Jonathan nodded, returning his full attention to the woman as Collin walked into the house. His eyes hardening into a wall while he waited for his friend to be outside of earshot. When Collin shut the door behind him and they were safely alone, her face didn’t turn serious, didn’t reveal the monster he had feared. Instead, she suddenly seemed quite fragile, the strength she’d projected a moment ago drowned out by the relief she no longer felt necessary to hide. It was so contrary to what Jonathan had imagined that his face softened immediately in concern for her.
A second later, she had him in an embrace. She laid her face against his chest, wrapping her hands around him to draw him close. He could feel her warm, solid body pressed intimately against him. Flustered, he felt his face turning red in embarrassment for her.
He’d clearly misjudged the situation. Now, with no clue what was happening, he didn’t know how to respond to the affection. He felt torn. Her behavior had passed inappropriate and he couldn’t lead her on. At the same time, pushing her away felt hurtful and heartless. He found himself searching for a gentle median, a way to put space between them.
He heard her begin to laugh against his chest. “Why didn’t you come to me?” she asked. “I worried. I thought something awful had happened.”
He began to pull back slowly, but guilt hit him in a wave when he could see her face. She was so vulnerable; he didn’t want to say he didn’t know her, that she was confused.
“Please, ma’am,” Jonathan said, placing his hands gently on her hip and shoulder to separate them. She resisted for a moment, but finally conceded and allowed him to break the contact between them. “I’m sorry, but you must have me confused with someone else.”
Looking into her eyes, he saw her joy turn to hurt, relief turn to fear—but what followed was a state of confusion and anger.
“Stop it. You don’t… It’s not necess—” She stopped mid thought and pulled away from him harshly. His hands were left hanging in the air, no longer needed to keep her at arms’ length. “You aren’t playing,” she said, and he could see that she was beginning to tremble.
Jonathan shook his head slowly and saw a tear forming in the corner of her eye.
“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no.” She repeated the denial over and over as she backed away.
“Please, ma’am,” Jonathan said, “I don’t—”
He cut off when he saw how she had shut her eyes tight, so upset by his use of the word “ma’am” that every word that followed seemed to be making it worse for her. She turned away, the grace she’d had a moment ago gone. She picked up her helmet and threw one leg over her motorcycle, shoving the helmet down over her head, in a hurry to be far away from here.
When the obvious occurred to him, her panic and embarrassment turned infectious.
My memory…
His certainty faltered—he hesitated. How? If she somehow remembered what happened within the gates, it couldn’t explain her affections. They were too much; he couldn’t have possibly lost enough time for this woman to feel so intimate with him.
Her engine had come to life, and her bike already in motion by the time he thought to stop her. She looked back at him once as she sped away. He couldn’t see her eyes behind the reflective screen of her helmet. A moment later, she was gone, nothing more than the sound of a motorcycle engine fading away.
Jonathan hadn’t moved, still standing in the driveway, dumbfounded, berating himself for having handled the situation so poorly and misjudging everything that had happened from the moment she had said his name. He couldn’t understand how he had just caused so much pain to a complete stranger.
Slowly, he stepped back, knowing it wouldn’t do any good for him to stand staring at his empty driveway any longer. When he turned, he was surprised to find he wasn’t alone. Leah stood in her front yard, her face looking as confused as his own must have. He was startled when he caught her there. It dawned on him, then, how all of what had just played out must have looked. He heard the woman’s retreating words repeating in his own thoughts:
No, no, no.
She wished she’d moved before he turned around. Now, Leah didn’t know quite what to do with her face when he looked at her.
Should I leave? Should I say something?
She’d felt jealous and hurt seeing another woman hold on to him like that, a self-sabotaging little voice inside whispering that Jonathan had never avoided her—that he hadn’t simply been respecting her wishes. He’d not been alone. Yet, she knew it was a ridiculous reaction. Jonathan having any relationship with the woman was impossible—Leah would have been briefed on such a thing had it ever developed, and that was the problem.
The “Leah” she let Jonathan see couldn’t possibly know this. At the same time, after asking him not to get attached to her, what right did she have saying anything if he had started a relationship with another woman? The variables felt like they were boxing her into a corner.
He waved to her awkwardly, taking a step toward the picket fence that divided their property. Leah waved back, not knowing what else to do, but still glad that one of them had moved. So she met him halfway.
“I don’t…” he managed, “know what just happened.”
Leah tried to smile politely, shrugging as she did so. “She seemed upset,” she said. “Was she a friend of yours?”
“No,” Jonathan said as he looked back toward the empty street. “I’ve never met her. It was so odd. She knew my name, seemed to think—”
Jonathan didn’t finish the sentence. She could see the increasing weight of his thoughts behind his eyes when he turned back to her. Leah knew that look. He got it whenever he was afraid and was trying to get control of it. She hadn’t seen it on him in a while now.
“She was so confused,” he said. “And hurt.”
Leah studied him, and knew now that he was hiding something. His concern was genuine, though, and she found herself wanting to reassure him. “I’m sure she’ll be okay,” Leah said, reaching out over the fence to place her fingertips on his arm. “What about you? You seem rattled.”
His eyes had become focused on the hand now touching his skin. He blinked a few times, and she almost pulled away, fearing she had misread the situation—but then he smiled, slowly reaching to put his hand over hers. He looked at her, studying her eyes, and the moment seemed to get away from her. When too much time had passed and no one spoke, she found herself failing to keep a grin off her face.
Jonathan cleared his throat. “What was it you wanted to talk to me about last night?” he asked.
Here we go, she thought, changing the subject when he doesn’t know how to answer.
Leah played along, making sure her expression made it clear that he wasn’t fooling her. “Last night?” Leah said, pretending to think about it. “You mean before the hot little Brazilian girls started jumping you in the driveway?”
“Was that the accent?” he asked. “I was wondering—couldn’t place it.”
Leah shook her head and waited. In a moment, if he knew what was good for him, he’d realize that now was not the time to fixate on the girl no longer standing in front of him.
He closed his eyes and smiled. “I meant, yeah,” he said. “Before that.”
Leah played with the sleeve of his T-shirt, caressing the fabric between her fingertips as she made him wait. “I wanted to ask if you’d come over for dinner,” she said. “We haven’t talked much. I never meant to scare you off.”
Jonathan smiled slowly. “I’d like that.”
Leah heard the sound of the door opening in the garage, and Collin reappeared a moment later.
He looked around the driveway and found the girl on the motorcycle missing. “Hey,” Collin said, face disappointed. “Rylee take off?”
Olivia stood in the hallway, holding her small plate and coffee cup. Evelyn had decorated the walls on either side of her with family pictures. From inside one of the frames, Douglas Tibbs looked back at her. He was in uniform, a black beret on h
is head—standard issue for Army Rangers outside of a war zone.
Jonathan looked like his father, though Olivia had already known that. Studying the pictures, she wondered if Evelyn had any idea how much the boy from these photographs had changed. Not just physically, as Jonathan had put on at least thirty pounds since any of these photos were taken, but in his expression as well. The son looked more like the father now than he ever had in his childhood.
Evelyn returned holding a cardboard box, and watched Olivia as she studied her family photos.
“Your son. He has a lot of your husband in his features,” Olivia said.
Evelyn nodded and smiled. “It didn’t end with a handsome face. Kid takes after his father,” Evelyn replied, walking past Olivia and back to the living room. She placed the box on the coffee table.
“How so?” Olivia asked as she followed.
“They hardly ever speak, for one thing. Happy to spend all day in their heads. Except when they were together. I think they brought it out of each other. Jonathan and I never got on quite like that. It was worse after his father passed. The kid was like Fort Knox if he didn’t feel like talking.”
Evelyn took the lid off the box and revealed a collection of memories: pieces of Douglas’s time in the military, photos, keep sakes—all things she didn’t want to be reminded of after he’d died.
“You said this soldier, Jeremy Holloway…” Evelyn said. “He was in Douglas’s battalion?”
“Most of the records are lost, including all the pictures, but from what we could tell he served with your husband. He didn’t make it back home with the rest of the battalion,” Olivia said as she retrieved a digital camera from her briefcase. “Would you mind if I took some photos as we go through these?”
Evelyn shrugged.
Olivia began arranging the pictures and taking shots as they moved through the box.
“I see the name listed,” Evelyn said, “but I can’t honestly tell you which of these guys was him. I met some of his friends from the Army when he got back. If this Mr. Holloway fellow died over there, I wouldn’t have met him.”
“I understand. I have a few other individuals on my list to track down. Still, maybe by compiling what I have with what you’ve shown me, we can piece it together back at the Records Department.”
Olivia’s eyes fell on a framed photo. It showed Douglas with three fellow soldiers. There was a caption inscribed on the frame: Staff Sergeant Douglas Tibbs, with the surviving members of his Army Ranger Strike Team, Libya, 1984.
When Olivia looked at the faces of the men kneeling beside Douglas, she had to keep her eyes from going wide. Her thoughts began to race. Mainly, they screamed that she should be on the phone to her superior as soon as she was back in her sedan. She pushed the reaction down, knowing it would be a miscalculation to give Evelyn any reason to notice a change in her mood or to leave abruptly at the sight of any one of the photos.
Olivia took a last sip of coffee and calmly asked, “Do you mind if I remove this from the frame? I think the glass might create a reflection in the picture.”
“My computer has a scanner, if you prefer I could make a copy,” Evelyn said. “I’m terrible with technology but you could email it to yourself.”
“That would be perfect,” Olivia said. “But no need to email it out. I brought a drive with me.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BETWEEN THE WOMAN in his driveway and Leah asking him to dinner, Jonathan had difficulty keeping his mind on training, a task that wasn’t made any easier by Collin, who had been joining him to lift weights more and more often. His roommate’s sense of curiosity—or perhaps suspicion was more accurate—refused to let the topic of the girl in the driveway drop. In fairness, Rylee had simply known too much about Jonathan for Collin to buy that he’d never met her.
“She asked for you by name,” Collin said.
Jonathan shrugged.
“She said….” Collin paused. “You were expecting her? That you gave her our address?”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Jonathan said. “If I did all that, I don’t remember it.”
Collin studied him skeptically. “Any history of sleep walking I should know about?”
“No.” Jonathan grinned. “Not to my knowledge.”
“Then…” Collin frowned. “Why did you ask me to leave you two alone?”
That was an excellent question, and Jonathan didn’t have an answer for it. He laid under the weight bench and started a set of chest presses, trying to buy himself a moment to think of an excuse—but by the time he finished and Collin helped him put the bar back in place, he still hadn’t come up with anything.
“Well?” Collin asked.
“I, uh…” Jonathan said. “Misread the situation.”
His roommate rolled his eyes. “Yeah, obviously, but if you didn’t know her, what did you—”
Collin paused, interrupted by the sound of Jonathan’s phone vibrating on the other side of the room, a distraction that Jonathan eagerly used as an excuse to duck the unfinished question. When he reached it, the caller I.D. said Evelyn Tibbs.
Damn, Jonathan thought, sending the call to voice mail for the third time that day. His mother’s attempts to get him on the phone were becoming more and more frequent. Answering a call from Evelyn Tibbs was a bit like dodging a bullet by jumping into a minefield. Still, it had given him an idea he would never have thought of otherwise.
“I thought my mother may have sent her,” Jonathan said. “I never told her about the hospital. Ever since I told her I dropped out of school, she calls me about every day. I’ve been avoiding her.”
Collin frowned. “Why would your mother send someone you didn’t know to lecture you?” Collin asked.
“I told you,” Jonathan said, “I misjudged the situation. Got paranoid.”
Jonathan reminded himself that this was why he shouldn’t lie. He was terrible at it, and if Collin kept pressing him, he was going to get his story screwed up. As he watched Collin think about it, Jonathan saw his roommate come around to the possibility that he was just an idiot.
“Not what I thought you were going to say,” Collin said.
Jonathan gave his roommate a sideways glance. “What did you think?”
“Well, gee, Tibbs, I feel bad about it now,” Collin admitted. “But, I thought you had a stalker ex-girlfriend and you were pretending not to know her so our neighbor wouldn’t find out.”
“No,” Jonathan said, seeing the real motivation for Collin giving him the 3rd degree. “I guess I’m flattered you would assume I had so interesting a love life.”
“Too bad. She knew her stuff as far as the motorcycle was concerned. I kinda hoped….” Collin paused to think his words over. “Well, I didn’t think she was nuts, is all.”
Jonathan grew troubled, and Collin didn’t miss a beat picking up on it.
“It’s none of my business, but you seem less sure than you’re letting on,” Collin said.
Jonathan took a long breath and gave Collin an appraising glance. He could seldom discuss his life—he always kept his friends at a distance. This didn’t feel like it had to be just another moment where he stoically refused to comment.
“If I run something by you,” Jonathan said, “can you keep it between the two of us?”
Collin frowned, his hands coming up as if pretending he was offended Jonathan needed to ask.
“Theoretically,” Jonathan said. “Have you ever lost any time?”
“We talking, blacked out while drinking?” Collin asked. “Or alien abduction?”
Jonathan narrowed his eyes, but chuckled before responding. “Let’s go with the drinking option.”
“No, not really,” Collin said. “I mean, I’ve had memories get foggy, but I’ve never completely forgotten say, meeting a girl, giving her my name and address, and asking her to visit me at my house.”
“Right,” Jonathan said. “I mean, all that couldn’t have happened in some fleeting ten-minute window.”
“Tibbs?” Collin’s face had become a question mark. “You were home last night—when would you have drunk that much anyway?”
“I…” Jonathan said. “Hey, I said it was theoretical.”
Collin held his palms up, indicating there was no need to get defensive. “Well, the last time I heard a blackout drunk story,” he said, “it was my brother trying to explain to his girlfriend how he’d come to ‘accidentally’ cheat on her. You know, the old, ‘I’m somehow not responsible for my actions because I don’t remember them,’ strategy.”
Jonathan nodded. “How’d that turn out for him?”
“You know,” Collin said. “Let’s just say I don’t recommend it.”
When his roommate quit for the day, Jonathan changed over to weapons training. By mid-afternoon, he had finished running practice drills with the staff. He went up the stairs, drenched in sweat, looking for food and a shower and reminding himself that he now had the added chore of spending an hour in the southwest corner of his room pretending to read.
After the events of the morning, he was anxious to hear back from Mr. Clean, fairly certain that they couldn’t wait for Heyer to figure out what had caused the glitch. Unless an attractive foreign exchange student who suffered from mental illness had become fixated on him, then happened to show up in his driveway the day after his memory became compromised, Occam’s Razor pretty much confirmed that the girl had memories of that day that he didn’t.
The more he thought it through, the more hindsight berated him—he should have recognized what was happening. The way Rylee had locked up reminded him of his own speechlessness at times. Circumstances often put him in situations he couldn’t explain to someone else. And what did he do when someone pressed him on it? He either said nothing or found the fastest way out of the conversation that he could. He’d never fled the scene quite like Rylee had, but he’d never honestly had the option. Most of the people who pressed him were people he lived with. Outside of refusing to answer calls from his mother, he really didn’t have any choice other than stubborn silence.
The Never Paradox (Chronicles Of Jonathan Tibbs Book 2) Page 8
