Chapter 3

Mason became completely sure of one thing as the girl bent forward, gripping her knees like she’d just taken a bat to the stomach. Whoever had taken her things better watch out. Anyone who picked on a rescuer in the middle of rescuing had it coming.

He’d hardly been paying attention to her at first and had paid none to the fact that she’d dumped her things. With the craziness as of late, he’d been bombarded nearly every time he’d stepped out of his building.

But ever since the accident, his face had been plastered over the news more than it had during his best weeks of the season. It was hard to go anywhere, especially wearing the sling, without being noticed.

Those first few seconds, he’d had no reason to think she was anything other than a fan who was coming over hoping for an autograph or to flirt. But she didn’t seem to have a clue who he was. She was only interested in talking dog.

She was also soaked to the bone and shivering. He was rapidly getting that way too.

He scanned the park, looking for a glimpse of someone hurrying away with her luggage. A woman was jogging away from the park, leading a long-legged poodle, but she wasn’t carrying anything. There were a few businesspeople darting in and out of the buildings on the other side of Chestnut Street. Some had umbrellas and briefcases; others didn’t. He scanned the shrubbery for someone hiding behind the dense brush. He caught a glimpse of motion at the southeast edge of the park.

“Hey, take the leash, will you?” Mason pressed the leash into her hand and dashed off before she could ask why. Millie, inconsistent as always, barked after him as if she hated for him to leave.

At the far corner of the sculpture park was a popular hollow metal sculpture of a giant head lying sideways. Mason had caught a glimpse of someone stepping into its hollow neck, though his view had been partially block by barren limbs.

He was nearly there before he realized he couldn’t identify the girl’s stuff. If the guy had something suspicious, he’d drag him back to her. Only when he reached the open neck end of the statue did he stop, swiping raindrops off his forehead and out of his eyes. Someone had, in fact, gone in out of the rain. A homeless guy. He’d been hauling a ratty, military-grade duffel. He seemed oblivious to Mason’s arrival as he pulled off a jacket he’d been wearing. He wore layers of dirt like clothing, and Mason would put him in his late forties. His clothes were worn out and soiled, and his shoes, an old pair of Converse, were falling apart.

“Hey,” Mason said, leaning his head inside the neck but not crawling in. “I’m with a girl on the other side of the park. Someone just stole her stuff. Did you see anyone with a suitcase and a backpack?”

The guy stopped undressing to look at him, then cleared his throat loudly. “Think this is an airport? You gotta watch your own stuff around here. It’s them Iraqis you gotta watch for. Got three tours notched in my belt, and, by God, I swear you can’t trust an Iraqi.”

The guy had a far-off look in his eyes. Mason suspected he was only half-aware of the world around him. He reached into his pants’ pocket for his wallet but remembered he didn’t have it. “Hey, want to tell me what size shoe you wear, guy?”

Mason didn’t get an answer this time. The man was too busy filling the air with all the reasons he wouldn’t trust an Iraqi, and none of them were reasons Mason wanted to hear.

“Hey.” Mason knocked on the metal to get his attention. The knock reverberated through the hollow head and circled back. “Stick around here a little while. I’ll come back. I’ll bring you some shoes. Got that?”

If the guy would, Mason didn’t know. He jogged back through the rain and cutting wind until he reached Millie and the girl. She was walking the dog his direction, her shoulders hunched from the wind. Beside her, Millie’s tail was tucked, and she looked thoroughly ready for the cozy warmth of the plush bed waiting in her owner’s loft.

“Dead end. Homeless guy.”

The girl nodded, swiping a soaked strand of dark-brown hair back from her face. She was shivering hard and clearly on the verge of crying. Mason had to hold back from touching her in reassurance. She was petite in her soaked leggings and tall leather boots. Her heart-shaped face was pale from the cold, but her lips were enticingly pink.

“I’ll go with you, if you want to report it. There’s a police station a couple of blocks from here.”

“I don’t…I don’t know that it’d be any good.” Her lower jaw was starting to quiver. “I should go.” She offered the leash his way and glanced across Market Street in the direction she’d come. “Oh…”

Her face fell even lower, and Mason was pretty sure he knew the direction of her thoughts. “Is your wallet gone?”

She pressed her lips together and swallowed. Not wanting to upset her any further, Mason did the talking instead.

“Look, my place isn’t far. I’ll grab my truck and give you a ride home, but first, we’ll circle the side streets and alleys around here. Pickpockets are notorious for dumping extra weight as fast as possible. Maybe we can recover some of your stuff.”

She folded her arms tight across her chest and looked around, as if searching for a second option. “Thanks, but I don’t want to put you out.”

Mason turned his right palm skyward as if he were trying to catch the drops. It had slowed to an even, steady drizzle. “Putting me out would be to ask me to hang around here to see if the rain will soak into our last still-dry crevices. Come on. It’s this way.”

He started off toward the northeast corner of the park. After a few seconds of hesitation, she followed. If his left arm wasn’t immobilized, he’d have to work hard not to loop it around her back. She was devastated but holding it together admirably, which made Mason want to help her even more.

Rather than press her into conversation, he listened to the peaceful, lulling drone of the now-steady rain and the patter of Millie’s soaked paws as she scurried along in front of them, leading the way with the confidence of a dog who knew her home range well.

Mason wasn’t one to get cold easily, but he could feel the chill setting in. Beside him, the girl was walking with her arms folded over her chest, and her fingertips were turning blue.

“Just another two blocks.”

“Thanks,” she said, “for helping me.”

“You were doing a favor for me and someone stole your stuff. If I left you out in this rain to fend for yourself, that would group me with the worst of the worst.”

“Would you mind if I used your phone to call someone?”

“Not at all. But it’s up there. I’m on the top floor. So is Millie’s owner, Georges.” He pointed to the top floor of the six-story redbrick building that used to belong to a high-end fountain pen company that went out of business in the early ’80s. The building had been used off and on for storage until it was purchased by a real estate developer in 2005. That company had gone out of business in 2009, a year after the twice-postponed construction of twelve upscale lofts was supposed to begin. A new developer bought it after it sat empty for several years.

Mason had been the second person to buy into the twelve-unit development, just after Georges. Then he and Georges had bought the rest of the units and become co-owners of the building. Despite Georges’s many eccentricities and their many differences, they were also good friends.

They reached the entrance none too soon. When his fingerprint proved too wet to be read by the scanner that unlocked the lobby door, Mason entered the six-digit backup code. The red light over the panel switched to green and the magnet that held the door locked released.

Switching Millie’s leash to the hand of his slinged arm, he pulled the door open and nodded for her to go in.

She stepped back a foot. “Thanks, but I’ll stay out here.”

The concrete awning overhead that was a part of the swell underneath the second story windows kept most of the rain out of the building entryway but not all of it, and she was clearly freezing.

“In the rain? I get you’ve got no reason to trust me, but at least come in where it’s warm.” He motioned toward the furnished lobby that often felt like a waste of space. The twelve-unit building was too small for a doorman, and most of the residents came and went through the building’s basement garage. Aside from when one of the tenants was waiting for a ride to show up or a guest to arrive, hardly anyone used the lobby.

She bit at her lower lip and looked inside, then back at him. “I’m not trying to be rude. It’s just, you could be anybody and…” She shrugged helplessly. “I don’t even know your name.”

Her words resounded through his mind. He could be anybody. To her. Not the story, the sensation, he’d become. Anybody.

And somehow that mattered to him more than anything had in months.

He worked to keep his tone light. “I’m glad you brought it up. I was just thinking the same thing about you.”

She gave a light shake of her head, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

“I hear you,” he added. “You can’t be too careful nowadays. I mean, it’s possible this whole thing could be a ruse to get me to bring you upstairs where you plan to overpower me and plunder my loft and do who knows what else.”

A small laugh bubbled out of her. “Me? Overpower you?”

He shrugged with his good shoulder. “You look little but mighty.”

Her small laugh rolled into a larger one. “Okay. I’ll wait in the lobby.” She stepped in ahead of him, wiping her wet boots on the mat and keeping her arms closed over her chest. “I’m Tess.”

“Tess, huh? Nice name.” He stepped in behind her and Millie. The lobby felt particularly inviting thanks to the heat and the automatic lamps on the tables on either side of the couch.

Mason let the door close behind them. When the automatic lock snapped in place, her hesitant smile fell.

“Is it just Tess, or is that short for Theresa?”

“Contessa.” The single word seemed to be swallowed up by the empty room. “My family’s Italian.”

“Contessa,” he repeated, only this time the big, quiet room didn’t seem to swallow it. “But you prefer Tess.”

“Wouldn’t you?” She stepped tentatively off the rug and onto the marble floor left over from the old showroom that dated back to the late 1890s. The lobby had been renovated using as much of the showroom’s original features as possible. The rest of the building—the parts that hadn’t been seen by customers—was considerably less ornate.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he answered. “My name’s Mason, and it’s not short for anything except maybe mason jar. I come from a family of several generations of farmers, and they’re a little bit of everything except Italian.” He motioned toward the couch. “Make yourself comfortable. Only, you’re soaked, so I don’t know how that’s possible.”

She thanked him and headed for one of the two leather chairs.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes. I’ll bring you a towel and a dry jacket.” He coaxed Millie onto the elevator—some days, the finicky dog was more willing to jump over the metal floor trim than others. Today, she bounded over the divide with no persuasion.

As the doors closed and Mason lost sight of the girl—of Tess—he found himself strongly hoping she didn’t give in to the fear and indecision so clearly riding under the surface and take off. Despite the less-than-perfect circumstances of the moment, his desire to have more time with her was surprisingly strong.

* * *

Tess could hardly feel her toes, and her soaked thighs and numb fingers began to sting as the heat of the lobby warmed them.

The reality of what had happened at the park and its likely aftereffects were too much to process. The guy had been more than kind. Funny too. But what would Nonna or her parents say if she got in a car with him? He hadn’t pushed when she’d chosen not to follow him upstairs to his loft. This made him seem safer somehow. Yet he had a fading black eye and was wearing a sling, and she had no idea how he’d gotten them. For all she knew, he could have a ferocious temper. It certainly didn’t seem like it, but she couldn’t know with any certainty.

In Europe, she’d backpacked and hitched rides from one small town to the next. She’d made friends with fellow travelers, often joining up with backpackers she’d just met and traveling with them for a town or two before parting ways. It was crazy, but all of that had felt so much safer than following a guy into the lobby of his building in her home city.

Maybe it was an omen. Maybe she should take off and head back to Pooches and Purses. The owner would be gone, but surely the workers would let her use a phone and hang there until whoever she decided to call came and got her.

The idea of calling her family made her stomach begin a new set of somersaults. Comments they hadn’t even made yet —and maybe never would—circled through her mind.

What was wrong with her that she didn’t think they’d be supportive or sympathetic? And why did her thoughts have to circle so quickly to what they’d say or think? Why did she have to assume it would be another marked failure in their eyes?

She’d lost so much. The treats, dog food, lotions, and oils were replaceable. The stories, not so much. She could contact some of her old clients and ask them for a second round of quotes and pictures. There was the cost of replacing her laptop. The cell phone in her backpack had been the one she’d left in a drawer when she’d gone to Europe. It was outdated by three models at least and had had more quirks than its fair share. She’d been more than overdue for a new one. She’d get the money for all of that somehow. It was the files on her computer and the photos and cell numbers that couldn’t be replaced.

Photos flashed through her mind of the hole-in-the-wall bookstores and antique markets and mom-and-pop bakeries, and of the castles and villages she’d visited. So did the phone numbers of the friends she met along the way. Some of the best moments of her life, so irretrievably gone.

In the quiet but cozy room, Tess doubled over, burying her head between her knees, and finally gave release to her tears.