Winter's Edge (10 page)

The sun was shining for once, proving that Pennsylvania wasn t always covered with rain or dark, brooding clouds. There was the softest hint of spring ~in. the air, a mere suggestion of warmth and growing things, but it was enough to give Molly one of her first feelings of optimism. She showered and dressed in record time, cleaned up the mess beside the bed, and prepared to deal with the hand fate had dealt her.

“Who’s my doctor?” she asked as she walked into the kitchen. Mrs.

Morse already had a cup of coffee

ready for her, but she paused in the act of handing it to her, clearly startled.

“What’s wrong? Are you having aftereffects from your accident? We can get in touch with the hospital in New Jersey…”

“No, I just need a regular doctor. Whoever I usually see.” She took a tentative sip of the coffee, wonder hag how it would sit on her troubled stomach.

“You want to tell me why?”

Molly looked at her. Mrs. Morse was her only ally in this house full of angry strangers, and yet, for some reason she was loath to say anything. Perhaps she was afraid saying it aloud would make it go away. Maybe she was equally frightened that saying it aloud would make it more real.

“I just thought I needed a checkup,” she said casually.

“It’s nothing to worry about, Mrs. Morse. I thought I ought to do something about birth control.” True enough, in a way, she thought to herself.

“I’ll give Dr. Turner a call for you,” she offered.

“I’ll take care of it myself. If you could just find me her number I’ll call her when I get back from my walk. I need to get away from here for a little while, out in the fresh air.”

Mrs. Morse paused, a startled expression on her face.

“That’s something,” she said.

“What?” ‘.

“You knew Dr. Turner was a woman.”

It never failed to unnerve her, these lightning flashes of knowledge that came without warning.

“Maybe my memory’s coming back,” she said lightly.

“Maybe,” Mrs. Morse said in a worried voice.

“Let me just make you some bacon and eggs before you go out…”

“No, thanks!” Molly replied hastily, not feeling quite as recovered as she’d thought. The very idea of food was enough for her stomach to cramp up, and she set her coffee mug down, barely touched.

“I’ll have something later.”

She rushed out into the early April sunshine, taking deep gulps of the clean wet air, and suddenly had the mad, determined desire to run. She took off at a comfortable lope, her body falling into the rhythm of it with effortless grace. She moved past the farm buildings, past the startled ducks, past Ben, her long hair streaming behind her, her heart pumping with a mindless joy.

She wanted to run forever, but she knew instinctively that she hadn’t paced herself. After a bit she slowed, reluctantly, her heart pounding against her ribs, her breath rasping in her lungs. Her body wasn’t as responsive as it had once been—she knew that without being sure how. She’d grown soft, her stamina had shattered. Perhaps it was the new life that might be growing inside her. She could only hope so.

The trees overhead were in bud, the winter brown-gray had a blush of green upon it, and all around her was the smell of wet spring earth. She inhaled it like a strong drug, wondering whether anyone could feel hopeless on a perfect day like this one, with the rich puffs of fleecy white clouds rolling around in the bluest of blue skies, and the soft spring breeze blowing in her face.

As she continued down the narrow dirt

track at a more moderate pace she was filled with a new hope, a new resolution that nothing could quite shake.

She hadn’t gone less than a quartsr of a mile when a sudden noise from the underbrush that lined the dirt road startled her into stopping. There was an eerie prickling at the back of her neck. Someone’ was watching her. Someone, or something, that wanted to hurt her.

She almost laughed out loud when she recognized Beastie’s lumbering form charging down the road, knocking her flat on her back as he greeted her. She hugged him exuberantly, receiving a thorough’ face cleaning in return, then challenged him to a race down to the pile of rubble some ways in the distance.

He beat her, of course, and was waiting with ill-concealed canine smugness when she finally reached him, panting and gasping. ” And then she recognized where she was.

It was the charred remains of the barn she had supposedly burned down.

Even after five long weeks the smell of wet, charred wood hung in the air. A part of one wall was standing, and she could imagine the flames crackling around the old structure, could even hear the screams of the poor tortured horses, could smell the sickening smell of burning flesh. She sank to the ground, dizzy, faint, and put her head between her knees.

“Are you all right?” She heard a soft voice nearby, and she looked up, blinking in the bright sunlight, to see Toby staring at her through the wire-rimmed glasses, his eyes dark and intense, his voice full of a soft concern that should have warmed her. She told herself it did, and yet she thought of Patrick.

She nodded, pulling herself together with a concerted effort and smiling up at him.

“I just felt a little dizzy for a moment,” she said.

“I’d forgotten that I’m supposed to take it easy for a while.” She looked at the incriminating ruins with sick eyes.

“This… this must be the barn that burned.”

He moved closer, sunlight glinting off the glasses and making his expression unreadable.

“Don’t you remember anything? Anything at all?”

“Not a thing,” she said, resting her chin on her knees, trying to keep the guilt and misery out of her voice. Toby might have missed it, but Beastie was more attuned to her, and he whined softly, pushing his huge muzzle against her face.

Toby dropped down beside her, lying in the damp spring grass.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing happening.

Such a total absence of memory. Usually there are threads, pieces of the past. “

“And what would you know about it?” She kept the edge out of her voice.

“Are you a doctor?”

“No. I was in premed, until illness forced me to drop out. But I remember enough to know that this is a highly unlikely scenario.”

“Whether amnesia happens this way or not, Toby, in my case it has,” she said firmly.

“I assume it will all come back eventually, but I’m not going to waste my time worrying about it. You shouldn’t either.” She smiled reassuringly. For some reason Toby seemed to bring out her maternal instincts, which was odd, since he appeared to be several years older than she was,

perhaps more than that, if he was Patrick’s contemporary. But added to those strong, maternal feelings was an obscure, cynical part of her that didn’t quite trust his ingenuous charm—something about him didn’t seem quite right. Something in the intensity of his gaze, in the faint edge to his voice.

Her imagination had to be working overtime, she thought in disgust.

She didn’t have enough memories to fill her brain, so she was making things up to keep herself busy.

Toby Pentick was harmless. Sweet, friendly, and far nicer than her soon to be ex-husband. So why was she looking for trouble where none existed?

“And you’re sure you really remember nothing?” Toby murmured with an intensity that seemed unnatural, and she stared at him in surprise.

“Nothing,” she said smoothly.

“Do you?”

He paled suddenly, and she realized she had struck a nerve.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean do you remember anything about that night? Were you here? Did you see anything?”

He shook his head.

“I was on the West Coast, visiting some friends. I had no idea anything had happened when I arrived back.”

There was no missing the sorrow or concern in his voice. Her memory might be gone, but her instincts were still strong. Toby cared about her. Perhaps too much.

The next thought was sudden, inevitable, and devastating. Here was another man, a close friend. He might be the father of her child, and not her husband at all.

“Toby?” she asked in an urgent voice.

“Were we lovers?”

He blushed. It astonished her, the deep, red color mottling his skin as he stared at her.

“No,” he said stiffly.

“Pat’s my friend. I wouldn’t do that to him.” Before she had the chance to probe further, he rose.

“I’d better get back,” he said in a strained voice.

“I promised Pat I’d take a look at one of the mares. See you.”

“All right,” she said in a gentle voice, taking pity on his obvious mortification. She wouldn’t have thought a grown man would be quite so sensitive.

“I think I’ll stay here for a while. Could you take Beastie back with you?” she asked.

“He’s a little overwhelming for a playmate—I don’t think I’m quite up to managing him yet.”

“Sure.” He relaxed slightly.

“Uh… don’t stay out here alone too long, okay?”

She caught the faintest trace of worry in his voice, and she stared at him sharply.

“Why not?”

He shook his head.

“I just have the feeling that it’s not particularly safe around here.” -‘ Molly stiffened her back, trYing to ignore the chill of foreboding she felt at his words.

“For me or for everYone?”

“For you,” he said, and calling Beastie, he started down the road.

She rose up on her knees, determined to call after him, demand an explanation, but he was moving so fast there was no way she could catch

him, short of sprinting, and she’d used up her energy for the morning. And she wasn’t quite sure if Toby would answer her questions no matter how persistent she was.

Molly sank back in the damp brown grass and shut her eyes, trying to shut out the words of warning and bring back the ~eelings of peace and hope of a short while ago. But Toby’s warning had done its job, and she sat up and looked around her nervously, wishing she hadn’t banished Beastie. There were too many scorched and blackened trees around the ruins of the old barn, too much dark underbrush that could shield too many-dangerous creatures. Dangerous creatures like Patrick, she wondered? She rose and moved closer to the barn, drawn to the blackened foundations and charred timbers, staring down at them. She had the eerie feeling that there were eyes on her, and she whirled suddenly, staring determinedly into the surrounding woods.

Of course there was no one there. She felt like an idiot as she turned back and leaned over the precipice of the barn, trying to peer into the old stone cellar of the building. She thought she saw something bright down there, something metal and flashing. Moving closer still, she suddenly felt herself hurtling face forward into the fire-blackened pit.

She must have bounced off one of the fallen beams, for she felt a sharp pain in her side, and something tore at her arm as she plummeted downward into the murky cellar. She hit bottom after what seemed like an endless fall, and she lay there in the mud, her body aching from the various obstructions she had hit on her way down, the feel of someone’s hands as they pushed her still strong on her back. Without moving she could see her arm, see the long, narrow gash that was welling with dark blood. Blood that was rapidly pooling beneath her.

Her first thought was for the child that might or might not exist.

Her entire body ached, but there was no word some cramping. The cut in her arm seemed by far the worst of her injuries, and she viewed it with sick fascination.

I’m going to bleed to death, she thought numbly. It won’t matter whether I’m pregnant or not—I’ll be dead and no one will find me for years and years, and in the meantime Patrick will have all my money to spend on that woman.

She squeezed her eyes shut, allowing her a few brief moments of misery and panic. And then she shot them open again. Life would be far too convenient if she just disappeared.

She wasn’t going to give them what they wanted again.

She rolled onto her back, groaning. The sides of the old cellar were oozing springtime mud, the sun filtered through the remaining beams above her and the gash in her arm no longer seemed quite so desperate.

She still felt sick and weak, but from somewhere in the back of her brain came the memory that blood usually had that effect on her. Especially her own. And then she heard the sound again, the low whine.

“Beastie,” she croaked weakly, but the sound was barely audible.

“Beastie,” she tried again, but it was useless.

There was a great crashing of wood, and an old beam thundered down, missing her head by inches.

“What the hell are you doing down there?” Patrick’s

angry voice demanded. Molly had never heard anything so annoyingly welcome in her entire life.

“Taking a nap,” she snapped.

“What did you think?”

But he was gone again, and she almost called after him. He couldn’t have left her there, could he? But then, what did she really know about him? Maybe he wanted to finish what he started.

And then she heard a crashing about at the far end of the structure, and she closed her eyes in relief. He hadn’t left her. If he’d been the one to push her he would hardly have come to rescue her. In a moment he was beside her, his eyes dark with a fear and an anger that were both oddly comforting.

“Are you all right?”

he asked unnecessarily, poking at her arm.

“I … I guess so,” she stammered weakly.

“I hurt my arm, but that’s about it. I think.”

“You did, indeed,” he said grimly, his hands gentle as he probed for possible damage. She didn’t like it, the impersonal feel of his hands on her body, touching her with the same care and interest he might show a wounded horse. Perhaps less.

“And it serves you right,” he added.

“What the hell do you mean, wandering around here? It’s dangerous; any fool would know that! Did you have some incredible urge to return to the scene of the crime, to see how much damage you did?

If it weren’t for Beastie I might never have found you. “

During this tirade he managed to lift her up in his arms with a tenderness at amazing variance with the harshness in his voice, and he carried her out into the brilliant sunlight by the remaining flight of stone steps.