Firstborn

by Carrigan Fox

  His eyes widened in surprise. Had her gaze just flicked down below his waist? No.

  “Hard feelings, I mean,” she corrected with feigned innocence.

  “Sure. No. No hard feelings.” He was suddenly finding it hard to breathe. Speaking had been difficult enough when she looked at him like that. But now the lack of breath was sure to kill his last two brain cells.

  “Well, I’ll be on my way. If you ever need some aromatherapy or anything, you can usually find me in my shop.”

  The preposterous suggestion loosened his tongue, and he laughed with relief. “I don’t do aromatherapy,” he responded.

  She grinned at the contempt in his declaration. “Perhaps that is the problem.”

  “I don’t have any problems, Ms. MaCall. I’m a PhD. I solve the problems of others.”

  She was beginning to adore this man and his reminders of his PhD. She grinned at him and took a step backwards toward the door, keeping her eyes on his. “Yes, well…I’d love for you to be able to solve my problems, but since you are now falling in love with me, that would probably be considered a conflict of interest.”

  She gave him a quick wink, turned and walked through the doorway, and was gone.

  C

  hapter 6

  Jac shook out her umbrella before moving into the lobby of Midwest Bank and moving toward the desk with her deposit pouch. The teller was one she had seen many times, and the young blond woman greeted her by name.

  “Ms. MaCall, how are you doing today?”

  “Deposit Day is always a good day,” Jaclyn joked. “It means the business will be open for another month.”

  “Surely you have nothing to worry about, Ms. MaCall. Business is booming.”

  She turned to see the attractive blond man who had interrupted the small talk. His smile seemed too big and too white. Under his shirt and tie, she could tell that he had an extremely muscular physique. Too muscular. Hank-the-Tank, she thought to herself and fought to stifle an amused chuckle. He moved to stand beside the teller as she processed the deposit.

  Jac smiled in response. “I would hardly call it a booming business.”

  “MaCall Securities is one of the biggest businesses in town,” he argued good-naturedly. “I have heard that as Vice President, you have done a phenomenal job of not only keeping the business going, but of implementing even more modern technology in your systems for home and professional security. The community speaks very highly of you.” He grinned at her, knowing that his charm typically worked well on all women, even very attractive women who left their family’s ultra-successful business to open their own rinky dink shops downtown.

  Jaclyn relaxed, relieved to realize that he was being genuine and was not simply trying to come on to her. “That’s my sister, Taryn. I run a small shop downtown called Triskele.” She reached her hand across the desk, “I’m Jaclyn MaCall.”

  He dwarfed her hand when he shook it. “My apologies for the confusion. I guess that’s what I get for butting into a conversation.” He was comfortable with playing the role of the dumb jock bank manager. In his own experience, he got a thrill from the satisfaction of surprising the ass holes that had underestimated him. And people were less defensive and more open to suggestion when he played the oaf.

  “It’s fine,” she laughed.

  “I’m Adam Holt, bank manager.”

  “Adam the bank manager,” she repeated, remembering her conversation with Aislin only a couple of days before. When he looked confused at her tone, she confided, “Aislin Kearney might have mentioned you to me briefly in passing.”

  He laughed again and nodded. “She’s pretty great.” He wondered how much she had shared.

  “She is,” she agreed.

  He walked her to the entrance and held the door open while she opened her umbrella and stepped under its protection. He hadn’t seemed as wonderful as Aislin had described. He had seemed a bit smarmy and insincere. But then Joe MaCall had always accused Jaclyn of being too critical of men and too selective.

  As she stood at the corner waiting for the light to change, she admired the shape of a jogger across the way. He was drenched with his dark hair curling in the morning rain. He had also removed his shirt and his muscular chest and biceps glistened with raindrops. He began running toward her, snapping her back to attention so that she recognized that the light had changed and she was able to safely cross the road.

  And when he smiled as he approached, she was shocked to realize he was Dr. Archer. Without his glasses and with the rain-darkened hair, she hadn’t recognized him. And while she had always found him to be adorable, there was nothing adorable about his hard wet body as he ran toward her.

  Stunned, she had stopped in the middle of the road, and he grinned as he jogged in place in front of her umbrella. He appeared to be laughing at her surprise, and she realized that the tables had been turned.

  “Dr. Archer,” she greeted. “Out for a run?”

  “I needed to get out and stretch my legs.”

  They were great legs. Strong, lean legs.

  “In the rain,” she laughed, becoming more comfortable as her surprise wore off.

  “I love doing it in the rain.”

  Yes, he was definitely turning the tables. And yet, even as he was able to get the words out of his mouth, his hair was dripping on his slightly blushing cheeks. She had to laugh in response.

  “I’m glad I ran into you,” he said.

  He took her by the elbow and guided her out of the cross walk and up onto the curb. It was a sweet gesture, and it made him that much more attractive to her.

  “I’m on my way from the pawn shop to your place.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Unusual destinations for you, Dr. Archer.”

  “If I remember correctly, you were also surprised by my taste in art. Perhaps I’m not as tidy and predictable as you had imagined.”

  She smiled up at him, holding the umbrella a bit higher as an invitation to come in out of the rain. “I’ve imagined you all kinds of ways, Dr. Archer.”

  He was flustered again for a moment before saying, “Anyway, I wanted to stop in and tell you that I’ve decided that it probably wouldn’t hurt for me to be a bit more responsible for my own safety. I am currently having my background check run so that I can purchase a gun.”

  “I’m not sure how to respond. Congratulations?”

  He laughed, droplets splashing sweetly on his nose and cheeks. “Thank you.”

  “Have you ever fired a gun before?”

  “No, but I am already registered for classes and plan to purchase a membership at the gun club so that I can get in some regular practice at the shooting range.”

  She nodded. “Some say that an unprepared person with a gun is sometimes in even more danger than an unarmed person. That gun could be very easy to take off of you and use against you.”

  “You could prepare me and train me. I’m sure that you have some gun training.”

  She grinned up at him and stepped closer, since he hadn’t taken her up on the invitation to share her umbrella. “Are you sure you don’t have a crush on me? Because here you are offering another proposition that would allow you to spend more time with me in an effort to convince me that your brand of adorable is sexy.”

  He could smell her peach scent under the umbrella.

  “Dr. Archer?”

  “Yes.” His beautiful eyes were locked on her mouth.

  She licked her suddenly dry lips and watched his eyes almost perceptibly darken. “I don’t need any more convincing.” She moved forward, leaning into him as she went up on tiptoe. He caught her around her little waist and lowered his mouth to hers for the slightest taste.

  The kiss was barely a whisper of a touch as their lips brushed each other lightly and briefly. He pulled her more tightly against his wet chest and pressed his lips to hers more firmly, hardly noticing that she had dropped the umbrella to her side. She sighed into his mouth and he slipped his tongue just inside her lip
s, groaning softly at the taste of cool, sweet deliciousness.

  She stepped back first, lifting the umbrella and nearly catching him on the side of his head.

  “You could just ask me to dinner,” she suggested breathlessly.

  “I could,” he agreed numbly.

  “You could pick me up at my apartment above the shop at seven.”

  “Sure.”

  “You could take me to that Italian place on Grand River Avenue.”

  “I could do that.”

  “And you could kiss me like that again at the end of the night.”

  “I could.”

  She gently slapped a hand on his toned chest. “It’s a date then.”

  And she walked away before Will Archer had regained his senses and realized that he had finally gotten up the nerve to let her ask him out.

  ***

  Jaclyn changed her clothes four times and hated herself for being a cliché. There was simply something about Dr. Will Archer. She felt that tonight would be important for her future. And since she didn’t normally feel that most dates were important, she decided to listen to her instincts on this one.

  Her phone was ringing on the kitchen counter, but she ignored it. Taryn had called her twice already, and she assumed it was she again. She didn’t want to tell her about her date for some reason. Not yet. She wanted to keep this one to herself for now.

  She finally settled on dark blue jeans and a pale green silk blouse. The color would complement his eyes nicely. And it didn’t look bad on her, either. High heels dressed the jeans up a bit and a few silver bangles on her wrist spoke to her own style and personality. She was touching up her makeup when the doorbell rang. She picked up her purse and cell phone and texted her sister as she walked down the stairs.

  When she opened the door, she found the tidy Dr. Archer in blue jeans and a button down shirt. He looked more casual than usual. And very sexy. His smile was nervous, but his eyes were complimentary.

  “Should we walk?” she suggested.

  “In those heels? It’s your call.”

  She wanted to kiss him now for being so thoughtful.

  Over dessert, he approached the topic that she had suspected would come up. She had never gone to an extreme effort to avoid being honest about her visions. She didn’t shove it down the throats of strangers, but mostly because she didn’t wish to make them uncomfortable. Fearing ridicule or lack of understanding had never been a deterrent for her. Unlike her sister, she wasn’t ashamed of her family legacy, and she didn’t care what others thought.

  “Can you tell me precisely what led you to conclude that two men ransacked my office and intend to do me harm?” he finally asked.

  She smiled at him and slowly chewed and swallowed her bite of cheesecake. “Sure. The short version is that I began having visions when I was thirteen. Sometimes I get an image of something that has yet to happen. Other times I am able to tap in to the essence of the energy of a place or item. When I touched that file cabinet, I saw the two men tearing apart your office and having a conversation.”

  “Visions?”

  “Premonitions. Second sight. Precognition. Whatever you’d like to call it. Except that each of those terms suggest a vision of the future, and it isn’t always like that. And it’s not always a vision. Sometimes it’s a sensation or a feeling or sound.”

  “I’ve certainly read the results of the studies on extrasensory behaviors and precognitive dreams. But I have always subscribed to the general belief that the studies were inconclusive.”

  She nodded and took another bite of cheesecake. “Many subscribe to that belief.”

  “I don’t have anything to lose by trusting you on this. On the other hand, if I disbelieve you, I could end up in a lot of trouble.”

  “Or dead,” she added in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “There’s that, too.” He sipped his coffee and watched her eat. “Is this hereditary?”

  “The danger that you’re in?” she asked with a teasing smile.

  “The visions,” he corrected.

  “My mother had them. She died when I was young, but she warned my father that my sister and I would need his training and expertise later in life.”

  “He must have believed her since the two of you both trained with MSC and even worked for the company.”

  “Of course he believed her.” Her tone suggested that the idea of Joe MaCall doubting his wife’s precognitive visions of their daughters’ futures was preposterous.

  “I don’t mean to be offensive. It’s just that I’ve always been a science guy. So it’s hard for me to understand those who follow the--these ideas.”

  “You were going to say ‘pseudosciences,’” she accused.

  “Was not.”

  She smiled knowingly at him. “I understand perfectly how the scientific mind works. I’m a science girl myself.”

  “That’s a different kind of science.”

  She grinned at him, wondering what he would think of her university training. “The paranormal has had oodles of studies that support the existence of precognition since the 1800s.”

  He smiled into his cup of coffee. “Your use of the word ‘oodles’ somehow undermines your persuasive argument. For me, I think it’s a matter of ethos. You prove yourself a less reliable source when you use such a silly word.”

  “That, too, is a matter of opinion. Perhaps the elitist in you feels that ‘oodles’ is beneath you. Perhaps it’s a little too common for you.” She cocked her eyebrow in challenge.

  He put down his coffee cup and leaned across the table toward her. “Are you suggesting I’m a snob?”

  “Are you suggesting that you aren’t, Mr. PhD?” she laughed. “My point was that there have been studies that suggest that the paranormal is as scientific as any of your fields.”

  “Not a single one of those studies is conclusive.”

  “Don’t you have faith in anything?”

  “I have oodles of faith.” He grinned at her and was rewarded by a broad smile of her own.

  “Do you believe in God?” she asked a bit more seriously.

  He picked his coffee cup up again and sipped slowly. This was a heavy conversation for a first date. He could admit to himself that he was already crazy about this lady. But their differences in opinion over scientific constitution were difficult to swallow. The religious debate, he feared, might put him over the edge.

  “Well?” she prodded.

  “I do.”

  “Do you have proof? And you can’t cite the Bible. Some argue that there is no concrete proof that the book is actually the word of God. Give me solid, concrete, conclusive proof that God exists.”

  He pursed his lips and nodded to a nearby waitress in an effort to get a refill on his coffee. He might need something a bit harder for this conversation. “It seems I’ve saddled myself with a caped crusader who has visions and is an atheist,” he half joked.

  “I’m not an atheist. I absolutely believe in God,” she argued with emotion.

  “Where do you think the visions come from? Him?”

  “I didn’t say I believed God was a Him,” she retorted quickly but with a smile.

  “Touché.” When she didn’t answer his first question, he repeated himself. “So the visions, a sign from God or fate or what?”

  “Why did you wrinkle your nose when you said ‘fate?’” she teased.

  “I didn’t.”

  “An almost imperceptible little wrinkle. You don’t believe in fate?”

  “You do?” It was all the answer she needed.

  She shrugged in response. “In a matter of speaking, I do. The first vision I ever had was of my neighbor’s dog getting hit by a truck. I spent the rest of the day hovering over that dog in an effort to keep him from his fate. Early the next morning, while I was still asleep, the neighbors let him out to go to the bathroom. A passing delivery truck struck him and killed him. It seems that no matter what I try to do to prevent the visions from coming to fruition,
I’m powerless to stop it.”

  “If you believe in fate, you don’t believe in free will.”

  “Why is everything so black and white with you, Dr. Archer? One would think that a behavioral scientist would understand gray very well.”

  “I’m very good at what I do. Mostly because I pay attention to detail. For example, you have yet to call me Will. When you refer to me by name, you call me Dr. Archer and do so with a bit of sarcasm in your tone, as though you feel a bit of resentment toward my PhD.”

  She laughed loudly, drawing some attention from the tables around them. “I don’t resent any of your degrees. What you hear is my dry amusement at your need to remind me hourly that you have a PhD. Do you think less of a person who doesn’t have a PhD?”

  “Of course not. Clearly, you are very intelligent and thoughtful.”

  “Thank you,” she answered with a knowing smile.

  “I worked hard for my degree. That’s all. I’m proud of it.”

  She tilted her wine glass toward him in salute. “As you should be. Now, back to this discussion of free will…”

  “Right. I’m merely saying that if you believe in fate, you believe that our entire lives are mapped out for us the moment we are born. So whenever we are faced with a choice, it’s not really our decision. Our choice is already pre-destined.”

  “I think that certain aspects of our life are part of our destiny. But how we go about getting there is up to us.”

  “And the visions you have are always of such significant moments that they must be part of that big picture?”

  She shrugged. “I never know what role they will play. Could you concede that it’s possible to have both fate and free will?”

  He took another sip of coffee and sat thoughtfully before answering honestly. “I think that my biggest problem from all of this stems from the fact that I have made a number of difficult choices in my life. And I’ve worked my ass off to get where I am today. I simply cannot believe that my accomplishments are not my own. Otherwise, what is the point of ambition and drive and work ethic?”

  “But that’s what I’m saying. Your ambition, drive, and work ethic allowed you to make the decisions that led you to your destiny. If you had chosen differently, perhaps you wouldn’t have become a psychiatrist until you were fifty. There is some element of free will that comes into play.”