"So it's been erased like the rest of my life." He slumped against the cushions. "How is that possible?"
She shook her head. "Perhaps someone on the inside was paid to take care of it."
"The plot thickens," he said dryly.
Tess smiled weakly. "There's more. Gil thinks you were in the military. In the Gulf War. That tattoo on your arm is a Special Forces emblem. He thinks Navy SEALS. Ring any bells for you?"
Like an explosion of frigid water crashing over him came the image of a mass of bodies moving through sand and darkness beneath a tangle of razor wire, of his own voice shouting hoarsely over the din of explosions. "Disengage! Fall back!" And the cries of men under a darkening sky. And then it was gone.
Shaken, Jack felt the thud of his heart against the wall of his chest and the rush of his own blood in his ears. Bells? That had set off a damned cannonade!
"What is it?" Tess was asking past the ringing in his ears. "Did you remember something?"
"Yeah," he said shakily, rubbing the fading bruise on his temple. "Yeah." Clenching his jaw, he got up and paced to the window. "Flashes. Images. Nothing solid. Nothing—" he turned back to her "—real."
She was beside him then, touching his arm, holding him there like a tethered balloon.
"It's real," she said. "You just can't hold the pieces together yet. Give it time."
"Time?" he growled. His hands were suddenly around her upper arms, his fingers digging into her flesh. "That's something neither one of us has the luxury of. I need it now. Do you understand that?"
"Yes."
Her voice sounded small and scared, and the look in her eyes warned him that he was inches from losing what small grip he retained on civility. Deliberately, he loosened his hands and turned away from her. She didn't move away. She just stood watching him.
"Look," she said slowly, "I understand that you're frustrated and angry, and you have every right to be. But, Jack—"
He slapped the window frame and turned back to her. "That's not even my name! That's some guy you invented. Jack doesn't exist. I'm not him. I'm not even me!"
She moved to his left, where he couldn't avoid her. "What should I call you then?" she asked in a tone that made him look at her. "Bob? Or maybe Jimbo? Or we could eliminate names altogether. If you wanted my attention, you could just, you know, wave. If I wanted yours, I could strip off all my clothes."
He angled a look at her. "All of your clothes? Go on. I'm warming to the idea."
"I suspected you would," she said, tipping her chin up, "despite the hypothetical nature of the suggestion."
"Hypothetical, huh?"
"Purely."
His gaze slid heatedly down the length of her and back up. "Too bad."
Her dimple appeared when she smiled that way. On the right side of her mouth. When she looked down at the floor, it disappeared.
"So my thinking is this," she said, as if she'd never brought up a suggestion that had heated his blood in the blink of an eye. "Your memory will come back when it's good and ready and no amount of angst is going to make it happen any faster. In fact, stress could actually slow down the process."
"Stress."
"Right. For example, you're taking a test, trying to remember some critical answer that just won't come, which naturally pops into your mind hours later when you're not even thinking about it. That happens because your mind is clearer, unfettered by stress."
His mind must have just cleared, because the idea of seeing her naked, stripped of everything but the look he saw in her eyes right now, had taken root there and in other parts of his body.
"So," she added, "that's why we're going out."
"Out?" Surely she was joking.
"Out. A change of scenery. You've got cabin fever, Jimbo. I'm busting us out of this joint for the evening. After we eat, of course."
"I don't know. Maybe it's not such a good idea to—"
"Either you're going to trust me or not, Jack. What's it going to be?"
* * *
Chapter 11
«^»
They left at dusk, when the rest of the mountain community was settling down to cozy fires and supper. The lake had emptied of its daily quotient of tourists and boats. The half-moon rose like a broken coin above the black water. Tess's paddle bisected its reflection as she steered Cara's ancient birch-bark canoe toward the center of the lake.
At the bow of the canoe, behind the small light they'd hung there as a precaution, Jack leaned against a pile of seat cushions with his back to the water, watching her.
"Shouldn't this be the other way around?" he asked with a frown. "Me doing the work, you enjoying the view?"
"We wouldn't get very far that way with your shoulder, would we? Besides, I don't mind," she said, switching sides with the paddle. "I do this all the time alone."
"Really?"
"I like it out here at night. Sometimes early in the morning when no one is up yet. It gives me a chance to think."
"Is that my cue to shut up?"
She laughed. "No. Tonight, we're here not to think. Deal?"
"Deal," he agreed. "So, while we're not pondering our prospects, are we heading somewhere in particular?"
She smiled. "You'll see."
"So we are going someplace."
"My favorite place in the world."
He lifted his eyebrows and settled back against the seat cushions and blankets. Overhead, the stars appeared against the indigo sky like so many scattered diamonds. Up here, no city lights dimmed the view. The expanse of sky seemed contained only by the ring of mountains hemming the lake. Here, Tess thought, one could almost forget the realities that existed beyond the boundaries of this dark water, and imagine a different sort of life.
She paddled another twenty minutes in silence, listening to the sound of her paddle sliding smoothly in and out of the water. At the far end of the lake, they could just make out the colored lanterns glowing on the shoreline for the Pioneer Days festivities. Distant music drifted across the water. Jack lay staring up at the sky, lost in his own private thoughts. Occasionally, she would glance up to find him watching her instead. It gave her a secret thrill to feel his gaze on her.
Something was shifting between them. She couldn't identify it, or even describe it, because she'd never felt anything like it before. Not even with Adam.
She could attribute it to circumstances. It would be easy enough to blame the awful situation for bringing them closer. But it was more than that. And about more than the decidedly carnal thoughts she'd been having about him since he'd kissed her.
No, there was something about Jack … his intelligence, his utter masculinity, his strength – and not just physical strength, but the inner strength that had helped him survive. He'd done that with uncommon grace, especially for a man, stripped of every cover he'd ever used. His vulnerability wasn't a weakness. It only served to accentuate the power of the man he really was. The more they uncovered in him, the more certain she was that the real Jack wasn't so different from the one before her now. And that Jack was someone she wanted very much to know.
Was that crazy? she wondered. Anyone looking at this from the outside – Gil, for instance – would absolutely say yes. And maybe he'd be right. Jack was a loner, as restless as the wind. She'd been around long enough to smell it on a man. It was part of Jack's scent, as elementally him as the stunning blueness of his eyes. But the truth was, that mattered less to her today than it would have a week ago. She was tired of the control she'd wrapped around herself so tightly she had forgotten how to feel. Jack had changed all that, and suddenly, she hungered for more. Was that wrong – to want to feel again? Even if it was just for tonight? Tomorrow, the past that Jack had left behind on that road might just catch up with them. And then it would be too late to wonder about what-ifs.
The dark silhouette of the island had drawn into view. The feeling of relief that spread through her was like a knee-jerk reaction. Over the years, this place had acquired sanctuary status in
her mind. Nothing could harm her here. Not here, with Jack.
As the bottom of the canoe scraped the sandy bottom of the shore, and his gaze took in the miniature island, he sat up straighter, but didn't say a word. That it took his breath away, as it had hers the first time she'd seen it, pleased her.
In the darkness, the silhouette of the island jutted out of the lake like an iceberg floating on the sea. Accidental. Out of place. From end to end it measured a mere hundred feet, with a width of half that. The sandy shore was scattered with smooth rocks and boulders, some wrapped in the roots of the hemlock and pines that crowded the small strip of land. A pair of birds roosting somewhere within burst from the trees in a flutter of wings and disappeared into the night sky, and crickets confined to this spot faded into silence at the sound of the boat's arrival. It was as if some painter had, as an afterthought to a seascape, taken up his brush and inserted a moment of perfection into the center of it.
"Like it?" she asked Jack as she climbed out of the boat and pulled it closer to shore in the ankle-deep water, tying it up to a thick root.
"It's … amazing." The awe in his voice, she knew, was genuine.
He joined her on the shore, and she reached for the blankets and basket she'd packed for the trip. "C'mon. We're not quite there yet."
He followed her along the slender path worn through the pines. The half-moon cast shadows across the path. They walked for less than a minute before they came to a clearing surrounded on three sides by trees and the fourth by water. Thick, luxurious grass carpeted the patch of meadow. Jack stopped at the tall, crumbling stone structure at the center and placed his hands against the mortared stones, still warm from the day's sun.
"What's this?" he asked.
"A lighthouse. Or at least it was once. But all anyone's ever called it is Jacob's Roost." She spread the blanket in the clearing and motioned for him to sit.
Jack lowered himself to the blanket with a grin. "Now there's a loaded answer. I take it there's a story behind it."
"A legend," she clarified with mock gravity, pulling the lid off the steaming thermos. "Every lake needs at least one." She handed him a cup of cocoa and poured one for herself. "Jacob was a Scandinavian immigrant who came here late in the last century. Legend has it that Jacob had come to seek his fortune and had left his love behind him to wait for him. Her name was Analisse.
"According to the legend, he made his fortune in lumber and sent for her. He'd arranged to meet her on this very island because he wanted to see her expression when she saw the mansion he'd built for her at the other end of the lake. But after coming halfway around the world, unscathed, Analisse drowned in a boating accident on her way to meet Jacob. Broken-hearted and half-crazed with grief, he wouldn't leave this island. He built this tower, this lighthouse hoping that she was alive, that she would find her way to him somehow. One day, he simply disappeared.
"Some say Jacob drowned himself. But others believe he found her at last. Some claim to have seen them, standing together at the edge of this island looking up at the stars."
Jack was gazing not at the stars, but at her when she finished. Stretching out on the blanket he crossed one ankle over the other and propped his right hand beneath his head. "You ever see them?"
She laughed. "Jacob and Analisse? No. But one night I thought I saw a light coming through these trees. It was probably just the moon."
He hadn't stopped looking at her, and Tess wrapped her arms around her knees, feeling exposed. She wasn't sure why she'd told Jack that story. Perhaps because tonight she felt a little lost, like Jacob. Or maybe it was simply because they both needed the distraction.
"So," he said, curling his hands around the insulated cup, "you see beacons meant for someone else and believe in happily ever after. What else should I know about you?"
Tess grinned. "Hmm. I hate turnips and tight spaces. I've never been part of a crowd. I have a relentless curiosity that has earned me equal amounts of trouble and success. Oh, and I bake a mean apple pie." She shrugged. "There. Now you know everything about me."
He moaned, rolling onto his back at the thought. "You left out your sadistic tendencies. Leave it to you to bring me out to a deserted island and tease me with visions of homemade apple pie."
She stretched out beside him on the blanket. "You like apple pie?"
The very male look he sent her left little doubt about his appetites.
Her heart fluttered oddly in her chest, like wings flapping against her lungs.
"You cold?" he asked with a frown, dragging an extra blanket toward her.
"No, I…" she began, but it was a lie. "Yes."
He drew a spare blanket over them and pulled her toward his good shoulder. "C'mere, Tess. I don't bite."
Reluctantly, she slid over to put her head on his shoulder.
"Unless the situation calls for it," he added.
She punched him and he laughed, wrapping his arm around her. Tucked comfortably next to him she felt inexplicably safe. Protected. That was almost funny. Imagine feeling safe with a man like Jack.
The crickets had begun their serenade again. She pointed up to the sky. "See that star?"
He followed her fingertip and nodded.
"And the two beside it?" Again, he nodded. "I think that's Orion's belt. The big reddish-looking one is—"
"Betelgeuse," he finished. "The red supergiant."
She turned to stare at him.
"And Bellatrix – the smaller one, there. And the blurry ones below it? Orion's dagger."
She sat up. "Jack—"
"Orion, the hunter. Don't ask me how I know that. I just do. I know about the ascension and declination of stars. If you put me in the middle of nowhere, I could find my way back by their positions in the sky. If I knew where 'back' was."
"A Navy SEAL would know how to do that. Sailors navigate by the stars…"
"So do camel traders."
The picture made her laugh. "Somehow you don't look the part. No, I can see you in dress blues and spit-shined shoes."
"Nah, you've got me pegged all wrong. Turbans and caftans. That's definitely more 'me.' A bevy of women—"
"A harem?" she interjected dryly.
"Right, a harem at my beck and call. Dress blues and spit-shined shoes don't really hold much appeal compared to that. Sand, sun and fun. That's me."
"But seriously, Jack—"
He rolled toward her, stopping her thought midsentence. "I thought we weren't going to get serious tonight. And no talk about tomorrow?"
"Oh." She blinked at his sudden movement. "You're right. My fault. It – it won't happen again. I promise."
He leaned over her, smiling, close enough – if the light had been better – to count the freckles on her nose, but not far enough to miss the suddenly breathless hook on her face as if she half expected him to kiss her.
The instant the thought materialized, he felt himself get hard.
All he had to do was lower his mouth to hers, taste her again the way he'd wanted to ever since the last time they'd kissed. One tilt of his head, one brush of his lips against hers…
Her lips parted and her tongue darted out to moisten them. The movement nearly undid him. Cursing silently, he rolled onto his back.
What was he thinking, letting those kinds of thoughts rattle around in that empty can of his? She'd already told him she was off-limits. And even if she'd changed her mind, he knew better. However, he had the self-control of a flea where Tess was concerned – as evidenced by his lower regions – and all he needed was to act on the impulse to kiss her and it'd be all over.
The vaguest memory hovered on the edges of his mind of holding a woman this way before, but the punch of desire that settled in his gut seemed starkly unfamiliar. Had he ever wanted a woman the way he wanted Tess? And was this feeling that made him want to hold her forever just about sex, or was it something else altogether?
The first option appealed to him more; fewer complications and no big mystery. Tess was a beaut
iful woman; he was a man. Why should he muddle all that with emotions? Lust was maddeningly simple, and he was filled with it.
Heedless of that fact, or perhaps in spite of it, Tess rolled toward him again and tucked herself against his shoulder. Her fist rested on his rib cage, coiled there as if she were ready for a fight. "Who's afraid now, Jack?"
He set his teeth. "Leave it alone, Doc."
She shivered against him. "You're right – of course. I should. I should just ignore the feeling that something has changed."
Nothing has changed, he wanted to say, but he knew it was a blatant lie. Everything had changed – the way ice, unlocked by heat, turned to water. It's molecular structure was the same, but it became something else entirely.
The chilly night air carried the fragrance of pine and the sound of the lapping water against the shoreline. Overhead, the stars appeared in fistfuls against the black backdrop of sky.
"Do you believe in fate, Jack? That things are destined to be?"
"A strange question to ask a man with no past."
She looked utterly unrepentant. "But what put us on that road together at that very moment?"
"Bad timing?"
She laughed softly. "I mean, if I'd stayed at the lab that night, if Daniel hadn't sent me on vacation … if you hadn't been involved with those men … we never would have met."
"Probably not." His hand tightened unconsciously around her. "That would've been better for you."
"You think so?"
Her fingers, splayed against his ribs, sent quivers across his abdomen. Jack rolled his eyes. "Don't you? I mean, look what I've done to your life. I've torn it apart. Nothing's going to be the same for you, Tess. Maybe not even if we resolve this. If we ever do."
"Maybe I was meant to find you. Maybe it was our destiny."
"And maybe," he suggested dryly, "it was some huge cosmic mistake. And somebody up there is still scratching his head trying to figure out where he went wrong and how to untangle you from all this."
Her voice went soft. "And what if I said I don't want to be untangled?"
Jack sniffed. "Then I'd say you need a vacation. A nice long vacation on some island paradise – one with palm trees and natives and complete bed rest."
I'LL REMEMBER YOU Page 13
