, too edgy to sit and read, she went into Jack’s office and powered up the laptop.

  He’d left his computer on, and when she jostled the mouse reaching for a pen, William’s impatient face flashed on the screen. “Mia! Geez, I’ve been waiting for hours. Where’s Dr. T.?”

  She smiled, glad to see Jack’s prodigy. Anything to distract her from her persistent anxiety. “I haven’t seen him yet this morning.”

  “I have to ask him a question.” He bounced in his excitement. “It’s really important.”

  “I can get him for you.” About to leave, she turned back, remembering what William had said on Sunday. “I don’t suppose you figured out why I look so familiar to you.”

  He shook his head. “Not yet.”

  Thinking if she kept him talking, she might jog his memory, she asked, “Are you looking forward to Christmas tomorrow?”

  He shrugged. “We’re going to my aunt Debbie’s. It’s kinda boring, but the food’s good.” He launched into a detailed description of the day’s usual menu.

  What were Christmases like for her as a child? Were they big family events? Even though she couldn’t recall, she felt melancholy at the thought of an uncelebrated Christmas.

  An idea popped into her head, a way to eke a little joy out of the holiday. “William, can you help me out with something?” She told him what she needed and extracted a promise from him to send it to her.

  “You gonna get Dr. T. now?” William asked, bouncing in his chair again.

  “As soon as I set up the e-mail address where you can reach me. I promise. Just remember, it’s a surprise.”

  Bringing up the browser on the laptop, she navigated to one of the free e-mail Web sites and created the address she’d given William. Then she hurried from the office, hoping to see Jack already up, pouring coffee in the kitchen. But the pot still sat untouched, the spice of cinnamon heavy in the air. She’d have to check his bedroom.

  His door was shut. When she pressed her ear to the thick oak, she heard only silence from within. She knew she ought to walk away, tell William he’d have to wait a little longer to speak with Jack. But agitation pushed her to grab the doorknob. She turned it and eased the door open. Tipped her head inside.

  Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of him sprawled facedown across his bed, blankets low on his hips, the sculptured lines of his body revealed from the waist up. The covers were twisted around his legs as if he’d had as bad a night as she had. Even in sleep his hands were tightened into fists, the tendons and muscles in his arms standing out in sharp relief.

  Friday night their lovemaking had been so fierce, so quick, she’d had no time to touch him, to see him. To explore the texture of his skin along his rib cage, stroke the musculature along his back. She longed to do that now. To push back that long, black hair, rub her palm across his rough beard. To lie down beside him, her body stretched along his.

  She stepped inside the room, crossing to the bed. William was waiting, no doubt growing more antsy by the minute. But she found herself sinking to the edge of the bed, sitting as softly as she could so as not to wake Jack.

  As she watched him breathe, felt the warmth radiating from his skin, something stirred inside her, reaching into her heart. With each breath, that feeling grew within, enveloping her entire being. Emotions flooded her, so profound she could barely grasp everything she was feeling.

  No. Don’t even think it.

  Despite her admonition, she felt a rush of hope, of joy rising up within herself like an electric shock. She knew she mustn’t let it into her conscious mind. She shouldn’t think it, shouldn’t acknowledge it, had to deny what she imagined she was feeling. She barely knew this man, she hardly knew herself. As seductive as those feelings were, they couldn’t be real.

  But I want so desperately to feel them.

  He shifted, his hands opening and digging like claws into the pillow. His breathing grew more rapid as he struggled against some nightmare image. Her heart broke seeing his pain.

  She laid her hand, featherlight, on his back. With a gasp, he sat bolt upright, his eyes still clouded with sleep. His body shook so violently she grabbed his hand to give him an anchor, a way out of whatever darkness gripped him. He pulled her up against him, his chest heaving, his skin fever hot.

  His tremors faded as he held her. With her ear against his chest, she could hear his heart racing, its rhythm breakneck. He tugged her even closer, pushing the covers aside, his erection thrusting against her. Forgetting why she’d come into the room, forgetting even the bombshell that had tried to force its way into her heart, she lifted her mouth to his.

  As he kissed her, his mouth hot and wet on hers, he turned her under him, pressing her back onto the bed. One hand shoved her sweater up, the other fumbled with the button on her jeans. She stroked him from his broad shoulders to his hips, drawing her fingernails up again along his back. The urgency to feel him inside her overwhelmed her.

  He went suddenly still, his muscles rigid with tension. Then, with a muttered oath he rolled from her. In one fluid movement he was off the bed. He strode to the window and leaned against the glass.

  “Get out of the bed.” He sucked in a breath. “Please. I don’t need any more damn temptation.”

  Shaking, she pulled her sweater down, rebuttoned her jeans. She backed toward the door, lingering there. His lean body was a work of art in the milky-white winter light. His erection drew her eye, kept her gaze riveted.

  “What did you want?” he asked, dragging her attention up to his face.
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  For the first time, she saw the strain in him, as if he held on to civility by a slender thread. “William wants you. He said it was important.”

  He turned away slightly, concealing the evidence of his arousal. “Tell him I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  Sidling from the room, she returned to Jack’s office. She relayed Jack’s message to an impatient William, then checked her e-mail. William had already sent what he’d promised. She routed the attachment to Jack’s printer, then found the sketch pad in the great room and tucked the printout inside.

  She was relieved Jack hadn’t yet emerged from his room. Grabbing his voluminous parka from the coat closet and sliding her feet into the oversize sneakers, she escaped outside.

  It hadn’t snowed for three days running now, but with the temperatures lingering below freezing, the blanket of white remained. Sullen gray clouds muted the sun, and the trees all wore thick clots of snow. Nothing but gray and white and black as far as the eye could see, all other color leached away.

  His footprints from Friday night were partly filled in, but there were other, fresher tracks leading off between the trees. So the agony from Friday night hadn’t been the last of it, just as he’d told her. He must have come out here during the night, leaving quietly enough that she hadn’t heard him despite her own sleeplessness. If he’d shouted his anger, his grief, he’d muffled it somehow because she’d never heard a thing.

  Moving carefully, placing her feet in his tracks, she followed his path. She nearly lost her balance more than once—his stride was far longer than hers—but she got as far as the trees. Her feet icy in the inadequate shoes, she gazed out into the monochromatic woods, trying to imagine his pain as he stood alone in the black night.

  Her heart felt leaden in her chest at the thought of his solitude. But she doubted he would have let her comfort him if she’d been here with him.

  “Mia!”

  She turned at the still-foreign name to see him standing on the porch, shivering in the cold. He’d pushed his feet into boots, but she had his parka, so he had nothing but his flannel shirt to hold back the icy bite of the air. Even still, he steamrolled toward her, his face as moody as the cloudy sky.