A Memorable Man

by Joan Hohl

  Sunny’s quiet voiced observation jolted Adam from the depths of introspection.

  “No kidding.” His voice was threaded with sarcasm and cynicism.

  “No kidding.” Her voice was soft, tender with understanding and compassion.

  Adam groaned.

  Sunny smiled. Her eyes, those all-knowing fantastic green pools of enticement, began a slow, careful inventory of his physical features.

  “You were ever a handsome man.”

  Adam felt both thrilled and shaken by her prosaically voiced remark, the absolute belief in her tone. While he was delighted she found him attractive, he was equally dismayed by her phrasing.

  “Ever?” he repeated the word that bothered him.

  “Yes.” Her unhurried gaze traced the bone structure of his face. “Broad forehead, dark brows winged over deep-set, deeply intelligent indigoblue eyes.”

  A ripple of something crept through Adam, but he wasn’t given time to examine that something, for her gaze and commentary moved on.

  “High cheekbones, long, straight nose jutting above a sculpted mouth, the upper lip thin, imperious, the lower lip fuller, sensuous, the face resting upon a rock-solid, squarely chiseled jawline, the whole crowned by a thick and silky mane of auburn waves.”

  Adam would have laughed, ridiculed, had he been able to force sound from his amazementparched throat. But it didn’t matter, Sunny didn’t wait for a response. She continued on, her gaze moving lower.

  “A strong neck column supporting the head, with wide, muscular shoulders supporting the column. Broad chest, not deep but flatly muscled—” she smiled “—with, I suspect, a matting thatch of soft auburn curls, the hair narrowing from the diamond shape, arrowing down the center of the torso.”

  Adam swallowed, opened his mouth, then swallowed again. How could she know, be so certain? he wondered, the uneasiness mixing with an expanding excitement inside him. Not all men were the same; some had chests that were practically hairless, while others were furred all over. How could Sunny know, so correctly describe his chest?

  “Slim waist, narrow hips, flat, almost concave abdomen.” Once again, her soft voice snagged his attention. “Long, straight legs, the thighs and calves tightly muscled. And supporting the entirety of the over-six-foot frame, big, solid feet...”

  Sunny paused an instant, her eyebrows arching over eyes laughing into his. “Reflecting another, more sensitive and delicate attribute?”

  Adam could barely think, barely breathe, never mind attempt to speak. A sense of near fright gripped his mind, while sheer sexual excitement held his body in thrall, pulsating to the cadence of her soft voice.

  “And inside, where you live, I suspect you’re the same, as well,” she continued, her voice lower, gentle, but rock solid in conviction.

  “Meaning?” Adam asked, his voice barely there, but needing to hear the answer.

  She smiled. “You are mentally strong, selfconfident, honest and honorable. You are equally strong physically, with a healthy degree of sensuality, tempered by a personal sense of fastidiousness.”

  How could she know? he wondered, raking his mind for a logical explanation that eluded him.

  Damn. Damn. How the hell could she know?

  Four

  “You’re finding this, all of this, difficult to deal with. Aren’t you?”

  Adam laughed; the harsh sound grated on his ears. “Oh, yeah,” he drawled, not at all convincingly. “I’m finding it difficult.” He grimaced. “In actual truth, I’m finding it—you—a tad more than bizarre.”

  “Of course.”

  Her calm acceptance was the last straw.

  “What the hell do you mean, of course?” he snapped. “None of what you said makes any sense, and your only comment is ‘of course’?” He gave a sharp shake of his head. “You’re going to have to do better than that, Ms. Sunshine Dase. A whole helluva lot better.”

  “I know.” Sunny took a quick sip of wine, then ran her tongue over her lips, sending a shiver down the length of Adam’s spine. “And I will.”

  Adam made a show of glancing at his watch. “It’s already after eight,” he said, his tone deliberately sardonic. “Were you planning to begin any time soon?”

  “There was one particularly glorious spring.”

  Adam frowned. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You asked me to begin.” She smiled. “And I have. But if you intend to continue interrupting...” She let her voice fade, and raised her eyebrows.

  “Okay, I got the message.” Adam sighed, loudly. “Please do go on—I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

  Sunny’s lips twitched, but she managed to contain her obvious desire to laugh...at him.

  “As I was saying,” she said, silent laughter skipping along her voice. “There was one particular spring. In Britannia. I believe it was during the first century, when the Roman legions conquered the Celtic tribes.”

  “What?” Adam actually jolted in shock.

  “Well, I’m not quite sure of the exact date.” She lifted her shoulders in a helpless half shrug. “That part’s a little cloudy. But I do know it was during the Roman occupation of the British Isles,” she explained brightly.

  Adam eyed her suspiciously. Either she was giving a good yank on his leg or she was a functioning nut case. He wasn’t well pleased with either possibility.

  “You’re putting me on...right?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “That is the first memory I have of us together, and it’s fuzzy around the edges.”

  “Memory?” Adam was beginning to feel like a parrot, which was bad enough. But even worse, he was beginning to feel uncomfortably like a fool, a dupe, and that feeling could hardly be borne. He had never been anyone’s fool or dupe, and he wasn’t planning on starting with Sunny. However, he was curious about her purpose, what end she hoped to achieve with the line she was unreeling.

  “Yes, memory,” she said. “The first one of many memories, of you and me, of tragedy and love.”

  “Sounds like a pop-song title,” he murmured in droll tones. “But do go on.”

  “I know it’s hard to believe...”

  Try impossible, he thought, squashing the impulse to interrupt by voicing the observation.

  “I had a great deal of trouble with it myself at the beginning.” A shadow darkened her eyes, turning them to a shade of deep forest green.

  Fighting a sudden longing to get lost in that forest, Adam’s voice came out rough edged. “And when was that?”

  “When I was still too young to understand,” Sunny explained, her smile wistful for the child she had been. “I never told anyone then about them...the scenes that without warning flashed through my mind. There were just bits and pieces, really only fragments of scenes. But as I grew older, into my teens, they got stronger, more expanded, vivid with the color and action of life and death and love.” Her voice, so low, intense, caused a shiver to raise the hairs on Adam’s arms. “Love gained and love lost and love forever.”

  When she paused to take a sip of wine, Adam wanted to laugh in her face, tell her to take a hike and take her loopy stories with her. He wanted to, but he couldn’t. He felt strangely breathless, caught by the obvious tension gripping her, the almost otherworldly quality of her voice.

  He tried to speak, cleared his voice, but by then it was too late: Sunny resumed her narrative.

  “Although in some respects, exact chronological time and place, the scenes were still fuzzy, particular aspects were clear and sharp.” Her faraway gaze sketched his features. “You were there, not as a druid or learned man but a warrior, straight and tall, breathtakingly handsome even in blue paint, a true Celt, your below shoulder-length dark hair gleaming auburn in the sunlight, your magnificent physical power fierce but never savage.”

  Adam felt rather savage at that moment—or was it savaged? he mused, unsettled by her description of him, a description, moreover, that still fit him—in certain respects.

  “You haven’t changed much, hav
e you?” Sunny asked, her eyes alight with humor.

  He scowled.

  She laughed. “Oh, as the old advertisement claimed, You’ve come a long way, baby,” she said. “But basically you’ve maintained the same strong, fierce personality.” She smiled. “You are simply fighting a different kind of war, with the boardroom as your battlefield.”

  Could she read minds? Adam wondered, his gaze narrow and intent on her smiling face. Although he didn’t believe in the possibility of ESP and the like, the consideration gave him pause, because, if she could somehow discern his thoughts, she would know how very tempted he was to kiss her smiling mouth, test the softness of her lips, taste the sweetness within, plunge his tongue into her honey.

  “What are you thinking?” Sunny eyed him with undisguised suspicion.

  Adam couldn’t suppress a chuckle, or the impulse to answer with the unvarnished truth.

  “I’m thinking about how badly I want to kiss you,” he admitted. “For starters.”

  He didn’t know what to expect in a response from her. Still, he was pleasantly surprised when she grinned.

  “It’s nice to know that along with your strength you’ve retained your sensuous hunger.”

  “And you’ve...er, enjoyed that before?” Adam asked, astounded at himself for doing so, as if he were actually starting to believe her incredulous revelations.

  “Enjoyed it?” Sunny’s voice was soft, low, throaty and electrifyingly exciting. “I reveled in the pure pleasure of it...and you.”

  “A lotus-eater, hmm?” He arched a teasing brow, while tamping the urge to grab her, drag her across the twelve or so inches separating them, and crush her mouth and her body with his own.

  “Among other things.”

  That did it. Her assertion, and the smoky expression in her slumberous eyes, broke the control Adam was exerting over his natural impulses. Moving with slow deliberation, he set his glass aside. A sizzle shot through him, straight to the heat of him, when she followed his example.

  He moved toward her.

  Sunny moved toward him.

  They met in the center of the settee.

  “I’m going to kiss you,” he said in warning.

  “I sincerely hope so,” she said in encouragement.

  And then he had her in his arms, arms—he noticed in amazement—that trembled, in much the same way her lips trembled in anticipation.

  Staring into Sunny’s eyes, losing his sense and senses in their beckoning green depths, Adam slowly lowered his head to her raised face.

  Her lips parted.

  He felt the breath of her sigh as he covered her mouth with his own.

  The taste of her was ambrosia, every bit as sweet as he had thought she would be. Deepening the kiss, Adam slid his hands up her spine to tangle his fingers in the silken mass of her hair. The effect on his senses was immediate, hot and exciting; like touching sunbaked satin.

  He made a tentative foray with his tongue, lightly skimming the tender inner skin of her lower lip. She responded with a low moan, which sounded to him like more.

  Emboldened, Adam slipped his tongue between her lips. Heaven, a haven, not a place to visit. A home. A place to stay, longed for, never fully forgotten.

  Home? Never forgotten. What in the world?

  Unnerved by the sudden vague and confusing thought, he pulled back, releasing his hold on her mouth and her quivering body, putting inches of breathing space between them.

  Sunny stared at him from passion-shadowed eyes, her breathing betrayingly quick and erratic.

  Damning his own need to gasp for breath, his desire to pull her back into his embrace, Adam steeled himself against the silent plea in her eyes.

  “This is crazy.”

  “What is?” she asked, her voice strained and unsteady. “The sexual attraction you’re feeling for a virtual stranger? Or the comfort of familiarity you experienced with that sexual attraction?”

  How in the hell does she know?

  “This whole situation is crazy,” he snapped, avoiding a direct answer to her question. “I’ve had some easy conquests, but never anything as quick and easy as this.”

  “It was always easy for you to conquer... antagonists, nature and women.”

  “Really?” Suspicion tinged his tone. “What are you after?”

  “You.”

  Sunny’s simply stated response shot steel into his spine, among other things. Ignoring the physical discomfort, he concentrated on the fuller meaning of her reply.

  “Why?”

  “Because you promised.”

  “What?” Adam shook his head, wondering if he had missed something or if he was losing it.

  “I said, because you promised.”

  “I heard you.” Afraid that he really might be losing it, Adam controlled an urge to shout. “What I want to hear is an explanation, because I never promised you a thing.”

  Sunny sighed. “I guess I’d better return to my story, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t interrupt this time.”

  “Have at it,” he invited, giving an expansive wave of his hand, which he was far from feeling.

  “Thank you.” She began a smile that dissolved into a frown of consternation. “Where was I?”

  “In Brittania,” he said with gritty sarcasm. “With the Romans and the blue-painted Celts.”

  “Yes...the Celts.” Her smile held a puzzled quality. “It was odd, but as I grew out of my teens and the flashing memories intensified, I began to understand what the voices were saying, even though he language was unintelligible to me, sounding archaic.”

  “Voices?” Adam said, reneging on his agreement not to interrupt. “You heard voices?”

  “Well, of course.” Sunny frowned. “The scenes I viewed inside my head were quite like brief individual frames from a roll of film.”

  “Complete with wraparound sound, I presume?” His attempt at inserting a dash of humor into her story concoction fell upon deaf ears.

  “Exactly!” Sunny beamed at him in approval.

  “I see.” Adam suppressed a sigh. “Do go on.” In truth, he could hardly wait to hear more—although the threat of dire results couldn’t have made him admit to the anticipation he felt. “You understood the voices.”

  “Yes.” She frowned. “I don’t know how, but I simply knew what they were saying.”

  “They?” He played the echo once again.

  “The people in the images,” she clarified. “At first they frightened me.” She smiled. “They were so...” She hesitated, as if searching for the right description. “They were all so different, fierce and almost wild in appearance. Not at all like the humans I was accustomed to.”

  “But they were humans,” he inserted, with wry disbelief. “Not demons or mythic half-man, halfbeast creatures or alien beings from another planet or dimension?”

  “Adam.” Her soft voice held a definite note of warning. “If you persist in laughing at me, I...”

  “You’ll what?” He interrupted in challenge.

  “I won’t kiss you any more.”

  Now there was a real serious consideration. Adam controlled the grin twitching on his lips, lips that still retained the taste of her, the feel of her, the sweetness of her eager and hungry mouth.

  Laugh and he went kissless.

  Adam prudently remained sober.

  “That’s better.” Sunny’s eyes sparkled, revealing her amusement. “Shall I go on?”

  “Be my guest,” he invited—straight—faced.

  She glanced pointedly around the cozy sitting room. “I believe I already am.”

  “Cute.”

  She laughed. “Now, where was I?”

  “With the wild bunch.”

  “Are you laughing?” she asked in a stern tone, undermined by the gleam in her eyes.

  “No,” he answered with deceptive solemnity.

  “Okay, then. They were wild looking,” she continued, her lips quivering. “Wild and fierce, pride in their ancient Celtic heritage runnin
g hot in their veins. But there were the learned ones, too, and artisans, as well, crafting beautiful jewelry, metalworks and artifacts that are still highly valued and admired today.”

  “And I suppose I was one of the artisans?” he asked, unable to completely mask his skepticism.

  “Oh, no.” Sunny shook her head. “You were the strongest, most fearless warrior in our small tribe.”

  “Tribes, yet,” he muttered, concealing the wash of pleasure her assertion afforded him.

  “Yes, small groups...” She frowned. “From the little I understood, the tribes consisted of families with a common ancestor. Most of the tribes lived in small rural settlements and raised crops and livestock.”

  “Not unlike the Native Americans,” he mused aloud.

  “Yes.” Her eyes lit up. “In fact, now that you mention it, there was a similarity.”

  “You didn’t happen to be watching a lot of old western movies on TV prior to your visions?” he asked, suddenly positive he had hit upon the root cause of her supposed past-life memories.

  Sunny leveled a withering, pitying look at him. “I said they were similar, not identical, Adam. Besides, the Celtic images were merely the first. Subsequent memories were from other various times and locations.”

  “I stand corrected.”

  “You’re sitting down.”

  “Get on with it.” He made a show of glancing at his wristwatch. “It’s going on nine.”

  “But you’re the one who interrupted,” she pointed out with sweet reason.

  Adam’s uncertain patience ran out. “Is there by any chance a point to this story—”

  Sunny opened her mouth, but Adam wasn’t finished.

  “And if so, will you get to it?”

  “You took me, made me your woman, the summer I turned thirteen.”

  “What?” Adam recoiled as if she had physically struck him. “I never...”

  “You did,” she said, blithely cutting him off. “But it was not only acceptable—it was expected.”

  He scowled.

  “Adam, at that period the life expectancy was very short.” Her brow wrinkled in thought. “Although I’m not positive, you understand, I think that even those called the elders were probably not much more than fifty, if that.”