Forever (7 page)

“Well, Mom left a casserole in the fridge. I’m not hungry, but I can nuke it for you when you get home.”

“I’ll just grab something . . . with the guys.”

“Okay. Later. Love ya.”

Tom clicked off the phone and forced a smile before he returned to the booth where Annie waited. After they finished eating, the waitress brought the check and then Tom’s change, but they made no move to leave. When Tom noticed the waitress directing a look at them, telegraphing her irritation that they were costing her a tip from a new customer, they ordered dessert and coffee and talked on.

Their words and laughter had woven a web of intimacy around them, but they didn’t touch, not even later in the parking lot, when they stood very close, still reluctant to end the evening. When at last they parted, Tom promised to call her the next day.

Ten minutes later he called from his truck.

* * *

Reassured that Annie had arrived home safely, Tom said good-bye for the second time that night as he pulled up to his driveway. He pocketed his cell phone, clicked the garage door opener, and sighed with relief when he saw Julie’s car wasn’t there. Neither was Lindsay’s. Evidently she’d gone out after he phoned home. Except for Max, the house was empty. The dog bounded up to Tom in the kitchen but then backed off with a whimper and hung his head.

Tom squatted and signaled for him. He slunk forward and allowed Tom to scratch his ears. “What’s with you, boy? Don’t you recognize me?”

At the sound of his voice, Max wagged his tail with such enthusiasm his back paws skittered on the hardwood floor. Tom laughed and gave the dog an affectionate swat on the rump, then held the patio door open for him.

“Go water the red oak, buddy.”

As Tom stood outside smoking his last cigarette of the day, his thoughts turned back to Annie and he smiled. He would have to watch that. It seemed he couldn’t help getting a silly grin on his face whenever she came to mind. New rule—don’t think of Annie when you’re home. Simple as that. He was a disciplined person.

When the dog ambled back to the patio, Tom put his cigarette out and turned to open the door. He froze.
Jeezus
. Where was his head? He shouldn’t be thinking of Annie at home—or anywhere else. With sudden clarity, Tom saw what a stupid thing he’d done by meeting secretly with Annie today. Again he chastised himself for not being honest with Julie about what happened at the theater Saturday night. The fact that he’d been acting so out of character shook him.

With Max trailing him, Tom stepped back into the kitchen, closed the door, and took off his boots. It was a habit Julie had ordered him to develop when she chose carpeting that resembled a thick layer of oatmeal spread from wall to wall through most of the house. He’d wanted hardwood flooring throughout, but one glance around revealed few of his preferences visible in this house. Then again, no one had ever accused him of having good taste.

Normally, he’d wait up for Julie, but damn he was exhausted. As he climbed the stairs, stripped, and fell into bed, he replayed bits of the evening’s conversation with Annie. His skin crawled when he remembered how she’d referred to him as Jacob. Why had he misled her by seeming to agree about the reincarnation thing? He certainly wasn’t ready to accept that he and Annie had been Jacob and Maggie in some previous life. And even if they
were
having flashbacks of previous lifetimes, so what? That had nothing to do with his life now. The first chance he got, he would tell Julie everything.

* * *

After Annie said her last goodnight to Tom, she hung up the phone and turned to find Kate watching her from across the room.

“You were talking to a
man
!”

Annie smiled. She couldn’t seem to
quit
smiling tonight. “So what if I was? It’s not the first time.”

“Well, it’s the first time in
ages.
”
Kate flopped down on the couch.
“Start talking, and tell me everything.”

“He’s just a guy I had dinner with.” Annie started toward her bedroom.

“Oh no, you don’t.” Kate jumped up to follow her. “If he was just some ordinary guy, you wouldn’t be floating six inches off the floor.”

“I met him at work. No big deal.”

“Omygawd. He’s not one of those
kids
you work with, is he?”

Annie shot her a look. “Come on, Kate. I’m not so desperate I’d rob the cradle. Give me a little credit.”

A bathroom connected their bedrooms, and Annie entered it from her side to remove her makeup. Kate flung herself down on Annie’s bed, making it clear she wouldn’t leave until Annie talked.

“I’m waiting,” Kate called to her. “Who, what, where? Tell me all the juicy details.”

Annie kept her waiting while she undressed, slipped on a nightgown, and washed her face. She was brushing her hair when she stepped back into the room. “Tom. His name is Tom Cogan. He’s in construction—”

“Ooooo, a tanned, muscled bod. So hot.”

Annie turned away quickly to hide the flush that warmed her face. “We ate
dinner
together, that’s all.”

“And construction guys make good money.”

“Look. He’s just a nice guy, and I enjoy talking to him.”

“Hey, don’t act like you never notice what a man looks like, and don’t even
try
to pretend you never consider how much money he makes.”

“Oh, Kate. I didn’t mean it like that.” Annie sighed. She wanted to keep her relationship with Tom like a locket lying under her shirt, held warm and secret between her breasts. But she’d shared a lot of life with her baby sister, most of it bad, and not sharing this good part seemed selfish.

Annie laid the brush on her nightstand and divided her hair in thirds. As she started braiding, she opened up to Kate. “He
is
handsome. He
is
tanned. And he
does
look like he’s in good shape—
although
I haven’t seen that for myself,” she added, anticipating Kate’s next question. “He’s got this great voice, deep and”—Annie closed her eyes for a moment, remembering—“it stirs something inside me when he talks.”

Like a delighted child, Kate hugged her knees to her chest. “He sounds perfect. Tell me more.”

Spurred on by Kate’s excitement, Annie propped a pillow against the headboard of the bed so she could sit facing her sister. “There’s something Tom and I have in common.” She hesitated, not sure how Kate would react. “When we met at the Cineplex, something really weird happened to us. Remember the dream I told you Sunday morning about the man dying in the woods?”

“Yeah, it really creeped me out.”

“Well, it wasn’t exactly a dream.”

Once Annie started talking she didn’t stop until she’d told Kate all of it. All, except that Tom was married.

Kate listened wide-eyed until Annie finished and then gushed, “That’s so
beautiful
. Like destiny or something. You lost each other in a past life, but now you get a second chance. It’s so
romantic
.”

It did sound beautiful and romantic—and simple—when Kate said it, but then Kate was missing a key piece of the story.

“So, when do I get to meet him?”

“I don’t even know when
I’m
going to see him next.” In one swift motion, Annie swung her legs off the side of the bed and started aimlessly rearranging things on her dressing table. The warm glow she’d retained from earlier in the evening had vanished. The cold light of day had dawned at twenty-seven minutes past nine.

Kate moaned. “He’s
married
, isn’t he?”

Fighting back the tears, Annie nodded. “Ironic, huh? I’ve fallen in love but with someone else’s husband.” Her tears won the battle.

Kate pulled Annie down beside her and held her while she cried. Her voice soft, Kate reminisced. “Remember all the times we huddled together like this, when we were kids? Mama and Daddy drinking and cussing at each other? Only then, it was you holding on to me, telling me everything would be all right.”

Annie nodded against Kate’s neck.

“Then Daddy would slam the door and burn rubber down the street. After all that noise, the silence seemed almost scary. We’d finally fall asleep, our arms still wrapped around each other.” Tenderly, Kate stroked Annie’s hair. “You were always the peacemaker, Annie, trying to make everyone happy, trying to keep the family together.”

With Kate rocking her like a baby, Annie relaxed and her eyes grew heavy. Kate lowered Annie’s head to the pillows, kissed her forehead and whispered, “I hope you get what you want, Sissy.”

June 8, part two

N
aked and with eyes closed, Eddie lay on his bed masturbating as he recalled one of the many pleasant nights of long ago.

Maggie slumped naked in the corner of the room. He appraised her condition with contempt. If only she’d obey without a struggle he wouldn’t have to beat her so badly. As he stepped toward her, she dared to beg him.

“Please . . . no more.”

He laughed and kicked her in the stomach. “You’re a filthy whore, and I’ll do anything I want to you because I own you.”

Her pain excited him. The dark, fetid smell of sex and blood oozing from her cunt and ass excited him. That she was young excited him most of all.

He grabbed her by the hair and pulled. “On your knees, bitch.”

She opened her mouth without being told to.

“Good girl. You’re learning.”

Eddie’s smile turned to grimace during orgasm. Then he smiled again. He’d relive those good old times with Annie soon. If only she were still as young and innocent as when he’d married her two centuries ago. Still, every second of pain he inflicted on her would excite him. All the more so if he could do it while Tom observed. And maybe he’d think of sexy little Lindsay while he fucked Annie. He’d make sure Tom knew that, of course.

Eddie’s cackle split the night air. “Oh,
yes
, it’s great to be back in human form again.”

June 9

W
hen the clock buzzed him awake, Tom growled his resentment and stumbled to the bathroom in the pre-dawn gloom. “Congratulations,” he muttered to his reflection in the vanity mirror. “Only nineteen years left till retirement.”

After a shower and shave, he returned to the bedroom to dress. He pulled on a pair of jeans, but had to switch on the closet light when he couldn’t distinguish one shirt from another in the dark. He looked over his shoulder to make sure the light hadn’t disturbed Julie. Shock zinged through him an instant before he consciously registered the cause.

The bed was empty. Worse. Julie’s side of the bed had been empty all night.

“Julie? Julie!”

Tom flew downstairs to the empty kitchen and flung open the door to the garage. Between Lindsay’s car and his truck loomed a gap like the bloody socket left behind when his dentist had yanked a molar years ago. When the association his mind had made hit him full force, Tom stumbled back into the kitchen. Had some act of violence taken Julie from him last night while he sat in a bar with another woman? Could the punishment for his sin be this swift and cruel? The jolts from his pounding heart seemed to scramble each thought in his brain before it could fully form, and for a minute, he couldn’t remember where Julie had gone last night.

Patricia!

For once, he thanked God that Julie had been with Patricia. He grabbed the handset of the kitchen phone, but as he punched the first number, he saw the message Lindsay had written on the dry-erase board next to it.

Mom called. She drank too much wine. Patricia talked her into crashing there.

Relieved but irritated, Tom erased the message. Now, Julie was spending day
and
night with that woman. Julie’s friendship with Patricia mystified him. Patricia was arrogant, demanding, egotistical—just plain overbearing. Almost two years ago, when Julie doubted her own ability to decorate her new home, she’d hired Patricia who, at the time, was an interior design consultant. Julie was thrilled to find someone “so in tune” with her style, but he and Patricia had been out of sync from the start.

Once, when he and Julie had argued in front of her, Patricia had chimed in, accusing Tom of being jealous. He could never remember exactly what he replied at the time—he could only remember telling her to butt out—but he’d considered the implication of the word several times since. In the end, he decided he wasn’t jealous, but he sure as hell resented Patricia’s influence in their lives. It was evident in everything from that damned oatmeal carpeting to the lack of time Julie now spent with her family.

Patricia was a threat to the life he and Julie had made together. But what did it say about his marriage, that Julie remained friends with that woman?

Tom heaved a sigh. He considered making coffee, but he was already wide-awake. The panic-induced adrenaline rush had substituted for the caffeine in the three cups he habitually drank before leaving for work.

Max, who’d greeted Tom this morning with his usual enthusiasm, now waited by the back door. With a whimper of misery, he got Tom’s attention. “Sorry, boy, guess your bladder’s about to burst.” Tom let the dog out, then went back upstairs to finish dressing.

Three minutes later, he stood on the patio inhaling his nicotine fix as he watched the sun break over the horizon. Unbidden, a picture of Annie in the dress she’d worn yesterday flashed in his mind. He smiled and touched the phone through his jeans pocket. How would she react to being woken at dawn? Lindsay was asleep. Julie would be gone for a couple of hours more, at least.

(It’s wrong to call Annie from here.)

He lifted his hand off his phone.

(Annie should not be in your life at all.)

His whistle for Max muffled but couldn’t drown out that second reminder from his conscience. He pushed Annie out of his mind and turned to go back inside.

Pain hit his head like a hammer blow. “
Goddammit
.”

With his head now aching like the devil, he repealed his earlier coffee decision, impatiently filling his mug before the brewing cycle could finish. He took two Excedrin from the bottle in the cupboard and, as he did most mornings, he carried his coffee to the table in the breakfast nook.