Saving Tess

by M. S. Parker

  What did that mean? Dammit! Instead of having more questions answered as time went on, I kept finding new questions.

  “I appreciate you putting us all up like this,” Brianne said. “You know I’d never put you in danger but–”

  “I understand,” Sylvia said, holding up a hand. “It is not an inconvenience. I am grateful for the chance to see you again and learn about the life you now lead.”

  “If the others want to get cleaned up first,” Brianne said, “I’ll be glad to sit down with a cup of coffee, and we can exchange stories.”

  “Of course.” Sylvia turned her attention to me, though I wasn’t sure if it was because I was Brianne’s sister, or because I looked the most in need of cleaning up. “Follow me.”

  I should have been able to fall asleep with no problem considering the sheer volume of physical activity I’d put in, even without factoring in the fact that I’d barely moved in the past two weeks. Thanks to some amazing painkillers Sylvia had been able to provide, the pain I’d been in after my shower had faded away. It would be back, I knew, but I should have been able to sleep now.

  My brain, however, didn’t want to rest. Thoughts kept chasing one another, sometimes connecting to a previous thought, but often completely random. At one point, I even had the song “I’m a Little Teapot” stuck in my head, and the only way I was able to get it out was to start mentally singing every Disney song I knew. Somewhere around “Circle of Life,” I accepted the fact that I wouldn’t be sleeping any time soon and got up.

  The alarm clock next to the bed told me it was a quarter to two in the morning, and as I paused by the bedroom door, I was the only one awake. The guest room I was in was tiny, but the bigger room had two beds for both of the guys. Brianne and I could’ve shared, but she said she preferred to sleep on the couch. My gut told me she’d be doing more guarding than sleeping, but that was her choice. I hadn’t asked her to do any of this.

  I slipped out of my room and made my way down the hall and through the kitchen to the enclosed back porch. It was barely big enough to hold one of those carved wooden swings, but the fact that the screens kept out the bugs more than made up for the size.

  The night was clear, with nothing hiding the stars or the three-quarters moon. As much as I loved New York for giving me a home and a place where I could do what I loved for a living, there were times I wished I lived somewhere I could see the stars.

  I folded my arms, rubbing my hands up and down from shoulder to elbow in an almost unconscious motion to warm my chilled skin. The breeze that came through wasn’t unpleasant though. The air was fresh, and after having been kept cooped up, it was more welcomed than usual. I was used to the smells of the city, both the good and the bad, but that motel had been rank, worse than the hottest day in the worst neighborhood back home.

  “Couldn’t sleep either, or were you just waiting until everyone was in bed to find me?” Clay stood up from where he’d been sitting on the swing, hidden in the shadows.

  “Why would I be looking for you?” I asked, tipping my head back to look up at him. I’d forgotten how much taller he was than me. “I just wanted some air.”

  He nodded, a pensive expression on his handsome face.

  No, not handsome. Pretty. Clay had always been what most people referred to as a ‘pretty boy.’ The years had done little to change that. Even though he was thirty-three now, he could’ve passed for late twenties, probably younger if he was clean-shaven. I’d never been a fan of scruff, but on him, I found it obnoxiously appealing.

  “How you and Brianne handle things is between the two of you,” he said, “but I’m not going to pretend that you’re not acting weird.”

  “Weird?” I laughed. “How in the world would you know what’s weird for me?”

  “Don’t do that,” he said, the intensity in his voice cutting off my laughter. “Don’t pretend like what happened between us…Tess, I don’t understand. I thought things between us were fine the last time we saw each other.”

  I shook my head. “Of course you do. Because you still think that I don’t know what you were really doing that night.”

  His eyebrows drew together, his face a picture of puzzlement. “Something’s off here, but I don’t get what it is. Did something happen during these last two weeks to change what went on with us before that?”

  I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, suddenly uncomfortable with the direction this conversation was taking. If I was going to tell anyone about my amnesia, it would be Brianne, not Clay. I’d never be vulnerable with him again.

  He shoved his hand into his hair. “Why are you acting like you don’t remember what happened the last time we were together?”

  “I remember it fine.” I pointed at him. “I think the problem is that I don’t remember it the way you want me to remember it. Brianne told me everything.”

  His jaw dropped open in surprise, leaving him speechless. It was how I’d always imagined the moment, but now that it was here, something didn’t feel quite right about it. I told myself it was because he’d mentioned things being off, and my brain had gotten caught up in that.

  I intended to leave him that way, sputtering and without answers, but before I could even turn toward the door, he closed the distance between us. The still-familiar scent of him rolled over me, and my stomach clenched painfully. An ache spread through my body, and I could have sworn I felt the ghost of his touch on my skin, the feel of him inside me.

  “I’m not having this conversation again,” he said, his irises the color of a coming storm. “I told you what really happened. If your sister’s telling you something different, then she’s still lying because she doesn’t want to admit what she did. She’s the one you need to have it out with, because I’ve already done this dance.”

  I heard the words, but they didn’t make sense. Why would Brianne have lied to me all those years ago? Better yet, why had she kept lying to me about her and Clay sleeping together, especially after our relationship took a hit? Clay was the one who benefitted from making up a new narrative.

  “If you want to never talk about this, fine,” he continued, “that’s on you. But I’ll be damned if I let you pretend like the attraction between us isn’t still there.”

  He caught my mouth in a bruising kiss, and my lips parted with a gasp. His hands grasped my arms as his tongue took advantage of my surprise and swept into my mouth. I made a sound I’d never made before, and he pulled me closer, one hand dropping to the small of my back. His tongue stroked over mine, then pulled back to allow his teeth to fasten on to my bottom lip.

  Heat flooded my body, and my blood pounded in my ears. I’d heard the expression “weak in the knees,” but I’d never felt the literal sensation of not knowing if my legs would hold me. I grabbed the front of his shirt, unsure if I wanted to hold him in place or push him away.

  And then I remembered who he was and what he’d done.

  I shoved him as hard as I could, catching him off-guard enough that he stumbled a couple steps backward. That look of shock was back on his face, and I wondered how many women before me had ever refused him, or if he even cared to think about anyone other than his next conquest. He hadn’t changed.

  His gaze stayed on me for several long seconds, and then his expression hardened. Without a word, he turned and walked away, leaving me on the porch alone.

  Fourteen

  Clay

  I couldn’t decide who I was more pissed at, Tess or myself. She’d been acting weird from the moment we’d found her, acting more like the woman I’d first seen on the airplane than the one who’d fallen asleep in my arms the afternoon before she’d vanished. I’d suspected that the scar on her head had come from a blow that had scrambled her brain a bit, and now I was as close to positive as I could get without her actually telling me.

  When she’d first started acting like nothing had happened between the two of us here, I’d thought Brianne had kept lying, and Tess had chosen to believe her sister over m
e. Now, however, I wasn’t so sure. When we’d been arguing this time, I’d seen the expression on her face. With the anger, I’d also seen confusion. Not the sort that said she didn’t know who to believe, but more like she didn’t understand…as if she didn’t remember.

  Was that what happened two weeks ago when she’d been in that accident? Had her head injury messed with her memory to the point where she didn’t remember the things we’d talked about? What happened between us?

  If that was the case, it wasn’t her fault that she’d shoved me away when I kissed her. She didn’t remember we’d done more than kiss.

  But why hadn’t she told us? Brianne at least. We could have filled in the blanks for her, helped her know what she’d been missing. Everything that she’d been struggling with, the weight on her shoulders, all of it would have been taken care of if she’d just been honest with us.

  I was so absorbed in my own thoughts as I walked outside that I didn’t realize I wasn’t alone until I ran into Luis. Literally.

  “¡Disculpe!” He glared at me. “Watch where you’re going!”

  I held up a hand and took a step back. Not that I thought I was in any danger from him if he lost his temper. Our position here was precarious enough that I didn’t want any extra trouble.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t paying attention. I have a lot on my mind.”

  The loathing on his face didn’t change with my apology. “Do not let me keep you. I am sure you have important things to do.”

  “What is your problem?” I snapped. “You don’t know me.”

  “I know everything I need to know,” he countered, stepping into me. “I have known men like you my whole life. Men who think they can treat people however they want because of who they are, how they look, the money they make.”

  It was the most I’d heard him talk, but I had a feeling he’d been itching to get all that off his chest from the moment he first met me. I doubted he knew anything about who I was to Tess – at the moment, I didn’t know who I was to her – but he had to have sensed something because I’d never had anyone adamantly despise me as quickly as Luis did.

  “Bullshit. You don’t like the fact that you don’t have Tess all to yourself anymore. You must have loved getting to play hero for someone like her.”

  His face flushed. “I was there for her when you were not. That is not my fault.”

  “I didn’t know where she was,” I said, letting my frustration bleed into my voice. “I would’ve been there if I’d known.”

  “For two weeks, I took care of her.” He held up his hands, as if the sight of them would prove just how intimately he’d cared for Tess. “Then you and the other one come in as if you are the only ones who care about her.”

  “Did you seriously just refer to Brianne as ‘the other one?’” My temper rose to the surface. “She’s Tess’s sister. You’re lucky Bri didn’t hear you say that. She’d kick your ass.”

  “If Tess and Brianne were so close, why did Tess not ask for a phone to call her sister right away?”

  I wanted to knock that smug look off Luis’s face, but I settled for giving him a partial truth. “Bri’s in the army. She’s not exactly the easiest person to get ahold of.”

  “Why did she not call you?” Luis pressed on. “If you are important to her, why were you not the first person she called then? She did not call anyone. She stayed with me because she knew I would keep her safe. She trusts me.”

  What irked me the most was that he was right. If Tess had indeed lost her memory of our time here in Costa Rica, of course she wouldn’t have even known to call me or Brianne. While I knew Tess wasn’t as trusting as it seemed Luis thought she was, without the truth about what’d happened, she probably would have trusted him more than Bri and me.

  “You can tag along all you want,” I said finally. “But the moment Brianne or I think that your presence is putting Tess in danger, you’re gone.”

  “I think Tess will be the one to make that decision.”

  The tone of his voice left no doubt as to what he thought that decision would be, and if things didn’t change, I wasn’t so sure he wasn’t right.

  Fifteen

  Tess

  The conversation between Clay and me didn’t do much to help me get to sleep, but the kiss had been worse. Not because the kiss itself had been bad, but because I couldn’t get the damn thing out of my head. I swore my lips were still tingling when I finally did fall asleep.

  Fortunately, my sleep was dreamless, and when I woke the next morning, I felt much better. My muscles were sore, but I knew once I got up and moving, I’d work the stiffness out. The bone-deep weariness that had settled into me yesterday was gone, and I felt a burst of anticipation for the day ahead. Planning and then following through. No more waiting. I’d be on my way home by nightfall.

  That thought got my eyes open. A smile began to curve my lips, but my expression froze when I saw that I wasn’t alone in the tiny bedroom. Luis sat at the end of the bed, his dark eyes focused on me. I jerked upright, my heart pounding as adrenaline dumped into my bloodstream.

  “Dammit, Luis! You scared the shit out of me!”

  “I am sorry.”

  He ducked his head, and I wondered if he was embarrassed…or if there was something else on his face that he didn’t want me to see. He’d kept up the sweet, shy guy persona with me, but I’d caught a few glimpses of something not-so-sweet, especially around Brianne and Clay, making me wonder how much of the Luis I saw was who he really was.

  “How long have you been sitting there?” I asked.

  He shrugged but didn’t actually answer my question. I shifted on the bed, pulling the blanket up to my chest. I liked to think that I hadn’t encouraged Luis’s crush, but aside from shutting down his kiss, I hadn’t exactly discouraged it either. I’d basically written it off as a harmless infatuation. Watching me sleep, however, was creepier than most romance stories made it out to be.

  “I, uh, need to get dressed,” I said after several long moments of increasingly uncomfortable silence. When he didn’t move, I added, “Could you close the door on your way out?”

  His shoulders slumped as he stood, and the dejected expression on his face made me feel guilty, but I couldn’t rationalize letting him stay. He might’ve already seen me naked when he’d been taking care of me, but there was a huge difference between that and me consciously allowing him to watch me undress.

  I didn’t want to give him the wrong idea. In fact, it bothered me that he had almost seemed to expect to be allowed to stay. A little voice in the back of my head kept asking if Luis had expected more than I’d offered.

  Had he thought coming here with me meant we were together? I appreciated all he’d done, but I wasn’t one of those damsels in distress who thanked their rescuers with sex. If things got any more awkward between us, I would have to say something. I really hoped it didn’t come to that. I much rather preferred avoiding confrontations. Which was probably why Brianne and I had never talked about the whole Clay thing, no matter how angry at her I’d been.

  I purposefully took longer than necessary to change into the clothes Sylvia had laid out for me, and when I opened the door, I saw that it’d had the desired result – Luis wasn’t waiting for me. I knew there was a good possibility that he was sulking somewhere, but he was an adult. If he couldn’t handle a woman turning him down, that was on him, not me.

  Still, I glanced toward the closed door to the guest room Clay and Luis had been sharing. I had the sudden and inexplicable desire to go over and knock, just to see who answered. I shook the thought out of my head. Imagining a shirtless, sleepy Clay made me want things I hadn’t wanted in a long time, and I wasn’t going back there.

  It figured that the first guy I’d had a strong attraction to was the same guy I’d felt my first real attraction to. I didn’t know if it was karma or coincidence, but it sucked either way.

  Forcing myself to turn away from the door and head toward the kitchen, I tried
to mentally prepare myself for the conversations ahead. After last night, I knew I needed to tell Brianne about my amnesia, and it probably would go a lot more smoothly if I made it a generalized announcement, so we were all on the same page when I also informed them that I didn’t plan on leaving the country until I knew what had brought me here in the first place.

  Brianne wasn’t going to like it. Even though our relationship had been strained since we’d left DC as teens, she’d never quit being the overprotective big sister. Fortunately, being in the service meant she was away more often than not, so I mostly dealt with her over the phone rather than in person.

  This time, however, I wasn’t as lucky. Our conversation would have to be face-to-face.

  I made my way to the kitchen, the faint murmur of voices drawing me forward. I was nearly to the doorway when I recognized Brianne’s voice. The other female voice was, I assumed, Sylvia’s. I hadn’t really been paying much attention to what they were saying, but Brianne’s words suddenly registered.

  “Do you ever wish things had been different between us?”

  I stopped just outside the doorway, a reluctant eavesdropper allowing my curiosity to get the better of me.

  “I’ve thought about it,” Sylvia said. “We both knew it was the right thing to do, but there were times I wished we could’ve made another choice.”

  After a beat, another question from Brianne. “Are you seeing anyone?”

  That didn’t sound like a pair of friends simply catching up. Her tone was softer than anything I’d heard from her since I was kid, almost tender. I knew it wasn’t right of me to keep listening, but underneath all the old feelings of betrayal was something I’d never wanted to admit.

  I missed her.

  “I was,” Sylvia answered. “But no one serious. My work keeps me busy.”