by Lori Wilde
“But it’s the anniversary of her death.”
Ridley pressed a hand to the nape of his neck. “Look, I’m sorry. I should have remembered.”
“We’ve got to get over to the lake house. No telling what kind of shape he’s in.” She started running down the street, then cut across the town square, an odd sense of urgency pressing down on her. Tuck was in trouble; she just knew it.
“Evie, hang on,” Ridley called out. “I’ll go get the car.”
Ten minutes later, they pulled up into the driveway of the lake house where Tuck had been living. All the lights were out, and the place was silent.
“It’s dark,” Evie said, anticipating the worst.
“It’s nine-thirty. Is it possible he just went to bed early?”
Evie hopped out of the car, dashed up the front steps, and twisted the knob. The door sprang inward. No one locked their doors in Salvation except during tourist season. Evie flicked on the light in the foyer. “Tuck?”
Ridley came up behind her. “Tuck!”
“Tucker, are you here? It’s me and Ridley.”
No answer.
“Check the upstairs bedrooms; I’ll check his workshop,” Evie instructed her husband.
They split up and searched the house. Minutes later, they met up again in the kitchen. Ridley was shaking his head.
“He’s gone and done something stupid again,” Evie said. “I just know it.”
“You don’t know that.” Ridley slid his big arm around her shoulder. “Don’t jump to conclusions.”
“We’ve got to check the dock.”
“Why would he be on the dock? It’s freezing cold out on the water.”
Evie strode out onto the redwood dock, feeling the boards vibrate as Ridley came up behind her. She tried to imagine what she would feel like if something happened to her husband, but the thought was too horrible to bear.
“I see your brother’s rowboat,” Ridley said.
“Where?”
Her husband pointed out across the lake stretching as dark as midnight.
Evie squinted. She could barely make it out, but the boat looked empty. Her hand strayed to her throat.
Oh, little brother, what have you done?
The next thing she knew, Ridley was stripping off his coat, kicking off his shoes.
“What is it?”
“I see something. I see him. He’s out there.”
“Tuck’s in the water?”
In answer to her question, Ridley dove in. Evie’s blood thundered in her ears as she watched her husband disappear underneath the icy black water.
Chapter Three
Tuck coughed up a lungful of Salvation Lake.
He opened his eyes and looked up at his sister and brother-in-law. He was lying on his back on the dock, soaking wet, shivering so hard he could barely breathe.
“Thank God, he’s alive.” Evie burst into tears.
“Go start the car, crank the heater,” Ridley instructed.
Evie ran ahead of them.
It was only then that Tuck realized his brother-in-law was as wet as he. Ridley slipped an arm underneath Tuck’s shoulder and helped him to his feet. “Lean on me.”
“Wh-wh-wh—” His teeth chattered so hard he could barely speak, so he just gave up trying and let Ridley half drag him to his Toyota 4Runner.
Evie had the engine running and the heater blasting by the time Ridley deposited Tuck in the backseat. She draped a blanket over her husband’s shoulders and then folded another one around him.
She wrinkled her nose. “You smell like a brewery.”
Tuck didn’t defend himself. His sister was right. He smelled—and felt—like a skid-row bum.
Glowering, she hopped behind the wheel and drove to her house. They arrived and got out of the car.
“I can’t believe you tried to drown yourself,” she scolded, following along beside them as Ridley helped Tuck in the back door. His damned legs didn’t want to bend.
“I … didn’t.” It was all Tuck could manage.
“No?” Evie worried her bottom lip with her teeth and sank her hands on her hips.
Tuck shook his head and slumped into the kitchen chair.
“Then what were you doing out on that lake?”
He didn’t have the energy to answer.
Evie turned. “Rid, get out of those wet things and take Tuck with you. I’ll have hot soup waiting when you get finished.”
“I’m taking him to the sweat lodge,” Ridley said.
She made a face. “He needs to get dry first.”
“He needs more than that, and the sweat lodge will warm him up,” his brother-in-law said firmly. “If ever a man has needed a vision quest to set him on the right path, it’s your brother.”
“He doesn’t believe in that stuff. You know we were raised Roman Catholic.”
“You’re the one who doesn’t believe,” Ridley said.
Tuck knew Ridley used the sweat lodge as part of his religious practices, but he’d never been invited to take part. He’d been mildly interested and had asked a few questions, but Ridley and Tuck had the kind of relationship where you didn’t pry.
“Your brother has an open mind,” he continued. “You get Tuck some soup. I’m going to go start a fire in the sweat lodge.”
“Not in those wet things you’re not.”
“Woman,” Ridley growled. “I know you get bossy when you’re upset, so I’m not going to fight with you. Heat your brother some soup. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Ridley disappeared out the back door, leaving Tuck alone with his second oldest sister. Evie turned her back on him, went to the refrigerator, pulled out a plastic container of homemade chicken noodle soup, and stuck it in the microwave to heat.
Tuck sat dripping water all over her kitchen floor and shivering into the blanket. “I’m sorry, Evie. It wasn’t my intention to upset you. It was just … I couldn’t stop … Aimee.”
She shuddered and tears gleamed in her hazel eyes. “Tuck, I know you’re still grieving, especially today, but I can’t bear to think of what would have happened if we hadn’t come along when we did. I don’t mean to lecture, but it’s been two years. At some point, you’ve got to let go of Aimee. You know she wouldn’t want you to keep hanging on, jeopardizing your own life.”
Tuck drew in a shaky breath as the gravity of the situation hit him. He had almost died tonight, and he didn’t even know how he felt about it.
“You’ve been doing so well lately, and I’d thought you were finally healing and—” The microwave timer dinged, and Evie broke off what she was saying. She took out the soup, plucked a spoon from the silverware drawer, and slid the Tupperware bowl across the table toward him.
Grateful for the soup, Tuck reached out for it as Ridley came in the back door. “The sweat lodge is ready,” he said. “You can bring the soup with you.”
He got up, holding the bowl, and followed his brother-in-law into the backyard toward a white domed structure with a small hole in the roof. A thin plume of gray smoke swirled through the opening, sending the smell of mesquite into the air.
“Go in and take off all your clothes,” Ridley instructed. “Sit down on the bearskin rug, and breathe in the smoke. Make your mind empty. Pick a word that resonates with you. A mantra like love, peace, serenity. Repeat it over and over as you breathe slow and deep. Stay in here until you have a vision.”
“You’re not coming in with me?” Tuck met his brother-in-law’s eyes.
“This is your vision quest. You’re the one who’s searching for meaning, my friend.”
“Umm … from what I can tell, there is no meaning.”
“Exactly. Now go find it.” Ridley gave him a shove. “I’m tired of your sister fretting about you. It’s time you took responsibility for your own healing.”
Anger crouched inside Tuck, a tiger ready to spring, but he knew Ridley was right. He’d worried Evie long enough. Who knew, maybe a vision quest was precisely what he needed. �
��I … How will I know if I’m doing it right?”
“Let whatever happens be okay,” Ridley said cryptically. Then he turned and went back into the house.
Tuck ducked into the sweat lodge. There was a small fire in the middle of the room and radiant sauna stones circling the fire pit. Other than bearskin rugs, quilted blankets, and oversized throw pillows, the place was empty. But there were stereo speakers bolted to the walls, and they spilled low, steady sounds of Native American Indian drumming.
He stripped off the wet clothes. The temperature in the sweat lodge climbed. His primary objective was warmth and dryness. He didn’t give a damn about a vision quest.
The bearskin rug tickled his naked butt. He sat cross-legged in front of the fire. Smoke swirled upward, funneling through the flue and out the hole in the roof.
Johnny Walker Red was still doing a number on his head. He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath.
Let whatever happens be okay.
He sipped the soup, feeling the liquid warm him up inside. He sat and sipped, inhaling smoke and listening to drum music and waiting for something to happen.
But nothing did.
Tuck thought of Aimee and how’d he’d promised to buy the lake house from her dad and renovate it. She believed the house held special spiritual powers. It had given her peace in her final days. She believed it could restore his inspiration, reignite the creative magic her illness had stolen from him if he’d give it the chance. But he’d lost his faith in magic.
“Fix it up, Tuck. Fix up the house and you’ll see. It will come to full life again, just as you will in the process of rebuilding,” she whispered to him on the day she’d died. “Promise me, please.”
He’d promised, but he hadn’t had the heart to follow through with it yet.
Tuck thought of his rowboat still out on Salvation Lake. He thought about Evie and Ridley and how they spent too much time worrying about him. Hell, Evie had moved to Salvation because she’d been so worried about him, and then she’d met Ridley and married him. He thought of how easy life used to be for him—the Magic Man.
But the magic was long gone. He’d used up his share.
He took a deep breath and felt a slow, languid heat snake through his body. His muscles relaxed. His head spun.
Dizzy. He felt dizzy.
Dreamily, Tuck set aside the cup of soup. It was hot in here, steamy, and getting hotter all the time. Sweat beaded his brow. Smoke grew thicker in the room. He coughed, blinked, and then he could have sworn he saw someone step out of the smoke.
It was a woman. High breasts, narrow waist, curvy hips, walking straight toward him, cloaked in shadows and smoke.
“Aimee?” he croaked.
She came closer and he could see it wasn’t Aimee. His Aimee had been petite, small-boned, blond.
This woman was an Amazon. At least five-ten, maybe taller, black Cleopatra hair, chocolate brown eyes.
“Who are you?” he whispered, but she didn’t answer.
Instead, she started to perform a slow, deliberate striptease, and it was only then that he realized she was clothed in veils. White veils. Wedding veils. She twirled in time to the drumming, peeling off a veil with each turn. The music got faster and so did she, whisking off veil after veil until she was a whirling dervish, spinning around the sweat lodge.
The music stopped.
And she spun to a halt in front of him.
All the veils were gone, strewn about the sweat lodge. She was totally naked.
Instantly, he got an erection.
God, she was a beauty. The cut of her shiny ebony hair accentuated her high cheekbones. Ivory skin smooth as glass. Full, crimson lips. The high thrust of her pert pink nipples. The flat of her belly. The springy dark triangle of hair above her thighs.
Her gaze was bold, but her eyes … her eyes … they were lonely. As lonely as Tuck’s.
The music started again. A slow, thumping beat. Like the heart of an athlete.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
She sauntered toward him; she was as leggy as a runway model.
Was she real? Was he dreaming? It didn’t feel like a dream. Was he on a vision quest? Was this supposed to be happening?
Let whatever happens be okay, Ridley had said.
What did that mean? Was he just supposed to go with it no matter what transpired? Have sex with a stranger?
She dropped to her knees in front of him, reached out, and walked her fingers up his forearm.
Tuck gulped.
If this was some kind of hallucination, it was a damned good one. She felt so real.
“Who are you?” he asked again.
A sly grin lifted her lips. “Don’t you know?”
“No.”
She laughed, a low sexy sound, and then she said the strangest thing. “Why, I’m the other side of you.”
“Other side of me?’
“Uh-huh. Mirror image.”
Her answer made no sense. He was just about to tell her that, when she leaned in close and ran her tongue along his lips. She tasted like dark chocolate—rich and sinful.
He hadn’t been with a woman since Aimee, and he didn’t want to be with this one, but his body had other ideas. His cock grew even harder.
She noticed. Purred. Touched him.
He was granite in her hands.
Shame shoved Tuck’s heart into his stomach. He felt as if he was cheating on Aimee.
It’s just a dream.
Was it?
And besides, Aimee’s dead. You’re not cheating on her. You’re a young, healthy man. You’re allowed to have sexual desires.
Where were these thoughts coming from? What was happening to him? This was a bad idea. He had to get out of the sweat lodge. He tried to get up, but the naked woman with the exotic brown eyes was throwing her legs around him, straddling his lap.
“No, no. I don’t want you.” He settled his hands around her waist to pull her off him, but her skin felt so warm and soft beneath his palms that he just held on.
“Shh,” she murmured, like a mother soothing her baby. “Shh.” She put her lips against his throat and kissed him so lightly that it felt as if she was tickling him with a feather. “It’s okay. It’s all right.”
He closed his eyes, battling against his desire. “I’m not in a good place. I’m—”
“Shh.” Her arms went around him, and she cradled his head to her breasts.
Tuck shifted, his resistance melting. He laid back against the bearskin rug and took a deep breath. Smoke swirled in his lungs. His head spun. The room was so hot. His body was drenched in sweat.
Lower and lower she kissed, heading for dangerous territory.
He threaded his fingers through her hair. “No, no,” he protested weakly.
“Yes …” She kissed him. “Yes.”
Another kiss.
Then her hand was on him. Stroking his throbbing head. She laughed a smooth laugh that loosened something in his belly.
“It’s just a dream anyway; it’s not real,” he muttered, all the fight gone out of him.
She closed her mouth over him, and overwhelmed, Tuck simply surrendered.
JILLIAN WOKE UP from her naughty sex dream with a flushed face and a pounding heart. She shivered, remembering him. Tall and muscled, but not overtly so. Straight nose, strong chin, a trustworthy jaw ringed with a stubble of beard. His eyes had been the color of expensive whiskey. His hair like winter wheat.
He’d seemed so sad. As if he’d been carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders for a very long time and didn’t possess the strength to take one more step.
And then she’d seduced him.
Gulping, Jillian shook her head to dispel the image and threw back the covers. And that’s when the realization hit her. She had nowhere to go and nothing to do. In all her twenty-nine years on earth, it was a first.
She fell back against the pillows, staring at the ceiling, thinking of the sex dream. It had seemed so real that she wouldn’t have been
surprised to find the man beside her. Yet, while her body felt strangely electrified, the other side of the bed stretched empty.
What did surprise her, however, was the fact she still wore the mourning clothes she’d worn to Blake’s funeral. And she still had that stupid wedding veil on her head.
Chagrined at having put the veil on in the first place and being desperate enough to make a wish, she yanked it off and sprang to her feet. She could have lingered in bed, tried to get back the wisp of the smoking hot dream, but Jillian was not a woman who lingered, even when she had nowhere to go or nothing to do.
She folded the veil and stuffed it in the cedar chest, wanting it out of sight, out of mind. She stripped, leaving her clothes lying in the floor, and took a hot shower, washing away the last remnants of the haunting dream, the man with the whiskey eyes.
There. It’s over. Forgotten.
But as she poured herself a cup of coffee from the automatic-drip coffeemaker on her kitchen cabinet—it was the only kitchen appliance she owned beyond the major ones that came with the place—she thought of him again.
He’d seemed so damned sad.
The guy wasn’t real. Move on. It was just a dream.
God, but he’d had some kind of body.
Haven’t you had enough of men after what Alex—
Enough.
Determined to stop thinking about the dream man, she took peanut butter—the smooth kind—from her pantry. She slathered it on a slice of wheat bread, folded it over, and called it breakfast. Balancing the peanut butter sandwich on her coffee cup, she opened the back door and walked out onto the stoop of her condo, where she liked to sit and watch the sunrise and eat her morning meal on the few days in Houston when the weather allowed such indulgences.
Jillian had just settled onto the first step and stuck the sandwich in her mouth when she saw him.
Hunkered in the corner behind the yaupon holly. Watching her like a fugitive. Correction. He wasn’t watching her; he was watching the sandwich.
She took the peanut butter sandwich out of her mouth. “You hungry? You want this?”
He leapt from the shrubbery and trotted over.
Up close, she could see his mixed heritage—Lab, Doberman, collie, German shepherd, and with those ears, maybe even a bit of basset hound. He possessed big brown melancholy eyes, a sharp nose, and a tail that was too long for his body. He looked like a five-hundred-piece jigsaw puzzle put together by a three-year-old.