Chapter 12
Lindsay hurried home as quickly as she could, half-convinced Fred wouldn’t be there by the time she got back. The words I killed an angel kept running through her head all day. This never would have happened to him if it hadn’t been for her.
He denied being an angel. But he’d never been anything but kind to her, and for the life of her, Lindsay couldn’t think of any good she’d ever done him. If he wasn’t an angel, what was he?
The front doorstep was dark when she put her key in the lock. December twenty-third, one of the shortest days of the year. No lights from her tree glowed through the curtains of the front window; she should have turned the tree on for Fred. If he’d been able-bodied at all, surely he would have turned the tree lights on himself.
If he was still there.
With that last thought, she shouldered her way into the apartment, afraid of what she’d find.
She entered quickly enough to see Fred’s head jerk as he started awake. He still lay slumped on the couch, very similar to the position she’d left him in this morning, his head raised slightly from propping the pillow on the arm of the couch.
He blinked at her sudden entrance. “Yes? The fire is in the apartment two doors down.”
Alive, awake, and a joke. She couldn’t have hoped for better. Lindsay leaned against the doorjamb, smiling as relief flooded her limbs. Then she thought of all the cold air she was letting in, and shut the door. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“Don’t apologize. You’re a breath of fresh air. Literally.”
He still didn’t sound like himself. Lindsay crossed the room to him, trying to assess whether he seemed any better. He looked pale under the single overhead living-room light. Had he eaten? She wondered if he’d made it off the couch at all today.
She put a hand to Fred’s forehead. To her surprise, he moved it away, then held on to it and studied it as if he wasn’t sure what to do with it. “Sorry,” he said, to her hand. “I’m still not used to that.”
“To what?”
“Being the one someone else takes care of. I like it and I don’t.”
“Well, you’d better learn to like it. Because you don’t have a choice.”
He smiled, as though admitting defeat, and finally met her eyes again. Something was missing, in his eyes or in his smile, and Lindsay wondered fleetingly if they’d sent her a different Fred again. But no, she didn’t think so. This felt like her Fred—just with something subtracted. Was it the illness, or something else? She put her hand to his forehead, and this time he let her. Still warm. But probably no warmer than this morning, and she hadn’t heard him cough since she walked in.
She tried to put her unease aside, and heated up some soup. Then ate some herself, when Fred insisted. She sat at the far end of the couch, doing her best not to crowd his legs, or to notice the growing silence between them as they ate. The silence lasted while Lindsay cleared away their bowls and trays.
When she returned, Fred still sat upright on the couch, although his limbs hung more loosely than usual. Maybe the fraction of a bowl of soup he’d finished had done him some good. He spoke before she reached him. “We need to talk.”
He sounded better, more like himself, but something still felt wrong. Lindsay hovered halfway across the living room, suddenly reluctant to take a seat.
I’m not going to like this.
Fred rested a hand on the sofa cushion next to him. “Come sit down.”
The brown velour cushion looked as inviting as an electric chair. Lindsay approached it warily and sat, growing more alarmed when Fred took her hand in both of his. She would have thought he was about to tell her her cat had died, if he hadn’t already died two years ago.
He didn’t speak until she met his eyes, dark and searching. Lindsay’s fingers curled inward until the gentle pressure of Fred’s hands stilled them. “I had a chance to do some thinking today.” He nodded toward the television set. “When the only alternative is looking at that bloody thing, you find you have a lot of time to think.”
She didn’t laugh.
“Lindsay, I’ve tried walking around and around it. It’s amazing how long you can ignore the obvious if you really want to. I’ve been terribly selfish. I’ve been told what’s best for you, and I’ve willfully shut my eyes to it.”
He’d been selfish? Angel or not, the man was insane.
“It’s pretty obvious neither of us have been in any hurry to get you back to Steven. I think we both know why. At least I know my reasons. Why don’t you tell me yours?” Fred squeezed her hand gently, holding it between both of his as surely as his eyes held hers. Eyes that only seemed to see the good in her. They’d always looked at her with such warmth, warmth she’d come to depend on, without even knowing when it happened.
“Help me do my job,” he said. “Tell me about Steven.”
“I can’t.” She couldn’t pull away from that steady gaze, but she tried to pull her hand back.
Fred held it, with more firmness than he could have managed this morning. “Why?”
Because if I do you’ll never look at me that way again. “I just can’t.”
“Lindsay, it’s one step. It doesn’t obligate you to take any others. But if we don’t move forward, we can’t hope to change things.” A smile quirked at the corner of his mouth. “And you’ll be stuck here with a sickly Englishman on your couch.”
She could think of worse things. Like exposing the weakest, ugliest part of herself. But she knew there was more at stake than her petty personal issues. This Headquarters wasn’t going to let Fred exist on her couch forever. For all she knew, he’d wither away.
His dark brown eyes stayed on hers. Lindsay felt the urge to draw something up around her for protection, like one of the blankets twisted at the far end of the couch. But preferably something stronger. Steel, perhaps.
She took a deep breath. “It’s not a nice story.”
“Try me.”
Lindsay wrenched her eyes away from his, concentrating instead on the large, blank eye of the television screen straight ahead. “It’s like I told you. We dated all through high school. I think everyone always figured we’d end up together. Maybe I did too, I don’t know. But when I finished high school, I went to college in Denver. Four hours away. Steven stayed home and went to the community college. We didn’t make any plans. . . .” Lindsay squirmed out of her shoes and drew her feet up onto the couch, hugging her knees. “I think I kind of liked the fact that Denver was four hours away. I wasn’t half of a couple there. People didn’t look at me and see Steven’s girlfriend. We’d been together so long, I guess I wanted to find out who I was on my own.”
She stared at the darkened gray screen. Her reflection looked small and huddled. Cowardly. Beside her, Fred didn’t make a sound. She didn’t risk a glance in his direction. If she was lucky maybe he’d fallen asleep again.
“We didn’t see each other again until I came home for Christmas break.” Even the sight of her reflection on the gray glass was too much to bear. She switched her gaze to the fabric of her slacks, trying to lose herself in the individual threads. “On Christmas, he gave me a present. A diamond ring.”
She tightened her arms around her knees. The urge to curl into a ball was nearly insurmountable. Why are you making me do this? “I couldn’t say anything. So I didn’t. I couldn’t even look at him. I just hugged him. And we were engaged.” She rested her head on her knees and closed her eyes. “For about a week.”
She felt a light hand at her back—Fred’s—and flinched, shaking it off. “I’ve always wondered if he thought something was wrong with me that week. I spent a lot of time holed up at home. I said I had a big term paper due when I got back to school.”
Lindsay forced her voice past the ache in her throat. “I was already packed to go back the day before New Year’s. Steven gave me a call, said he was having a little New Year’s Eve party at his house. . . .” She took a deep breath. “When I got there, it was a big surprise party. For me. For us. Balloons, streamers. Everybody jumped out and yelled when I walked in—I just stood there with my mouth open. He must have worked so hard on it.”
She closed her eyes. “Then Steven came up and gave me a kiss, and he announced our engagement. I’m sure everybody knew, but—well, he wanted to celebrate. I smiled as big as I could, and I felt like the heel of the universe. I kept thinking, This isn’t how I’m supposed to feel. I just wanted to run away.
“So, later on, when no one was looking—I did.”
Lindsay willed herself to breathe slowly. “I went into Steven’s room and left the ring on his dresser. And I sneaked out.” She pressed her forehead hard against her knees and kept her eyes shut tight. “I didn’t even leave a note. I didn’t know what to say. When I went home, my parents were already in bed, so I grabbed my bags and drove back to Denver that night.”
She still couldn’t look at Fred. He’d seen something special in her, or at least thought he had. Now he knew better.
“That’s it,” she said.
Silence stretched out. Lindsay finally opened her eyes. A tear fell on her slacks, but they were black. It didn’t show.
“So,” he said softly, “you’re the one who did the hurting. It never crossed my mind. I didn’t think you could hurt anybody.”
Another silence, and Fred’s fingers brushed her temple. He tucked a section of hair behind her ear, as though searching for a better look at her face. She turned away.
“Lindsay,” he said, “it’s not the end of the world.”
His tone was gentle. Lindsay blinked hard and turned around to look at him. Fred studied her, his features contemplative, but not quite as if a singularly ugly worm had just crawled out from under a rock.
“You don’t think I’m horrible?” It seemed like such a childish thing to say, but she couldn’t help it.
He gave her a wry grin. “Well, for one thing, you didn’t do it to me. For another, you were eighteen years old.”
“Nineteen.”
“Oh. You’re a monster, then.”
Lindsay let out a laugh that was half a sob. “You’re not helping.” She leaned her elbows on her knees and rested her forehead against her palms. “It’s the worst thing I ever did.”
Fred rested a hand lightly on the nape of her neck. “Why did you do it?”
“I didn’t want to face him.”
“That goes without saying. But why didn’t you want to marry him?”
All those years ago, she hadn’t known how to explain it to Steven. Now, it had been so long since she thought about it, Lindsay wasn’t sure she could explain it to herself, or to Fred. “I didn’t know what I wanted,” she said slowly. “I’d never even dated anyone else. Not since I was fourteen. I guess I didn’t expect him to . . .” She shrugged helplessly.
“And you never heard from him again?”
Lindsay shook her head.
“Interesting,” he said. Interesting?
His fingers curled loosely in the hair at the nape of her neck, lingering for a moment before he took his hand away. The back of her neck felt colder.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s take a look at this. My guess is, you’ve spent so much time just feeling guilty, it’s been a long time since you thought about how you really felt about Steven. Am I right?”
“I guess so.”
“And maybe, when you were nineteen, your expectations just weren’t realistic. You weren’t ready. And maybe now you are.”
Lindsay turned to stare at Fred, in his slightly undersize sweatshirt, his features so calm and composed. Her insides clenched. Why? What was he saying that was different from what he’d said all along? She’d been shrinking back from it, avoiding it, since the day he’d first told her she was supposed to be reconciled with Steven. Why should she be surprised to hear it now?
Still, she shook her head. “You can’t be serious.”
“Of course I am. Don’t you see? It’s all starting to make sense now. You made a mistake ten years ago. And I’m trying to tell you it’s not such a terrible thing.”
So helpful, so supportive, so neutral, so objective. Just a man doing his job. Was this the same man who’d kissed her? It couldn’t be. Where had he gone?
“The incredible thing is,” Fred said, “you’re being given the chance to put it right.”
Incredible? Lindsay stared into the calm dark eyes and felt something fall out from under her. A hurt started up that felt like ground glass in her stomach. It hurt worse than telling him about Steven, though she wouldn’t have thought that was possible.
She whispered, “You really want me to do this? Go back to him?”
Fred’s expression didn’t change. “I want what’s best for you. That’s the only reason I’m here.”
The only reason. It was true. He was here to do his job. Everything else had been a lie.
“Did you love him?” He asked the question with the same implacable expression.
“Yes.” It was true. But it wasn’t the whole truth.
And she saw it. Or thought she saw it. A sharp flicker of pain in Fred’s eyes, and Lindsay realized with shame that she’d wanted to put it there.
The flicker vanished. “Then that’s where you belong.”
“No.” The word came out without her meaning it to, and Lindsay gave up the one weapon she might have had. “It was nothing like—” . . . the way I feel about you. She couldn’t even say it. It was too humiliating. And she knew Fred didn’t want to hear it.
“Lindsay, you and I—you need to forget it. None of this was supposed to happen.”
“You mean, not in the script.” Her words came out dead and dull.
“That’s right.” A timbre that had been missing from his voice since he fell through the ice had returned. He’s getting better, she realized. Better, because he was back to doing his job.
She should let him. But suddenly, facing a thousand hurt and resentful Stevens didn’t bother her nearly as much as the fact that Fred wanted her to do it.
“You set me up.” Her voice rasped; she was amazed it worked at all. “None of this was real. It was all just to split me wide open—” Probably right down to Fred’s fall through the ice. Until she finally broke down and spilled the truth. To help him. What a laugh.
He didn’t contradict her.
She clutched at one slim, remaining straw. “You said I didn’t have to—”
“No, you don’t. I can’t make you do anything. But if you don’t use what you’ve learned, then I’ve failed you and all this was for nothing.”
Nothing. Lindsay felt as if she were inside a glass jar and he’d just tightened the lid, neatly cutting off all her oxygen. Her eyes blurred so badly that she couldn’t even see. Only one thing mattered in that moment. Not to have him see her like this. She levered her way off the couch, blindly heading anywhere away from him.
A hand caught hers. “Lindsay, wait.”
It was back. The gentle voice she’d known all along, and he pulled her back down to the couch with him. Lindsay crumpled against him, knowing she shouldn’t, knowing she was an idiot to make herself vulnerable like this. She buried her face in the crook of his neck and tried to keep her tears silent, crying for a hundred emotions she couldn’t even name.
“It’s all right, darling. I’m here.” His arms wrapped tight around her, strong again. His voice, next to her ear, sounded as husky as hers had a moment ago. “Forgive me. It’s all true and it’s all a lie.”
“I don’t understand.” Her voice came out muffled, between his neck and the pillow.
Fred let out a deep sigh, and she felt his chest slowly sink down underneath her, but she heard no sign of any rattle or cough. “Headquarters knows what’s right for you. I have to believe that. But. I want you to listen to me very carefully—” He pulled her back from him, just far enough to cup her face between his hands and look straight into her eyes. “If anyone expects me to spend one more minute pretending to feel good about it, they can bloody well forget it.”
He smoothed his thumbs gently across her cheeks, wiping away tears. Lindsay searched his eyes. They remained solidly fixed on hers, and she felt a huge tension drain out of her limbs. She shouldn’t feel better—not a lot better, anyway—but some important part of the universe had righted itself. She drew in a deep breath. “But you still want me to go back to Steven?”
“It’s not a matter of what I want. I’m not supposed to want anything, beyond what’s best for you. That’s what . . .” He broke off. “That’s what caring for someone is all about.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“You mean, do I want you to go back to Steven, personally?” He ran one thumb slowly down her now-dry cheek. “Lindsay, for my part, I’d rather be dragged over carpet tacks and dipped in rubbing alcohol. But what I want can’t matter.”
“It’s not what I want either. I did a terrible thing, but—”
“Terrible.” He considered the word, almost as if he were tasting it. “You hurt someone you cared about. You may feel terrible, but I don’t think it’s exactly a capital crime.”
“You don’t think maybe they’re punishing me for—”
“No, no, no. They don’t do these things for bad people.” Fred shook his head. “Believe it or not, no one is trying to torture you, Lindsay. Least of all me. Headquarters—well, I can’t say I’ve been happy about their methods lately, but they do have your best interest at heart. That’s why I have to believe Steven will make you happy in the long run. Regardless of what either of us feels now.”
“So you don’t want me to go back to him. But you want me to.”
A smile touched his lips. “In a manner of speaking.”
Lindsay lowered her eyes. The bottom line was still the same. Fred still wanted her to go to Steven. And she still lost Fred. That had been a given all along, but somewhere along the line, the thought had become unbearable.
Fred traced the outer line of her lips with his thumb. “What I want,” he said, “is impossible. I’m not your future. I can’t be.”
He drew her close to him, against the soft, unfamiliar sweatshirt. “And no, I can’t make you do it. But if nothing good comes of my being here, then all I’ve done is hurt you, and it would have been better if I never came.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Just promise me you’ll think about it.”
“What happens to you if I don’t?”
“Nothing for you to concern yourself about.”
“I’m serious. You’ve never answered that question.” Lindsay pulled back to look at him again, squirming herself into a pretzel twist. “Fred, where do you go after this? Do you go off and show someone the true meaning of Valentine’s Day, or April Fool’s?”
He chuckled. “I don’t think so. The fact is—” He looked away, his eyes drifting past her shoulder. Fred almost never did that. “I probably should have told you this a long time ago. I think you’re my first case.”
“What do you mean, you think?”
“It means, I don’t remember anything before they briefed me on you. And then I was on your porch. I never questioned it at first. Remember, it’s my nature to live in the present. I suppose I assumed that any other cases were irrelevant. But if you’re my first assignment, it might explain how I’ve made such a hash of things.”
Lindsay frowned, trying to sort out the implications of that. “Maybe you just don’t remember.”
Which meant, he might not remember Lindsay after he was gone. And she might not remember him. The idea was so unthinkable, she didn’t dare say it. Then another thought occurred to Lindsay, this one wonderful.
He didn’t remember anything before they met. Almost as if he’d literally been made for her.
She ran one finger upward over his cheek, feeling the scratch of whiskers that had never existed before. “Are you sure this isn’t some way of . . .”
She stopped. What a self-centered, egotistical thought. “Of what?” He reached up and touched the same rough cheek. “Oh. Getting me ready for a life on earth? No. I’m afraid that’s just their way of being humorous. My orders are clear.” He took her hand down from his cheek and clasped it in his. “You didn’t answer me yet. I know facing Steven is hard for you. But promise me you’ll think about it.”
What had she told herself just a little while ago? About being willing to face an army of Stevens? Lindsay cringed inside. She’d rather join Fred being dragged over the carpet tacks. But if she didn’t fulfill his “assignment,” she had no way of knowing what would happen to him. Fred still seemed certain that Headquarters was always benevolent. After seeing him fall through the ice, Lindsay wasn’t so sure.
“I’ll think about it,” she said. He seemed to be waiting for more. Lindsay licked her lips. “I promise.”
He squeezed her hand. “For tonight, that’s all I ask.”
It would be a hard promise to keep. Because she knew, if she was going to do Fred any good, she had to do more than think about it.
Fred turned and stretched his legs out on the couch, pulling Lindsay up to sit in front of him. He let her lean back against his chest, more than happy to serve as her armchair. After today, he owed her that much and more.
As he cradled her against him, they sat facing the Christmas tree she’d forgotten to turn on. That would never do. Fred held his breath, closed his eyes, and remembered that the biggest secret was not to try too hard. An inaudible click, and when he opened his eyes, the tree lights had come on. So, things were back as they should be.
Lindsay’s head stirred. “You are feeling better.”
He heard the faint note of regret in her voice and understood it. How nice it would have been if, in some misguided form of punishment, Headquarters had left him earthbound. But that sort of thinking did no good, and it certainly did nothing to lighten the mood.
Fred circled his arms more closely around her waist and rested his cheek against her hair, just above her ear. “Now, do you remember your lesson in Christmas Tree Appreciation? Watch the lights.”
He gazed along with her at the large colored bulbs, waiting for that sense of peace to descend. It didn’t work. First, a few adjustments still needed to be made. A moment’s concentration, and he willed the lights in the room to gradually dim, then started the music on the stereo. The sound of handbells chimed low in the background. Fred remembered they’d been listening to that disc yesterday, before their ill-advised decision to go skating.
“This is one of your favorites, isn’t it?” He knew he’d heard it several times.
“Mm-hmm.” Her voice sounded much more relaxed, a welcome thing. “I’ve played a lot more of my Christmas music this year.”
“That’s one legacy from me I hope you’ll keep. Remember, Christmas is always best when you take it out of the box.”
“Don’t say ‘legacy.’ It sounds like—”
“Just a figure of speech, darling.” He rested his cheek on the top of her head and breathed in her soft, indefinable scent.
A few minutes later, the sound of Lindsay’s breathing became slow and even, and he knew she’d fallen asleep. Small wonder she was exhausted, after all this. His time here might be short, but he was sure he’d already had enough seriousness to last a lifetime.
Fred wrapped his arms around Lindsay and tried to synchronize his breathing with hers. He had no idea where he went from here, and at the moment, he didn’t care. This moment was everything. He could have quite happily existed for an eternity here with her, just like this, gazing at the multicolored lights. In the darkened room, they shone both softer and brighter.
He no longer felt the need for sleep. But even if he stayed wide awake for every breath, the hours would pass, and morning would come.
The heaviness he’d felt in his chest all through the day was gone. In its place, an unfamiliar dull ache began to spread through him, and he knew it was only going to get worse.
He held very still and gazed at the tree, trying not to disturb her.
After some time—it might have been minutes or hours—her head slid down under the growing weight of sleep, then bobbed up again. She drew in a sharp little breath, and her body stiffened. Then, with groggy, sluggish movements, she started to climb off the couch. “I’d better get to bed.”
Fred held her. “No, it’s all right. Stay here.”
“You need your rest.”
He didn’t, not anymore, but that was beside the point. “Don’t worry about it.”
He drew her back down to him, and this time she didn’t resist. Fred shifted them both downward until their heads reached the pillow, and wedged himself against the back of the sofa, making as much room for her as possible. In a moment her head rested on his chest just below his shoulder, a perfect fit.
From the silence that followed, at first he thought she’d fallen asleep again. Then she raised her head and stared down at him in the dimness, her soft, light hair tumbling around her face. “Fred?”
“What, darling?”
“In the movies”—she passed a hand through her hair—“when something like this is over, nobody remembers what happened.”
“This isn’t a movie, my love.”
It wasn’t quite an answer, and she knew it. Lindsay persisted. “Do you think—”
“No.” He looked into sleep-confused gray eyes and spoke from his heart. “I couldn’t bear you forgetting me. And I could never forget you.”
“How do you know?”
He mustered up all the conviction he could. “I’ll see to it. I promise.”
She rested her head against him once more with a deep sigh. A few minutes later, her steady breathing told him she’d fallen back asleep. He didn’t know if his answer had satisfied her or not.
It was as close to lying to Lindsay as he’d ever come. Because, unless he could make it happen through sheer force of will, Fred had no idea whether he’d be able to keep his promise.