A loud noise woke Tessa. Confused, she looked around. Was she in a plane? David sat across from her, reading a blue-backed document she recognized as a legal paper.
“Good you’re awake.” David folded the document and tucked it into a black briefcase. “We just landed.”
As the plane pulled up to the tarmac, he explained that they’d flown to west Texas, somewhere between Abilene and San Angelo. From there they’d drive to the lake house where his grandparents used to live. When the plane came to a stop, he helped Tessa stand. She slipped her purse on her shoulder and followed him from the plane.
Disoriented by this new situation, she said, “I thought the lake house was near Houston.”
“I never said that. This place is better because it’s isolated. We’ll keep a low profile, and in two weeks, your disappearance will be old news.”
Tessa didn’t know what else to do so she nodded and followed him to a brown Ford Crew Cab pickup parked next to a metal building. He stowed their bags on the backseat.
She tossed her purse back there too and yawned. “I’m going inside to find the restroom.
She relieved herself, washed her hands, and splashed water on her face. That helped clear her head. Her reflection showed a woman with shadows under her eyes, but there was little she could do about that except get more sleep. She snorted. If only. Most nights she slept fitfully with her dreams haunted by a dark specter that terrified her. She often thought if she could remember something other than the terrifying shadowy image, she’d be able to get over the fear. With a troubled sigh, she left the restroom and met David as he was exiting the men’s room.
“Ready?” he asked, taking her arm and escorting her outside.
“I guess.” Desire simmered between them. She felt it and knew that he did too.
In the truck, before he started the engine, he asked, “Are you hungry?”
“No.” She’d realized as she saw him with the truck keys in hand, that he’d planned this all along, cajoling her into thinking it was a good idea. Why hadn’t he just told her up front that they would be going halfway across the state?
“That’s just as well. There’s probably nothing open around here.”
“Then why did you ask?” She made her voice sound as coolly detached as his. She studied his strong profile. “Have I ever been to this lake house before?”
“No. You’ve seen pictures. One was of the spring bluebonnets.”
That time. He actually had lied to her. Had he lied about anything else?
As they drove away from the small airport, the sun, a brilliant burnt orange, was setting in the western sky turning everything in front of it into black silhouettes. Tessa looked at the darkening countryside for landmarks as they sped past, but there wasn’t much to see except wild grass, cactus, and mesquite trees. The scenery was as desolate as she suddenly felt. Had she made a mistake by coming with David? She’d thought she could trust him, but did she really know herself well enough to trust her judgment?
David needed distraction. For himself and her. He could practically see the wheels spinning in her brain. He switched on the radio. An Eagles song began to play. That kept him from hearing the soft sighs she made. Each sound chewed at his conscience. He could smell her perfume. That damned gardenia scent mixed with her own body chemistry gave him a hard-on. Thank God the lake house and the surrounding land were large enough that he wouldn’t have to see her unless he chose to torture himself with her presence.
After he had the talk with her, he imagined she wouldn’t want to see him either so the problem of lusting after her would be solved.
David’s hands tightened reflexively on the steering wheel. From the moment he’d met Tessa, he’d fallen hard. The first time he’d held her … kissed her, he’d known what lay between them was different from anything he’d experienced with other women. After their marriage, he’d learned he was right, but in ways far different than he’d expected. Things between them had been perfect until the day they’d returned to Houston. That night, she’d been a different woman. Distant. Cold. As if now that she’d trapped him into marriage, she didn’t want him in her bed.
When she had disappeared, things had been rocky for a while. His disenchantment gave birth to bitterness. After all the months of her absence, he thought he’d worked her out of his system. Seeing her again, smelling her, hearing her voice, touching her—all of it conspired against him.
He relived the way she had responded to his kiss this afternoon. She was different. He snorted. Yeah. She was different. Different color blue eyes. Different hair color. Different personality. Different behavior. But which was real? The Tessa she’d been when he’d fallen in love with her, the Tessa she became after their marriage, or the Tessa she was now? How could he possibly know which was true and which was as fake as her previous eye and hair color?
He drove for almost an hour before she spoke again.
“Tell me about this place where we’re going.”
When he didn’t reply immediately, she said, “David? Did you hear me?”
“Sorry.” He forced the memories away and took a deep breath and tried to make his voice normal. “My brothers and I spent most of our summers there when we were kids. My granddad had a small orchard of peach trees and plum trees. He paid us a dollar a bushel for picking the fruit. It was hard work, but it was great being outdoors. At the end of the day, we’d strip down and swim in the lake.” He smiled. “There was no better feeling than the cold water washing away the sweat and grime of the day.”
“I think that’s the first time I’ve seen you smile and genuinely mean it,” Tessa said softly.
David slowed and turned from the four-lane highway onto a two-lane blacktop road. He kept his speed slow. “Thinking about the farm makes me remember how it was to be carefree. My time was my own. I worked hard and played hard too. I love this old farm.”
“Have I met your grandparents and your brothers?”
“No. My brothers are in service and were stationed abroad when we married. Now that my grandparents are older, they’ve decided to travel and see the world.”
“Why did you come for me?” Tessa suddenly asked. “Was it only to clear your name?”
Startled, David put her off. “I know there’s a lot we need to talk about, but we’ll have the next two weeks to do that. Let’s just wait until tomorrow when we’re not so tired.”
“I had a nap. I guess you must be tired though. Okay. I can wait. I’ll talk to keep you awake.”
“I’m good. It’s not that late, and I’ve never fallen asleep while driving.” He looked over at her. “Maybe that’s what happened to you.”
“That seems so mundane. Where would I have gone that I’d driven so long that I fell asleep? No. I don’t think so.” After a moment, she sighed. “Never mind. Let’s see. How about some fun facts? Did you know that the vacuum cleaner was invented in England in 1901?”
“That’s a fun fact?” He glanced over at her as if he thought she was a bit odd.
“Yes. The vacuum cleaner was invented in England in 1901 by Mr. H. Cecil Booth of England. He’d seen a demonstration of a dust removal machine that forced air down into a carpet to blow dust up into a box mounted on the machine.”
“Fascinating,” David murmured in a tone of voice that said just the opposite.
“Booth thought it would be more efficient if the machine sucked the dust directly into the box. He got the idea by putting his mouth on the back of an upholstered chair and sucking on it. Gross, right? But that helped him figure out how to get his machine to suck instead of blow.”
“He was a scientist who lived and breathed his work, huh? One could say that sucks. Or even that blows.”
Tessa chuckled, delighted that he’d actually made a joke. “I read that in a great book from the hospital lending library. It was about how ordinary things came to be invented. Want to hear another?”
David shrugged. This was better than fielding questions. “Sure. Tell me another.”
“Let’s see. How about pockets? Did you know clothing did not have pockets until the late sixteenth century?”
“Where did a guy put his car keys?” David asked with a smirk.
Tessa snorted. “Funny. If a carriage had keys, a man would have carried them in his, uh, I forgot.” She simply couldn’t say codpiece.
“You forgot? Just like that?” David asked.
“I guess it’s that pesky amnesia.”
“I don’t think amnesia works that way according to everything I’ve read.”
“I didn’t know you were so well-versed in my ailment.”
“Oh, indeed I am. I wanted to know what I was up against. So I read everything I could find including case histories of people who tried to fake it.”
“Geez, amnesia sucks. And blows,” she muttered. “Why would anyone try to fake something so awful. It’s like having your life stolen. You wake up and don’t know where you are, who you are, or where you’re supposed to be. You’re afraid to make friendships or do something as simple as go on a date for fear you’re being unfaithful to a husband you don’t remember.”
“Ah, that explains the honorable Deputy Conway’s resentment then.”
“So you noticed that.” Tessa gave him a searching glance.
“How long has he been that way?” David asked.
She couldn’t read his mood, but she noticed a small muscle in his cheek flex. She’d observed that before when he was upset. Like when Carl had challenged him. How neat. Her husband had a tell. She smothered a grin. Could he be jealous of Carl?
“Carl found me lying in the road. They think I fell in the river somewhere north of Hartman and floated downstream. Apparently, all the rivers were at flood stage last summer. My hair had twigs and other gross stuff in it when they took me to the ER.” Feeling chilled, she rubbed her arms. “I don’t know why I didn’t drown. Just thinking about being in the river scares me. Carl was really nice to me. Even before I woke from the coma, they told me he’d sit with me.”
“But he wanted more than friendship?”
Tessa gave an exasperated sigh. “Yes. I tried going to dinner with him once just because I was lonely, but he kept giving me these looks.”
“What kind of looks?”
“The way you looked at me when we first met in the hospital,” she said, deciding to be bold.
“Oh. Those looks. What did you do?”
She was disappointed that he hadn’t made more of her comment. “I started talking about inventions and patents and other stuff I’d read in that book. I just wanted to keep the conversation non-personal. I like Carl, but I couldn’t in good conscience offer him what he wanted even if I’d wanted it too so I tried to discourage him.”
After a few minutes, she said, “So back to the amazing world of inventions. Did you know that the rubber band was also patented in England?”
“Do tell?”
“Indeed. In 1845. The largest rubber band ball in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, weighs over nine thousand pounds.”
David laughed. “I actually didn’t know that. Maybe you should go on one of those quiz shows and win a million dollars.”
“Or I could be a champion at the next party if we play Trivial Pursuit. David, did we have parties? Did we play games?”
“We didn’t. But we were married only a short time.”
“Was that the only reason?”
“What else could it have been,” he asked.
Nice evasion, she thought. So far since she’d awakened this morning, she’d learned these things: her name really was Tessa, she had a husband named David who made her heart pound with desire, and David was a master of evasion.
Puzzled and a bit depressed over the little things that seemed “off,” Tessa fell silent. Perhaps she just needed to be patient. He probably had conflicting emotions about her and the situation, especially since he’d been accused of killing her.
“What do you think happened to me the day I disappeared?”
“What do you think happened?” David asked.
“Do you always answer a question with a question?” Tessa asked, forcing a grin.
“Do you?”
She laughed. “Okay. I give up. You win. I’ll answer first then you answer. I think maybe I was going to work. I think I got car jacked. You never got a ransom note, right? Maybe they were just after my car, and I got in the way. Maybe they hit me over the head, threw me in the trunk, and left Houston. Then for some reason, they dumped me in the river.
“You were driving an old Porsche. Not worth stealing. Plus, no back seat. I guess you’d have fit in the trunk, but I can’t believe they drove all the way from Houston to Louisiana before disposing of you. You’d have been twisted into a pretzel.”
“Maybe they felt sorry for me. I don’t know. What do you think happened?”
David didn’t answer. He slowed and turned onto an even more narrow blacktop road, and Tessa’s focus changed.
“Are we here?” She strained to see beyond the headlights, but the darkness was complete. “I can’t see anything.”
“Unlike most of the terrain in this part of Texas, this area is heavily wooded. Just a short distance on this county road then we turn again onto a private road.”
“Good because I’m getting too hungry to entertain you.”
David chuckled. “Is that what you’ve been doing?”
“I’ve been giving it the old college try. Hey, you said I worked in accounting. Does that mean I have a college degree in accounting?”
As usual, he hesitated. “That’s something we’ll talk about tomorrow.”
Tessa didn’t protest. She’d made progress and engaged him in a nearly normal conversation so she could wait a bit longer for answers.
Shortly, David turned again onto the smaller road he’d mentioned. He drove around a curve and stopped in front of a high wrought iron gate. Eight-foot tall deer fencing stretched into the darkness on either side of the gate. He pressed a remote clipped to the visor. The gate opened, and he drove through, stopped, and pushed the remote again. After the gate closed, he followed the lane around another curve. A few minutes later, Tessa saw deer grazing along the side of the road. “They’re amazing creatures. I see why you don’t drive fast along here.”
They rounded another curve, and an old Texas-style rock house came into view. A low stone wall defined the yard, and twisted branches of live oaks sheltered the house. Moonlight showed a hill rising somewhere behind the house. Landscape lighting gleamed from deep beds of shrubbery, and off in the distance, Tessa could see water gleaming. “It’s so pretty.”
“Welcome to Outlaw Ridge.” David followed the drive around the left side of the house.
“Why is it called that?”
“They say a gang of outlaws used to hide out here back in the old west. The area wasn’t as wooded as it is now. At the top of the ridge, they could look out over the valley and see for miles. If they saw the sheriff and a posse coming, they’d hide in the limestone caves up there.”
David stopped in front of a building that looked like a barn and pressed a button on the visor. One of two double doors opened, and an overhead light came on. Tessa saw a tractor and a four-wheeler sitting on one side of the building. David pulled in, cut the engine, and stretched. “We’re here. Let’s go find something to eat, and then we can go to bed.”
Tessa’s heartbeat soared. Forget food. She could think only of the going to bed part. She gathered her purse from the backseat as David got his duffle bag, briefcase, and her plastic bags.
Tessa following him from the garage and across what must be the back porch. She heard a coyote howl in the distance. He unlocked the door, and they stepped into what she was a kicthen. He flipped on lights and kept walking so she followed him. She’d have plenty of time to look around tomorrow. Now, she wanted to get to know her husband better.
Actually, it was odd that she had no misgivings about being with him that way. She grinned, feeling like a teenager with a crush. Just thinking about naked skin sliding against naked skin made her throb in all the places where she wanted his touch. A thrill chased up her spine. Anticipation.
He stopped at the first room at the top of the stairs and slapped the light switch. “This’ll be your room.” He tossed the plastic bags onto the bed. “I’m down the hall. You can come down to the kitchen after you’ve unpacked if you want. There should be food in the refrigerator.”
David walked away without a backward glance. Tessa’s jaw dropped. She stared at his back. With a soft, incoherent cry, she rushed into her bedroom and slammed the door.
Why had he rejected her?