Close to His Heart

by Carolyne Aarsen

  Tess felt impotent in her anger and didn’t know where to turn. She hauled the pillows off the couch and threw them over her shoulder. She yanked books off her computer desk and tossed them.

  She snatched pictures off the wall.

  She grabbed the chair Jace had been sitting in and knocked it over.

  Tess stopped in the middle of the living room, fighting back tears, as the door of her apartment opened.

  Her heart plunged down a mine shaft and she spun around, ice splintering through her veins. She hadn’t locked the door. Someone was coming in.

  “Hey, Tess. What’s up?”

  The light from the hallway shadowed the person standing there.

  Claire turned on the light of the main room, then frowned as her eyes took in the state of Tess’s living room.

  “Honey, what happened here?”

  Tess’s chest was heaving with anger, rage, and a sorrow so deep, she hadn’t even begun to release it.

  Claire stepped over the toppled chair and caught Tess by the arms. She gently led her to the couch and sat down.

  “Your hands are like ice. What’s going on? Did someone break in?”

  Tess looked at her sister, trying to place her in the upheaval that had just gone on. Then reason entered her life again as she looked around the wreckage of her apartment.

  “No. No one broke in.”

  “What happened?”

  “Give me a minute.” Tess breathed in and out, willing her erratic heartbeat to settle as she closed the door on the memories. “Jace and I had a fight.”

  Claire’s eyes flicking over her face, her hands pushing Tess’s hair back as if checking for injuries.

  “No. He didn’t do any of this,” Tess said, jerking her head back, then looking away from her prying eyes. “It was all me. I just...lost my temper.”

  “You’re not covering for him, are you?”

  “No. Claire. Really. Jace would never do this.” Tess stood and snatched a pillow from the floor and fluffed it up. She clutched it a moment, gathering her scattered emotions, then laid it on one end of the couch. “I did it after he left.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Tess felt a flicker of anger and focused on it, fanning into a righteous flame. “You don’t have to make it sound like Jace is a closet abuser. I know you’ve never cared for him, but he would never, ever hurt me.” Her words came out with extra vehemence, underscored by the emotional roller coaster she had just been on.

  She then faced her sister, her tears dry now. “He’s a good guy, you know.”

  Claire met her eyes, then looked over the mess in the apartment. “What was the fight about?”

  “He’s going back to the city.” Even as she spoke the words, they sounded unconvincing. Jace’s return to the city wasn’t a surprise.

  “But...you knew that,” Claire said.

  “Well, yeah. But, lately he made it sound as if he might stay. I thought he would. But no, Carson calls and he jumps.”

  “Again, no surprise there,” Claire said.

  “Like I said, I thought he was staying. I honestly thought things were going somewhere with us. But he wants to sell the ranch. Leave here. I thought...after all this time...”

  Claire sat on the couch with a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry, hon, but I could have told you this would happen.”

  Tess shrugged. “Yeah, well...live and learn I guess.”

  Claire picked up one of the cushions and fingered the edge. “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but is that why you took off for Europe that one summer? Because you and Jace had a fight?”

  Tess felt her throat tighten. She swallowed as she shook her head, trying to find her footing, to find an argument her sister would buy to explain her trashing her own apartment. “It wasn’t Jace—it was me. I couldn’t stand the pressure of work, and I felt the walls closing in. It seemed like everyone wanted something from me, and I couldn’t deliver anymore. I left before I had a nervous breakdown.”

  Tess drew in a steadying breath, pulling herself back to the place she had been before Jace had returned. “I wanted to rethink my life and what I wanted. To stop being the girl that everyone thought I should be.”

  Because that hadn’t prevented what happened to her.

  “Lately, I’ve been feeling the same expectations from Jace, from Mom...Dad... everyone. Tonight, I just lost it.”

  “Oh, honey, you could have told us.” Claire caught Tess by the shoulders and turned her around. “We knew something was wrong. We never realized that you were feeling so much pressure.”

  Tess felt a flush of guilt, but reminded herself that much of what she said was true.

  Claire hugged Tess. “I never knew, sister. You should have said something.”

  Tess allowed herself a moment of weakness. Of letting her sister comfort her.

  Tess said, “I didn’t want to go through all that. I was scared Mom would want me to see a counselor and make me see a doctor.” Tess shrugged. “I got it through then, I’ll get through it now. Jace didn’t understand, and we fought.”

  Claire held her gaze, as if trying to peer past the haze of words Tess was spinning between them.

  It’s all the truth, Tess reminded herself again.

  “Now, this is who I am,” Tess said. “Being alone is my choice.”

  “Jace isn’t the only man for you, you know,” Claire said.

  Tess closed her eyes, feeling the sting of tears. At least now, she could feel authentic in her sorrow. “I really cared for him. I really thought...” Her voice faded away.

  “You’ll find someone else, you know. You are an amazing and wonderful woman. You’re pure and lovely and beautiful. If Jace can’t see that, then he doesn’t deserve you.”

  Claire waited, as if to let this information sink in. Then she picked up Tess’s Bible. “You’ve been reading this again.”

  Tess nodded. “I was reading what the pastor read from the Bible that Sunday I was in church. I couldn’t get past the part about the boundaries of my life falling in pleasant places.” She gave a short laugh. “They haven’t been so pleasant.”

  Claire hesitated, then flipped through the Bible, the thin pages rustling in the quiet. “Maybe you need to look at something that more adequately speaks to the pain you’re dealing with.” She handed the open Bible back to Tess. “Read some of these passages. They might make more sense.”

  Tess glanced down, recognizing the Psalms. The ones she often skipped because she never felt the angry imprecations against justice for enemies ever applied to her. “The cursing Psalms,” she said quietly. “How can I find any comfort in that?”

  “It’s not about comfort. I think God invites honest emotion and interaction. An entire book of the Bible is devoted to lamenting, something we don’t pay enough attention to. Something we avoid.”

  Tess skimmed the passages, seeing David’s anger and frustration. She sensed a kinship with the words. “I guess, like David, I felt like God had let me down.”

  “I felt that way toward God when Andy died and left me with Emma. I still struggle with it, but David felt the same way. You’re not alone.” Claire took the Bible from Tess, put a bookmark in it, and laid it aside. “Some of this you’ll have to deal with—just you and God. I want to challenge you to take some time to pray. To talk to God honestly and tell Him what you’re trying to deal with.”

  Tess tested the idea as hints of the connection she had with God broke in from the edges of her life. At one time, she’d had a relationship with Him. At one time, her prayers had sustained and helped her. However, her life apart from God had been empty. Lifeless. She’d been trying to outrun Him, but it seemed He was relentless.

  Claire touched Tess’s cheek. “I know things haven’t been that great for you, but you know, tomorrow things will seem much better.”

  “Thanks for coming by,” Tess said. “Why did you stop over?”

  Claire released a light laugh and gave her sister an apologetic look. “I actually
came to borrow your pink skirt...”

  “Sure. I’ll go get it.” Tess got up, thankful for the return to the ordinary things of life.

  She stepped over the fallen chair and by the time she found the skirt and returned, Claire had cleaned up the living room.

  Claire took the skirt, and as she folded it over her arm, smiled tentatively. “Don’t worry about Jace. If he doesn’t come around, like I said, he doesn’t deserve you.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” Tess said, walking her sister to the door. She closed the door behind her and fell back against it, dropping her head into her hands.

  She should have told Claire.

  A secret held for six years wasn’t released so easily. Maybe she would someday. When Jace was gone.

  She closed her eyes against the pain those simple words caused her. Jace. Gone.

  She had to keep going. She had to be strong. Jace was no longer in her life. Their fight had seen to that.

  He couldn’t be in Sweet Creek.

  Come Sunday, Jace had headed to the city. He even sat with Carson and his wife in church, thankful that something in his life was normal. He and Carson talked briefly about the development in Sweet Creek, but they didn’t talk about the ranch. Carson asked after Tess, concerned with how things were going, but Jace couldn’t tell him much. He didn’t really want to talk about it.

  When Jace returned to Sweet Creek, it was with a different focus. His Monday meeting with the Town Council was inconclusive, and the decision on the condos was tabled, which only added to his frustration. Though he had truly hoped to get something done for Carson, it would take time.

  Time he wasn’t sure he wanted to invest in anymore. He would get through this fundraiser, go to one more meeting to convince the Town Council to okay the development, and then he would leave. He had told Carson as much and, thankfully, his boss agreed. Carson had said he would send someone else over to Sweet Creek to finish what Jace had started.

  Now he dove into his work, getting ready for his replacement and the fundraiser while trying to eradicate his fight with Tess from his mind.

  He avoided Claire’s coffee shop for three days. Thankfully he hadn’t seen Tess.

  Each night, he went to the ranch and kept himself busy there, fixing fences for animals that would never be there and taking down an old shed that his father had always meant to. In spite of his negative feelings toward the ranch and all it represented, the physical work felt good.

  Seeing what he had accomplished at the end of the day was satisfying.

  But, all the while, his mind was on Tess and their puzzling fight.

  Then, one day, he was tired of it. He pushed himself away from his desk and walked down the street. He wasn’t letting Tess determine the course of his life anymore. He wasn’t avoiding her like a love-struck teen. He had some pride after all.

  When he got to the coffee shop, Claire stood behind the counter. The look she gave him wasn’t too encouraging.

  “What will you have?” she asked, her features an expressionless mask.

  “Coffee. To go,” he said, glancing around the store, wondering where Tess was.

  “Tess is not here,” Claire said, pouring him coffee and snapping a lid on with extra force.

  Jace nodded, handing Claire a bill and reaching for his coffee.

  Claire kept her hand on the cup, her eyes on his. “I heard you had a fight Saturday night.”

  Jace should have known her sister would have found out about it so soon. “Can’t see how that’s any of your business.”

  Claire sent him a piercing glare. “At any rate, Tess is hurting right now, and she needs space.”

  “As you can see, I’ve been giving her lots of it,” Jace returned. He was getting tired of Claire as well. “I just hope she decides to show up at the fundraiser.”

  “She’ll be there.” Claire sighed. “Though I can’t see why. She went along with the whole thing because of Mom and Dad. And, she won’t admit it anymore, but I think a bit of it was because of you.”

  Jace’s heart lurched. “What do you mean?”

  Claire tapped her fingers on her arm. “She’s never really gotten over you.”

  Her comment hung between them, full of implications.

  “What do you mean?” he repeated.

  “She’s always had a thing for you.” The faintest hint of derision entered Claire’s voice. “Even after she came back from Europe...she still cared for you; though, I couldn’t ever figure out why.”

  Jace held the first part of her comment to himself, promising to examine it more later. For now, he zeroed in on the last part.

  “You never liked me, did you?”

  Claire shrugged. “No secret there.”

  “Why?”

  Claire pursed her lips. “You wasted so much of your life,” she said. “You could have done so much better in school. You had a good family, but you always acted like they were a pain in your neck. You had this amazing place to live, and, I know from Tess, all you did was complain about it and this town.”

  Jace clenched his jaw, realizing that she was right—to a point.

  “Tess is so family-oriented,” Claire continued. “So bound to the community she grew up in. She would have stayed in Sweet Creek if she could. But you didn’t like Sweet Creek. Still don’t. You didn’t appreciate this town, or your parents. You were so eager to get out of here, so quick to move to the city and set your sights upward. She cared enough to follow you there.”

  He bristled at her accusations. “Tess didn’t have to follow me.”

  “No, but she made some pretty big sacrifices for you,” Claire said. “I always wondered what sacrifices you would have made for her.”

  Jace held Claire’s gaze, feeling the challenge in it and wishing he didn’t care so much about what Claire was saying. “You say she needs space. and I’ve tried to give it to her, but I didn’t quit thinking about her when she left me high and dry. She mattered a lot to me. Still does.” That last part was a concession to the feelings he couldn’t sweep away, no matter how often he went over the fight he and Tess had.

  A begrudging smile slipped across Claire’s mouth. “I’ll tell her you stopped by.”

  That was it. She turned away, and Jace stood there a moment, holding his cup of coffee, then left. His replacement was coming tomorrow, and he had to get ready for him. Then, he had to make plans to move back to Vancouver.

  What about Tess? He wished he could answer that. Even if he went to the city, he wasn’t so sure he could put her behind him.

  Chapter 12

  Happy birthday to me, Tess thought as she smoothed her hand over her soft green dress and adjusted the high, beaded neckline. She should have let Claire throw her a birthday party. Celebrating thirty years of life was preferable to facing Jace at the fundraiser tonight.

  You can stay home.

  The pernicious voice returned, but Tess banished it. She had spent the day at home and ignored the phone, knowing the calls would be from her family wishing her a happy birthday. She felt anything but happy.

  She looked at herself in the mirror again. For the past half hour, she had argued back and forth with herself. Stay. Go. Stay. Go.

  Her head was tired. She still felt she had to prove to Jace that she was the kind of person who stuck with things to the end. She didn’t want to be defeated by what happened to her. Someday, she would tell her family what had happened.

  But not yet, not with Jace so close. Once he was out of her life for good, she could release her secrets and move on.

  She tucked a wayward strand of hair back up, pressed her lips together, and picked up her beaded purse.

  She was ready.

  By the time she walked into the door of the hall where the fundraiser was held, her hands and feet were ice cold and she shivered. She stepped into the hall, and the first thing she noticed was the hum of hundreds of voices underlaid with a soft soundtrack of classical music.

  The arena was a mass of people, wa
ll to wall. Some sat at tables, others chatted in corners and bent over the tables lining the edges of the miraculously transformed arena.

  Rows and rows of round paper lanterns hung from the ceiling, each lit up inside. Crisp white linens covered the tables, each holding a tall crystal vase with an assortment of Asiatic lilies and ivy climbing down the vase to rest on the table.

  Dark velvet curtains were draped along the front of the auditorium, creating a backdrop for the stage, edged with white linen that was also draped with ivy.

  Her eyes swept the arena, looking for only one person. She could see no sign of him. He would be here. Of that she was positive.

  He was why she had hesitated so long. But, if she would be living her life here in Sweet Creek, if she was going to carry on, then she needed to do just that. Carry on. Be herself.

  “Hey Tess,” a voice came from beside her.

  Tess turned and gave Nadine Laidlaw a forced smile. Nadine had a camera slung around her neck and another in her hand.

  “I’m guessing Clint asked you to cover this for the paper?” Tess said.

  “Yeah. You’d think being engaged to the boss would give me some preference; but no, he gets to schmooze and I get to take pictures of the people he’s schmoozing with.”

  Tess had to grin at Nadine’s fake complaints. “Yeah, I can tell you’re heartbroken at having to cover an event where Helen Lennox is singing.”

  “Suffering for my art,” Nadine said, returning Tess’s smile. “It’s pretty amazing.”

  “It is that,” Tess said, smoothing her hands over her dress in a nervous gesture.

  “Clint was wondering where Jace is. He’s had little chance to catch up with him since Jace has been back.”

  Tess was about to say that she didn’t know when her mother swooped in. “Hello Nadine,” she said, then turned to her daughter. “And happy birthday to you.”

  “It’s your birthday?” Nadine asked.

  “Yes. Today.”

  “Well, congrats.” Nadine lifted her camera and snapped a photo of Tess and her mother then waggled her fingers at them. “I better be shoving off. People to talk to, pictures to take.”