A Deep and Dark December

  Sighing, she leaned back against the front door and crossed her arms over her chest. He would only get one shot at this.

  “I’m an idiot, I know.”

  “You’re finally starting to make some sense.”

  He couldn’t help the smile that tugged at the corner of his lips. God, he loved her smart mouth. “I couldn’t do it. I don’t want this to stop. Whatever is going on between us is good. Well, I think it’s good.”

  She gave a reluctant nod, spurring him on.

  “My pop thinks you’re a…distraction.”

  “He knows about us?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And he doesn’t approve,” she said, her tone as defensive as the look on her face.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You really are an idiot.”

  “He’s sick. He’s not seeing things clearly.”

  “I know what your father thinks of my family. I’ve grown up with that attitude my whole life. I get it. He doesn’t want his precious son contaminated by the likes of me.”

  “You’re wrong.” But she wasn’t. That was exactly what his father had said.

  “We’re done here.” She started to pull the door open, but he slammed it closed hard enough to rattle the windows and send her staggering.

  He gripped her shoulders, steadying her. “We’re not done.”

  “Don’t you get it? We were finished before we started. It was stupid to think this could work.”

  “What about last night?”

  Something aching and hot flashed in her eyes and she swallowed hard. He could almost hear her heart pounding in her chest, could see the pulse throbbing in her neck. He breathed in her scent and before he thought to do it, he was tracing a finger from her jaw to the hollow of her clavicle and back again. She shuddered. He eased closer and replaced his finger with his mouth, licking kisses under her jaw to her ear. She put her hands on his shoulders, but didn’t push him away. Instead she held him there, their bodies brushing but not touching.

  “What about last night?” he asked again, whispering the question over her skin, causing dots of her flesh to rise as though she were chilled. “What about tonight?”

  “We shouldn’t.”

  “Please let me stay.”

  Her fingers flexed on his shoulders, kneading. He leaned in, pressing his body against hers. She could probably feel his erection, but that wasn’t why he wanted to stay.

  “Let me care for you,” he found himself saying, the headiness of being near her heavy in his voice. “Just that. Nothing else. Please.”

  “Okay. Yes.”

  Her words washed through him. He might not have heard her if she hadn’t had her face buried in the side of his neck. But it wasn’t satisfaction that flooded his system. It was relief. He’d nearly blown it with her, still might yet. But for now she accepted him, maybe even wanted him. He’d take that. He’d take whatever she was willing to give. He knew then that he could take anything—his father’s disappointment, failure in front of the town, anything—as long as she stood with him.

  Wrapping his arms around her, he nearly groaned at the feel of her body lined up against his. There was no way to deny what was between them. No way to hide from it. His father would just have to understand…or not. Most likely not.

  ~*~

  As they turned to head to her bedroom, Erin wondered how he’d done it. Somehow he always managed to change her mind at the last moment. Or maybe she’d wanted her mind changed. She really hadn’t wanted him to leave. He’d started to talk about breaking up and her self-preservation instincts had kicked in. And the next thing she knew, she was asking him to leave, practically throwing him out. When he’d slammed the door shut and asked to stay, she’d been so relieved.

  They went into the bedroom and through the motions of getting ready for bed. He used the extra toothbrush she’d given him the night before. It still sat in the holder next to hers. It looked right there. As did his reflection beside hers in the mirror. They slipped into bed and she turned to him, expecting they’d make love. Instead he brought her close and held her, tucking her tightly to him. She smoothed her cheek on his chest, luxuriating in the feel of his skin against hers. His scent was familiar now and she craved it.

  They would stay together long enough to fall in love, move in together, get engaged…hurt each other. This was why she hated looking at the future. Premonition never brought her anything but heartache. And too many unanswerable questions.

  Light flashed behind her eyes, bright and white hot. Her head felt as though it would crumble under the incredible pressure. Graham’s scent lingered, like a blown out candle, flittering at the edges of her consciousness. She could almost hear the echo of him calling her from far away.

  She stood at the edge of a pool of blood. In the center of it lay the woman with dark hair and sightless eyes from her earlier vision. Across the room, Graham bent nearly in two, gripping his bleeding side and gagging back vomit. The fat man Graham had argued with sat on the floor, his head on his chest. A trail of blood smeared down the wall behind him.

  Erin started to shake. Graham shouted her name, the sound reverberated inside of her, bouncing away and back so she couldn’t grasp it to know if it was real. The Graham in her vision stumbled over to the woman and dropped to his knees beside her. His face twisted with grief. He mumbled something, took a deep breath, and began to search the woman’s body. Finding nothing, he stopped. Gripping his knees, he sucked in a shaky breath. His gaze shifted to her torso.

  “Goddammit, Patricia,” he murmured. And then he pulled her shirt up, exposing her bra. He reached toward her, then pulled his hand away. “Goddammit.” As though mentally preparing himself, Graham inhaled deeply, squaring his shoulders. Then he pulled her bra up, exposing her breasts and a small, black cylinder taped between them with a thin wire attached to it. Graham pried it loose and rolled her to trace the wire. He removed a small black recorder-looking thing that was taped to the small of her back.

  From far away, Graham’s voice grew insistent, but Erin ignored it, fascinated by the scene before her of this other Graham, stuffing the recorder into his pocket, then putting the woman’s clothing back to rights.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, stroking her cheek with the backs of his fingers.

  A show of affection that Erin had thought belonged only to her. It wasn’t clear what this woman—Patricia—was to Graham, but it was clear they’d been lovers, had maybe even been in love. Whatever they’d been, it was something less than that now. The regret etched into Graham’s features, the same expression he’d shown Erin in the future, recounted a litany of failings and failure, of inescapable culpability and conflict.

  He stood and looked around. Sirens pealed in the distance, spurring Graham into action. He pulled a gun from the back of his waistband and used the hem of his shirt to wipe it down. Careful not to touch it, he bent over, wincing in pain, and put it in Patricia’s hand, pressing her fingers to the trigger and the grip. He stood and rubbed his hands on his pants, gave the room one last look, then left, taking care not to touch the knob on his way out.

  Erin knelt beside Patricia and put her hand to the woman’s forehead. Suddenly she was shoved back out of this room full of death and into another, sun filled room. Curtains fluttered in the hot afternoon breeze. Outside, the city went about its day, sending up street noise as evidence. Erin went to the window and gazed out, trying to get her bearings. She didn’t recognize the room or the view. Los Angeles maybe? She glanced around and spied a group of photos on an end table.

  Making her way over to them, she noticed the feminine touches in the room— a ruffled pillow, a black and white print of a flower, a pair of high heels on the floor, and the photo frames. Only a woman would choose something so ornate and delicate. Patricia’s lovely face gazed back at Erin, her smile wide and infectious. She stood next to a woman who looked remarkably like her. A sister, perhaps. The next photo made Erin gasp, her hand flying to her mouth. Gra
ham and Patricia locked in an embrace, clearly more than friends.

  Erin’s gaze swung to the next photo of Patricia and Graham again. This time they were both in uniform—dress blues—standing side by side. The familiarity in this photo was suppressed, but there if you knew to look for it. Patricia had been an L.A.P.D. cop just like Graham. Had they worked together? What had happened between them, leading up to the scene in that cheap apartment?

  A laugh down the hall brought Erin’s attention back to her surroundings. She started to look around for a place to hide before she remembered that she couldn’t be seen by whoever was coming into the room. This wasn’t real. None of this was real. The past. Nothing but the past.

  Patricia came into the room; her laugh, full and bright, entered ahead of her. She glanced back at someone following her. “You hate Branson. And he hates you. I don’t know why you’d want to go.”

  Graham appeared behind Patricia and Erin stumbled back a step. He looked like the old Graham, the one who stared back at her from the pages of her high school yearbook. So young. So unencumbered.

  He snagged Patricia around the waist and brought her up against him. “Maybe I just want to be where you are.” He nuzzled her neck, blatantly running a hand up to her breast.

  Erin’s chest burned, watching them together. Her internal chant of this is not real, this is the past was abruptly cut off as Patricia moaned and gripped Graham’s ass, grinding her pelvis against his. Erin clamped her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes closed tight, but not before she saw Graham kiss Patricia, pressing his lips to hers as he wrestled with the buttons on her blouse.

  The room was suddenly hot, stifling. Then Graham’s lips were on hers, his body against hers, as he’d been with Patricia. Erin opened her eyes and saw Graham nose to nose with her. He yelled something and then pressed his mouth to hers again. Through him she could see the other Graham—the past Graham—leading Patricia back to the bedroom as he shucked his shirt and Patricia laughed.

  Erin closed her eyes and focused all her energy into what she knew to be real—the feel of Graham’s lips on hers, his body covering hers. And slowly the sounds from the other bedroom faded away, replaced by the sound of Graham’s rough breathing as he broke the kiss. She opened her eyes again to find him hovering over her, his face creased with concern.

  “Finally,” he said, collapsing against her. He held her tight, mashing her arms to her sides and whooshing the breath out of her. Just as suddenly he released her, searching her face once again, making sure she was really in the here and now. “Say something.” He smoothed the hair back from her brow. “Erin…”

  “I’m here. I’m…back.”

  He crushed her to him again, this time not as hard. “Thank God. I didn’t know what to do. I was about to call for an ambulance.”

  “How long…?”

  He released her. “Twenty minutes, half an hour. I don’t know. I tried everything I could think of to get you back.”

  “Kissing? What am I? Sleeping Beauty?”

  “You can joke when I’m nearly hoarse from yelling your name?”

  She sat up and realized her nightgown and the bed around her was damp. “Why am I wet?”

  “Cold water. Ice. Warm water. I tried it all.”

  “And only the kiss worked?”

  “I was desperate.” He adjusted his position, sitting across from her. “Where did you go?”

  He asked the question as though she’d made the choice to leave. As though she’d left him on purpose when it was him who would leave her. She wanted to get defensive with him, blame him for all she’d seen as though he’d only just done it. But she was the only one at fault here. She’d purposefully focused on Patricia, drawing herself into that last scene. She had wanted to know more about the woman and the events that would haunt Graham from within like some parasitic specter.

  What had happened between him and Patricia that had led to the events in that apartment and her death? Graham still carried the guilt over it, would carry it for years, dragging it into his and Erin’s future lives together. She wanted to ask him about it, grill him for every detail, but she’d made a promise to her father a long time ago that she wouldn’t ever talk about what she saw in her visions. Talking about someone’s past with them before they could tell it themselves would change the natural course of things and might somehow alter the future.

  The future. The future was a monster she could confront but never vanquish. She hated it. Hated the knowing and yet not knowing enough. And now he wanted to know what she couldn’t tell him.

  So instead she looked him square in the eye and lied. “I went back to when I was a child.”

  “Uh huh.”

  He didn’t believe her. She pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged her legs, rocking a little. She’d have to give him something here. Maybe if she did, he’d give her something in return. “My mom…” She cleared her throat and started again, but the lump in her throat stuck. “My mom left when I was eight. I’d had a vision about it a week before. I told my dad about it. I wanted him to stop her, to do something to keep her from leaving us.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  She shook her head. “He got mad at me for telling him. He told me that he wouldn’t be stopping her from leaving. I think I told him I hated him. I don’t know.” She looked away, hiding sudden tears. She hated that she still cried over a woman who never gave her a backwards thought. “He forbade me from looking at the future ever again and he said that if I told my mom what I’d seen that she’d probably only leave sooner. So I kept my mouth shut and got an extra week with her because of it.” Her voice broke as the tears spilled over.

  Graham reached for her, but she pulled away. She didn’t want his pity. She wanted his truth. Swiping at her eyes, she continued. “I never looked at the future again until the day my boss handed me the Lasiter file and I accidentally saw Greg dead.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “No. I’m sorry that you’d rather dig up an old, painful memory than tell me the truth.”

  Erin looked at him with haunted eyes. Graham was sorry about that, too. Sorry she didn’t trust him enough to tell him the truth. She’d offered up that story about her mother too easily. What could she possibly have seen…?

  Oh, shit. Patricia. He could see it on her now, the questions piling up behind her beautiful eyes. She didn’t want to ask. She wouldn’t ask. She’d divulged that story about her mother to get him to confide in her about Patricia. How much had she seen? How far back had she gone? What did she know? How in the hell could he tell her any of it when he couldn’t bear to look at it himself?

  She’d tried to trade a part of herself for a part of him, an ugly memory for an ugly memory. Except his past transgressions ran colder and more dangerous than childhood heartbreak. He’d betrayed someone who’d trusted him, someone he loved and who had loved him in return. How could he possibly explain the reasons why, when he hadn’t fully accepted them himself?

  She was already looking at him differently. The worry and fear he’d felt for her during her episode boiled over. His breath came harsher, his heart thundered in his chest. The edges of his vision hazed red and still she sat there, silently pleading with him to tell her everything. She’d gone behind his back and riffled through his past, looking for what?

  “And what is the truth, Graham?” Her appeal was small and sad, lacking reproach.

  “What do you want from me?”

  She didn’t flinch at his anger. She just sat there, watching, waiting. The light from the bedside lamp cast half her face in shadow, but he didn’t need to see her full expression to feel her disappointment. It wrapped around him, lashing him to her like a prisoner.

  “What do you want?” he asked again, his voice betraying his inner turmoil.

  “I’m sorry. I…” She scrubbed her hands over her face. “I should know better. I’m sorry.”

  He pretended he didn’t see
the tears she tried to hide, but they took a nick out of him, marring his already damaged soul. He gulped back the rising pain. He’d hurt her. Again. Maybe his father was right. Maybe they were wrong for each other, but he’d gotten the most important part wrong. Erin wasn’t the one lacking, Graham was.

  “I shouldn’t have done it,” she was saying. “I knew better, but I couldn’t help it. I’m not like my aunt. Or I wasn’t. I don’t try to look into people’s lives, prying where I don’t belong. That’s not me.”

  So she had seen something about him, something she’d purposefully set out to find.

  “I want you to know,” she continued, “that I didn’t get to choose where the—”

  She pressed the heels of her hands into the sides of her head and squeezed her eyes shut, taking slow, deep breaths. He started toward her, but she waved him off.

  “I’ve got this. Give me…” More deep breaths. “…a minute.” After a few moments more, she sighed heavily and opened her eyes. “Okay. It’s gone.” Her sudden smile twisted his gut. “I did it. I did it all by myself.”

  He couldn’t help the half smile he gave her in return. “Good job.”

  “Thanks.” She grew serious again, twisting the edge of her nightgown. “This thing, this whatever it is that’s happening to me, it’s changed my ability. I used to be able to choose when and who I saw. Now, it’s like if I think about someone, bam, I’m there, past or present. I thought about Keith and saw his death with no decision on my part. None at all.”

  The fist-sized knot in his chest loosened. Whatever she’d seen of his past wasn’t her choice then. She hadn’t gone behind his back.

  “At least at first,” she said.

  “What do you mean at first?”

  “This last time I went from vision to vision. The first one I didn’t choose, but the second one… I purposefully changed the vision. I was wrong to do it and I’m sorry.”

  The knot was back. “Changed how?”