The Stranger and Tessa Jones

Chapter Four

A woman was screaming. “Ohmigod, ohmigod, we’re going to die! I can’t die. Somebody help me! Help me, Ash. Help me, please!”

Then a man’s voice shouted, “Sit still! Be calm!”

The shouting startled him to wakefulness. Only then did he realize that the shouting had come from his own mouth. “Wha…?”

A tall figure appeared in the doorway. He saw broad, shapely shoulders, a halo of golden hair. Was this the one who had screamed?

No. The screaming had only been inside his mind.

And then he remembered: This was the woman who had saved him…

He lifted his head, straining, off the sweat-drenched pillow, and whispered her name on a rough husk of breath, “Tessa,” as she came to him.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she promised in a gentle whisper.

He felt her cool hand on his sweaty brow, drank in her soothing voice. It wasn’t enough. He came up off the pillow again and grabbed for her, needing the feel of her, the living reality of her.

The warmth.

The softness and the strength. He wrapped his arms hard around her, buried his face against her sweet-smelling throat.

She didn’t resist him, didn’t try to pull away. She only stroked his back and let him hold her way too tight and whispered, again, “Okay. It’s okay…”

He was breathing like he’d just run a damn marathon, his sore ribs aching as he gulped in air. The sweat poured off him.

“You’re okay. You’re safe,” she whispered. “You’re here. In my house. Safe…” In spite of his powerful grip on her, she managed to reach out and turn on the lamp.

Still struggling to catch his breath, he blinked against the sudden brightness. But then, in no time, his breathing began to even out and his eyes adjusted to the light. He shifted his hold to her sweet face and cradled it between his palms. He stared hard into her beautiful eyes.

“It’s okay,” she promised him, meeting his gaze without wavering, seeming to will him to trust her. To believe. “It’s all right. All right…”

Slowly, he came back to himself—whoever that self was. He released her. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to grab you. So damn sorry…”

She only plumped the pillows against the headboard for him. And then she poured him fresh water from the pitcher. He drank. She took the glass when he was finished and set it back on the nightstand.

“Better?”

He nodded. “I was dreaming. It was a nightmare, that’s all.”

“A nightmare about…?”

He tried to remember, but it was pointless. “I have no idea. I heard a woman screaming. And then someone shouting. It woke me up, the shouting. Then I realized the shouting was coming from me.”

“What else?”

“Nothing. That’s it. That’s…all.”

She asked, so gently, “Who are you, really?”

Her question was the toughest one, the one that brought pain. He waited for the ice pick to go to work on his brain. But there was nothing. Only emptiness.

His own life was lost to him. He wished he had an answer for her. And for himself.

She prompted, “Do you know who you are?”

He opened his mouth to lie, to remind her that his name was Bill and yeah, damn right he knew who he was. But then he realized he couldn’t do it. It seemed…wrong, somehow. Disrespectful. To keep on trying to hide the truth from her. If not for her, he’d be curled up in a snowbank somewhere. Dead.

He confessed, “I have no clue who I am. Or where I came from.”

She made a low sound of sympathetic distress, a world of kindness and understanding shining in her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. You, of all people, have nothing to be sorry about.” He clasped her shoulder, thinking again how much he liked touching her. “Bill, okay? I’m serious. Let me be Bill. I’ll be a better Bill than that other fool. I swear it. I would never leave you at the altar.”

She frowned, clearly confused. “The altar? Bill Toomey didn’t leave me at the altar.”

Maybe it hurt her too much to admit it. He back-pedaled. “Well. Okay. I must have, er, misunderstood.”

“Misunderstood what?”

“Tessa. It doesn’t matter.”

“Well, yeah. It does. I want to know where you got the idea that Bill and I were engaged.”

“Out in the snow. When you were breaking the dishes? You talked about ‘the wedding,’ how Bill had promised you he’d be there for the wedding.”

A low laugh escaped her. “Oh, that.”

“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “That.”

“I meant the wedding of a friend of mine. Bill promised he’d come to town for it. It’s Saturday, the twenty-sixth, two weeks from today.”

“Saturday.” So strange. Not even to know what day it was. “It’s Saturday, today?”

“That’s right. Saturday the twelfth.”

“Of?”

She gave him one of those looks of hers—a look of sweet and tender understanding. “January.”

“Well, all right. And so your friend’s having herself a winter wedding?”

“Uh-huh. Tawny—Tawny Riggins, my friend and my second cousin by marriage—always wanted a January wedding, even though everyone kept telling her she was crazy, that bad weather could ruin it. But Parker Montgomery, her fiancée, who also happens to be a second cousin by marriage, only a different marriage…” Her voice trailed off. She slanted him a look. “Sorry.”

“What for?”

“More information than you could possibly have needed or wanted.”