Morning Light

by Catherine Anderson

  She heard herself say, “That’s an absolutely preposterous suggestion.”

  She started to turn away, but the cowboy clamped a hard hand over her arm.

  “Look, lady,” he said in a deep voice that curled around her like hot wisps of smoke. “I’m no happier about this mess than you are. All this hocus-pocus stuff gives me the willies. I’ll also remind you that you’re the one who sought me out, not the other way around.”

  Loni jerked her arm free of his grasp. “If I give you the willies, why are you even here?”

  “That’s a damned good question.”

  The vision evaporated as quickly as it came. An icy chill had raised goose bumps on Loni’s skin, and she was shaking violently. The awful dizziness assailed her again, and she dropped onto the sofa, too stunned to remain standing.

  “Loni!”

  Deirdre’s voice still sounded far away. Struggling to focus, Loni finally spotted the cell phone lying on the hardwood floor where she must have dropped it. With a trembling hand she scooped up the device and pressed it to her ear.

  “I’m okay,” she managed to croak, even though her head was still whirling.

  “You scared me half to death. What happened? Did you fall or something? I heard a loud crash.”

  “I, um, dropped the phone.” Loni swallowed to steady her voice. “It was him, Deirdre.” Loni had been seeing the cowboy in her dreams practically all her life, but this was the first time she’d ever seen him in a waking vision. “My dream cowboy. It was my dream cowboy.”

  “What?” Deirdre asked incredulously. “Where did you see him? Does he live next door or something?”

  “No, no.” Another wave of nausea made Loni’s stomach pitch. “I didn’t actually see him. Not in the flesh, anyway.” In the MacEwen family it went without saying what Loni meant by that. “He was standing in front of the fireplace—” Loni broke off and swallowed hard again. “He touched me, Dee. That’s never happened before, not ever.”

  “You don’t sound so good.”

  “I’m dizzy and sick to my stomach. He crossed over somehow.”

  “Crossed over? I’m not following.”

  “He was real.” Loni heard the hysteria in her voice and struggled to calm down. “Not just a vision, but real. I actually felt his hand on my arm.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Deirdre said. “Sit down and don’t move until I get there.”

  Loni had no trouble complying with her sister’s orders. Still filmed with cold sweat, her body quivered with weakness, and every time she opened her eyes the room spun.

  True to her word, Deirdre arrived in less than ten minutes. She burst through the unlocked front door as if a full-scale avalanche were chasing at her heels, not a far stretch considering her attire, a powder pink parka over a sweater, and black slacks tucked tidily into fur-trimmed snow boots. Her cropped hair, spiked with styling gel, poked up every which way like swirls of rich, dark chocolate.

  “Are you all right?”

  “A bit better now, thank goodness.”

  Deirdre rushed over to the sofa, her bright blue eyes taking sharp measure of Loni’s face. “Oh, honey, you’re white as a sheet. Sit tight. I’ll get you some water.” She hurried to the kitchen, only to return just as quickly. “No drinking glasses. What was I thinking? The water probably isn’t even turned on.”

  Throat still burning, Loni rasped, “That’s fine. I don’t need a drink.” What she needed was to lie down in a dark room and regroup. “I’m just feeling a little sick.” Propping her elbows on her knees, she buried her face in her hands. “I’m sorry about this. I don’t normally feel so awful afterward. Only a little dizzy and disoriented for a few seconds.”

  “It’s the house. I knew it would cause you problems.” Deirdre sank onto the sofa and rubbed Loni’s back. “Just look at you. Ice-cold and shaking like a leaf.”

  “It isn’t the house. I’ve been seeing the cowboy all my life.”

  “Never when you were wide-awake and in the middle of a conversation. Trust me, it’s the house. He’s apparently been here at one time or another and stood by the fireplace. When you touched it you had a psychometric episode. That’s all.”

  “No.” Loni dropped her hands to meet her sister’s gaze. “I didn’t touch the fireplace. More to the point, this room was decorated just the way I hope to do it.” Loni described the walls and other appointments. “I was seeing into the future, Dee, not the past.”

  “Precognition?” Deirdre frowned. “So he hasn’t been here yet.”

  “No, not yet.” Loni curled her arms around her waist. “I’m scared, Dee.”

  “Scared of what?”

  “Of finally meeting him. That’s what this means, you know, that he’ll soon be standing right here in this room.”

  “And that’s a bad thing? When we were girls it was all you talked about, meeting him someday.”

  Loni had long since abandoned the foolish, romantic notions of her youth. Men didn’t take well to her psychic ability, and her dream cowboy would be no exception.

  “I’m not a girl anymore.” Loni groped for the words to explain how she felt. “My life is in a shambles. All I want is to pick up the pieces and move forward. The last thing I need is another complication.”

  “Meaning a man?”

  Just the thought made Loni’s stomach lurch again. “Especially a man.”

  “If it’s the right man, it may be a lovely complication. Why on earth does that possibility frighten you?”

  Loni rubbed her sleeves, trying to rid herself of the chill that seemed to have settled in her bones. “I don’t want to love someone who can’t love me back or bails out because he can’t handle my gift. I don’t want to let myself need someone, only to lose him. And last but not least, I’m not thrilled with the thought of being laughed at because I’m still a virgin at thirty-one.”

  “Laughed at?” Deirdre rolled her eyes. “Trust me, Loni, the right man won’t bail out, and he definitely won’t laugh at you for being a virgin. He’ll be delighted. At least, Michael was.”

  “You were a virgin when you met Michael?”

  “What do you think, that I slept with every guy at university?” Deirdre fished inside her pocket as she pushed to her feet. Once at the fireplace, she had a cigarette clamped between her lips and a lighter in her hand. Tonguing the cigarette to one corner of her mouth, she added, “With Mom breathing down my neck all the time, when did I ever have a chance to be promiscuous? I couldn’t even forget my coat and walk across campus without her calling me to scold.”

  Loni had suspected for some time that Deirdre was smoking again, but actually seeing her do it was a shock. “You shouldn’t do that. It’s bad for you.”

  Narrowing her eyes against the sting, Deirdre exhaled a puff of smoke. “It settles my nerves. Did you know that Mom called me last night right after Michael and I made love?”

  “No. What did she want?”

  “To inform me that my failure to urinate after sexual intercourse is probably why I have this bladder infection. Can you imagine how it feels to know she can tune in at will, even behind our closed bedroom door? It’s an invasion of our privacy, and I can’t help but wonder how much she saw. I love her to pieces. Don’t get me wrong. But it totally pisses me off when I find out she’s been spying on us. Even worse, I don’t dare tell Michael why I get so cross with her sometimes. He’d die of embarrassment.”

  Loni had been on the receiving end of their mother’s psychic ability, but she’d never really resented it. “Mom doesn’t mean to invade your privacy, Deirdre. Something just cues her, and she tunes in for a few seconds. The house is brimming over with keepsakes from our childhoods. I’m sure she doesn’t intentionally touch something of yours so she can be a bedroom voyeur.”

  “I know.” Deirdre exhaled another lungful of smoke. “But even though I know it’s unintentional, her dropping in like that totally freaks me out.”

  “It isn’t easy for you, is it? Being the only no
rmal female in the family, I mean.”

  “Correction. In our family I’m the abnormal one. Gram and Mom both have the gift, and so do you. One clairvoyant female in each generation, and my number didn’t hit. It hardly seems fair, since I’m the oldest. Why did it pass over me and go to you?”

  “You wish you were psychic?”

  Loni couldn’t imagine it. Yet, in many ways, that explained Deirdre’s fascination with psychic phenomena and her penchant for memorizing all the scientific terms for them.

  “I’ve always been the odd one out. I hear you and Mom and Gram talking, and it’s like not knowing the alphabet at a spelling bee. I love all of you, and I enjoy being with you, but I feel like an outsider. I always have.”

  Loni could scarcely credit her ears. “Oh, Dee. I never realized you felt that way.”

  “I’m sorry for unloading on you right now. Bad timing. You have enough problems at the moment.” She flicked ashes into the grate and sighed. “It’s my guess that you’re about to meet your cowboy, unless you can think of some way to alter the future.”

  Loni closed her eyes. “I can’t alter the future. The Cheryl Blain incident proved that.”

  Deirdre snorted. “The Cheryl Blain fiasco, you mean. You did everything you possibly could, and it wasn’t your fault she died. The police and news media are responsible for that.”

  Loni couldn’t bear to think about it, especially not now. “I’m still not feeling well. Can you chauffeur me home and bring me back in the morning to get my car? I don’t think I should try to drive right now.”

  “Sure,” Deirdre said softly. She tossed the cigarette into the fireplace and stubbed it out with the toe of her boot. “I’m sorry seeing your cowboy has made you so sick.”

  Loni pushed weakly at the sofa cushion, struggling to gain her feet. Deirdre hurried over to grab her arm. As Loni came erect, the room seemed to tip off its axis.

  “You okay to stand alone for a second?” Deirdre asked. “I’ll go get your purse and coat.”

  Loni nodded even though she wasn’t entirely sure she wouldn’t fall. Deirdre vanished. Seconds later, she returned. With surprising deftness, she managed to push Loni’s numb arms into the sleeves of her jacket.

  “You’re good at this,” Loni murmured as Deirdre made fast work of fastening the buttons.

  “It comes from dressing kids. You learn to get the job done quick.”

  Grateful for the thick folds of wool, Loni hugged the coat close. “Thank you. I was freezing.” She glanced at the fireplace and then met her sister’s worried gaze. “Any great ideas on how to avoid meeting a handsome cowboy?”

  Deirdre smiled. “Only one. If you see a man in Wranglers and a Stetson, run like hell in the opposite direction.”

  Chapter One

  Two months later

  As Clint Harrigan crossed the parking lot to the automatic doors of the supermarket, the late-afternoon sunlight warmed his shoulders through the wash-worn cloth of his shirt. Normally the first summery days of June lifted his spirits, but they weren’t doing the trick this year. Ever since his thirty-seventh birthday in March he’d been feeling depressed. It seemed like only yesterday that he’d been a snot-nosed college freshman with his entire adult life stretching ahead of him. Now, in what seemed like a blink, he was almost forty, had accomplished only a few of his goals, and felt as if time were running out.

  Granted, his quarter-horse ranch was a highly successful enterprise. Financially, he was set, and not many men his age could say that. Only what about his personal life? He’d fully expected to have a wonderful wife and a passel of kids by now. Instead he was facing another lonely Friday evening, his plans revolving around a man-size frozen dinner, a six-pack of beer, his recliner, and the television remote control.

  Unfortunately, as much as Clint dreaded spending another evening alone, he couldn’t think of anything else he preferred to do. The honky-tonk scene no longer appealed to him. Neither did the dating ritual. He was tired of laughing at stupid jokes, dancing with women who tried to lead, and trying to fill tense silences with meaningless small talk. Oh, yeah, and he couldn’t leave out the cell phones. It was damned disconcerting when a woman spent more time answering calls than she did talking to him.

  The scent of oranges and flowers filled his nostrils when he entered the store. Hanging a right, he moved like a man on autopilot, his destination the beer coolers at the back of the building. Barely registering the blur of produce as he cut through the vegetable section, he wondered if his failure to marry wasn’t mostly his own fault.

  Maybe he was just too fussy about women. When he met an interesting gal, there were certain criteria she absolutely had to meet. Good sense of humor. Check. Strong faith in God. Check. Interesting conversationalist. Check. Respect for human life. Check. Appreciation of family. Check. Deep love of animals. Check. And, of course, he had to find her attractive. On that count he was fairly easy to please, his focus being more on a woman’s inner beauty than her outward appearance.

  Still, he’d be the first to admit that he’d ruled out a lot of women over one small quirk or another that drove him crazy. Why couldn’t he focus on a lady’s fine points instead of picking her apart? So what if the last gal he’d dated had bleated like a sheep when she laughed? She’d been nice enough, otherwise. And the gal before her—Janet somebody—might have been okay after some minor surgery to cure her postnasal drip. And he really should have given the coupon fanatic a little more time to grow on him. It wasn’t a crime to be frugal, after all, and it hadn’t been that bad dining out on buy-one-get-one-free coupons.

  Like he was Mr. Perfect? Hell, no. He had as many faults as the next guy, the worst of the lot being that he was a control freak, according to his sister and brothers. He took their criticism with a grain of salt, though. Someone needed to take control and make the decisions. Otherwise everything was up for debate, and in the Harrigan family, debates quickly escalated into arguments.

  Clint noticed an elderly lady at the far end of the produce department shaking a cantaloupe near her ear. What she was listening for, Clint didn’t know.

  “The best way to check for ripeness,” he told her, “is to smell the stem end of the melon. The stronger the fruit scent, the riper the melon.”

  “I’ve been selecting melons longer than you’ve been alive, young man. I guess I know better than you how to tell if a cantaloupe is ripe.”

  “Sorry.” Clint quickened his pace, his boot heels tapping sharply on the tile floor. “Just trying to help you out.”

  He was still muttering under his breath about grumpy old ladies when he reached the beer coolers. His mood promptly grew gloomier when he saw an empty spot where his favorite microbrew usually sat. That was not okay. Hailing a clerk, Clint asked, “Do you have any Crystal Pond Dark in the back?”

  FRED was embroidered on the pocket of the man’s blue smock. “If we do, it won’t be chilled.”

  It wouldn’t be the first time Clint had fast-chilled beer in the freezer. “Crystal Pond is worth the wait. I believe in supporting our local microbrewery.” Clint also believed in pleasing his palate, and Crystal Pond Dark, rich and mildly sweet, was an awesome beer.

  Fred shrugged and lumbered into the back room. Five minutes later he reappeared with a six-pack of longnecks. Clint had hoped to get a half-rack. Family poker night would be at his place tomorrow, and he’d need extra beer in the fridge. But he was in a hurry to get home and didn’t want to stand there waiting any longer. He accepted the six-pack, said thank-you, and angled right to the freezer section, where he grabbed two man-size frozen dinners without bothering to check the fat content. His brother Quincy worried enough about cholesterol to keep the whole damned family healthy.

  At register four, Clint took his place in line behind a slender, petite brunette in a silky cream white blouse and slacks the color of fresh-cut alfalfa. The male checker was taking forever to put in a new register tape. Clint tamped down his impatience. Why was it he always got in th
e slow line? He had an appointment with his recliner at five sharp to watch the evening news. Then he planned to vegetate for the remainder of the night. Absolutely no work. It was the weekend, after all. Even if he had nothing better to do, the stack of papers on his desk and all the data entries he needed to make on the computer could wait until Monday morning. His baby sister, Samantha, had been nagging him lately about becoming a workaholic. Well, hello? It wasn’t as if he had a woman in his life to fill up his leisure hours.

  His gaze cut back to the brunette, touching first on the trimness of her waist and then the gentle flare of her hips. Nice. Definite proof that dynamite sometimes came in small packages. He normally preferred feminine curves showcased in snug denim, but a world-class figure had to be appreciated no matter how it was wrapped.

  The line moved forward, and the brunette set a blue shopping basket on the belt. Taking stock of her purchases, Clint saw that she’d selected a small package of gourmet cheese, a box of wheat crackers, and a bottle of merlot. He wondered if she would share the wine with a significant other, or if, like him, she would be spending the evening alone. Catching a glimpse of her delicate facial features and deep blue eyes, he decided she was either engaged or married. The truly beautiful ones usually were. No ring, though. That was interesting.

  While the clerk rang up her purchases, the brunette lifted the flap of her shoulder bag to pluck out a folded red cloth and a credit card. When she reached to slide the card through the customer scanner, the rectangle of plastic slipped from her grasp and fell to the floor. Clint bent forward to pick it up just as she did, and they bumped heads so hard that his hat went flying.

  “Whoa!” He grasped her by the arms to keep her from falling. “Sorry about that. Are you all right?”

  The red cloth slipped from her fingers and fluttered to the floor. Then she weaved slightly, making him worry that she might pass out. He didn’t think they’d hit that hard, but there was a blank, distant expression in her beautiful eyes.