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“I’m Thomas Sinclaire. I’m a friend of your niece’s.”

“Sinclaire! Why didn’t you say so?” Rachel visibly relaxed. Why? Clarissa had no idea. She was just happy the fit was dying off. “But you must be mistaken, I don’t have a niece.”

Tom didn’t miss a beat. “Oh, my mistake. Please, won’t you let me stay a bit? I’d love to get to know you and your …” He trailed off, looking to Clarissa.

“She’s the maid.”

“I see.”

“Rachel,” Clarissa said tentatively, “why don’t you go clean up for your guest, and I’ll finish the chores while you do that.”

“Yes.” Rachel examined her old pajamas with scorn. “Good idea.”

When the door of Rachel’s room clicked closed, Clarissa collapsed into a kitchen chair. Her head fell into her hands. Why, why did this have to happen tonight?

She was so preoccupied she’d forgotten Tom was supposed to come over, and now he’d seen her aunt have a meltdown. Not just any meltdown, the worst yet.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled against her hands.

She heard him set something on the table, then the sound of the tap running before a chair scraped across the linoleum.

“I … She …” Clarissa struggled to find the right words that would fix this. “Rachel got sick ten years ago. It started as confusion, now she can’t remember entire decades. But this … She’s never been like this before. She sometimes gets scared or agitated, but she’s never been violent before. I—” She choked on the last word.

“Shhh, it’s okay,” he said. “Will you look at me?”

Pulling her hands down, she risked a glance at his face. Her breath caught. He was closer to her than she expected. His startling red hair and freckles were even more handsome in this proximity.

The hard lines of his face went soft. She didn’t see an ounce of disapproval or disgust in it, or worse yet, pity. Instead, he regarded her as if she were something beautiful he had the privilege of witnessing.

Placing a hand under her chin, he tilted her face up. His skin was blazing warm and silky. Closing her eyes, she inhaled his cologne: musk and citrus today.

Something cold and wet pressed into her brow, and she sucked in a breath. It stung. He used a cool cloth to clean the area that split open when the mug shattered against her brow. She hadn’t even realized blood was dripping over her face until he’d said something.

“It doesn’t look like it needs stitches, but it’s already swelling. Do you have any ice packs or frozen vegetables?”

“Yeah, I can—” She went to stand. He pushed her back down.

“Hold the cloth,” he instructed. After rummaging through the freezer, he returned with a bag of frozen corn and a towel.

“Lean your head back.” He tilted her head until it rested in one of his hands. He pressed the cold pack to her forehead. She moaned.

“What do the doctors say she has?” he asked.

“Ten years ago, they diagnosed her with early-onset dementia.” She rolled her eyes.

“You don’t believe them?”

“Well, she’s always been very forgetful, especially of dates and what grade I was in at school. Looking back at it now, I realize the symptoms were there for a long time, I was just too young to really understand. Sometimes I feel guilty about that … Anyway, some sort of brain disease that affects memory makes sense. But she has days where she’s cognizant, too cognizant, she remembers everything. She’s her old self again. But on her bad days, she’s always fixed on me being in high school, or her being in high school and bear attacks. That doesn’t sound like any case of dementia on record.”

“Hmm, that is strange.” He shifted the bag of corn to better cover her injury. “You’ve been taking care of her for ten years, alone?”

“Well, yeah. Who else was gonna do it?” she said. “Rachel was in a relationship when I was in high school, but they never got married. And we don’t have other family around, hired help is too expensive, and abuse is so common. I couldn’t live with myself if I let something like that happen to her. So, I dropped out of college and started working full time. Now, here we are.”

Melting into his touch, she relaxed and let the cold soothe her aching head. She was surprised how nice it felt, sitting here in silence with this stranger—a stranger she felt like she’d known for decades. She almost didn’t notice how much time had passed until he spoke again, his voice low and strained. She couldn’t understand why.

“What were you going to school for?”

“Art.” She chuckled. “I was just taking some classes at the community college. My plan was to work during the day and make masterpieces at night until I got into a gallery somewhere. The whole youthful dream of the starving artist.” Realizing she was oversharing, she cleared her throat and changed the topic. “I’m sure this is exactly the evening you had imagined.” She tried to laugh, but it came out a strangled choke.