“Thank you for dinner,” she said, taking her dessert bowl to the sink.
“Welcome.” Mathis still wouldn’t look at her. He was rubbing the back of his neck and staring out the window. The moon was out now and nearly full. Sadie wondered if that was what he was staring at.
“Okay. Well . . . I guess I’ll see you around.”
“Sure,” he said gruffly. “Uh, thanks for bringing my pills. In fact, I think it’s time for me to take one now.”
“All right.” Sadie didn’t know what else to say. “I’ll show myself out.”
“No need.” He got up from the table and walked with her to the door. On the little table right beside it, Sadie saw the familiar bottle of green-and-brown pills.
Mathis opened the heavy wood door, letting in a swirling gust of icy wind. Sadie shivered and wrapped her arms around herself but he didn’t offer to loan her a jacket or say anything about going straight home so she wouldn’t be cold. Instead, he seemed completely focused on the bottle of pills.
“Thank you again,” she said.
Mathis’s only answer was a grunt. He had already pried off the top of the bottle. As Sadie watched, he shook three of the pills out onto the broad palm of his hand, stopped to consider, then shook out another two.
As she left the house, he dry swallowed all five of the mysterious caplets with a grimace and then slammed the door behind her, without even saying goodbye.
That had been close—damn close. Mathis leaned against the sturdy oak door, waiting for the anti-rut pills to take effect. Having the little Juvie in his house hadn’t been too bad at first. Her being unconscious had muted her scent and the fact that she appeared to be sick or injured had damped his own mating urges considerably.
In other words, he’d been too worried about her to get horny.
But then she’d woken up and they’d talked—really talked—the way he hadn’t talked to anyone since Kathleen had died. Talked and eaten and laughed and he had held her and kissed her and . . .
Damn it—why had he talked to her in the first place? Why had he let her in and shared a meal with her? And most of all why had he kissed her? If he closed his eyes he could almost relive that kiss—the sweet, hot taste of her mouth, the feeling of her soft little tongue invading him, teasing him, making him want her. Making him need her.
No! He didn’t need anyone—he couldn’t. He’d sworn he would never love another woman after Kathleen, never let himself have those feelings again. It was just the rut talking, telling him he had to find some female and mate with her. Well, he didn’t have to listen—wouldn’t listen. But damn it, having Sadie so close didn’t make it easy.
Never should have done it, he told himself grimly. Never should have held her, never should have kissed her. He should have sent her packing the moment she woke up.
But it was too late. Now that he knew her—knew her sense of humor and her sweet nature—he couldn’t hate her anymore. Which meant it was going to be a hell of a lot harder to keep her at an arm’s length.
“It’s okay,” Mathis told himself aloud. “It’ll be okay as soon as these damn pills take effect.”
But though he waited for over an hour, he didn’t feel even a speck of relief. His symptoms were as strong as ever.
The rut was coming on, whether he wanted it to or not.
Eight
Sadie sighed and closed the door of her cabin behind her. Her new little home seemed dark and quiet after the warmth and conversation she’d had over at Mathis’s place. Looking out her window, she could still see the glow of firelight flickering through the woods that separated their property.
His cabin was so warm—just like he was. Warm and big and strong . . . the memory of being held in his arms was still with her and the sweet taste of blueberries still lingered on her lips.
Why did I do that? she asked herself, putting a hand to her mouth, as though to wipe away the kiss they’d shared. Why did I kiss him? It was stupid and impulsive—something she would have done back in college. It wasn’t the act of a middle-aged woman who had two kids in college and twenty years of marriage behind her. As she’d aged, she’d gotten more careful, more wary. But tonight she’d thrown all caution to the wind and kissed a man at least ten years younger than herself.
No wonder he kicked you out—you were acting like a horny college kid, Sadie lectured herself, going to the thermostat to turn up the heat. She knew she needed to learn how to use the stone fireplace in the living room—it would be a much cheaper way to heat her cabin in the winter. But growing up in Florida, she had never lived anywhere where she needed to make a fire and she was a little skittish of it. What if she burned the place down around her ears?
For now, at least, turning up the thermostat seemed safer. Although God knew how she was going to pay the bill if she couldn’t find more than one client for her accounting firm. She’d gotten a good settlement when Jeff divorced her but not enough to live on indefinitely and moving up here had cost a lot.
Sighing, she hung her navy peacoat in the closet nearest the front door. If only—
Her thoughts were cut off when something in the closet caught her eye. It was a cardboard box on the top shelf—something she hadn’t noticed in the hustle and bustle of moving in.
Reaching up on tiptoes, she fumbled for the box. If Mathis was here he could get it for me without even reaching, she thought and then tried to banish the mental image. Stop it, stop thinking of him, Sadie. He practically shoved you out of his house and said he doesn’t want to see you again and who can blame him after the way you mauled him at the dinner table? So just stop.
But what was written on the top flap of the dusty cardboard box banished all thoughts of her neighbor—or at least drove them to the back of her mind.
Wedding pictures, yearbooks, and prom, 1953, read the words, written in her mother’s lovely, flowing script. Sadie hadn’t seen her mother’s handwriting in years but she still recognized it immediately and a rush of longing for her mom washed over her. She had lived here, in this very cabin, at one time. If she was still alive, she could give Sadie advice—she had always known the right thing to do in any given situation.
But her mother was gone and the mystery remained—what were these pictures she’d been saving?
“Nineteen fifty-three?” Sadie muttered under her breath, staring at the box. “Whose prom pictures? Grandma’s?”
She hadn’t known her maternal grandmother, who had died before she and Samantha had been born. In fact, all of Sadie’s grandparents had died before she and her twin had come along. As for her father, well, Sadie had a vague memory of a huge man with a mane of golden hair laughing as he swung her up into the air and caught her while her mother stood nervously by. But he too had died before she and Samantha were four, so the memory was dim, though no less sweet for the passage of time.
Sadie took the box over to the couch and sat down. Switching on a lamp for extra light, she reached in and brought out a slim black photo album with the words PROM 1953 embossed in gold on its front cover.
She opened it and found black-and-white pictures of people in classic fifties clothes. The boys all looked uncomfortable in baggy gray and black suits with high-waisted pants and the girls were wearing dresses with huge puffy skirts and tiny waists. There were a lot of pictures of couples dancing and standing around the punch bowl, talking. Everything looked extremely wholesome.
She was just losing interest when she found a picture that was signed. It showed a girl who looked remarkably like her mother wearing a lovely dress that belled out around her. She was holding hands with a boy who had dark hair and horn-rimmed glasses. Over the base of the photo, in looping, girlish script, someone had written, Patty, you’re the absolute most! I’m so thrilled you asked me to be your maid of honor! Can’t wait for the wedding!
Sadie frowned. Maid of honor? Wedding? And who was this girl who looked so much like her mother? She might have been tempted to think it was her maternal grandmother, only he
r name had been Gertrude. Her mother’s name had been Patricia and she had gone by Patty, but she’d been only twenty years old—just three years out of high school—when she’d had Sadie and Samantha. So this picture couldn’t be her—it was twenty years too early. Her mother’s senior prom would have been in 1973, not 1953, Sadie was sure of that.
Still, as she flipped the pages and saw other pictures of the girl who couldn’t possibly be her mother, she couldn’t help thinking how much she resembled her. Was it possible that mom had a much older sister or aunt who shared her name and looked exactly like her? But if so, who was she and why had Mom never mentioned her?
Sadie put down the prom book and reached into the box again. This time she came up with a white wedding album with the words HONOR AND OBEY stamped on the front in flowing silver script.
“Huh,” Sadie muttered to herself. “Honor and obey—now there’s an outdated concept. At least the ‘obey’ part.”
She opened the album and saw more black-and-white photos. They showed the same girl only this time in a lovely full-skirted wedding dress. Beside her was the groom looking stiff in a black tux. He was the same boy from the prom pictures—the black hair and horn-rimmed glasses were unmistakable. Under the picture, in thin, spidery script, someone had written, “Patricia and Gerald, man and wife, 1954.”
Sadie frowned again. Who was this woman who looked so much like her mother and had her name? She knew it couldn’t actually be her mom. Besides the twenty-year time gap, Sadie’s father had been named Christopher, not Gerald. Also he’d been blond, which was probably where Samantha got her gorgeous locks. The man in the picture had very dark hair.
She flipped through a few more wedding pictures of the happy couple saying their vows, cutting the cake, and having their first dance. It was unnerving how much the bride looked like her mom. Frowning, Sadie shut the wedding album and reached into the box for something else.
This time she pulled out a baby book. It had a faded pink satin cover and it said OUR LITTLE GIRL on the front.
Sadie opened it and gasped at what she saw.
There, on the front page, was a black-and-white picture of a chubby newborn baby. But it wasn’t the picture that made Sadie’s jaw drop—right below it was a birth certificate.
“‘Patricia Ann Wells, born September 12, 1936. Seven pounds, three ounces,’” Sadie read out loud. The father and mother listed on the certificate were Sadie’s maternal grandparents, Gertrude and Harold Wells.
There could be no doubt—this was her mother’s birth certificate and it was twenty years earlier than it should have been.
As Sadie was still trying to take this in, her cell phone rang. Still holding the faded pink baby book in one hand, she fumbled her phone out of her purse with the other and answered without looking.
“Hello?”
“Okay, what’s going on?” Samantha demanded from the other end. “I’ve been feeling like I needed to call you all day but I was stuck in surgery for thirteen hours straight. That kid with the fractured femur I told you about really messed himself up. So what happened to you today?”
Sadie opened her mouth, then shut it again, not even sure how to begin. At last she said, “I found Mom’s birth certificate.”
“Really? That’s great.” Samantha sounded like she was smiling. They both had loved their mother dearly but after her death they’d had a hard time finding any legal documents for her. They’d had plenty of pictures of themselves as babies and their mother with her long, straight brown hair so much like Sadie’s, dressed like a flower child from the seventies, but not much else.
“Yeah,” Sadie said slowly. “It’s . . . great all right.”
“What’s wrong? Did you find anything else?” Samantha asked.
Sadie nodded, then realized her twin couldn’t see her. God, she still felt shocked.
“I think I found her prom pictures. And the photos from her first wedding,” she said, the words sticking in her throat.
“Her what?” Samantha demanded. “What are you talking about? Mom was only married once to our dad back in the seventies. Right?”
“Not according to this album and these pictures I found,” Sadie said. Her mouth still felt dry. “According to this she was married way back in 1954 to a man named Gerald Wells.”
“That’s crazy,” Samantha said blankly. “How could that be? Mom was only twenty when she had us and we know for a fact she was married in 1975, not 1954.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Sadie said. “I know it sounds bizarre but if the pictures in this box and the birth certificate I found are true, Mom was actually twenty years older than we thought. Which meant she actually had us at forty, not twenty.”
“That’s impossible,” Samantha protested. “You know how young she looks in all our baby pictures. And she was only forty when she died. You and I had just turned twenty the month before she had that crash.”
“Don’t remind me.” Sadie still got a lump in her throat when she remembered their mother’s death. She and Samantha had been so close to their mom. Especially after their father had died, the three of them had stuck together—the Becker Girls’ Club, their mom used to call them. So what the hell was going on?
“What the hell is going on?” Samantha demanded, echoing Sadie’s thoughts. “How could Mom have been twenty years older than she told us? Those pictures and things you found must be fakes.”
“But why? Why would anyone go to all the trouble of faking a bunch of pictures from the past?” Sadie asked. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Maybe Grandpa and Grandma were in the Witness Protection Program,” Samantha suggested.
“They give you a new name in the Witness Protection Program—not a new age,” Sadie pointed out. “I’m telling you, Samantha, this stuff I found is genuine.”
“Well even if it is, it still makes zero sense,” her twin grumbled.
“I know. I can’t figure it out,” Sadie admitted. “It’s been such a weird day and this is just the cherry on top.”
“What do you mean?” Samantha asked. “Tell me all about it—I was worried about you all day long.”
Sadie took a deep breath and dived into her day, starting with her walk at lunchtime where she’d been attacked, hit on, and shouted at all within the space of an hour.
“And everyone keeps calling me ‘Juvie,’” she ended at last. “At first I thought maybe they were saying ‘newbie,’ you know, because I’m new in town? But I’m pretty sure it was Juvie.”
“What does that even mean?” Samantha demanded. “You’re not a juvenile.”
Sadie laughed dryly. “I wish. Although, strangely enough, I am looking a lot younger than I was before I moved here.”
“I told you—it’s just because you got away from your asshole ex,” Samantha said dismissively. “Dumping Jeff would make anyone look and feel like a million bucks. And don’t say he dumped you,” she added quickly. “Who cares if he was the first one to go? What you need is to go out there and catch a hot man to take the edge off your divorced-lady blues.”
Sadie cleared her throat. “Actually, I think I might have found someone. Or, well, I thought I had before everything went to hell during dinner.”
“What? You already got yourself a new man, went on a first date, and broke up, all since I talked to you this morning?” Samantha sounded delighted. “That’s fast work, Sadie! I’m so proud of you.”
“Yeah, well you might not be if you heard the whole story.”
“So tell me,” her twin urged. “Come on—I’ve got nothing but time.”
Hesitantly, Sadie told her about Mathis from the moment he’d seen her naked that morning, to the weird sensation when she shook his hand in the pharmacy, to the way she’d fainted on his doorstep, woken in his arms, eaten supper with him, kissed him, and been basically kicked out of his cabin.
“Whew,” Samantha breathed when she was finally finished. “That’s some weird day you had, Sadie.”
�
�And then I went and found this box of photos to top it off.” Sadie rubbed her temples where the beginning of another headache was forming. “Between the photos, the strange way people act in this town, and my dinner with Mathis I feel like I’m going crazy.”
“You’re not crazy,” her twin promised her. “Look, I have some time off coming up. How about if I come visit after my Trauma Seminar in Vegas and help you sort all this out? It lasts for over a week but I can cut my time there short and come see you instead.”
“That would be nice,” Sadie said gratefully. Though they talked often, she never felt like she got enough alone time with her twin. “Maybe we can figure it all out together.”
“Maybe,” Samantha acknowledged. “In the meantime, you hang tight. And don’t give up hope on this Mathis guy.”
“Oh please, even if I hadn’t ruined it by kissing him, he’s still too young for me,” Sadie protested.
“Please, don’t start that crap again.” Her sister was frowning—Sadie could tell by the sound of her voice. “You’re only as old as you feel. I know it’s a cliché but in your case, you should take it as the gospel truth. Didn’t you just tell me you were looking and feeling younger?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“No buts,” Samantha interrupted sternly. “If you really feel that much different, then act on it—have some fun, Sadie! God knows after twenty years with that prick Jeff you deserve some.”
“Okay,” Sadie promised. “If Mathis makes a move, I won’t try to shut him down. But I really doubt he will. I pushed him too far tonight and I think he’s still grieving for his dead wife. I’m the last person he wants in his life.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.” Samantha sounded like she was smiling now. “Just give him a chance, Sadie, he’ll come around.”
“Sure, okay,” Sadie said, mostly just to make her sister stop talking about Mathis. She was certain her huge neighbor never wanted to see her again and even if he did, she barely knew him. One kiss, no matter how spectacular it had been, wasn’t enough to start a relationship. Not that she wanted any romantic entanglements, she told herself. She’d just called it quits with Jeff a month ago. It was way too early to start thinking about starting something new.
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