"No," I said, clutching the sheet tighter as he plucked at it. "I said go away."
"No, I won't go away. Sit up. I want to talk to you seriously now, but how can I do that when you won't look at me? Turn around."
"No," I said. I was really mad. I mean, you would have been, too. That Maria was one scary individual. And he'd been going to marry her! Well, a hundred and fifty years ago, anyway. Had he even known her? Known that she wasn't anything like the girl who'd written those idiotic letters to him? What had he been thinking, anyway?
"Why don't you just go hang out with Maria," I suggested to him acidly. "Maybe you two could sit around and sharpen her knives together and have some more laughs at my expense. Ha ha, you could say. That mediator is so funny."
"Maria?" Jesse pulled on the sheet some more. "What are you talking about, knives?"
Okay. So I hadn't been totally up front with him. I hadn't told him the whole story. Yeah, the part about the letters and the historical society and the hole and all. But the part about Maria showing up with the knife - the reason, in fact, that I was sleeping in Doc's bed with a bunch of tools? Hadn't mentioned that part.
Because I'd known how he was going to react. Exactly the way he did.
"Maria and knives?" he echoed. "No. No."
That did it. I rolled over and said to him, very sarcastically, "Oh, okay, Jesse. So that knife she held to my throat last night, that must have been an imaginary knife. And I must have imagined it when she threatened to kill me, too."
I started to roll back over in a huff, but this time he caught me before I got turned all the way and swung me back around to face him. He wasn't, I saw with some satisfaction, laughing now. Or even smiling.
"A knife?" He was looking down at me like he wasn't sure he'd heard me right. "Maria was here? With a knife? Why?"
"You tell me," I said, even though I knew the answer perfectly well. "Someone's been dead and gone for as long as she has, it would have to take something pretty big to bring her back."
Jesse just stared down at me with those dark, liquid eyes of his. If he knew anything, he wasn't saying. Not just yet.
"She - she tried to hurt you?"
I nodded, and had the satisfaction of feeling his grip on my shoulders tighten.
"Yes," I said. "And she held it right here" - I pointed to my jugular - "and she said if I didn't tell Andy to stop digging, she was going to k - "
Kill me, was what I was going to say, but I didn't get a chance to, because Jesse snatched me up - really, snatched, that's the only way to describe it - and held onto me very tightly for someone who had thought the whole thing a big funny joke just a few seconds before.
This was, I must say, extremely gratifying. It got even more gratifying when Jesse said some stuff - though I didn't know what it was, because it was in Spanish - into my wet hair.
But that death grip (excuse the pun) he had me in didn't need any translating: he was scared. Scared for me.
"It was a really large knife," I said, enjoying the feel of his big strong shoulder beneath my cheek. I could totally get used to this. "And very pointy."
"Querida," he said. Okay, that word I understood. Well, sort of. He kissed the top of my head.
This was good. This was very good. I decided to go in for the kill.
"And then," I said, doing a very good imitation of sounding like I was crying, or at least, was pretty close to doing so, "she put her hand over my face to keep me from screaming, and one of her rings cut me and made my mouth all bloody."
Oops. This one did not have the desired effect. I should probably not have brought up my bloody mouth, since instead of kissing me there, which was what I'd been aiming for, he pulled me away from him so he could look down into my face.
"Susannah, why didn't you tell me any of this last night?" He looked genuinely baffled. "I asked you if something was wrong, and you never said a word."
Hello? Hadn't he heard anything I just said?
"Because." I was speaking through gritted teeth, but you would have, too, if the man of your dreams was holding you in his arms and all he wanted to do was talk. And about his ex-girlfriend's attempt to murder you, no less.
"It obviously has something to do with why you're here," I said. "Why you're still here, I mean, in this house, and why you've been here so long. Jesse, don't you see? If they find your body, that proves you were murdered, and that means Colonel Clemmings was right."
Jesse's bewilderment seemed to increase, rather than lessen, thanks to this explanation.
"Colonel who?" he said.
"Colonel Clemmings," I said. "Author of My Monterey. His theory of why you disappeared is not that you got cold feet about marrying Maria and went off to San Francisco to stake a claim, but that that Diego guy killed you so he could marry Maria himself. And if they find your body, Jesse, that will prove you were murdered. And the most likely suspects are, of course, Maria and that Diego dude."
But instead of being dazzled by my excellent sleuthing skills, Jesse asked, in a shocked voice, "How do you know about him? About Diego?"
"I told you." God, this was irritating. When were we going to get to the kissing? "It's from a book Doc got out of the library. My Monterey, by Colonel Harold Clemmings."
"But Doc - I mean, David - is at camp, I thought."
I said, frustratedly, "This was a long time ago. When I first got here. Last January."
Jesse didn't let go of me or anything, but he had an extremely odd look on his face.
"Are you saying that you've known about this ... how I died ... all along?"
"Yes," I said, a little defensively. I was getting the feeling that maybe he thought I'd done something wrong, prying into his death. "But, Jesse, that's my job. That's what mediators do. I can't help it."
"Why did you keep asking me about how I died, then," he demanded, "if you already knew?"
I said, still on the defensive side, "Well, I didn't know. Not for sure. I still don't. But Jesse - " I wanted to make sure he understood this part, so I pulled back (and he unfortunately let go of me, but what could I do?) and sat up on my heels and said, very slowly and carefully, "If they find your body out there, not only is Maria going to be really mad, but you . . . you're going to move on. You know? From here. Because that's what's been holding you back, Jesse. The mystery of what happened to you. Once your body is found, though, that mystery will be solved. And you'll go. And that's why I couldn't tell you, you see? Because I don't want you to go. Because I I - "
Oh my God, I almost said it. I can't even tell you how close I came to saying it. I got out the L and then the O just seemed to follow.
But at the last minute I was able to save it. I turned it to " - like having you around and I would really hate not seeing you anymore."
Swift, huh? That was a close one.
Because one thing I know for sure about guys, along with their inability to use a glass and lower the toilet seat and refill ice trays once they are empty: they really cannot handle the L word. I mean, it says so in just about every article I've ever read.
And you have to figure this is true of all guys, even guys who were born a hundred and fifty years ago.
And I guess my not using the L word paid off, since Jesse reached out and touched my cheek with his fingertips - just like he had done that day in the hospital.
"Susannah," he said. "Finding my body is not going to change anything."
"Um," I said. "Excuse me, Jesse, but I think I know what I'm talking about. I've been a mediator for sixteen years."