Intimate Portraits (15 page)

Her body twisted. She stopped
plummeting.

Somehow, miraculously, her hands
had closed around a pipe beside a bridge support.

Hanging by the flimsy junction of
hands and metal, she swung over the rushing water.

She couldn’t climb up. She couldn’t
get a better grip.

Her hands were already losing
strength. Her fingers, no matter how frantically she squeezed, continued to
slide a fraction of an inch at a time.

She was going to fall into the
rocks.

Someone screamed.

Was that me?

Her hands slipped to the bottom.

Useless. She couldn’t hold on.

Someone caught her arm before she
could fall, someone who held her wrist in an iron grip that cut into her flesh
and made her eyes tear up.

The pain moved from her wrist outward.
Her arm felt like it was being jerked from its socket. Her face banged against
the bridge.

But she no longer fell.

Above her head, Rennie struggled
to keep her from the rocks gouging the waters below. His lips, drawn back in a
snarl, made him look more like an attacker than a rescuer.

 “Put up your hand.” His teeth
gritted. Sweat beaded on his upper lip.

His face was not that of her unruffled
Rennie. It was feral, urgent, determined. Another time she would have been
terrified.

Not now.

Her weight threatened to drag him
over the side. His body strained to support hers.

“Give me your other hand,” he yelled
over the moaning wind.

She tried to do as he instructed,
but there was no handhold.

Gales of air, frigid and harsh,
blasted from under the bridge. Her legs and body swayed in midair, shoving her
against the stone and preventing her from catching onto the rail.

“I can’t.” He could never hold
her. She’d fall onto the rocks.

Fran’s face materialized beside Rennie’s,
and his hand snaked out, caught her other, flailing arm.

In a second, the two men had snatched
her up, out of the inimical wind and away from the hazardous waters, over the
rail to safety.

Fran tried to draw her toward
him, but Rennie was the one she wanted. She rushed into his chest, blind and
unheeding of what she revealed.

The wool of his sweater rubbed
against her face. His arms circled her and his scent enveloped her.

His voice was urgent. “Are you
all right?”

“How in hell did you fall?” Fran
put his hand on her shoulder as if he would detach her from her shelter. “My God,
it’s lucky we started down this way when we did. Another minute and… Autumn,
what happened?”

She couldn’t answer. She clung to
Rennie. Blood pounded at her ears. Trembling began in her knees and spread to
her hips and arms and shoulders.

“She’s all right,” Rennie said
over the top of her head.

She kept her face buried in his
sweater.

“Autumn,” Fran started. “Let me—”

“She’s all right, Francisco,” Rennie
repeated. “Just scared. Let her catch her breath.”

“What happened to her?” somebody,
a woman, asked.

Alien hands tugged at her, trying
to separate her from Rennie. Fran. She tightened her grip.

“Give me a moment,” she managed
to say, her voice muffled. “I can’t—let me stand here a moment.” She sounded shrill
and hysterical and quite unlike herself.

She wasn’t all right, but Rennie
wanted her to be and she had to pull herself together so as not to disgrace
herself in front of him. She
would
pull herself together.

I won’t cry
, she chanted to herself.
I
won’t cry, I won’t cry, I won’t cry.

“Is she all right?”

“How did she fall?”

“What happened?”

Voices. From all sides. Murmuring,
clamoring, excited. She peeked out from her haven.

Laney and Norma and Victoria and
others. All bunching around. All concerned. All jabbering.

She burrowed back into Rennie’s
sweater.

“Are you all right?” Fran’s words
resounded in her ear. His hand clamped on her shoulder and tried to pull her
away. “Autumn, are you hurt?”

“Leave her alone.” Rennie’s
forceful tone subdued Fran’s insistence. “Let her get her head straight before
we go asking questions.”

She shuddered. Rennie understood.

Grateful, she huddled deeper into
his chest, the soft lining of his down jacket cradling one cheek and his thick
sweater rough against the other. She wanted to stay here like this, with his
scent in her nostrils and his heartbeat in her ears, safe and secure.

He let her stand in the welcome
protection of his arms, patting her back, holding her, rocking her back and
forth until she calmed and her wobbly legs could support her.

Then he gently weaned her from
his steady embrace. “Okay now, Autumn? Think you can stand up now?”

She let her arms drop from where
they were clutching him. His face was still grim, scary. Not like the man she
loved. “Yes. Clumsy.” It was hard to step away, but she did. She even managed a
shrug. “It was clumsy of me.”

A small circle had formed. Everyone
stared at her. The Degardoveras. Victoria. Victoria’s friend. Strangers who
hadn’t the vaguest idea of what had happened had gathered to see the cause of
the commotion.

She hated their curiosity, the
way they pointed and talked about her among themselves.

Rennie would hate it, too. No
wonder he looked so forbidding. He was upset with her for making such a
spectacle of herself. And him.

She’d turned that voracious
spotlight on him. No wonder he was annoyed.

“I’m fine.”

There. That was her own voice,
cool and impassive like nothing had happened. She’d trained herself long ago to
put on a serene front when her aunt scolded her for crying. Aunt Laura had told
her crying wouldn’t bring her parents back, that it would make her ugly so no
one would want her.

Aunt Laura had been stern, but
her training had never failed Autumn. It didn’t now. “I’m fine,” she repeated.

“Are you sure?” Fran laid an arm
over her shoulder.

“What happened? How did you slip
over the rail?” Victoria’s concern was overshadowed by eagerness.

Hoping for the worst, but then Victoria
was a reporter.

Onlookers, seeing she was all
right, resumed their activities.

Not Victoria. “You weren’t standing
up on the rail trying to take pictures or anything, were you?”

Autumn didn’t mind Fran and Rennie’s
questions, but darned if she was going to let Victoria interrogate her like she
was stupid enough to climb up on the bridge rail and fall off.

She shook her head and stepped
back toward Rennie.

Rennie put a bracing arm around
her, joining his bulk with Fran’s to form a protective shield against inquisitive
eyes. “Autumn’s got more sense than that, Victoria. Besides, she didn’t bring a
camera tonight.”

“Then how did she happen to fall?”
Victoria persisted.

Safe between Rennie and Fran, Autumn
could answer without terror. “I don’t know what happened. I was standing here
looking at the fireworks and then I—I fell.” She remembered the hard blow to
her back, put a hand round to feel her fanny pack twisted to one side but still
there. “It felt like someone bumped into me.”

There hadn’t been a tug, like someone
trying to wrench the pack away. Maybe they’d reached for it but misjudged, shoved
her off instead. “I remember somebody hitting against my back. Hard. I guess
they pushed me off balance.”

That had to be the answer.

She added with more assurance, “Someone
ran into me, and I staggered and went over the rail before I could catch myself.”

Nothing else would fit. The jab
to her back had been too fierce for an ordinary brush of bodies. Someone had
been running and had slammed into her accidentally.

It wasn’t likely someone had been
after her fanny pack. And if they were, guess they’d think better of tackling
someone on a bridge next time.

Victoria opened her mouth, but
Autumn circumvented more questions. “I’m all right now.” She managed a credible
semblance of a smile. “Thanks to Rennie and Fran. We’re blocking traffic. Maybe
we’d better move out of the way.”

Rennie didn’t remove his arm from
her shoulder. “You must be shook up. Sure you can walk?”

“Yeah.” Her legs still quivered,
but she’d walk under her own steam if it killed her.

“Okay. Good.” To the others he
said, “Autumn and I are going back to the cabin. She’s had a shock and I’m
tired. We’re going to skip the rest of the festivities.”

Autumn stopped short. “No, I’m
fine, really I am. Don’t leave on my account, Rennie.”

“You may be fine but I’m not.” In
the gray light beneath the strands of twinkling lights, his harshness gave way.
“You scared the stew out of me. Look.” He held out his hand. “I’m still shaking.
If you’re as calm as you seem, you’re damned well a robot. We’re going back to
the cottage, Autumn. We can come back later if we feel like it.”

“But I’m—”

His arm tightened on her
shoulder, and he whispered at her ear, “Besides, we have some business to take
care of. The hotel. Remember?”

“Oh.” Laney’s things. Conscious
of Fran’s curious eyes, she said, loud enough for the others to hear, “Okay. Maybe
you’re right. Maybe I am a little unsteady.”

Fran’s eyes narrowed at his
brother instead of Autumn. “I’ll take Autumn back.”

“You can’t. We brought my car
instead of yours. Besides, I'm going back to the cabin anyway.”

“Then I’ll come with you.” Fran took
a belligerent stance.

Rennie shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

“Oh, good grief. Stay and enjoy
yourself, Fran,” Autumn cut in.

How ridiculous that he might think
Rennie wanted her. She would have laughed. Except that she felt too rocky and
too annoyed at Fran’s possessiveness. She wasn’t a prize he could snatch away
from his older brother. “There’s no need to break up the party because I’m
going.”

Fran didn’t like Rennie taking
her off, but Victoria, bless her, added her entreaties. “Come on, Fran, Autumn
will be fine. Don’t leave me by myself.”

Fran hesitated, but in the end couldn’t
hold out against Victoria’s pretty coaxing. “All right, go on with Rennie.” He
glowered at his brother. “But you’d better take care of her.”

Autumn didn’t need anyone to take
care of her, and opened her mouth to say so, but Rennie took her arm. “I kept
her from falling over the wall, didn’t I? Don’t worry about Autumn.”

As they started toward the car, her
last glimpse of Fran revealed him sulking.

Rennie noticed, too. “Francisco’s
annoyed. He thinks I’m after his girlfriend.”

“I’m not his girlfriend.” She
stole a sidelong glance at him, but he’d reverted back to his usual self,
uncaring as to whether or not she was anyone’s girlfriend.

Her tiny sigh was inaudible.

They fell in with a crowd walking
toward the nearby hotel where they’d parked the car. Once Rennie got John and
Laney’s bag out of the trunk, they went into the lobby.

At the elevator, they joined
others waiting to go up. A man, vaguely familiar, stepped on at the last minute.
Kind of skinny. Average looks. Not handsome but not ugly. So ordinary it would
be hard to do a decent portrait of him. That bland face would be impossible to
shoot.

The holiday scarf placed him. He’d
been in the pizza place by himself. Another tourist visiting Helen for the
Alpenlights except without a wife or kids or anyone else to eat with.

“Push two,” Rennie said in the
hushed tone reserved for elevators full of strangers.

She was in front of the controls.

He held up the key’s tag where a
big 216 jumped out.

She hit two. No one else said
anything. Looked like they were getting off on the second floor, too.

Except for the ordinary man from
the pizza place. He stayed on the elevator and chewed his gum.

****

Heading back to where he’d parked,
Sam Bogatti soon had the van moved over to the hotel. Traffic was congested,
but that was okay. Things were looking up.

After the screw-up at the bridge,
he’d almost gone back for the van so if the photographer and her man drove off,
he could follow them. But he’d trailed along on foot a little way. Lucky he
had, else he wouldn’t have seen them get their luggage.

They were staying at this hotel,
and he’d seen exactly which room she’d be in tonight.

Yeah, his luck was changing.

With that nasty surprise at
Sarita’s when he’d looked at those photos and seen Bernie’s house of cards come
tumbling down, plus the failure tonight to close the books, he could use a
change.