He nodded. “It’s not that I didn’t believe you before. I just wasn’t sure what to think that day. We’d only just met, of course. Then at the pier when you told me about the other things that were going on…” His voice trailed off and Sam felt like jumping for joy when she realized he remembered all she’d shared with him. “Anyway, I empathize with what you’re going through, and I have a good feeling about you. I believe you’re as sane as I am. Somehow, you’ll figure all this out. Whatever it is. I’ll help if I can.”
“Thank you,” she said. “That means a lot. And it’s important to me that you get to know the real Samantha. Not the one that’s been snappy and flighty and weepy.”
He chuckled. “That is exactly what I look forward to doing this afternoon. Let’s meet on the beach at the same spot where the horses nearly trampled you. That is, if the recollection of that brush with danger won’t be too traumatic for you.”
“No. I’m fine. Thanks for the help with the groceries.”
“You’re welcome. See you at one.” He offered another gleaming smile.
She watched him walk the few feet back to the market with her gaze fastened to his confidant swagger. An explosion of sensations blasted through her. It had been a very long time since she’d allowed herself to feel physically attracted to a man. And emotional vulnerability was not something she was used to. Something deep inside warned her to be careful, to stay in control, while the other part of her wanted to throw caution to the wind.
“Why shouldn’t I pursue this?” she mumbled, climbing into her car and slamming the door. She stuck the key in the ignition and sighed. “I’m thirty-two years old and have lived my whole life taking lots of risks, but afraid of getting close to a man. I’m sick of it. I don’t want to end up alone with a bunch of cats as my only companions.”
She pulled away from the curb, drove around the park past the bandstand, and headed toward the shore. Just beyond the town limits, she saw the little blonde girl skipping down the road. Her heart nearly skidded to a stop. Not wanting to scare the child, she pressed her foot gently on the gas to catch up. When she was very close, she pulled to the side of the road. The girl looked over her shoulder and her eyes enlarged, just as they had in Murphy’s Market. The same as she’d done in Murphy’s, she sprinted off, this time toward a stand of birch trees.
Sam wrenched the car door open and leaped out. “Wait! Don’t go!” she cried, running a few steps before stopping. The last thing she wanted to do was to frighten the girl. “I’m not going to hurt you! What’s your name?” she called, watching the little legs move like pistons.
The child craned her head over her shoulder and kept running until she reached the trees. Samantha shaded her eyes with her hand and saw two small boys step out from behind one of the trees. The taller boy reached for the little girl’s hand. As soon as she grabbed it, the three children faced the road, standing like corn stalks in a row, and stared at Sam.
Unnerved, she broke her gaze, jumped into the car, and drove off.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Ready to take a break?” Aidan laid his brush and paint palate down and strolled to the front of the easel. Samantha had been sitting still for close to an hour, on a large rock, in a pose that must have been straining her muscles—not to mention being hard on her derriere, which he’d noticed was shapely but didn’t have much padding to it. He offered her a hand off the rock.
“I sure am. I could use a cold drink. She arched her back and stretched her arms above her head. “Modeling is more difficult than I expected. But at least we’re not stuck inside. The weather is beautiful.”
“You’re doing a great job. I have some bottles of water and iced tea in my cooler. Which do you prefer?” He fished out one of each and she chose the tea. After quenching her thirst, she stepped toward the easel.
“Can I see what you’ve done so far?”
He moved in front of her, blocking her path and spread his arms wide. “Sorry, but it’s bad luck to look at a painting before it’s finished.”
“Really? I’ve never heard that before.”
“That’s because I just made it up.”
When her full lips parted in a sensual smile, his heart ricocheted inside his chest like a pinball. He doubted she was aware of how stunning she was. Lean, but curvy in all the right places; with a movie star’s face and that long blonde hair that shimmered in the sun, physically she was about as perfect as any woman he’d ever met. But it wasn’t just her beauty that intrigued him. Her strong and confidant personality meshed with a soft and feminine side that was very attractive. Plus, there was still the matter of him feeling like they’d known each other a long time. He kept hoping something would click to remind him of where they’d met before. Or whether the connection he felt was simply one of those unexplainable things.
“How long will it take you to finish the painting?” she asked, drawing him from contemplation.
“How long can you sit for me? Creating a masterpiece takes some time, you know.”
Again, her mouth curved. Her blue eyes twinkled. “The last thing I’d want to do is rush a master. I have all the time in the world. At least for the next two or three weeks.”
“That time frame sounds about right.”
Samantha giggled and pushed a strand of flyaway hair from her face. The purity of her laugh and the delicate movement of her hand stirred him to distraction. Something about her smile caused his thoughts to wander back to his childhood; again to the little girl he once knew and loved. When he let himself think of Remy, the pain of the past oozed open like a fresh wound. The decades-old ache crept into his bones when he recalled the day she’d disappeared, which is why he tried not to think of her often. But there was no way to stop the nightmares.
Remy had only been six when something terrible and unexplained had happened to her and her mother. He’d been nine at the time, and there had been talk. But when he’d asked questions, adults had pushed him aside and told him he was too young to understand and to mind his own business. Remy had been his business! But no one seemed to care, except his mom.
She’d tried to break it to him gently—to explain how sometimes the work many of their friends and neighbors did got them into trouble. That had been the case with Remy’s mother, his mom had said. ‘What kind of trouble?’ he’d asked. ‘Trouble with the law,’ she’d whispered.
What the law had to do with Remy, Aidan hadn’t known. All he knew was that one morning she’d been playing with him and Jason, and that afternoon she was gone from their lives forever. It wasn’t long before his own mother had packed up their meager belongings and the two of them left Pavee Cove in the dead of night. The moving started that night, and it was years before they’d settled in one place again. Mom had died without ever telling him the truth about Remy and her mother.
Losing his friend had left an imprint on him for life. He grew into a man, and women came and went through the years. But he’d never allowed any of them to stay for long. His heart had not been strong enough to risk another loss, until now. Samantha stirred thoughts of love in him again.
His penetrating gaze met hers.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked, searching his face and apparently reading the longing he felt powerless to control.
“I’m glad you came to Pavee Cove,” he said, after clearing the lump that had welled in his throat. “I like you a lot.”
A slow smile framed her lips. “I like you, too, Aidan.”
The roaring of the waves behind them kept rhythm with the steady beats of his heart. “Would you like to stretch your legs? Walk a while?” he asked.
“Sure. I’ve wanted to talk with you some more about the little girl I saw at Murphy’s Market this morning.”
They began to leisurely amble south.
“What about her?”
“I saw her skipping down the road as I drove home. When I pulled over and got out to talk to her, she ran away again. I watched her run toward a stand of trees
and was surprised when two boys popped out from behind a tree. When the little girl reached them, they all stared at me like they were the Stepford kids or something.”
He chuckled. “What did you do then?”
“They gave me the creeps so I jumped in the car and left.”
“Did the boys look to be her age?”
“I couldn’t see their features well. I suppose they were, or perhaps a little older. One of them held her hand. Maybe they were brother and sister.”
“At least you know you aren’t imagining people,” he said. “She’s real. Claire and Jason have both seen her.”
Sam nodded and then touched his arm. That sent an electrical shock racing through him. She cleared her throat. “I think I can explain what’s been happening to me. Do you want to hear?”
“Of course.”
She enlightened him as to the spyglass she’d found and the times she’d looked through it, as well as the changes that took place afterward. Then she retold the story Daniel Rehobeth had conveyed about Captain McBride. By the time she finished her tale, Aidan was speechless, but not for long.
“Are you saying you believe you find yourself in an alternate reality each time you look through that old spyglass?”
She nodded. “Alternate reality, parallel universe. I’m not sure if they’re one and the same, but yes, I think that’s what’s been happening. It sounds like an episode from the Twilight Zone, doesn’t it?”
“I’m certainly no expert, but I think the definition of an alternate reality is a self-contained and separate reality that co-exists with one’s own. Like in the TV show, Lost, where they had that flash sideways storyline going. Or the old movie they show every Christmas, where Jimmy Stewart’s guardian angel shows him what his hometown would be like if he had never existed.”
“You watched Lost?” Samantha snickered.
“A couple of episodes.”
They shared grins before Sam tossed out possible scenarios. “Maybe Captain McBride found the spyglass in some exotic country he visited, and he had no idea of the power it held. Or perhaps he came across a witch in his travels and she put a curse on it when he rejected her advances. You’re Irish, Aidan. Aren’t there Irish legends and myths about this sort of thing?”
“I don’t know much about legends and myths,” he admitted. “I’ve spent my entire life just making the best out of the hand I was dealt in the here and now. And despite my roots, I’m about as Irish as you are.”
The cockeyed angle of her head expressed her curiosity, but he didn’t feel the need to expound further. They took up walking again and she continued to ponder. “That’s why Jason had a limp the first day I met him, and he didn’t the next time I saw him.”
“And it must be the reason you thought I owned a dog named Paddy and then Jay showed up at my cottage with the same dog he calls Bowzer.”
Sam went on reflecting. “The mother of my best friend, Linda, told me she’d been dead for ten years. Not long after that conversation, I received a call from Linda telling me she’d just met the man of her dreams. I also called my doc—” She stopped in mid-sentence and halted her footsteps. Turning and looking deep into Aidan’s eyes, he sensed she needed to get something else off her chest.
“There’s one more thing I want to tell you. I’ve been going to a psychiatrist for three months. She thought a change of scenery would do me some good, so she suggested I come to Pavee Cove. I was having a hard time dealing with Chad’s accident. I was having nightmares and not sleeping well. I couldn’t concentrate on work. Medication didn’t help. In fact, when all this weird stuff started happening here, I flushed the pills down the toilet because I thought they were causing me to hallucinate.” She lowered her gaze and seemed ashamed of exposing what she probably thought was a weakness in character.
“I know you’re a strong woman,” he assured. “Asking for help when you need it is not a flaw. Nor does it show frailty. Every one of us needs a little help now and then, even a tough construction gal like yourself.”
She smiled at that comment.
“I don’t think differently of you for seeing a shrink. I’ve seen a few of them myself.”
Her widened gaze returned to his, probably wondering why he’d have reason to see a psychiatrist, but she was too polite to ask. “Do you remember being with me when my mother called my cell phone?” she said instead.
“Yes.”
“I told you she’s been dead five years, but I know it was her voice on the other end of the line. That must mean she’s alive in a parallel universe, right? That makes me feel good.”
“It should.”
Sam wrung her hands as she continued. “Linda’s been my friend for years in Portland. Then she was dead, and now she’s alive again. It’s all pretty confusing, but I started thinking about those things last night. And I thought…”
“What did you think? You can tell me. I won’t judge you.”
“After I talked to Daniel Rehobeth and realized what was going on, I thought I might be able to give Chad back the life he knew before. You know, make his world change so that he was no longer in a coma.” She shook her head in frustration. “I still don’t understand exactly how it works, but I wanted to do something to help him. So I looked through the spyglass last night before I went to bed and prayed I’d hear his voice on the phone this morning and everything would be back to normal.”
Aidan felt his pulse stop throbbing for a moment. Had she summoned the man out of his eternal sleep, like a witch casting a spell? The same guy she claimed looked, sounded and acted like him? If so, what did that mean?
His feelings for her had developed quickly. If this Chad fellow had been conjured into the man he’d been before his accident, Samantha would probably go back to Portland and take up where they’d left off. Is that what she was about to tell him? If so, where would that leave him? A distant memory at best. He had to ask the question, but was afraid to hear the answer. “Did it work? Is your partner awake and well?”
“No.”
He felt the twitching vein in his neck relax.
“His phone number was disconnected when I called it this morning.”
“I’m sorry.”
They began walking again, and her shoulder bumped his.
“Are you okay?” he asked after a long silence. In a twisted way, he was glad his doppelganger had not been raised from the dead, so to speak. But that didn’t mean he was insensitive to what the failure meant to her.
“Yes, I am. I made peace with him, and with myself, this morning. I finally feel I can move on with my life.”
Aidan inhaled through his nostrils and struggled to keep the grin off his face. Then his heart dropped, suspecting that meant she’d be leaving Pavee Cove and returning home. “Does this mean you’re going back to Portland?”
“Not yet. Now I have to discover if there’s a reason I was the one to find the spyglass behind the wall of the light tower or whether it was a coincidence. This is going to sound very strange, because I’m not into paranormal stuff or new age spirituality or anything like that. But I believe I was chosen, Aidan. I think it was my destiny to come to Pavee Cove. I don’t think any of this has been coincidence.”
“In what way do you feel it was your destiny?”
“It seems as if someone is trying to tell me something. Maybe it’s about my past. Maybe it has to do with my future.” She locked eyes with him again. “Whatever it’s about, I have to stay here to see it through. If I do, I suspect I’ll learn why trust has been difficult for me all my life, and the reasons I’ve been so afraid of getting close to people. I want to know why I feel I belong here.”
Aidan’s chest tightened. With every fiber of his being he wanted to blurt out that he felt a bond with her as strong as glue, and maybe her destiny was to find him, and vice versa. Perhaps that’s why she feels she belongs in Pavee Cove.
“I’ll help you figure it all out,” he said. “You don’t need to be afraid anymore.”
; Her appreciation shined through in her smile. “There’s one thing that has me baffled above all else,” she said.
“Only one thing?” he chuckled. “What’s that?”
“Everything changed each time I looked into the spyglass. We agree on that. Everything, that is, except you. Your physical presence, in one way or another, has remained the one constant since this crazy journey of mine began.”
He gazed into her bright eyes and shrugged. But something more than coincidence hinted that her fate was intertwined with his in a way neither of them could fully imagine.
CHAPTER TWENTY
When the dilapidated white cottage came into view, Samantha drew in a shallow breath. She hadn’t realized she and Aidan had already passed the lighthouse on their walk. “Do you know anything about this house?” she casually asked. She remembered him telling her that he and his mother had lived on the south end of the beach when he was a boy. At the time, she wondered if it was possible this cottage had been their home. What were the chances? Pretty good, considering all the weird coincidences so far. Holding her breath, she awaited his reply.
“No, but I used to play around here when I was a kid.”
She knew he told the truth, but the truth in which reality? She’d looked through the spyglass last night, which meant they could be in a parallel universe right now. Anything said, done or known yesterday by him, or anyone else she was acquainted with, could be different today. Perhaps he and his mother had lived here, only Aidan didn’t realize it right now because that memory was locked somewhere within the memories of him in another reality!
Considering all the complex possibilities and intricate scenarios made her head spin. “I was here yesterday,” she told him. “I saw a face staring at me out the window, and someone—a child I think it was—ran around the corner of the house.”
He didn’t appear surprised or concerned. “There is probably a homeless person or two shacked up in there.”
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