Page 19

19

Connor is horrified by the burn. I bandaged it myself the night before, but he insists on unwrapping it to examine the damage, fretting over it. The heat of the stove has obliterated the small circle at the center of my palm; it’s a solid welt now, stretching from one edge of my hand to the other. I watch Connor with a sense of detachment.

He’s been lying to me ever since we met. He’s never pried about my past, but was that only because he knew it would make me run away?

When I first told him about the dream, he asked if I thought it might be a memory. Pieces of one, maybe , is what I told him.

He leaves me in the cabin. Insists on going to the lodge to get us both breakfast. I pace uneasily. I need to talk to Harper.

I need to get out of here.

I need to know what happened in this place, all those years ago.

What I can’t do is just sit around here. I start for the door, grabbing my coat and yanking it on as I step outside. I’m in such a hurry that I don’t notice Nick on the stoop. I yelp, stumble. He reaches out, catching me with one hand as I come down the stairs. He hauls me upright, carefully balancing a wooden tray on one hand. It’s loaded high with what looks like a waffle buffet for five.

“Whoa there,” he says. He looks amused.

“Sorry,” I stammer.

“No worries,” he assures me. He tips his head toward the waffles. “Connor got held up at the lodge. I’ve been dispatched to bring you breakfast and check your hand,” he says after a beat of silence. We can’t seem to get our rhythm right, keep spending moments staring at each other like this.

“My hand?” I echo. I sound calm, at least.

“I’m a doctor,” he says. I flush. I should have remembered.

“It’s really fine,” I tell him. As if to contradict me, my hand gives a stubborn throb of pain. My fingers twitch.

“Connor seemed pretty worried. Let me just take a look. So I can reassure him,” he says.

“What if I refuse?” I ask.

“Then I guess you don’t get any waffles,” he tells me gravely, and I laugh a little, because that’s what I’m supposed to do.

“Right,” I say. I turn back to the cabin, heading up the two steps.

“Hold on, you dropped something,” Nick says. I turn in time to see him crouching down, makeshift tray carefully balanced, to pick up the white rectangle that’s fallen to the snow.

The photograph. It was still in my pocket. It must have come loose when he collided and now he’s picking it up, turning it over. His face goes blank. He stares at it for a long moment. And then he stretches out his hand.

I take it from him, fingers trembling. “Thanks,” I say.

He says nothing. Nods. I turn and walk quickly inside, listening for his footsteps and the thunk of the door closing behind me. I set the picture on the counter, face down. He carries the waffles over to the counter and then pulls a kitchen chair out.

“Take a seat,” he says.

I do as directed. He sits in the chair opposite me. I hold my hand out. He doesn’t meet my eyes as he examines it.

“Pretty decent job on the bandages, given that you’re operating one-handed,” he notes. He peels off the adhesive, pulls it aside. He grimaces. “Jesus. You did this on the stove?”

“Just clumsy, I guess.” The skin has blistered badly at the edges of the burn.

“Well, you did everything right,” he says. “Top marks for the first-aid knowledge.”

“My family wasn’t big on doctors,” I say. He looks up at last, curi ous. I arch an eyebrow. “They’re all crooks and quacks trying to take your money and pump you full of pills.”

“Obviously,” he agrees, nodding.

“Though really, I think we were broke and the philosophical objections were cover,” I say. “Anyway, short of actually getting impaled on a piece of rebar or something, I was taught to take care of things myself.” I’m talking too fast. My nerves make me chatty.

“That’s why I bribed you with waffles,” Nick says. “My dad’s the same way. Especially now that he’s getting older.”

“It’s a hard instinct to unlearn,” I admit. You don’t ask for help. You just get it done, and you don’t complain, and you don’t let anyone see that you’re weak.

“Well, you’re doing the right thing. Keep up the ointment or petroleum jelly, and wash and rebandage it a couple of times a day,” he says. “Nasty spot, but it should heal all right. Try not to use that hand too much.”

“I don’t think I have an option,” I say ruefully.

“On that note, let me help you with your breakfast,” he says. I start to get up. He waves me back into the chair. “Nope. I’ve got this. As your doctor, I absolutely forbid you to do it yourself. Strawberries? Blueberries? Whipped cream?” he asks.

My answers produce a pair of waffles piled high with all three. I try in vain to cut the waffle with the edge of my fork. He leans in, takes it from me, picks up the knife. I sit back, feeling like a child. Joseph cutting up my meat for me, because I wasn’t allowed sharp things.

“That photograph,” he says.

“I found it.” I try not to sound defensive.

“In here?” he asks. I don’t answer. “Dragonfly.” He sits back, setting fork and knife on the plate. He regards me from beneath dark brows. I feel cut apart under that gaze. Carefully sectioned and considered. The kindness is gone from him, replaced with wariness. “Mr. Vance said you’d been going out there at night.”

“Not every night,” I say. So Vance has been watching me, tracking the movement of my flashlight in the dark. I imagine Duchess with him. His hand on her ruff, restraining her.

“Why would you do that?” he asks. His tone is impossible to read.

“Curiosity, I suppose,” I say.

“You were prying.”

“It’s just an empty cabin.” I don’t tell him how much I hate closed doors, locked cabinets, things kept up high out of reach. How I’ve always had the need to know, to have, to inhabit. “Anyway, I found the photo and thought I should give it to Connor or something, but I completely forgot I had it.” Voice bright and innocent, like I’ve got no idea what it might mean.

“Do you know who it is?” Nick asks.

“I know the man is Connor’s father,” I say. I take a bite of my food. Swallow it down without tasting it. “Who’s the little girl?” Does he see how much she looks like me? My face has changed. The girl’s cheeks are rounder, her features softer.

Nick’s fingertips tap a slow rhythm against the tabletop, like he’s thinking. It reminds me of a heartbeat, but mine’s so much quicker, pattering away in my chest. “She was called Teddy,” he says. “It wasn’t her real name. A nickname—pet name, really. Her mother was… a friend. Of Liam’s.” He’s careful when he says it. Not sure how much to say. His eyes give him away—the anger in them.

I think of the way he and Rose looked at each other, how he stepped in. He’d taken it personally, what his brother did.

“You asked me if I ever went by Teddy,” I say.

He dips his chin. “I was being ridiculous. It wasn’t even her real name,” he says. “It was because she was obsessed with teddy bears.”

Like the one in the photo. In my memory. Teddy Too , I called it, because we had the same name.

“You do look a little like her. Mallory, I mean—and I guess her daughter, though it’s hard to say with little kids, you know.”

I’m glad that I’m wearing the high-collared sweater. That he can’t see the two little birthmarks on my throat, their perfect match in the photo. “Mallory. That was her mother’s name?” It stirs no recognition in me. But of course it wouldn’t—for a little girl, Mama is the only name you need.

“That’s right. Beautiful woman,” he says.

“You knew her.”

“Not well.” He shakes his head. “I wouldn’t go mentioning any of this to Connor or Rose. It brings up painful memories.”

“Because Liam was sleeping with her,” I say bluntly.

“Who told you that?” he demands.

I skewer a strawberry. “It seemed pretty obvious.” He doesn’t need to know about Trevor. “I wouldn’t have guessed it. From the way Connor talks about his father, I mean.”

“We didn’t want any of the kids finding out about Mallory. Hell, I didn’t even want Rose knowing, she was dealing with enough already, but there wasn’t much way around it. Mallory and the kid were here when the accident happened.”

I school my face in a picture of appropriate surprise, sorrow, and awkwardness.

“Alexis found out, and she told her brother. Alexis… she took it hard. Barely came out of her room for months. Wouldn’t eat. Hurt herself.” He doesn’t specify. I picture a razor against pale skin, Alexis’s face set with concentration and intent. “Connor just pretended he hadn’t heard. Kept on building up his father as the superhero he wanted to remember. I don’t blame the kid. Anyway, you can see why no one would talk about a thing like that.”

Some secrets stay that way because of the trouble they could cause. Others because the pain of silence is slightly more bearable.

“What happened to them after the accident? Mallory and Teddy, I mean?” I ask. It feels strange to speak the name without claiming it. Teddy. A bear with a red ribbon and soft fur and arms wrapped around me. Everything’s going to work out, Teddy. You’ll see.

My breath catches in my throat. Nick doesn’t seem to notice. “She took off. I have no idea where to. I didn’t exactly care, at the time,” he says. “We weren’t terribly kind to her. Maybe she deserved it, I don’t know. We were all just so shocked and grieving, and then finding out what Liam was doing up here…” He scrubs a hand over his face.

What Liam was doing up here. The phrase sticks in my mind, and I give an involuntary shiver.

“You look so much like her,” he says again. His eyes trace the contours of my face. I want to hide, to turn my face away. I make myself hold still under his scrutiny. “I wondered if there was some way you could be her. The name, you know.”

“But her name wasn’t Theodora,” I say.

“No. No, it wasn’t,” he says. I wait. I want him to say it. I need him to say it. But he sighs, straightens up. “I should let you eat that before it goes completely soggy.”

I look down at my food. A moment ago I was ravenous, but now the sight of it turns my stomach.

“Thank you for coming by,” I say.

He dips his head. “Not a problem. No, don’t get up, I’ll see myself out.” I cancel the obligatory move to rise. He lumbers his way to the door, pulls on his boots.

“Nick,” I say suddenly. He pauses, hand on the door. “Did Liam smoke?”

A line appears between his brows. “Now and then,” he said. A laugh rumbles in his chest. “We picked up the habit here. Sneaking Dad’s cigs out in the woods. I still get that urge when I roll up to the gate. Kicked it a long time ago, though. Patients don’t like a doctor who smokes. Why?”

“No reason,” I say. He looks puzzled but doesn’t press. He lifts a hand in a final farewell, but after the door is open, before he steps out, he pauses.

“Curiosity’s one thing, Theo. But digging up the past like this… it’s not good for anyone,” he says. “Just opens up old wounds. You should throw that photo away. Don’t let Connor see it. And I’d stay away from Dragonfly, if I were you. There’s nothing there but bad memories.”

“I understand,” I say. He takes that as agreement, and leaves at last. I don’t tell him that I knew that already.

That the bad memories are exactly what I’m trying to find.