She sighed, resting her chin in her cupped hands.
“Just don’t jump to any conclusions yet, okay?” Sean bumped shoulders with her. “Hey. Okay?”
She leaned back, as if to leave some space between them. “A psychopath did kill Tanner, but that psychopath also sent the threatening notes to me, not to him.”
“You showed them to the police, to us, to Tanner. You’re off the hook completely.”
Tess held Sean’s gaze, looked down at her hands. “Remember last Christmas? When Mom and Dad took that cruise on the Mediterranean, and the rest of us came to Gerard’s for Christmas dinner?”
Sean hesitated. That was a sudden and uncomfortable change of subject. “Not willingly.”
“I’m sorry. I promise I don’t mean to bring up bad memories, I’m just trying to make a point.”
Sean took a deep breath and braced himself. He had brought a date—a sales rep from Houston—simply because he had known Tess would be there with Tanner, and he was a little too sensitive about that. His date turned out to be the biggest mistake of his life. If only he’d never met Kari Ann. He’d allowed things to go way too far. They’d used no protection. He didn’t find out she was pregnant until she’d already decided to abort.
Tess placed a hand on Sean’s arm. She was no longer ice-cold. “Kari Ann made her choices, too. You tried to stop her. I was here, remember? I saw how hard you tried.”
He took another slow, deep breath to control the fury-riddled frustration at the situation he’d helped create—and the grief over the abortion of his offspring. He’d have gladly raised his baby alone, if only Kari Ann had been willing to bring that helpless, beloved child to term.
All that rage and pain had brought him to his knees and to Christ, with Gerard’s support.
But today, Tess was the one in need of strength.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “What were you going to tell me about last Christmas?”
“Only that something changed in me during those days. I realized that I’d left my faith behind when I left my family and went out to make my own life.”
“You were always ethical.”
“Oh, I always tried hard to be ethical in my business dealings, but I made my own plans without seeking God’s plans for me.”
“You’re talking about Tanner?”
She nodded. “Somewhere along the way, God stopped being my reason for living, and Tanner turned my head—much like he did all his female fans. I mean, the man had the looks, the personality and the moves, you know?”
“Um, not really.”
“Okay, no, you wouldn’t. But that voice alone could melt a person.”
Sean felt suddenly restless. He did not want to think about the effect Tanner had on Tess.
“But when I spent time at the mission last Christmas,” she continued, “I saw what Gerard and Hans were doing. It made an impact. I slowly began to realize I was missing it all, and that my relationship with Tanner Jackson might not be the right one for me.”
“But you continued your engagement.” That, too, had been frustrating to Sean, especially after he realized, just watching Tess with Tanner that week during Christmas at the Vance ranch, that the two didn’t belong together.
She hadn’t realized Tanner’s depraved mind, his selfish disregard for anyone who didn’t serve his needs. Tanner hadn’t understood—if he cared at all—the kind of man Tess needed in her life. It simply was not him.
“It’s one thing to make a life-changing discovery about yourself,” she said, “but it’s another thing altogether to break it off with the person you’ve been planning to spend your life with.”
“You need to learn to listen to your heart.”
“I continued to believe we could make it work, despite the rumors and some of the sly innuendoes on gossip TV and trash magazines. I talked to him about my faith and how it had been reaffirmed, how I had finally realized that serving God wasn’t just following a set of rules, but knowing Him and putting Him first.”
“And?”
“He didn’t like the change in me.”
“So he was jealous of God?”
Tess shrugged. “You could put it that way, I guess. We pushed each other further and further away.” She nibbled again on her lower lip. “He’d never been the person I tried to convince myself he was.”
“You always like to believe the best about people.” It was one of the things Sean loved about her.
“But here’s the crux of the matter, Sean,” Tess said. She leaned forward. “The night he died, I’d called him to come over. I had the ring in its original box, ready to give to him.”
“What? You mean…you’re saying you were breaking the engagement?” All Sean’s memories of that time suddenly shifted sideways in an effort to contain this new information.
“Yes. I couldn’t keep it up. I was holding the ring in my hand when I heard the gunning of an engine outside and then the squeal of rubber on the street.” She closed her eyes.
“You don’t have to relive it. I have everything memorized.” She hadn’t loved Tanner when he died. She was blaming herself for that?
She looked up at Sean sadly. “I still have nightmares about running out the door and seeing that car disappearing around the corner two blocks away. I still dream about the blood.”
Sean was reaching out to cover her hands with his when his telephone rang. He glanced at Tess, pressed the speaker button and answered.
“This is Dr. Bradley,” came a shaky voice over the speaker. “We’ve been coding Stud. He’s asystole. Ambulance is on its way.”
“Flatline!” Tess jumped up.
“We couldn’t get him to respond to shock,” Megan said.
Tess grabbed Sean’s hands. “He’s dying.”
Sean caught her as she fell.
THREE
Tess floated through a dark tunnel, aware of nothing but the sound of a man’s voice shouting in the far distance. She couldn’t understand what he was saying and didn’t know why he was shouting. Was it a warning? Or was he angry?
He fell silent, and she drifted until something cold and wet dripped onto her face. Then she felt herself being lifted.
Sounds finally smacked through her ears again: the thud of footsteps, hard breathing, other voices, doors opening and closing.
“Tess?
