Firstborn (5 page)

He
r first vision had occurred two weeks before, not even an hour before she was scheduled to meet Adam for dinner.  She had come out of her vision feeling physically exhausted and emotionally drained.  When she called to cancel, he had come to her home anyway, bearing flowers and take-out.  He had been sweet and caring as he served her food and asked her if she had been ill.

Feeling sorry for
being the cause of his unnecessary concern, she had reluctantly confided in him.  “I am not entirely comfortable explaining this to you,” she admitted.  “You might think I’m crazy and walk right back out that door.”  But her mother had sworn that this was her birthright.  And if Adam couldn’t accept that, perhaps she didn’t want him in her life.  Except that he was wonderful…and she hoped really hard that he wouldn’t head for the hills.  “My mum always told me that she had powerful visions.  She swore that I also had the gift, but I never believed her.  Not really.”

“But you
do believe her now.”  His eyes held no disbelief or accusations.  “A woman of such extraordinary beauty, could not possibly be ordinary.  Why is that so hard for you to believe?” he had asked her.

He had kissed her gently then.  And she had asked him to take her
to bed.

After, she had lain in his arms with her head resting on his smooth chest, listening to the hypnotic cadence of his heartbeat.  And she had shared her gift with him, explaining the details of her vision.  He had stroked her hair and told her again that she was beautiful and had expressed wonder over his luck at having found her.

She was crazy in love with him.  He was perfect and he accepted her, visions or not.  But she was also terrified that he was going to break her heart.  They hadn’t been dating long, and anything could happen.  Anything.  She had to know.

She set up the crystals in her living room
and lit candles to create a more soothing environment.  She closed her blinds against prying eyes and kicked off her shoes before sitting cross-legged on the floor.  She found her mind drifting back to her evening with Adam and scolded herself.  “Focus, Kearney,” she muttered.  Taking some deep breaths, she tried again.

It took her another
thirty minutes, but her persistence finally paid off.

Their voices were deep and echoed, as though heard through a fog of consciousness in a tunnel or concrete room.  The young man standing in front of her was laughing and shaking his head.  Behind him was a painted brick wall, the kind of wall that was common to the public institutions of hospitals and schools. 

“It’s a win-win situation,” Aislin heard herself explain, only the voice was not her own.  And the attractive young man standing before her was not somebody she knew.  “You get a great home-cooked Thanksgiving meal with some great people, and I get a buffer.”

He looked suspiciously at her, narrowing his eyes.  “What kind of buffer?”

Aislin took a deep breath.  “I have to tell my dad that I’m changing my major.”

“You’re changing your major?”

She felt her shoulders shrug.  “I’m still keeping the Engineering degree.  That’ll pacify him a bit.  It’s a scientific field.  But I’ve decided to double major.  I’m going to do PoliSci.”

“As in Political Sciences?” he asked incredulously.

“Yes.”

“And your dad?”

“Is going to flip out,” she answered with a nod.  “Unless you’re there,” Aislin added.

“Why PoliSci, Ted?”

“It’s interesting to me. I’m considering Law School.”

He threw his head back and laughed loudly.  “You?  A lawyer?”

“Go ahead.  Laugh it up.  Just get it out of your system.  The last thing I need is you siding with my father over this.”

“I take it your dad would hate it if you became a lawyer?”

Aislin felt Ted’s shoulders shrug again.  “I don’t know for sure.  I just don’t want to take any chances.”

“What does your dad do?”

“He’s a psychiatrist.”

The attractive young man laughed again.  “I’ll pass.  Thanksgiving in the dorm sounds ten times better than sitting across the table from a shrink who’s psychoanalyzing me over the turkey
and cranberry sauce.”

“Okay.  Then stay here with one
of your girlfriends in the empty dorms for break.  I’ll handle my dad myself.”

“That sounds like a good plan.  After all, I do like
dorm sex almost as much as turkey.”

“You’ve never had my mom’s turkey.”

“That good?”

“On second thought, y
ou’re better off staying here for the sex.”

A few minutes later, the sound of the doorbell snapped
Aislin out of her trance.  She didn’t feel nearly as groggy as she had after the first vision.  And when she looked at the clock on her mantle, she realized that more time had lapsed than she thought.  She suspected that Adam was on the other side of the door.

As soon as she opened the door, his broad smile instantly became serious.  “Did you have another vision?”
He stepped through the doorway and reached for her with concern.

“I did.  Two in
one month.”

“Do you feel okay?”

“I do,” she answered after a brief hesitation.  “I actually feel fine.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

She shared the details of the first half of the vision, the insignificant conversation between two college buddies discussing their plans for Thanksgiving break.

Adam laughed, “Mom can’t cook, apparently.”

“Yeah,” she forced an uncomfortable laugh.

“Weird that this one seems so insignificant.  It’s kind of a letdown after the first one was so huge.”

“Yeah.”  She closed the door behind him to have something to do, hoping that he couldn’t read her well enough to know that she wasn’t telling him the entire story.  The truth was that she had recognized someone in the vision, and she didn’t want to tell anyone until she had more time to sort everything out.

“Ms. MaCall, you have a call on line four.”

Taryn nodded a vague acknowledgement to her assistant and reached for the phone.  “This is Taryn MaCall,” she greeted, still not taking her attention off of the computer monitor in front of her.  Certainly this couldn’t be right.  In a moment of weakness, she had Googled the name of the illustriously rude mechanic that was identified on the top of the bill she had received that morning.  Gray Campbell.  Even his name sounded sexy.  And when she saw the search results that popped up for his name, she was shocked and even more turned on.  His résumé was impressive, to say the least.

He had served in the military for nearly fifteen years, beginning when he was eighteen.  There were articles from his local hometown newspaper with a younger and more innocent picture of him in his uniform.   The other article online discussed the end of his military career, when he was hit
in the thigh with shrapnel from an IUD on a counterterrorism mission with his Special Forces team in Afghanistan.  He was the Operations Sergeant of his team and he had received a Purple Heart from the President of the United States when he arrived home. 

Master Sergeant Gray Campbell just became a serious occupational hazard for Taryn MaCall.  At the very least, he was a serious distraction to her.  Determined to not allow him to interfere in her life, she pushed him out of her mind, closed the computer window with the article, and reached to pick up her office phone.

“This is Taryn MaCall.”

“Ms. MaCall, this is Dr. Archer.”

She leaned back in her desk seat and gave her client her full attention.  “What can I do for you this morning, Dr. Archer?”

He cleared his throat and sounded almost nervous when he answered.  “Everything worked perfectly with the installation, and I wanted to let you know that I’m pleased with the new system.  It is easy to use and thorough, as you had indicated.”

“I’m glad that you’re pleased, Dr. Archer.  I have you on my list to schedule your routine maintenance.  I like to make certain that our clients are always on the calendar so that you don’t have to remember to call us.”

“Excellent.  So I was thinking…” he paused, and she could almost hear him pacing back and forth across his office.  “I suppose this is a bit unorthodox, but
your sister was the one who had reason to believe that the men who broke into my office might be a danger to me.  I don’t understand how she knows this, but I am a traditional man who believes in trusting my instincts.  And my instincts are telling me to consider hiring a bodyguard of sorts.  But I could be over-reacting.”

“I don’t suspect that Jaclyn would agree that you are over-reacting.  She
even suggested that around-the-clock personal security might be the best option.”

“I trust her.”

“So do I, Dr. Archer.”  She remembered that Jac had declared him adorable and had waxed poetic about his dreamy eyes.  “Perhaps you would be interested in Jaclyn providing security.”  Guarding your body, she didn’t say. 

He choked a bit, possibly reading between the lines.  “She is no longer employed by MSC, as I understand it.
  I am happy to retain the services of one of your current staff.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to ask,” Taryn prodded with a silent chuckle.

“Of course not.  But I am sure she is busy with her own business.”

“Jac may not be on payroll for MSC any longer, Dr. Archer, but she cares about her clients and remains an exceptional asset to our family’s company.”

“I imagine that she is,” he agreed.  He had hoped that requesting a bodyguard would involve more work with the older MaCall sister.  He couldn’t get her out of his mind, and he needed to see her again.  Now that her sister was practically throwing Jac at him, he was embarrassed.  The prospect of that petite woman in yoga pants protecting him dealt a small blow to his ego.  “She was quite clear on the fact that she doesn’t work for the company any longer.  I don’t want to bother her.  Except perhaps she could make a recommendation for the particular staff member to serve as a bodyguard.”

“I’m sure that she’d be happy to offer an opinion.  She usually has many opinions,” Taryn laughed.

“She should know, however, that I’m not completely ignorant when it comes to protecting myself.  I can manage typically.”

“Certainly.  But this situation may prove
a bit atypical.”

“Precisely.”

“I will ask her.  She may even wish to volunteer herself.”

Her tone seemed a bit suggestive, putting Will on a bristly defensive for a brief moment.

“And if she declines, I can certainly assign another extremely competent security detail to you.”

“That sounds fair.  And Ms. MaCall?”

“Yes.”

“This isn’t a lame effort to hit on your sister.”

Taryn grinned into the phone.  “The thought had not even crossed my mind, Dr. Archer.  But I will make that particular point clear when I proposition my sister on your behalf.”  She patted herself on the back for the clever word play.

He hesitated a moment, probably trying to figure out if she was being smart.  “Thank you, Ms. MaCall.”

She dialed her sister as soon as the call disconnected.  “You’re in trouble,” she greeted with a laugh.

When she finished highlighting the conversation, Jaclyn groaned, “He isn’t serious.  Is he serious?  Yes, I would recommend that he consider 24-7 security, but specifically asking for me?  That’s got to be a joke.”

“I might have nudged him in that direction,” Taryn admitted.

“And he agreed?”

“Apparently, your Madame Chloe trick made an impression on him.”

She remembered him studying her body every time she turned her back and responded dryly, “I don’t think
it was the premonition that piqued his interest.”

“Before you turn me down, you should remember that this would be an excuse to spend time with Mr. Dreamy Eyes.”

“I have a shop to run, Taryn.”

“And the little curl in the end of his hair?  And the sexy glasses?”

“No, Taryn.”

She sighed in resignation. 
“I suspected as much.  I’ll call him back and assign another officer.”

“No, I’ll take care of calling Dr. Archer.”

“Okey dokey,” Taryn responded.  She had hoped that her sister would offer to speak with him.

***

The sixteen-year-old sitting across from him now could use a haircut and some clothes that actually fit her.  But before she would be ready to let her mother spend money on her, she needed to learn to let herself be loved again.  She gnawed anxiously on the cuticles of her fingers while her mother sat beside her and elbowed her in an effort to make her stop.  It was a habit that the girl had picked up in the last few months, and she often chewed them until she drew blood.   It was a mild but disgusting form of self-mutilation that Dr. Archer was also eager to curb.

She was a younger version of her mother, both
wearing their once sun-kissed blond hair long to emphasize their large brown eyes.  The mother had lines around her eyes, but they shared the dark circles and the sunken cheekbones.  Neither appeared to have basked in the sun recently.  But why would they?  They were struggling to repair their relationship after they had buried the men in their family.