by Jewel E. Ann
I smile. “And what did she say?”
“You licked me. It was weird. But with the most wicked intentions flashing in your eyes, you’d lick a path from my Adam’s apple to the tip of my chin.” He shrugs, twisting his lips to conceal his smirk. “What can I say? You were one odd chick.”
I shove his chest. “Stop saying you. That’s not who I am. She’s hijacking my brain, but I was not the odd chick who licked you.”
This.
We can do this. We can uncover the past together. And when one of us breaks, the other one will know how to glue all the pieces back into place.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Nathaniel
She’s here.
But I can’t really touch her.
She’s here.
But I can’t really see her.
She’s here.
But she’s no longer mine.
“Promise me you’ll stay away from Doug Mann. Promise me you won’t go anywhere by yourself until we get this figured out. Always lock the door when you’re here. Remember there’s a panic button on the security system keypad.”
Her jovial expression fades. “Don’t go anywhere by myself?” She coughs a laugh. “That’s a little hard to do. I don’t have a bodyguard.”
“You have family and friends. Find someone to go with you. Find someone to be at home with you. And if you can’t, then promise you’ll call me.”
I hate scaring her, but this revelation has gutted me. Daisy was murdered. When she told me, it felt like my father breaking the news to me all over again.
Daisy’s body.
Drowned.
Dead.
I didn’t save her then, but I’m sure as hell not going to let history repeat itself.
Stepping over the debris, I bring her into my body and hug her. Swayze Samuels is a clash of everyone in my world. It’s difficult to make sense of the feelings I have for her.
The boss in me thinks she’s the perfect person to look after Morgan.
The boy in me feels elated to have his friend back.
The father in me wants to protect her like my own child.
But the man in me wants things that I shouldn’t want—not from a twenty-two-year-old woman engaged to another man.
So I kiss her head like a friend or a father, even if I want to know what the skin just below her ear would feel like against my lips or what her tongue would taste like sliding against mine.
I release her, taking a cautious step backwards before my dick gets any harder. I chastise myself for letting those thoughts take form in my head. Even if Dr. Greyson would dismiss them as harmless, they don’t feel harmless when I can’t control an erection.
“Are we done renegotiating my contract?” She cocks her head to the side.
“You chatted with my dad?”
“Briefly.”
“He liked you.”
She frowns. “Daisy.”
I shove my hands into my pockets. “He thought you were good for me.”
With a slight headshake, she rolls her eyes. “He thought Daisy was good for you and that’s because she fed you when money was tight.”
I nod with ease, thinking about every sack of food she brought to my house, the two sandwiches she packed in her school lunches, the money she slipped in my wallet when I wasn’t looking. “I didn’t deserve you.”
She goes to speak but clamps her jaw closed like she’s giving up on correcting me. Daisy is not a separate person, she’s just in a different body with a different name, but part of her is right in front of me. I’ll take any part that I can get because I loved everything about her. I still do.
“I’ll walk you to your car.”
Swayze nods.
There’s so much more I want to know. Did Dr. Albright mention hypnosis? I’d give anything for her to remember us like I remember us.
“Thank you, my big bad bodyguard.”
I hold open the door to the black truck. “You’re welcome.”
She rubs her lips together, hugging herself as if to keep warm and as if she’s waiting for something more. I’m not going to kiss her, even if that’s all I want to do at the moment. There’s no fucking way I’m that guy. But … I’m not a total saint either.
“Do you have my picture in your pocket today?”
“Pfft …” Her nose scrunches. “You’re full of yourself, Professor Hunt.”
I lift a single eyebrow. “Is that so?”
“Yeah, that’s so.” She turns to climb up into the truck.
I slide my left hand around her waist, pressing it flat to her stomach to pin her back to my chest. And fuck me if she doesn’t gasp in a way that I imagine she would if my cock were sliding into her for the first time.
Knock that shit off! My mind wars with itself and my body.
The fingers of my right hand dip into her front pocket. I slide out a photo—the photo of me. She doesn’t fight me. Not a word. I’m not sure she’s even breathing.
“Am I still full of myself?” I hold the photo up to her face. I’d love to see her expression. “No comment? Okay.” I slide the picture back into its spot. “I like riding in your front pocket.”
She takes in a quick breath and turns, eyes narrowed. “Yeah, well … I bet you still have that picture of me in your wallet.” Her chin tips up, shoulders back.
Happiness steals my smile. She brings me unfathomable joy. It’s the reason I named my daughter after her. And I love when she says me and I instead of Daisy or her.
“Always,” I say with complete sincerity.
Swayze deflates a fraction when I surrender total honesty. “The picture in your wallet makes sense.” She looks down at the fraction of space between us. “The picture in my pocket doesn’t make the same kind of sense.”
“Then why the fascination with it?”
She shrugs. “I love the expression on your face. Your hair. Your lips. Your eyebrows. The stubble along your jaw. But mostly …” Her gaze finds mine again. “It feels like a bridge to the gap between then and now. It feels like a big piece to this puzzle that’s in my head.”
And since I can’t stop myself, I slide my hands in her hair and kiss the top of her head one more time because I love how it feels. She rests her palms gently on my chest—I love how that feels too. Basically, I love all the feels—right or wrong—that I get from her.
If I were Griffin, I’d beat the ever living shit out of me for touching something that’s not mine. But the problem is … when I do touch her, my head goes blank, listening only to my heart whispering “mine.”
“Drive safely.”
“Goodnight.” She climbs up and gives me one last smile.
*
Swayze
“Hey, what an unexpected surprise.” My mom hugs me when I step inside the front door.
“Griffin’s working late and I wanted to talk to you.”
“Did you eat?”
I follow her to the kitchen. “Not yet.”
She gestures for me to sit at the table. “I’ll make you a sandwich while you talk.”
I’m not that hungry, but it might be easier to tell her everything when she’s not staring at me the whole time like a therapist. “That would be great. Thanks.”
“So what’s up? Wedding stuff?” She grabs things from the fridge.
“I know why I knew more than other kids my age.”
Mom laughs. “Wow. You made your father and me promise to never discuss it again. I haven’t mentioned it in years. Now we’re going to talk about it?” She shoots me an incredulous look.
Drumming my fingers on the table, I nod. “It’s quite the story.”
With her back to me, she opens jars and starts assembling what looks like a turkey sandwich. “I like stories. Let’s hear it. Once upon a time …”
“Once upon a time, over twenty-two years ago, I was Nathaniel Hunt’s best friend, Morgan Daisy Gallagher.”
She stills.
I wait.
It’s quite the opening
line to a story.
Ever so slowly, she looks over her shoulder, lips parted.
I smile. “I know things she knew. People she knew, especially Nate. I see strangers that I recognize, but I remember them from many years ago … as in before I was born. I just know a lot of random stuff, but now it doesn’t seem so random.”
The butter knife clanks against the plate, and she completely turns toward me. “Swayze …”
I hold up my hands, palms out. “I know. Believe me. I know. It’s crazy. Not possible. It begs for a more logical explanation. It’s taken me months to even consider this could be a real possibility. But there is no other explanation. This is the reason Dr. Greyson referred me to a new psychiatrist. Dr. Albright is sort of an expert on the matter.”
“Swayze …” She moves toward me like I could attack her.
“Mom, I need you to believe me so I can tell you what this has done to me.”
With unsteady legs, she plops down onto the chair next to me. “You’re asking me to believe in reincarnation.”
“I’m asking you to believe me. People pack sanctuaries every Sunday to worship God. They can’t prove he exists. I have way more proof that I was Morgan Daisy Gallagher in another life than anyone has that God truly exists. Many religions believe in reincarnation. And some very brilliant historic figures also believed in it.”
She chews on the inside of her cheek, forehead wrinkled. “Start from the very beginning.”
And so I do. I start with the day I saw Nate in the waiting room at Dr. Greyson’s office. Nothing gets left out, not even the photo in my pocket. After an hour of trying to explain every little detail, including Doug Mann and why I went so crazy over Erica’s death, my mom looks like a statue or maybe a ghost, pale and expressionless.
“What about Griffin?” She speaks her first words.
“I don’t know. Sometimes I think he believes me, but whether he does or not, it doesn’t matter. Either way, he hates that I have this connection with Nate. And I don’t blame him, but I also don’t know what to do about it. He wants me to quit my job so we can pack up and move far away from all of this, but I can’t outrun what’s in my head.”
“He’s jealous?”
“I think so. It’s so hard to tell with him. He’s this pillar of confidence, and he’s good at hiding his emotions.”
“Should he be jealous?”
“No.”
She holds up the photo of Nate that’s still on the table. “Are you sure?”
Ghosting my fingers over my bottom lip, I stare at it. After a few seconds of contemplative silence, tears burn my eyes. “I feel like I’m piecing myself together. And I don’t know if Griffin will still love me the same way when he sees the whole me.”
Mom sets the photo back on the table. “Tell me about these pieces.”
A tiny smile fights its way to my lips. She’s had so much therapy she sounds like a therapist.
“They’re thrilling and utterly terrifying. When I’m with Nate and we’re talking about the past, it’s not weird. It feels natural. He’s so familiar. It’s the epitome of feeling like you’ve known someone your whole life. And I adore Morgan. I think I would no matter what, but when I’m there, I can’t stop thinking he named his daughter after me. It’s life-changing.”
My mom makes slow nods, trying to process everything I throw at her. “Beyond the flattery of him naming his daughter after this person you believe was you, and the familiarity, how do you feel about him? What is your relationship with him? Swayze…” a bit of regret sinks into her eyes “…do you have feelings for him that go beyond just friends?”
“No. I don’t have …” I sigh. “It’s complicated. It’s confusing. When I’m with Griffin, I have this need for him to accept me as not only Swayze but the parts of me that are Daisy too. But when I’m with Nate, I like the separation.”
“Because if you’re Daisy with him, then Swayze is not cheating on her fiancé.”
“Mom …” I frown. “That’s not what’s happening. I’m not cheating on Griffin.”
“Have you crossed the line with Nate?”
I’m not sure if I should be offended that she doesn’t trust me or elated that she’s protecting Griffin. Pushing out of my chair, I finish making the sandwich she started. “You’ll have to explain this line.”
“Have you kissed him?”
“No.”
He’s kissed me on the head, but that doesn’t count. Does it?
“Do you want to kiss him?”
I finish cutting the sandwich in half and set the knife off to the side, pausing a moment to hold back my knee-jerk reaction. This is my mom, the person who loves me unconditionally. She loves me if I meet Griffin at the altar. She loves me if he leaves me tomorrow. I don’t have to hide from her.
“I love Griffin. There has not been one day since we met that I’ve questioned wanting to be with him—not since I met Nate, not since I’ve acknowledge my past, not when we’ve fought, not yesterday, not today, and I won’t question it tomorrow.”
“But?”
My gaze shifts from the knife to my mom. “But Nate has become my obsession.”
We both move our attention to the photo.
“I can’t shut off my brain, but the one thing that scares me more than the deluge of memories is this insatiable curiosity.”
“About?” She shoots me a sidelong glance.
Biting my lips together, I search for a way to explain this without it sounding like I want it to happen. “I wonder what his lips would feel like pressed to my neck where he used to kiss her … or me. I wonder if it would bring forth more memories.”
“Or start a fire that would burn down your whole world?” Her eyebrows lift, giving me that motherly-warning look.
“Yeah … or that.”
“Do I need to give you the curiosity-killed-the-cat speech?”
I shake my head.
“Do you think that Griffin might be right? Maybe you should find another job. I know it won’t change the memories you have, but it would eliminate the temptation.”
I grab half of my sandwich and take a bite. “You make it sound like I’m going to hop in bed with him,” I mumble.
“Can we talk woman to woman?”
I shrug.
“You’re carrying around a shirtless picture of him in your pocket. I just worry that if he put those lips on your neck, you’d wonder what they’d feel like in other places. Where would it stop, if not in his bed?”
“It’s not going there.” I don’t mean to sound so prickly. “We’re friends, but more than that, Morgan is attached to me and I’m attached to her too. The fact is he needs me to take care of her, and I need a job. I like my job. And in a non-jumping-in-his-bed way, Nate and Morgan feel like extended family.”
“I’m your family. Griffin, his parents, and his sisters are your family. We love you. This cannot end well, and you know it. And if what you said about Doug Mann is correct, it’s not safe for you to be anywhere he can easily find you. Tomorrow you need to go back to the police and plead your case, make them understand. Honey, Griffin isn’t trying to tear you away from Nate and Morgan, he’s trying to protect you.”
“The police are not going to buy my reincarnation story no matter how hard I try to sell it. And I’m not going to spend the rest of my life running. I want to figure something out so I don’t have to leave my home.”
“Your home or Nate?”
I bite my tongue because it’s covered in defensive words that won’t justify anything.
“I need to get home.”
With a sad, defeated smile, Mom pulls me in for a hug. “I’m on your side no matter what. All I want is for you to be happy.”
“Thank you.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Nice to see you again, Swayze. Please, have a seat.”
“Thank you.” I take my seat across from Dr. Albright. I like her. She’s warm and approachable.
“Tea?”
“I’m
good, but thank you.”
“How have things been since we last talked?”
“Interesting I suppose is the best word. I told Nate that I think Daisy was murdered. He wasn’t real receptive at first, in fact, he was quite angry, but I think we’re good now. He’s worried about Doug. And I think he’s frustrated that the only proof we have is that of a twenty-two-year-old girl who claims to be his dead friend’s reincarnated soul. The police aren’t receptive to that.”
She nods once before sipping her tea.
“I told my mom everything too. I think the hardest part for me is all the gaps that I haven’t been able to fill in yet.”
“We could try to fill some of them in with hypnosis, but you’d need to be sure it’s what you really want. There are pros and cons with it. You would need to decide if the benefits outweigh the risks.”
I wring my hands in my lap. “What are the pros?”
“Possible increased memory of certain events. Deeper understanding. Validation. Maybe even what it would take to put a murderer behind bars.”
“Hypnosis is recognized as something reliable and valid in a court of law?”
“I’m thinking more along the lines of you remembering something that might help shed new light on the case. Something officials missed the first time.”
I nod. “And the cons?”
“Well, the most obvious one is it might not work on you. Beyond that … there’s the possibility that the very information that could put Doug Mann behind bars might also give you images or memories that you can’t forget. The kind that give you nightmares. The kind that lead to PTSD. It’s a risky tradeoff, and I don’t want to downplay it at all.”
“Right now I don’t remember the exact details of Daisy’s death. My death.” I cringe. It’s still so incredibly weird. “But you’re saying I could. And who wants to relive their death, especially if it was tragic and traumatizing?”
“Precisely. But the chances are truly slim. The unconscious mind is there to protect you. Most of the time we can’t bring forth memories that our conscious mind can’t handle.”
“But if Doug preys on another innocent woman, and I feel like I could have prevented it …”
