Then she was falling, her muscles working him, dragging him with her, and he fell on her, holding her, taking her, going deep, straight to her heart, until he lost himself inside her.
In the moments after, he slid to his side, pulling her with him, staying inside her. He needed to keep her as close as two people could be. And he relished the tiny aftershocks that still rippled through her body.
“Did I scream?” she murmured, as if she were afraid they’d woken the whole house.
“I don’t know. I couldn’t hear anything over the roaring in my ears.” Sex had never been like this with anyone else.
She nestled against him like a cat burrowing into a soft blanket. “So should I start calling you George?” Her breath whispered across his chest.
“Only if I can call you Myra.”
“Forget it. The least Nana could have done was pick something lyrical like...I don’t know.”
“How about Bertha?”
She laughed aloud, then clapped a hand over her mouth. Until she spoke again. “Okay, so tell me about Dorie.”
“Sorry Nana brought that up. Dorie coming back is an old family legend.” He twirled a lock of her hair around his finger.
“Except that it really seemed to upset your brother.”
“It always does.” He tried to tell the story with as little emotion as possible, but Livie made murmurs of solace as he laid it out for her. He concluded with the worst. “Jake found her body out in the woods.” He would never forget Jake’s face as he ran into the house. “He was only nine years old.”
“Oh my God,” Livie whispered.
“And he’s spent thirty years waiting for her to come back,” he finished.
“So,” she said, “reincarnation is a thing with your family.”
“I guess you could say that. I’m not sure whether Jake got Suze into the idea or Suze got to him. But they’re true believers.” Somewhere water was running, a toilet flushing perhaps.
“Except Dorie’s never come back.”
“Not that we know of,” he conceded.
The bed sat beneath the window. He’d left it cracked for a little air, but as their extra body heat dissipated, the night chilled him. He pulled the blankets around their shoulders.
“What if she was born over in Russia or somewhere far, far away?”
He snorted. “Worse, what if she was born a man?”
“Don’t make me laugh,” she said sternly. “This is serious business.”
“Suze and Jake claim that souls travel together. If she was really that important in his journey, then she’ll be back.”
“Obviously Nana believes, too.” She made finger trails on his abdomen.
Her touch started something stirring again. “Yep.”
“So what about George and Myra?”
The names had been a joke in the heat of the moment, both a turn-on and a little levity. It made the sex fun. That was another thing Livie did for him. “Nana’s an old lady. She isn’t always completely there, if you know what I mean. Forgetting something you told her two minutes ago, mixing up names, telling you the same thing she told you an hour ago. It’s some form of dementia, not completely debilitating, but...” He let the thought trail off.
Livie finished it with an accurate assessment. “But she remembers vivid details of events and people from when she was young. Like it was yesterday.”
“Right,” he agreed.
“Well—” She bit him lightly, just left of his nipple, and he twitched inside her. “Then maybe she really does remember us.”
“She can’t remember us from back then. We don’t look the same.”
“Maybe she recognizes our souls.”
“Livie.” He wanted to deny it. It sounded ridiculous. But since meeting her, so many things had happened that made him question his snap judgments.
“No,” she said. “Think about it. We’re both on the edge of believing we’ve been together in past lives. We feel it. Let’s go with it. Let’s say it’s possible.”
He’d thought he would be the one to have to convince her, but she was dragging him along with her. Yet, remembering the suffocating nightmare, he didn’t say anything. Part of him didn’t want to analyze why the nightmare had started the night Toni confronted them.
“Do you remember in the hypnosis when I said I’d seen my grandfather from that life in this life?”
He hadn’t until this moment. “Yeah,” he said, giving her permission to go on.
“I said I’d only seen him once, while I was walking.”
“Yeah?” He ended it with a question this time.
“I think he was the homeless man.”
Someone walked over his grave. The old cliché had never had meaning before, but he felt goose bumps rise. He recalled the man’s words. She’ll be the death of you. She always is and always will be.
He felt Livie’s gaze on him. “I remember him.”
“Maybe he knew us, too, like Nana did.”
He thought of the dead squirrel on his doorstep. And he thought of Toni.
“You’ve got to admit it’s possible,” she said softly.
He couldn’t deny it. “Okay, I agree, let’s say it’s possible.”
She studied him a long moment. “Then let’s find out more about Myra and George.”
She shifted, moving against him, flexing around him, and hell if he didn’t want her again, need her, to banish the chill, to heat his insides, to drive out all thoughts, all questions. All fears.
She seduced him with her body, with her words. “I want to know,” she whispered before she took his lips in a long, drugging kiss. Then she finished the thought as if there hadn’t been the tick of several seconds. “I want to know if we were lovers back then, too.”
* * * * *
Toni pulled her jacket tighter around her. The night had grown cold, and she’d had to turn the engine on a couple of times to warm the car’s interior.
She would have made a good detective. Sitting for hours didn’t bother her. She’d waited in the San Francisco parking garage for half the day. Thank God for that or she’d have missed them. They hadn’t headed back down the Peninsula to Bern’s house. Instead they’d gone north via the Bay Bridge and Highway 80. Neither of them had a clue she’d followed. She was so good. Of course, they hadn’t been looking either. Then she’d waited at the end of the street by the big house.
Jesus, he’d taken her to meet his family. It just about made Toni puke. She hated them in that moment. More than she’d ever hated anyone in her life. And she was pretty damn good at hating, so that was saying a lot.
Now they were here in some cute, cozy, sickening little bed and breakfast. Gag me with a spoon. Bern had carried their bags inside. They had bags, for God’s sake, which meant they’d been planning this little trip. How long had Bern been cheating on her with Livie? All along, she was sure. Because you didn’t take a woman to meet your family and stay in some cheesy romantic B&B if you hadn’t known her a while.
The lights had gone on in the dormer of the top room and shadows moved across the window. Then finally the lights blinked off. She’d gotten out of the car then, moved closer to the house, stood beneath a tree at the curb. And watched. It could have been her imagination, but Toni didn’t think so. She knew that shifting shadow in the dark was Livie astride him. Once she was sure she saw the light of the moon across Livie’s face. Then light and dark morphed and coalesced, and it had been Bern, his features contorted in ecstasy.
She’d felt a murderous rage in that moment. Then it, too, had morphed and coalesced into something else. Ragged determination maybe. Raw desire. And something more: she wanted revenge.
She didn’t need sleep. She didn’t need food. She had needs of a less physical nature. She sat in the dark for hours. Watching. Thinking. Planning.
Chapter Twenty
“I lived up in Red Cliff until I married Clare’s grandfather right after the war.” Nana didn’t call it World War Two. To her it was the
war.
“Red Cliff is about forty-five minutes north,” Clare added for Livie’s benefit.
The late morning was warm, and they were seated around a small café table beneath the porch overhang. Another night without a bad dream. Livie was feeling marvelous. Especially since she had a mission, which was to discover everything she could about George and Myra.
She’d heard of Red Cliff, she just hadn’t been sure where it was. For someone in the Bay Area, anything north of Sacramento was simply Northern California.
“I need to take my pearls down to Robinson’s tomorrow to have them restrung.” Nana played with the locket at her throat, as if touching it reminded her of the pearls.
“We did that last week, Nana,” Clare said, as if her grandmother hadn’t mentioned the pearls fifteen minutes ago.
Bern’s sister-in-law had endless patience with her grandmother. Clare was also an admirable hostess, friendly, courteous, and solicitous. And she sure knew how to make a whopping great brunch of Eggs Benedict, fried potatoes, freshly cut fruit, mimosas, and cinnamon rolls. She couldn’t weigh more than a hundred and ten pounds, if that, which was a wonder considering the size of the meal she’d prepared. Except that Livie had noticed she didn’t eat much. Clare was more concerned about making sure everyone else ate.
After brunch Bern and his brother Wade had retired to the den to talk business, specifically their Wednesday project meeting. Bern’s mom had returned home. She’d be back for dinner. Jake had never shown up at all. Either he wasn’t as sociable as the rest of his family or he hadn’t gotten over Nana’s comment about Dorie.
Livie thought of the discussion with Bern last night. Dorie. Reincarnation. The homeless man. Myra and George.
She didn’t want to tackle Nana in front of Clare, but she didn’t know how to politely get rid of the woman either. Instead she’d been grilling the old lady about her past and trying to glean facts that would give her a point of reference to begin the search for Myra and George.
“Would you like more lemonade?” Clare asked. A lock of blond hair fluttered in the breeze, and she tucked it back behind her ear.
“Thanks.” Livie held her glass out for a refill.
“How about another tart?” It was the third time Clare had offered. She was certainly all about showing her love through food.
Livie patted her stomach. “No, really, I’m full after that lovely brunch.”
“I’ll take one,” Nana was quick to say.
“You’ve already had two, Nana.”
Nana stared at Clare, her mouth agog. “I have not. This is my first.” Then she snatched a tart off the plate and began nibbling. Just as she had with the two she didn’t remember eating.
A phone rang inside the house. Clare jumped up. And Livie thanked the caller for an answer to her prayers. She’d now have a few uninterrupted minutes to have a real go at Nana.
“That’s probably Amber,” Clare said. “She usually checks in on Sunday.” Then she dashed into the house, the screen door slapping behind her.
“She’s probably in recovery after some Saturday night rave and isn’t capable of doing anything else except call her mother.” Nana’s voice was slightly raspy with age. She licked the raspberry jam out of her tart.
It was just as Bern said. Nana was all there, saw everything, and had oddly new-fangled ways of saying things. Yet she easily forgot something that had happened in the last few minutes, like the first two tarts and her restrung pearls.
But Nana had not forgotten about Myra and George.
As they drank lemonade and ate tarts, Livie had asked questions about Nana’s history. She’d learned with a few terse statements about the deprivation of the depression and the hardships of war. Nana had come to Freedom in 1945 at the age of twenty-two. So where had she known Myra and George?
“Tell me about George,” she asked bluntly.
Nana sparkled at her. “You certainly had your eye on him before your sister got to him.”
Livie tossed that right back at her. “What about you, Nana?”
“Oh my, I was in only my teens when George showed up.”
“And that was when you lived in Red Cliff?”
“Of course. George was so handsome.” Nana clasped her wrinkled, age-spotted hands together and gazed dreamily at nothing as if she were that adolescent girl again. Then she pursed her lips. “But he was much older than I was, at least thirty, and anyway it was your sister who got her hooks into him.” She leaned close, lowered her voice conspiratorially. “I’ve always wondered if maybe he let everyone think he was killed in the war. Just so he didn’t have to come back to her.” She sat back once more.
This was all well and good, but it was gossip and didn’t get Livie any closer to something she could actually research. “What was his last name?” Weren’t there lists of soldiers who had died? Livie had no idea.
But Nana gave her an odd look, her head tipped to the side. “Well, I...” She trailed off in semi-confusion. “I can’t remember.” She seemed nonplussed by that, as if forgetting that she’d had her pearls restrung last week was normal, but forgetting a name from seventy years ago was a calamity.
“That’s all right.” Clare was still on the phone inside the house, her voice soft. Livie didn’t know how much longer she’d have for questions. “What about Myra’s last name?”
Nana’s face suddenly brightened. “That’s why I can’t remember his name. Because everyone always called him”—she lowered her voice to a deep pitch—“that fortune hunter who married the eldest Taylor girl.”
Livie’s heart beat a little faster. “Myra Taylor?”
“Nonono. Betty. Your sister.”
It was kind of funny—odd funny—that Nana thought Livie was Myra yet she didn’t find it odd that Livie had to ask what her own last name had been. But there was still a problem. “Taylor’s a pretty common name.” She had no idea how to search for a girl who had been born in the twenties with an unremarkable name.
Nana shrugged as eloquently as a Valley girl. “But the Taylor house is still there. It’s one of those historical homes.”
Historical home? Now there was something she might be able to use. Historical homes were registered. Maybe she’d discover a history of the house.
She might even find out all about Myra.
* * * * *
“Supposedly all we had to do was ask for the Taylor house.”
Bern eyed Livie. He’d found a spot on Red Cliff’s main street. The parking was metered, the storefronts old but freshly painted, and the sidewalks fairly crowded with Saturday afternoon shoppers and families heading to the ice cream parlor and soda fountain.
Livie had been on him the moment he stepped out of Wade’s den, and despite the seemingly bland desire for taking a drive, there’d been fire in her eyes. Something was up.
During the forty-five minute drive north to Red Cliff, she’d gone on and on about the Taylor house, the Taylor girls, Myra and Betty, and George No-Last-Name. “What if it’s us?” She grabbed his arm. “I mean really us.”
He created a monster with the whole reincarnation thing.
The problem? No one in Red Cliff knew anything about the Taylor house. They’d inquired in the bank, a grocery store, the library, and the post office. No one knew the house.
“Don’t forget your source of information is Nana,” he said dryly.
Livie spread her hands. “It’s the present she gets confused about. But stuff from when she was a kid, she remembers that like it really was yesterday.”
Old folks could be that way. They mistook people they’d just met for someone they knew long ago simply from the line of a nose or something they thought they saw in their eyes. Wade was not going to be happy they were indulging Nana’s fantasies. At least Livie hadn’t given a reason for her sudden desire to take a drive.
“You’re going to end up being disappointed.” If they didn’t find anything today, Bern would ask Gillespie about the house on Wednesday. The company had
been headquartered in Red Cliff since its inception in the fifties.
Livie shrugged, made a face. “Maybe.” She pointed a finger at him. “But you’re the one who had me do the regression, and now I can’t stop thinking about all the possibilities.”
“Sure, blame me.” He wrapped an arm around Livie’s shoulders and tugged her close before she was mowed down by a woman with a stroller and two toddlers harnessed and leashed. Weren’t leashes for dogs? Then again, it was better than losing the kids in a crowd.
“Wait a minute. How about there?” Livie pointed to a realtor sign in a storefront window across the street.
With her hand in his, they jaywalked after a car had passed. Pictures of homes for sale were taped to the inside of the glass. A bell tinkled overhead when they opened the door, and freshly brewed coffee scented the air. A couch and two chairs surrounded a low table strewn with open photo albums containing the stats on properties for sale. Beyond that, the remainder of the small office space was consumed by three desks and a man who was almost as wide as he was tall.
“Hi, there, folks. I’m Rowdy Reed, at your service. Interested in a home in these parts? We’ve got some great deals. Where’re you from?” He moved with surprising agility considering his size, and offered Bern a meaty hand.
“We’re not looking to buy,” Livie said before Rowdy could start flinging property listings at them. “We’re trying to find a house that my grandmother mentioned. She used to live around here. It’s the Taylor house. Do you know it?”
“The Taylor house.” Rowdy stroked his sagging jowls. His thick hair was snowy white, and Bern guessed he was well past sixty. Old school, which would explain the listings being in books rather than computerized.
“We don’t have any properties listed for anyone named Taylor.” He rocked heel to toe and Bern was actually afraid he might topple.
“This would have been back in the late thirties,” Livie prompted.
“The thirties, you say? A bit before my time.”
Twisted By Love, Reincarnation Tales, Book 1 Page 16
