Forever

by Lewis, Linda Cassidy

  She’d experienced those horrible moments, but she had no idea how. It wasn’t a premonition of a future event because some things she’d seen were from the past. Her lover had worn buckskin clothes, his long, black hair tied back with a leather thong. The gun that killed him was … well, she didn’t know what kind it was, but it didn’t belong to this century.

  The last seconds of the vision remained with her the strongest. As he lay dying before her, she’d felt such desperate love for him. That emotion was strong enough still to force Annie’s eyes closed against the sting of threatening tears.

  On the dark canvas of her closed lids, Annie saw a portrait of the man in the theater as he looked after the incredible experience. One look at his eyes, his ashen face, told her that somehow they’d shared it. She’d intended to watch for him as he left the theater, but her scheduled break came just before the showing ended. Although she hurried back to her counter, she never saw him leave.

  The blare of the Camaro’s stereo as her sister careened up to the curb broke Annie’s concentration. The reckless arrival reminded Annie how much she disliked Kate borrowing her car, but she liked even less listening to Kate’s whining that she had to sit home on a Saturday night because no one wanted to drive all the way out to the boondocks to pick her up. Kate’s car had died several months ago, just after her twenty-first birthday, so Annie heard that sad song often while Kate saved to buy another.

  “I know, I know. I’m late. Don’t yell,” Kate said. “I was having way too much fun to leave.”

  “It’s okay.” Annie waved away Kate’s apology. “But please spare my eardrums.” She slipped into the passenger seat and reached out to turn down the volume.

  Kate pulled out of the parking lot driving as cautiously as a sophomore in a Driver’s Ed car. Annie closed her eyes, leaned her head against the window, and conjured up the image of The Man again. She guessed he was forty-something, and he was handsome, though not in the head-turning way her ex-husband had been. The Man had the look of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors. His brown hair was sun-streaked, his skin was a little wind-worn and—she smiled at the thought—he was probably tanned when he wasn’t scared out of his wits.

  Kate glanced at her. “Why are you sitting there grinning like a fool?”

  Annie shook her head and continued her evaluation of The Man. His hair was thick and softly curling at his ears and collar, longer than most men wore it now, and she imagined he’d probably worn it the same way since his thirties. He didn’t look like the slave to fashion type.

  Suddenly, she remembered he’d bought two tickets, and then she recalled a vague image of the blonde with him. Annoyed at the intrusion of another woman into her reverie, Annie pushed this bit of information aside.

  Tom. The woman had called him by name.

  She’d seen this man Tom for less than a minute, and yet, he was familiar. It was as though she’d been waiting for him, expecting him, to enter her life.

  “You would not believe the gorgeous guy I met tonight,” Kate said. “He was an honest-to-God Texan to boot.”

  “Hunh.”

  “And you know how I love a man with a drawl.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “I swear I almost called you to ask if you’d mind taking a cab home, so I could stay there.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Kate prattled on and on about the guy at whatever bar she’d been in tonight, but Annie only half listened. She felt as if part of herself hovered outside her body, detached from reality—or what she’d always assumed was reality.

  “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” Annie murmured. Amused that her high school Shakespeare had finally come in handy, she laughed softly.

  With a slow, deliberate shake of her head, Kate said, “You’ve finally cracked.”

  Annie smiled, but tonight she wondered if Kate’s opinion of her sanity might be right, considering that she’d fallen in love with a man she’d seen for only a few seconds.

  3

  June 6

  Tom rolled over in bed, groaning as the morning sun filtered crimson through his eyelids. Silently, he cursed Julie for having already opened the blinds. He couldn’t think why, but obviously she didn’t intend for him to sleep in this morning. Determined not to wake up yet, he shifted away from the window toward her side of the bed. Just as he began the descent into sleep, a vision of green eyes yanked him back. His eyes flew open.

  What the hell was that?

  Still groggy, Tom first thought the images filtering through his mind were remnants from a dream and then that they must be a jumble of reality and dream. The movie theater. That’s where he’d seen those images. That crazy scene. Running through the trees, the pain ripping into him hadn’t felt like a dream, but something so weird happening to him and he just accepting it, that was like a dream. He lay on his back, eyes fixed on the ceiling, as he picked through his memory for the details.

  By the time he decided he hadn’t dreamed a bit of that experience, he was wide-awake. He threw back the covers and headed to the shower. But ten minutes later, while he toweling off, Tom changed his mind. The whole thing was too weird not to be a dream.

  He pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and started for the stairs. At the top step, he froze with his hand on the railing, his foot suspended in mid-air. He knew, now, why Julie had woken him so rudely on a Sunday.

  During the drive home last night, he’d stopped his daydreaming long enough to realize that Julie was as angry with him about the evening as he was with her. It hadn’t helped that he’d stalked into the house, leaving her outside to say goodnight to her friends. He and Julie had taken a vow on their honeymoon never to go to sleep angry with each other. More often than not, they’d kept that vow. Last night they’d broken it. Neither giving an inch, they’d tossed and turned for a while before falling asleep. It was no wonder he’d woken with the sun blazing in his eyes.

  He continued down the stairs toward the kitchen. Julie had probably been up since dawn, waiting to chew him out. Even if he’d only dreamed the weird part of last night, he and Julie would still argue over the real part. And if the weird part had happened, he felt sure Julie had noticed. Face it, Old Man, you’re screwed.

  Typical for a Sunday morning, Julie sat at the table in the breakfast nook, the newspaper spread out before her, a section held in one hand and her coffee mug in the other. Lindsay was not in sight, but then what eighteen-year-old wouldn’t sleep till noon any day she could get away with it?

  “Morning.” Tom poured himself a cup of coffee. He grabbed the sports section and took his usual spot across the table from her. The only response from Julie was a flash of angry eyes over the top of the Arts & Entertainment section. He sighed. “All right, what did I do now?”

  “Do you have any idea how rude you were last night?” She slapped the paper on the table. “If you weren’t even going to try to enjoy it, why did you agree to go?”

  “In the first place, I agreed to spend the evening with you alone. You know I never enjoy being with Patricia. And that Eddie! How could you even think I could tolerate a creep like him?”

  “I wasn’t expecting them to drop by. And I didn’t actually invite them to come along. They just … assumed. Anyway, that’s no excuse for sitting silent all night. You embarrassed me, Tom.”

  He took a deep breath. He really didn’t want to fight with her this morning—especially if it had anything to do with Patricia. “I wasn’t silent all night. I just didn’t have much to say about the movie.”

  “You had nothing to say about the movie. You had nothing to say about anything. Your mind seemed to be somewhere else. Back at the theater maybe?”

  Her vehemence alerted him she was more upset than his behavior last night warranted. Despite that heads up, her mention of the theater caused a thrill to ripple up his spine. “What are you—”

  “Did you think I didn’t notice you staring at that woman in the ticket bo
oth?”

  Before any reaction could show in his face, Tom jumped to his feet and retraced his steps to the coffee maker for a refill. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t even remember seeing the person in the ticket booth.”

  The smudge of guilt from those lies quickly washed away with a surge of relief. The confusion vanished. Again, images and emotions from the night before flashed through his mind. Confirmation that he’d had such a strange experience made him uneasy, but he couldn’t deny it also excited him. The Woman was real. Julie’s voice, now surprisingly calm, shattered his reverie.

  “What was it you whispered when you saw her, ‘Oh, my God’? Did you think I—and Patricia, by the way—couldn’t hear that?”

  Shit. Tom closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “Julie, I don’t remember saying anything. I had a headache, and I wasn’t exactly thrilled that our date night had turned into a double date. That’s all.”

  “Is she someone you know? Someone you never expected to see there?”

  Tom sighed. Not trusting himself to face her yet, he remained at the counter. “What are you insinuating?”

  “I’m not insinuating anything; I’m asking directly. Did you have—or are you having—an affair with her?”

  The tremor in her voice made it clear that, while the memory of last night elated him, it caused her pain. He berated himself for not realizing how deeply his actions had hurt Julie last night. He left his cup on the counter and pulled her into his arms.

  “God no,” he said. “I swear I never saw that woman before last night. You know I’ve always been faithful to you.”

  It looked like Tom would spend half his Sunday doing the yard work he hated. He would have gladly paid for a gardening service, but Julie protested, saying she liked doing it herself. The problem was, she didn’t have time for all the work and he ended up doing most of it for her. Today, the real problem was that it gave him too much time to think.

  As he knelt, spreading fresh mulch around the roses, he confided his thoughts to the dog who followed his every move. “Why didn’t I tell Julie about that thing with The Woman, Max? She probably wouldn’t believe it happened, but I didn’t even give her a chance.”

  Max whimpered and laid a paw on Tom’s hand.

  He rubbed the dog’s head, sat back on his heels, and lit a cigarette. “I should go back inside, right now, and tell her the truth.” After a moment’s thought, he shook his head. “Too late. She’d think I’ve been out here cooking up an explanation. A fantastic one, at that.”

  Besides, he’d already decided that tomorrow, as soon as he could get away from the job site, he would go back to the Cineplex to see if The Woman was working. He needed to know what she’d seen last night when whatever it was had happened to them.

  “Maybe this was only a new experience for me. She could be some kind of psychic or clairvoyant or … whatever. Maybe things like that happen to her every day. You know?”

  Max cocked his head at Tom.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not trying to put a move on her. I’m a happily married man—mostly. And hell, for all I know, she has a husband and six kids at home.”

  The dog offered no opinion.

  “It’s just too weird. I’ve got questions I need answered before I can let it go.” After he talked to The Woman, he could file the whole thing away and forget it. Someday, if he had one too many at a party, he might tell the tale. “Let me tell you about the weirdest thing that ever happened to me,” he would say.

  Julie stood at the kitchen window, watching Tom work in the yard. Last night hadn’t turned out the way she’d hoped—the way either of them had hoped, she thought. She couldn’t blame him for being irritated at sharing their first night out in three weeks with another couple—especially that couple.

  Surely there had been a moment when she could have stopped Patricia at the door, told her that she and Tom wanted to be alone, but she couldn’t remember it. It seemed that one minute she sat alone on the sofa waiting for Tom, and the next minute Eddie was shaking Tom’s hand. How had that happened?

  Still, that didn’t explain the woman at the Cineplex. Tom had denied knowing her, but Julie worried that something in his eyes said otherwise. Hadn’t she witnessed the longing as the two of them looked at each other? How could you long for someone you’d never seen before?

  She winced remembering the check-it-out nod Eddie had given her. The instant she turned and saw her husband gazing deeply into the eyes of another woman, the security blanket of her marriage had frayed at the edges. Her hurt anger had flared out in all directions—toward Tom for cheating, possibly, or at the least, for flirting right in front of her; toward Eddie for noticing; and toward Patricia for tallying up another strike against Tom.

  But this morning, he’d denied everything. He didn’t know that woman. He wasn’t having an affair with that woman. He hadn’t even noticed that woman. Were those lies? Was it possible her imagination had run wild? She laid a hand low on her abdomen. Her need to believe him was as strong as the fear of what grew inside her.

  Tom had always been her one sure thing. It wasn’t conceit to feel he worshiped her; he’d shown that in a hundred ways. She had to believe his love was still hers.

  Julie poured a glass of cold water from the fridge and carried it out to him.

  “Thanks, babe.” He drained the glass and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

  “It’s awfully hot out here. You’ve finished mulching this bed. Why don’t you leave the rest?”

  He looked doubtful. “Leave it for who?”

  “I’ve been thinking. You’re right about hiring gardeners for the grunt work. I’ll call around tomorrow.”

  “Hallelujah.” He handed her the empty glass and started gathering up the gardening tools.

  Julie admired the muscles in his arms and back as he worked. My husband. My man. “Why don’t you get cleaned up and we’ll have lunch at The Shack?”

  “What about all those calories?”

  “I thought you had a plan for burning those off.”

  His grin melted her.

  *

  Before she opened her eyes, Annie heard Kate’s voice in another room. No doubt, she was on the phone, planning her next man-hunting safari. Sometimes Kate talked Annie into joining those ventures. Last winter, Annie had taken up country line dancing because Kate said the men who went to those dances weren’t jerks like the ones at the singles bars.

  Wrong! They were just jerks in cowboy boots. Men! She gasped. “Oh, my God. Tom.”

  Annie sat up, jolted wide-awake by a rush of excitement. A smile flashed across her face and then, just as quickly, vanished. She crumpled against the pillows. For a moment, she’d been sixteen, thrilling in the Sunday morning afterglow of a Saturday night date with the coolest guy in school.

  She was almost thirty. Too old to have that giddy feeling of love at first sight. That was nonsense.

  “Be sensible,” she whispered to herself.

  In the first place, Tom was probably a married man, and that made him ineligible.

  “Right, Annie?”

  Gary had been unfaithful throughout most—maybe all—of the seven years they were married. She didn’t think much of women who knowingly dated married men.

  “So, be sensible!”

  Annie wrapped her arms around a pillow and curled on her side. She couldn’t think of anything sensible about what happened to her last night. Something wild had happened. Something triggered by the touch of Tom’s hand. It excited her to think maybe he was a psychic. Or a witch. Could he have projected that vision into her mind?

  Was that Tom’s novel way to pick up women? She sighed again. He hadn’t actually tried to pick her up last night. But then, she’d missed him on his way out. Maybe he’d looked for her then. Oh, how stupid.

  “He wasn’t trying to pick you up with his wife in tow.”

  Annie closed her eyes and recalled the look on his face after the vision. He’d looked jus
t as shocked as she felt. No, he hadn’t caused the vision, and he hadn’t expected it to happen either. This was no ordinary experience. It was something special for both of them. Annie had a link with Tom. Somehow she knew this. And that link meant that whatever happened between them was out of their control.

  She sat up again. He might not be married at all. What if he was single, or divorced, and the woman with him was just a casual date? Divorced was better. At his age, if he’d never married, he probably never would. Not that she was sure she wanted to marry again, but still … Then again, a divorced man came with a lot of baggage. Either way, she’d been wrong to assume he was married. He just couldn’t be.

  Feeling as if the ten thousand pieces of her jigsaw life had slid together perfectly, Annie floated out of bed and into the shower.

  Annie’s kitchen was aglow with sunlight when she walked in thirty minutes later.

  “Morning, sleepyhead,” Kate said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Kate stood at the kitchen counter, skillet in hand. “Want some of my breakfast? I’ve got plenty.”

  “No way.” Kate’s Sunday morning specialty was scrambled tofu with herbs. “How can you be on a first name basis with alcohol and nicotine, yet be so concerned about the food you eat?”

  When Kate only smiled, Annie grew suspicious. If Kate didn’t take the bait on their old argument about lifestyles, she must want something.

  Kate carried her plate to the table. “Do you work today?”

  “No. I traded shifts and worked last night. Remember?” Annie set a cup of water in the microwave to heat for tea and dropped a sliced bagel into the toaster. She was glad Kate couldn’t see her face; it was impossible to keep from smiling when she thought of Tom. Last night’s experience wasn’t something she wanted to share with her sister. It was like a dream that made you feel wonderful but sounded silly when told to someone.

  “You acted kinda weird last night. Something happen?”