by Aimee Laine
“You haven’t called me that since I was ten … you know.”
“Called you what?” Ian kept Joyce and Randy in his peripheral vision, watching as she went into his arms and his came around her.
“You’re so in love with her you can’t think straight.”
Ian couldn’t hide the flinch. “Say what?”
“Get your ass over there. I don’t care if she beats you to a pulp. You owe her. I owe her. I mean, she saved my life, for God’s sake!”
Yeah, she did.
What Taylor had done etched into Ian’s mind, yet it didn’t surprise him. He’d expected it but didn’t know why. His best friend and wife both had talents no purebred humans would ever have. Why couldn’t some blonde chick from the backwoods of North Carolina have one, too?
How could I not have known?
“Ian?” Missy’s voice broke him from his thoughts. “Aren’t you going to go to her?”
Ian held up a hand. “Gimme a sec.” With a hand in the air, he wagged a finger, giving up on the coddle-Tripp’s-sister idea. “How in fuck’s name do I owe her? She saved your life, not mine.”
Her lips curved. “Yes, I know. I saw what she did, Ian. I was a party to hovering over the floor for a millisecond. And I will be forever grateful. The fact that these kinds of talents exist—I just—wow.” Her eyes grew larger for a moment before returning to normal. “Unlike Joyce, who probably thought it was a normal activity given what she is, I’m not going to forget it.”
Ian raised an eyebrow.
“Ever. I’m never, ever, ever going to forget falling like that and landing like I had a bunch of pillows waiting for me.” Missy held out her hands. Both shook. “See? I’m still freaking out. But I’ll be fine.” Those hands moved back to her chest. “We Fox girls are tough shit, Ian, but I’m going straight home and taking a hot bath so I can get my mind off what happened today. Her though? You’ve got her here, away from family, away from people she can talk to—since you seem as surprised as me about this—so I’m guessing, this revelation is not one the world knows.”
Missy’s shove did little to him given her small stature, but he took notice and marched toward Taylor. Ian’s cell buzzed before he’d gotten halfway. Since the medic continued to wrap her arm, he withdrew the phone from his pocket.
Michael’s name showed up on screen, and Ian hit connect.
“Tell me you’ve got something interesting and useful.” And give me something to get this situation out of my mind.
“No.” A serious, wary undertone put Ian on edge.
“What’s wrong?”
“Grams fell bowling—”
“They took her bowling? With slick floors? She’s ninety-six, for God’s sake!”
“No, Ian. She was playing it on a game console.” He offered a slight chuckle. “They say she’s fine, but … I gotta go up there and see her.”
“Of course, of course.” He nodded to himself. “Can you get to Stewart in two hours?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll meet you there. We’ll fly up together.”
“Mom and Dad are already on their way. Thanks, bro,” Michael said before he clicked off.
Ian finished the distance to Taylor without hesitation, held out a hand and brought her to her feet. At her turn, Taylor’s gaze connected straight with Ian’s, and his heart lurched.
He’d have to leave her, couldn’t risk taking her to New York since she ought to still be in North Carolina.
Her head adjusted to a slight incline. “You look like you saw a ghost.” One hand held tight to the bandage on her arm. “Or a woman who can move air. I’ll totally understand if you want ru—”
“I need to go to New York. Right now. Might be gone a few days.” Ian’s chest tightened as he said it—a pull on muscles he’d only ever attributed to playing sports too hard. A rub up his ribcage did little to ease it. “Why don’t I get the plane, have it take me up to New York, and you can head back down to—”
“I’ll go with you.” She reached but withdrew her hand as her eyes glossed with what he expected to be pain.
“That’s not a good idea. Your bail was for in-state residency only. And, I’m not Tripp, so I can’t make you disappear fast if we’re about to get caught.”
Her lips trembled, inciting a wave of emotion through Ian.
“Hey.” He pulled her close. Screw the law. “Come with me. If I need to stay, I’ll send you back.”
“I don’t want to be alone right now.” She nodded against him but disentangled herself and ran her hand along her bandage.
“You might not like meeting my family this early on in a relationship.”
Taylor tilted up to Ian. “Are they psychopaths?”
“No.”
“Cops?”
Ian snorted a laugh. “No. My mother will smother you. My father will want to take your temperature and monitor your blood pressure—”
“That’s right. He’s a doctor. I need one.” Taylor pointed to her arm. “They’re the perfect people.”
“You have no idea,” Ian said.
• • •
Eyes closed, Taylor took in the fragrance of Ian’s aftershave and, for the second time in one day, tried not to think about the thousands of feet of empty space between airplane and earth. She leaned back against the chair, thinking through the events of the day.
“Taylor?”
“Yeah?”
He linked his fingers with hers. “What you can do with your …”
“Gift? I’ve always thought of it like that.” She tightened her hold on his hand, needing the connection—the touch. “What do you want to know exactly?”
“Can you fly?”
A chuckle escaped. “No.”
“Well, that was the obvious question,” he said.
“Of course.”
“So if this plane heads south, we’re still goners?”
Thank you for the mental picture I was trying to avoid. “You don’t have a parachute or two on board this tin can contraption?” She kept her eyes closed and her head on Ian’s shoulder but bounced with a small laugh.
“Is that a yes or a no?”
She gave him a small shrug. “I can move stuff. I can sorta hold incredibly heavy weights. I can levitate things. I can push and pull. I can’t fly, though. I can’t make me do stuff, just affect stuff around me. And, it always ends like you saw at the house. The more time I use it, the more mental effort it takes—the faster I crash.”
“So … no Superwoman costumes as a kid?
Taylor giggled. “When I was little, I wanted to fly so bad I’d crawl out my window, climb on the roof of the porch and prepare to jump. No sooner than my arms were outstretched, Mama would be standing on the sidewalk, her hands on her hips. She didn’t have to say a thing. I’d just crawl back in.”
“So, she knew what you could do?”
“No, no. She thought I was spirited. Works to my advantage with my current profession. She still thinks, someday, my fascination with power tools will fade, and I’ll become the demure southern woman she is.”
“Does she know what you can do now?”
“Oh, no. I’ve been smart enough to keep that under wraps. Only a few people know … you and Tripp, for example.”
“Tripp?”
Taylor nodded. “One of the guys on the renovation job mis-positioned a ladder. It headed backward, and I pushed it up. Tripp happened to be there when I did it.”
“And, he told you he saw?”
She shook her head. “I could just tell.”
“And Riley?”
Taylor opened her eyes and pushed away from the seat’s back, leaning toward Ian. “Yes. You’re awfully curious.”
“It’s my job to ask a lot of questions. It’s what I do. Tripp’s the one with a …”
“Gift? Is whatever he can do related to what he’s doing for me without telling me exactly what he can do?”
Ian waved a hand through the air as if to agree without agreeing.<
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“You can’t say. I wouldn’t have either if—”
“You hadn’t kept three people from splatting along the floor and probably busting through the boards and down into the crawlspace.”
“Slab. It was built on a slab.”
“Well, then,” he said. “Ouch.”
“That’s what I thought, too. You’re learning an awful lot about me, but what about you?”
“I’m an open book.” Ian’s lips curved.
Taylor burst out a laugh. “You’re better fortified than Fort Knox.”
Ian adjusted until his face came within an inch of Taylor’s. “Give me your best shot.”
She dipped her gaze toward his lips. “College?”
“Boston.”
Taylor’s brow rose. “Name of the last woman you dated.”
“Dated?” His tone carried a distinct hint of sarcasm.
She gave him her best smirk.
“Let’s just say she was a dancer at a club in the Keys. We were on a job. She was there. And, this was all before Tripp met Lexi.”
“Favorite color?”
Ian laughed and pushed closer. “Blue.” He didn’t shift his focus.
“That’s not fair.” The huskiness in her own voice suggested Ian’s answer affected more than her mind. A bump and the flip-flop of her stomach suggested the plane descended.
“One more before we land.”
“Do you really think—I mean, do you really believe we could have a past life … together?”
He said nothing for a moment. His hand slid behind her neck and he pulled her in for a sweet kiss. “Do you?”
• • •
Three hours after the house collapsed, Taylor and Ian landed and taxied to an area reserved for private planes. She hadn’t answered him; he figured because she harbored a measure of disbelief herself. He did. Rather than dwell on it, Ian refocused himself on getting to Grams.
Michael joined them in the cabin moments after the plane parked. “Wow. You guys look like shit. Been digging in the dirt?”
Ian would have grabbed Michael into a long, extended head lock if they didn’t need to continue on their journey sooner rather than later.
“Don’t know if you remember me or not, but I’m Michael.” He extended a hand toward Taylor.
She took it, shaking her head. “Taylor Marsh. Have we met?”
Their pilot closed the outer door. Lights illuminated in the cabin, and seconds later, the engine whirled.
“Yeah. At Lexi and Tripp’s wedding. Why are you two covered in dust? Been out scavenging more bones? The one Tripp sent wasn’t enough?” Michael secured himself in the seat opposite Taylor and Ian.
“A house fell on us,” Ian said.
“Dude. You got quite the life.”
“Folks …” Their pilot came over the small intercom. “We’re set to take off. Be in Rochester in about forty-five minutes.”
Their bodies pressed into the seats with the momentum of taking off into the sky.
Ian let himself relax and closed his eyes as the plane banked to the left. “You get anything done on the sample?”
“I only had it a few hours before I got the call. But, I got some friends working on it. That lab you guys got us access to is saweet. This is totally going to jack up the research component for my finals. But anyway, they’ll call me if anything cool happens. I got a hottie from Horticultural Science to come in and test the soil samples, and a guy getting his PhD in forensics is going to look at the wood from that shed.”
“You sent them bones, soil, wood—everything?” Taylor’s surprise brought Ian out of his resting place.
“Yes. The goal is to prove you had nothing to do with it, right? So, we sent … everything … Lexi and Tripp got their hands on.”
“But … how—” Taylor started.
“Remember, they have their ways.” Ian tightened his fingers around her knee, massaging in the hopes she wouldn’t ask more. She knew too much for his own comfort—without having Tripp explain.
Michael chuckled behind his hand.
“What’s up with you?” Ian asked, glaring at Michael.
His brother’s eyes darted down and back up. “She’s ‘the client’, isn’t she?” He air quoted with his fingers.
“Yes.” Ian rubbed at Taylor’s thumb. She’s got a scar down the back side, doesn’t she? He traced over that area. Yup. A slight chill raced up him. The sense of familiarity grew stronger with each moment he spent with her, yet Ian couldn’t explain it, not even from what Sherrill suggested, Joyce had said or anything Taylor shared.
Did he believe they could be reincarnated?
“So, what’d you think about my brother here posting your bond?”
Ian closed his eyes and forced himself not to jerk back. He ventured a glance at Taylor and caught her wide eyes.
“I mean, all that dough and his condo in New York as collateral. You must be out of this world special.”
Taylor squeezed Ian’s hand. “I-I wasn’t sure on that.”
“Luckily for you, Taylor, Ian’s the most loyal and trustworthy person I know.” Michael crossed his index and middle fingers. “He and Tripp’ve been tight since before I was born. They don’t do anything without each other knowing about it. So, if he believes you enough to do that, seriously, you’re good in my book.” He held out his fist as if Taylor should bump it.
She shifted forward, did exactly that and relaxed against Ian again. “I like knowing you have such good friends and that I can be one of them.”
Michael’s face lit up with a deviance even Ian would have to wonder about. “Grams is gonna love her.”
I know. “Do you know any genealogy people, Michael?” Ian opted to change the subject in favor of an idea and to get away from the mushiness.
Michael scratched the underside of his chin. “Not off the top of my head, but the school is full of nuts who study what used to be instead of what can be. Actually—” He wagged a finger. “There’s this blonde I see at the library a lot. She’s always got those family tree things scattered on tables around her. Why?”
“Let’s add them to the search team. I want to—” Ian held out his hand. As if Taylor understood, she rummaged in the bag she’d brought and removed the photo. “I want someone to look these people up.”
“Who are they?” Michael squinted at it.
Ian looked to Taylor. Her eyes held only concern.
“Holy shit! That’s you! You do one of those old-timey, western photo things?”
“No.”
“Then, who? That ain’t Grams, but I’d swear, hand on a Bible, that that’s you, but if that’s not Grams, that can’t be Gramps. What gives?”
“We’re not sure exactly,” Ian said.
“This pic has to be from sometime after eighteen-fifty, probably closer to nineteen-hundred, right? Since that’s when cameras had first come out?”
Ian went on to give Michael the details he’d learned from Sherrill. Taylor piped in with her own thoughts every once in a while.
“So, if you swear these people aren’t you, why am I looking them up?”
“We just want to know more about them.”
“Uh-huh. Sure. There’s something fishy goin’ on.” He pulled out his phone, snapped a shot of the photo and handed it back to Ian. “So, you need me to look someone up who’s deader than dirt, for a reason you won’t really say, and all I gotta do is ask a hot girl out to do it?”
Taylor’s head pressed against Ian’s arm, he presumed in an acknowledgement. “Yes,” he said.
Michael smiled. “Well, shit, yeah. I can do that.”
18
Greater Rochester International Airport welcomed the plane at almost eleven o’clock. Visiting hours at the hospital wouldn’t start until nine in the morning the next day, so Ian booked rooms at a hotel.
Ian held out Taylor’s key. “You’re on the right. I’m on the left.”
She took it, flipping it between her fingers. “Ian?”
“I don’t want to be alone. I’ll pay for my room if I can just—”
He stepped toward her, pulled her against him and crushed his lips against her. “God, I was hoping you’d say that.”
• • •
Taylor rubbed at another spot of grime between her fingers. Her arm ached; her ribs throbbed. She wanted, with a passion, to take a hot bath—assuming she wouldn’t die—and to sleep.
The king-sized bed bounced under her as she dropped to it. “You barely know me, Ian, yet you’ve been helping my … me … every step of the way, have your brother doing stuff that’s probably illegal and don’t seem to mind the neurotic nature of my life right now. Why? How is that possible?”
Ian’s keys fell with a clang to the only dresser. “If you were worth connecting myself to in a past life, you ought to be worth helping in my current one, right?”
“So, you do believe it.” Taylor ran her fingers under her nose, pinched the bridge and pressed at her eyelids. “I mean … it’s probably all just a coincidence. A … familiarity. Right? That’s the logical answer.”
Ian took her hands away from her face, kneeling in front of her in the process. “I’m not a man of many words, and hell no on sappy ones. But, I’m a damn good judge of character, and everything that has happened explains a lot about the last half a year. At Tripp’s wedding, I swore I’d met you before. The more I spend time with you, the more I—the more I want to.”
“Could it be so simple, though? I have a gift for … some reason. Those pictures … let’s say they were, somehow … us. These memories that keep popping up and these feelings. Is it supposed to be this way?” Taylor ran a finger down the side of Ian’s face. “But … what if this life … this fourth try … what if it’s us, and we’ve failed all the times before. What if we fail again?”
His chuckled warmed Taylor’s heart. “Now, that’s the spirit. The perfect pessimist.” He kissed her knuckle. “Let’s pretend for a moment that this is life four, and it’s us that’s the mission. Maybe the new motto is fourth try’s the charm.”
She brought her hands back.
He stiffened.