The Taking (3 page)

Lush. The word echoed, stinging like a slap.

He would criticize her later in the humming voice, call her an embarrassment, lock the liquor cabinet in their condo again and put the key on his key chain. Regan knew she didn’t have a drinking problem, and she wasn’t in denial or deluding herself. She enjoyed a good glass of wine, singular being the key, and occasionally she indulged and had several glasses. Being anything close to drunk was something that happened to her maybe once a year.

But it didn’t matter if she never drank a single drop. Then he would say she was embarrassing him by not tasting Mr. So and So’s wine collection, or for acting evangelist in front of Mr. Big Shot, who was giving a toast.

Never right. She would never do it right. And he was always in control, of her, of her life.

“Are you okay?”

Regan’s head snapped up from studying the uneven bricks of the courtyard as she clutched the doorway and regained her balance, her equilibrium. The source of the voice was a man sitting in a wicker chair, leaning back casually against its rich red-striped cushion. He was about thirty, his face, his skin, his hair all an indistinguishable blend of several ethnicities. Whether he was white, black, Latin, Arab, she didn’t know. What she did know was that whatever melting pot his genes had been served from, it was a delicious combination.

The man was gorgeous and she was acutely embarrassed that he had seen her stumble.

“I’m fine,” she murmured. “I just didn’t realize there was a step down, and these stupid shoes...” She bent her knee and lifted her foot to point at one of the culprits. “They’re new and not scuffed yet, so they slid on the wood floor... Together it was a bad combination.”

He gave a small smile. “Practically deadly.”

Regan felt a blush staining her cheeks and she was mortified. What was she, fourteen? It was just nerves, the night, her whole marriage culminating in her constantly feeling unsure, apologizing for all her actions, no matter what they were. She was practically to the point of apologizing for existing and that scared her. Showed her how much her marriage had damaged her. This man’s voice was casual and teasing and she should take that at face value, not try to backpedal and soothe the way she would with her husband.

“I’m lucky to be alive,” she told him.

The smile twitched. She had amused him, she could tell. But it was dangerous to be alone in the dusky courtyard with a good-looking man, regardless of how innocuous it seemed. It was the wrong time to anger her husband, and anyone he perceived as competition would infuriate him. “Do you know where we’re supposed to go to get the readings? John’s wife—you do know John, I’m assuming?—she arranged for someone to be here and I’m supposed to have a reading.”

“Supposed to?” His eyebrow rose. “Well, if you’re
supposed
to, have a seat.”

Gesturing to the table in front of him with an empty chair on the side opposite his, his hand moved from its hidden position behind the table to rest on top of it. She realized he was holding a deck of tarot cards, and the sweat that had been between her breasts broke out again with a vengeance. Of course he was the voodoo practitioner. That explained his plain black shirt, his dark jeans instead of a suit, and why she’d never seen him before.

“Oh, right, absolutely, thanks.” Regan cleared her throat and moved to the empty chair. She folded her hands on the table, then in her lap, then on the table again, crossing and uncrossing her legs. It was hard to look at him, his serious, steady eyes a brilliant pale blue, a color so unusual and opaque it was mesmerizing. His hands moved over the worn deck of cards, shuffling them, but his eyes were trained on her.

“Nice pearls,” he said, his voice a low, rich, masculine timbre. Not gravelly, not so deep it was gruff, but a solid, male sound, pleasing to listen to. “Your husband has good taste.”

Her hand shot to her throat to feel the necklace. “Thanks. How... how do you know I’m married?”

“You’re wearing a gigantic diamond on your ring finger. Doesn’t take the cards to reveal you have a husband.”

“Oh, right. Duh.” Regan tried to laugh, but it was brittle, and his hands paused as he watched her. He was a still person, sitting with little movement, no fidgeting or adjusting, and it made Regan squirm even more.

“Can I see it?”

“See what?” Regan looked at him blankly.

“Your ring.” He held his hand out.

“Oh.” Flustered, Regan glanced at her wedding ring. She never took it off. She hadn’t taken it off since the day her husband had placed it on her finger, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to take it off now. But neither did the idea of holding her hand out to this man and letting him run his fingers over her skin, her diamond, appeal to her. That seemed too intimate, too odd. Dangerous.

Of course, that was ludicrous, there was no danger there, and it was equally absurd that she didn’t want to remove the ring. She was planning to leave her husband. She was. Soon. So there was no reason she couldn’t take his wedding ring off for a minute.

“Sure.” Before she could change her mind, Regan yanked the band off and dropped it into the voodoo priest’s outstretched hand.

The sense of giddy relief that flooded her when the symbol of her marriage left her possession caught her off guard. She sucked in a few rapid breaths, amazed that she could feel so much lighter, so much more confident in her decision to leave, after something as simple as removing the ring.

“Shuffle the cards.” He pushed the deck across the table to her as he turned her ring over and over in his other hand, giving it a cursory glance before resting it on the table, out of her reach.

Regan eyed the ring, wanting to ask for it back, then stopping herself. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t like he was intending to steal it. Let it sit there on the crisp white tablecloth for a minute. She took the cards and shuffled them carefully, precisely. They felt different from regular playing cards, softer, pliable. The colors had faded, and they looked dirty to her, not the fresh dirt of a recent soiling, but the indecipherable grim of years and years of handling.

“Cut the deck in three piles,” he told her, when she stopped shuffling and held them out to him.

Trying not to think about washing her hands posthaste, Regan cut the deck as directed, staring down at the cards. It was too difficult to look at him. There was something about his eyes, probably the result of the unusual light color, that made her feel like he was seeing her with altogether too much clarity. He wasn’t buying the careful image she presented to the world of happy wife, a classy, pulled-together modern woman.

A glance up showed he wasn’t looking at her, but at the cards as he picked a pile and started laying them out in a pattern. He had a strong jaw and high cheekbones, a long narrow nose, and a perfectly proportioned mouth, with lips that had just a hint of flushed color to them. There was something so primal and male, and yet so beautiful about him.

“Do you like what you see?” he asked.

“Excuse me?”

“The cards.” His hand indicated the spread on the table.

Regan saw nothing but pictures and swirls of color, all strange, meaningless images. “I don’t know anything about the cards. I’m Presbyterian.”

There was a short pause, then he actually burst out laughing. “Now that was funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be funny.” Irritated, Regan sat back in her chair. She didn’t need this random man to laugh at her.

But he immediately stopped, his smile eradicated by her words. “I know. You never try to be funny, do you? You don’t think you’re witty. You’re afraid of being judged, so you hide behind platitudes and social correctness and never say what you’re really thinking.”

A hot flush rushed over Regan. God, that was a little too close to home. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. And there’s nothing wrong with being polite.”

“You do know what I’m talking about.” He tapped a card, the upside-down images blurring. “You try very hard to please all the time, you always have. But maybe you need to please yourself sometimes.”

Leg bouncing anxiously under the table, Regan shook her head, not even sure what she was denying. “I like myself just fine.”

His voice lowered. “And so do they,
cherie,
so do they. They never expected you to replace your sister.”

Regan’s body went completely still, the heat rushing through her extremities, hot saliva flooding her mouth, the unexpected buzzing in her ears and a sweeping dizziness making her question if she might actually faint. But she swallowed hard and the blurry world sharpened again. “I don’t have a sister.”

He was a hack, that was all. Just guessing, throwing out vague pronouncements, the kind that anyone could interpret however they chose.

“But you did,” he murmured, eyes on her while his hands pushed the cards together in a pile. “We don’t need these. I know all I need to about you. You had a sister, and when she died, the fire in you extinguished. You turned down the volume on your personality so that you wouldn’t hurt your parents any more than they had already been hurt. You wanted to be perfect.”

Now the tears did dribble out, unwanted, humiliating, as Regan bit her lip to prevent it from trembling. “How could you know about my sister?” she whispered. “Did you do research on me? It’s very cruel to bring her into a form of entertainment.”

He shook his head. “I’m not trying to be cruel. I’m trying to release you. Your parents don’t expect you to be perfect or to be your sister. They love you, just as you are.”

The stranger’s words lacerated her, and she wanted so much to believe them. Regan put her hand over her eyes, trying to push back the tears. “Of course they love me,” she managed to choke out. She knew that.

“They won’t understand, but they won’t be angry.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The decision you’re weighing right now. Your parents may not be happy about it, but just remember they love you.”

“What decision?” The heat suffusing her had turned to a chill, crawling across her skin like encroaching winter.

His fingers landed on her wedding ring, and he rocked it on the table, back and forth, back and forth. “You know what I’m talking about.”

Regan wanted to snatch the ring from him and leave, abandon his crazy pronouncements and dirty tarot cards and retreat from the courtyard. But she stayed in her chair, curious as to what he would say next, mesmerized by the casual way he fondled the symbol of her marriage. On her hand, it spoke volumes. On the table, it was just a pretty ring that held no power.

She jumped, the sensation of someone touching her shoulder sending her whirling around. “Something touched me!”

“It was probably a plant brushing you,” he said mildly.

Regan swept her gaze left and right, squeezing the spot on her shoulder where she had felt distinct pressure. “There are no plants within three feet of me.”

Even before the words were fully out of her mouth, she felt it again, this time on both of her shoulders, as if someone was standing behind her and resting their hands on either side of her head. She leaned forward in her chair, a little panicked as she looked around again, but the sensation remained.

“Next you’ll tell me it’s my sister watching over me,” she hissed, suddenly angry. She didn’t need this, not when she was already so close to the edge, anxiety her constant companion. This was just bullshit power of suggestion, taking advantage of people’s emotions for profit.

But he shook his head slowly. “No. No, that’s not what I am going to tell you. Your sister died an innocent child, and she is at peace. You, however, are not. Death is harder on the living than the dead.”

That wasn’t news as far as she was concerned. The feeling of being touched moved down her arms, as if she were being rubbed in a gesture of comfort, and Regan’s eyes went wide. She had the craziest goddamn feeling that it was him touching her. But that was absolutely impossible. He was over there, and she was here, and his hands were on the table in clear view.

The air around her shifted, and she turned to her left for no apparent reason, instinct telling her someone should be standing there when of course they weren’t. “What...” The word died on her lips, goose bumps racing up her arms as the invisible embrace came at her from the front, like a hug.

Regan’s chest swelled in and out rapidly with the frantic tenor of her breathing. She didn’t move, afraid to reach out and feel nothing, more frightened still of reaching out and feeling something that wasn’t visible. The tendrils of touch went up and down lightly between her shoulder blades, and somehow she recognized it as a man’s touch, physically intimate. It wasn’t the touch of a relative or a friend, but that of a lover.

It was that ridiculous thought that launched her to her feet. How in the hell could the touch that didn’t exist be qualified? If it didn’t exist, how could it be so distinct as to belong to a lover?

The chair she’d been sitting in fell backward from her sudden movement, smacking to the bricks with a bang. She thrust her hand out. “My ring, please.”

He rose to his feet as well, but slowly, and she was appalled to see what sitting had hidden from her view. Not only was he attractive in the face, but when he uncoiled to his full height, it was evident he was a fine specimen of male perfection, toned and tall and broad-shouldered. His soft worn jeans hung just right as he reached out, her ring in his hand.

“Just remember, if you’re going to wear it, wear it of your own free will.”

She had no answer to such a cryptic remark and she held out her hand. The ring dropped from his palm to hers, its weight heavy, the stone cutting into her flesh as she closed her fist around it.

“Thanks,” she said, turning to leave, righting the chair she had knocked over.

Regan had taken three steps when he said softly from behind her, “You’re welcome.”