Well, that wasn't entirely true. Chris's blue eyes weren't exactly expressionless and Jessie knew when another woman found her attractive. She just wasn't used to the wariness that Chris showed. Didn't matter anyway. Why ruin what was turning out to be an interesting friendship? A friendship might be something they could carry with them. Anything else, and Jessie would run.

"Ah... Jennifer?"

Jennifer? Jessie mentally shook herself. When you used an alias, it helped if you remembered the name.

"How long are you going to be vacationing here?"

Jessie shrugged. She should just tell Chris the truth. She didn't know why she was using a damn alias anyway. If her purpose was to see Annie, what did she care if anyone noticed?

Chris watched the questions fly across Jessie's face, wondering what decision she was coming to, what lie she would tell Chris next.

"Like I said, I'm between jobs, so I'm not really in a hurry. I haven't decided yet."

Chris nodded and held Jessie's eyes in the firelight. She dared her to look away.

"Tell me about yourself," Chris suggested.

"Why?"

"Because I want to know."

"Just like that?" Jessie gave a nervous laugh. "Just because you want to know, I'm supposed to tell you?"

Chris leaned forward, still holding Jessie's eyes captive.

"Yes."

The silence continued as Jessie felt words form and threaten to spill. She fought with herself over what to tell Chris, if anything. It would be so much simpler to pretend to be Jennifer Parker who was between jobs, and not some deranged author named J. T. Stone.

Chris watched Jessie's face, saw the shadows cross it in the soft light of the fire. She could let it go, she knew, but she sensed Jessie's need to talk, even if Jessie didn't. And besides, she'd had quite enough of Jennifer Parker.

"Tell me... Jessie," she whispered.

Jessie drew a sharp breath. Had she been standing, she was certain her legs would have failed her.

"How ... how did you know?"

Chris gave a half smile. "I have your books."

"Fuck," Jessie said. "Well, I feel foolish."

"You could tell me you're just a celebrity looking for privacy, thus the name change," Chris suggested.

Jessie laughed. "Hardly a celebrity."

Chris added a couple of logs to the fire while she allowed Jessie to collect herself. Now it was her turn to keep secrets. Jessie had no need to know that she and Annie were friends. No need to know that Chris already knew everything about her childhood.

"I grew up around here," Jessie admitted after taking a deep breath. "A lifetime ago."

"Tell me."

"Even if I wanted to talk about it, I wouldn't know where to begin," Jessie said.

"Why don't you want to talk about it?"

Jessie leaned forward. "There are some things you just don't talk about."

"Why?"

"Why? What kind of question is that? I hate that word."

"Okay. No questions, then. Tell me about your life when you lived here."

Jessie grinned. "Why?"

It was Chris's turn to lean forward. "Why? I hate that word." She nudged Jessie with her shoulder. "Tell me about growing up here. Please?"

Jessie gave a small laugh, finally giving in. "Okay. Fine." Jessie stared into the fire, remembering. "I had a lovely childhood. As seen through the eyes of a child, anyway. It was pretty pathetic when I think about it now. I grew up out here in the mountains and my father took me everywhere. He was a ranger right here in Sierra City," she explained. "He took me camping and hiking and fishing. Everywhere he went, I tagged along. I was happy."

"What about your mother?" Chris asked.

"I had a mother in name only," Jessie said bitterly.

"What do you mean?"

"She lived in the same house as us, but she was like a stranger. We didn't talk, really. She and Jack didn't exactly have the ideal marriage. She wouldn't even share a bedroom with him. They seldom spoke to one another."

"Jack? You always call him that?"

Jessie shrugged. "He didn't like me calling him Dad."

Chris raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

"I... worshiped him. He was my best friend. My only friend. I went everywhere with him, did everything with him." Jessie looked through the fire at Chris. "He died when I was still here. Seventeen."

"I'm sorry," Chris murmured.

Jessie shrugged again. "A long time ago. I left shortly after he died. I couldn't stand being here with her." Jessie stared into the fire, remembering. "I went to San Francisco, got a job, started college. Writing was just an outlet at the beginning. I never thought I'd actually make a living at it."

"So you're here... visiting?"

Jessie laughed. "Hardly. My therapist says I've got unresolved issues that I need to work through."

"And are you?"

Jessie smiled. "Working through them? Not yet."

Chris pressed on. "So you're not here visiting... you're just what? Going back in time?"

"She's still here," Jessie said quietly.

Chris said nothing. It was the most difficult thing she could remember doing, but she kept her words to herself.

"I'm a good listener," she offered instead.

Jessie gave a small laugh. "I've paid a fortune over the years and here you are offering a freebie."

"Still an offer."

Jessie let out a heavy sigh. The rehearsed words she'd said over and over again in therapists' offices wouldn't come. Instead, she said something she'd not yet put words to herself.

"I'm scared to be here."

"Scared?"

"Terrified. I didn't even realize it until now," she said quietly, her words taken away with the breeze.

Chris moved around the fire and sat next to Jessie, their knees touching lightly as she settled beside her. Jessie's amused smile and quick nudge with her shoulder surprised her.

"I'm not scared of the dark, McKenna."

"I just..."

Jessie's hand reached out and squeezed Chris's thigh.

"No. Stay."

Chris relaxed, trying to ignore the burning of her skin where Jessie's hand still rested. "What are you scared of?"

Jessie searched the blue eyes across from her. She saw understanding, compassion, concern. Things she wasn't used to seeing. Not even when she paid for it.

"I don't know what it is. I feel like there's something here, something watching me maybe. I don't know," Jessie said, her voice turning almost to a whisper.

"Let's talk, then," Chris suggested. "Your therapist told you to come back. It's been what? Sixteen years you said? Why now?"

"To see her. Annie Stone."

"Your mother," Chris stated.

"She gave birth to me," Jessie said. "She was never my mother."

Chris had to bite her lower lip to keep her words to herself. She knew that soon, she would be getting in over her head.

"You said you did everything with your father but nothing with her," Chris prompted.

"For as long as I can remember, it was always him. I mean, Chris, I have no memories of her at all, other than just this figure in the house. As a kid, it was just him. Hiking, camping, dinner. Everything was with him."

"As a kid? What about when you got older?"

"Older?"

"Yeah. Like a teenager."

Jessie stared into the fire, trying to remember. Her memories were always so vivid, like it was only yesterday. But in her memories, she was always a child.

Did they still camp? Fish? Had she still followed him around? She must have. So why couldn't she remember?

"Jessie?"

"I don't... I don't remember," she whispered. "I can tell you about my eighth birthday. My ninth." She rubbed her eyes, a headache suddenly forming. "I remember... I remember camping. We would hike for miles, it seemed. I was always so tired when we got back. I remember riding my bike from the house to the ranger station, I must have been all often."

"And at that age, your mother just let you do as you please?"

Jessie laugh was bitter, short. "Let me? Like I asked her? Chris, she wasn't a part of my life. She was just this silent figure in the house. She never really talked to me, you know."

"Did you talk to her?"

Jessie thought back, trying to remember a time they had actually talked about something tangible. The few times Annie had tried to discipline her, teach her something, Jessie had simply run to her father and that was that.

"I just remember silence. There was always a feeling of resentment there," Jessie said.

Chris frowned. "Resentment? By your mother? Or you?"

Resentment by Annie, of course, Jessie was about to say. But... why did Jessie carry that feeling with her all these years? Yes, she resented her mother... Annie. But why? For not being a mother?

"I've always blamed her for his death."

"Why?"

"He fell off of Ridge Trail into the canyon."

"Why do you blame her?" Chris prompted.

Jessie sighed. She was getting weary of this discussion. Chris's questions were becoming too much like Dr. Davies's questions and soon Jessie would revert to the practiced lies she'd told all her therapists over the years. It was just so much easier than delving into the truth. A rotten truth, she suspected.

"Jessie?"

"I'm tired. How about a walk? The moon's nearly full."

Chris nodded, instinctively knowing that Jessie had reached her limit for the night. "Sure. We can walk back along the stream, might see some wildlife."

Jessie grinned. "As long as it's not something that'll want to eat us."