The Rescuer

“I thought it worked out fine.”

She stared at him, her eyes a very deep brown. “I know you don’t take me seriously, Colin, but you could at least try.” She gazed at him a moment longer. Then she took the grocery bag back from him and strode into the house.

Colin followed her down the hall to the kitchen. The material of her dress swirled invitingly against her legs as she walked and her hair rippled gold. She appeared soft and feminine, but he sensed an implacable core. She gave the impression that she’d been taking care of herself for a very long while and she didn’t want any help with the job.

When she reached the kitchen, she started removing items from the bag and placing them on the counter. the lettuce and tomatoes, two packages of whole wheat hamburger buns, a jar of pickles, a jar of relish, a bottle of ketchup, some mustard.

“Guess you didn’t trust us to have any condiments,” he said.

She produced a carton of ice cream and placed it in the freezer. “Got any pans?”

He had to rummage in a few cupboards before he found them.

Alex shook her head. “You really don’t cook, do you?”

“Hey, it’s my grandfather’s house, not mine.”

She handed him a can of peas and pearl onions. “Think you can manage that?”

Colin got busy with the opener. He found that he liked spending time with Alex in a kitchen. She didn’t seem to need useless conversation. A companionable silence settled between them as he opened a few more cans and dinner began to cook on the stove.

Herb poked his nose into the room. “Hello, Dr. Alex.”

“Hello, Mr. McIntyre.”

“No need to be so formal,” he said gruffly,

“considering my grandson’s finagled you into doing his work tonight.”

She smiled. “Mind if I call you ‘Herbie’?”

“A lot of folks do.” He peered at a pan sizzling on the stove. “Those hamburgers?” he asked doubtfully.

“Veggie burgers.”

“Veggie burgers?” he repeated. “Serves Colin right—he’s strictly a meat-and-potatoes man.” Chuckling, Herb disappeared.

“Don’t listen to him,” Colin said. “He’s the one who thinks you can’t have a meal without steak.”

“You wish we were having real hamburgers, don’t you?”

Those veggie things did look kind of odd, but he wasn’t about to say so. Now Sean appeared, hovering uncertainly in the doorway.

“Hi,” Alex said casually. “Mind doing the salad?”

He hesitated, but then he came over to the counter and confronted the lettuce. After a moment he started tearing off big pieces and tossed them into a bowl. Alex didn’t comment, just went on about her business. Colin realized she was handling everything just right. She wasn’t making a big deal about Sean helping out, wasn’t telling him how to do things differently, wasn’t paying much attention at all. Colin himself probably wouldn’t have been able to resist setting the kid straight.

A short time later the four of them sat down together. Make that five for dinner, if you included Dusty. Except this time the little terrier abandoned Herb and waited at attention next to Alex’s feet. The others seemed to be at attention, too. Sean didn’t slouch quite so much in his chair; Herb didn’t use his silverware to point. The food looked all right: ravioli in tomato sauce, two different kinds of vegetables, the haphazard salad Sean had made. And, of course, the veggie burgers.

The conversation was actually civil. Maybe Sean didn’t contribute much, but Herb and Alex had plenty to talk about: her practice in Chicago, his days in the mine. It took Colin a while to realize that he was almost as silent as his son. Apparently he didn’t have much to contribute, either.

Alex brought out the ice cream for dessert—double chocolate chunk fudge—and the four of them polished it off in no time. Afterward they removed to the living room, Dusty trotting behind. Sean hunched in an armchair, looking supremely bored. Colin noted, however, that he didn’t make a quick exit the way he did most evenings.

Just as before, Alex gravitated to the photographs scattered around the room. No doubt she was trying to discern the family background of the Type R male. She picked up a photo of Colin’s parents.

Herb came over to her. “My son, Thomas, and his wife, Jessie. Guess Colin’s told you all about Thomas.”

“No,” Alex said. “Actually he hasn’t.”

Herb glanced at Colin disapprovingly. “Thomas fought in Vietnam. Pilot, decorated for bravery. Irony was that he made it through all that...and then he died in a car crash. He was only thirty years old.”

“I’m sorry,” Alex said.

Herb nodded. Even now, over twenty-five years since his son’s death, the pain was etched into his face. “Worst moment of my life,” he said in a low voice. “Worst moment for all of us. I’ve never stopped wishing him back.”

The phrases were timeworn, but they always gave Herb comfort. Some people refused to speak about their dead loved ones. Not Herb. He talked about Thomas as if somehow, someday, the words would conjure his son back.

Now he took the photograph from Alex and examined it as if he hadn’t already seen it countless times. “Jessie...Colin’s mom. Nice girl—even if she was a little meek for somebody like Thomas. Surprised us all, though. After he died, she remarried.”

Colin had to restrain himself from speaking. Herb made it sound like she’d run out three weeks after the funeral and got herself hitched. She hadn’t remarried until five years later.

“Can’t understand why she picked somebody like Mack Pearson. No comparison to Thomas,” Herb said.

Colin couldn’t let his grandfather get away with any more. “Nothing wrong with Mack.”

Herb was about to argue, but Alex intervened. “Does your mom still live in Sobriety?” she asked Colin.

“No. I left town when I was eighteen. She and Mack left the year after that. They settled in Tacoma.”

“Pearson sells cars,” Herb said disparagingly.

He didn’t mention that Mack owned the dealership. And he never seemed to realize that his own son might have ended up doing something as ordinary as selling cars...if he’d lived. Thomas was forever frozen in time as someone young and bright and courageous. An image impossible to dim.

Alex moved around the room. She picked up another photo, got Herb on the more neutral subject of his ex-wife. She was handling the McIntyre men very adeptly, it seemed. Even Sean was still there, hunched in his chair. Maybe he was no more animated than a stump, but his presence made for a refreshing change.

So why didn’t inviting Alex for a McIntyre family dinner seem like such a good idea after all?

ALEX SLEPT FITFULLY that night. Every few hours or so, she awoke feeling groggy and out of sorts. She couldn’t say why she felt so restless. She’d actually enjoyed her evening. Having Colin’s grandfather and son around had lessened her awareness of Colin. Hadn’t eliminated it—she’d still been uncomfortably aware of his gaze upon her—but with his family there, he hadn’t been able to flirt with her shamelessly the way he usually did.

At last Alex fell into a deep, exhausted sleep. And then she dreamed. Flames surged up around her, eerily orange-red. Not the flames she’d seen on the video screen—no, flames right here in the room. They trapped her, licking at the edges of the bed. She couldn’t move. The smoke choked her lungs, and she had to gasp for air. She was frightened. So very frightened. She began to weep.

She woke up with a start, her skin clammy, her pulse racing. The dream had been so real that she glanced around wildly, half expecting to see fire engulfing her. But there was only darkness and the cool nighttime air coming through the open window. Alex pressed a hand to her face. The tears she’d wept in the dream had felt real, too, but her cheeks were dry. It had only been a dream.

“A nightmare,” Alex whispered. She reached over and switched on the lamp. She’d stayed at this small bed-and-breakfast only a few days, yet already the room’s details were comfortingly familiar: the wicker dressing table with the ruffled skirt, the pine whatnot cabinet, wallpaper in a pattern of violet sprigs. The decor was too consciously quaint for Alex’s taste, but right now she welcomed the cozy frilliness that surrounded her.

She realized that she was shivering. Slipping into her robe, she went to the window and shut it. Then she did something she often advised her patients to do. She took her notepad, flipped to a blank page and began jotting down everything she could remember about the nightmare. Her fingers trembled alarmingly, but she pushed on. At last she set aside the notepad, pulled up the blanket and eased her head back against the pillow. She did something else she recommended to her patients: took some deep, slow breaths. Then she turned off the light, closed her eyes and ordered herself back to sleep.