Книга - The Bridesmaid’s Gifts

The Bridesmaid's Gifts
GINA WILKINS


CAN YOU TELL WHAT I' M THINKING?– ETHAN BRANNON, SKEPTICHandsome but cynical Ethan was hardly a believer in Aislinn Flaherty' s special " gifts." And despite her attraction to him, the full-time cake maker/part-time psychic vowed to ignore Ethan. Really. Until she started having " feelings" about his long-lost brother. Deep down, she knew she could reunite Ethan with the relative he was sure was gone forever.If only her feelings for Ethan were just as reliable…









There were things about Aislinn he couldn’t easily explain.


They reached the doorknob at the same time, his hand landing on top of hers. He should have removed his immediately, but instead he lingered, intrigued by the feel of her. She glanced up at him, their eyes meeting. Holding.

From the first moment he had seen her, he had been aware of her beauty. He had pushed the attraction to the back of his mind as he had tried to deal with his wariness of everything else about her.

He removed his hand slowly, letting her open the door for him.

“Ethan?”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Yes?”

“Be careful at the stoplight.”

“What stoplight?”

“Every stoplight,” she answered, and closed the door.

Drawing a deep breath to steady his racing pulse, he proceeded with caution. Yep, there were definitely things about Aislinn that were getting harder to explain….




Dear Reader,

I’ve mentioned in previous notes that I don’t always know where my characters are going to take me when I start a book. I usually have an idea in mind, but before long I find them taking the story away from me and sometimes taking it in directions I never envisioned.

That happened with this book, The Bridesmaid’s Gifts. What I had originally intended as a lighthearted story about a reluctant psychic soon changed into something much more serious. I began to realize how hard it is being “different.” Never quite fitting in. Something we’ve all felt at one time or another, but that my heroine, Aislinn, had been fighting all her life. Add to that a hero with serious trust issues…and the conflict between them took shape. A couple of other characters I’d never expected popped up in the book, as well—one of them taking me completely by surprise as she revealed her role in the tale!

This book is a little different from my usual fare, but it’s been quite an adventure for me. I hope you’ll be as caught up as I was in Aislinn and Ethan’s quest for acceptance, trust…and most important, love.

Gina Wilkins




The Bridesmaid’s Gifts

Gina Wilkins







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




GINA WILKINS


is a bestselling and award-winning author who has written more than seventy novels for Harlequin and Silhouette Books. She credits her successful career in romance to her long, happy marriage and her three extraordinary children.

A lifelong resident of central Arkansas, Ms. Wilkins sold her first book to Harlequin Books in 1987 and has been writing full-time since. She has appeared on the Waldenbooks, B. Dalton and USA TODAY bestseller lists. She is a three-time recipient of a Maggie Award for Excellence, sponsored by Georgia Romance Writers, and has won several awards from the reviewers of Romantic Times BOOKreviews.


For Kerry




Contents


Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen




Chapter One


“So you’re the psychic.”

Aislinn Flaherty had to make a massive effort to hold on to her pleasant expression in response to the drawled comment. She was doing this for her best friend, she reminded herself. Nic was so happy about her engagement, so pleased to be entertaining her future brother-in-law for the first time. Aislinn was going to do everything in her power to get along with him, even though she already suspected that it wasn’t going to be easy.

“Someone has obviously been pulling your leg,” she said lightly. “I’ve never even pretended to be a psychic.”

“Hmm.” Ethan Brannon was visibly unconvinced. Whatever he had been told—and Aislinn intended to grill Nic about that when they were alone—he apparently believed that she did, indeed, make claims to some sort of extrasensory abilities.

She had met Ethan only ten minutes earlier when she’d arrived at Nic Sawyer’s house for this small dinner party. After introducing them, Nic and her fiancé— Ethan’s brother, Joel—had moved into the kitchen to finish the dinner preparations, leaving Aislinn and Ethan to chat in the living room. This was Ethan’s idea of a conversation starter, apparently.

In an attempt to dispel some of the awkwardness, she moved across the room to an antique buffet in one corner of the room. Nic had set the buffet up as a bar, and had encouraged Aislinn and Ethan to help themselves to a before-dinner drink while they waited. “Can I get you anything?”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever you’re having.”

She poured a glass of white wine for herself, a Chivas for him. Carrying both across the room, she handed him his glass. He frowned, looking suspiciously from the drink to her. “Parlor tricks?”

Sipping her wine, she lifted an eyebrow, then lowered the glass. “I beg your pardon?”

“I asked for whatever you were having, and you brought me my usual preference. I suppose Nic told you what I like?”

“Nic and I haven’t talked about what you like or don’t like to drink,” she said, her brusque tone meant to hide a sudden wave of discomfort. “You just don’t look like the white-wine type to me.”

Still looking at her, he lifted the glass to his mouth.

Despite the inexplicable antagonism she had felt from him from the start, she couldn’t help noticing that his was a particularly nice mouth. He looked very much like a more sharply planed version of his younger brother. Both had crisp brown hair with a slight tendency to wave, clear hazel eyes and strong chins. Both were just under six feet and solidly built. Yet there was a…well, a hardness about Ethan that seemed to be missing in his more easygoing younger brother.

Ethan was three years the elder. A self-employed small-business consultant, he lived in Alabama in a house that Nic had told her was rural and rather isolated. This was his first visit to Arkansas, though his brother had lived here for almost two years. Having met Ethan eight months ago, Nic seemed to like her future brother-in-law, but she had admitted that he wasn’t the easiest man to get to know.

“Joel says Ethan was born grouchy,” she had confided with a laugh. “But he’s actually quite nice.”

Aislinn was reserving judgment on that.

“It was generous of you to offer to help Joel and his partner make their clinic run more efficiently,” she said with a determined smile. “They’re both wonderful pediatricians, but Joel claims they’re both a little challenged in the business-management area.”

Ethan shrugged. “I advised Joel to take some undergraduate business courses, but all he wanted to take were science classes. He spent so much time preparing for medical school that he forgot to prepare for the business of being a doctor.”

“And that’s what you do—teach small-business owners how to make their operations more profitable.”

He nodded as he took another sip of his drink.

“Joel told me you’re very good at your job. He said you’ve helped a lot of people stay in business who would have had to declare bankruptcy if they hadn’t hired you. He said some of them have actually become wealthy.”

He shrugged.

Aislinn swallowed a sigh. She had spent the day decorating a four-tier wedding cake with a couple of hundred tiny sugar roses entwined with frosting ivy vines. As tedious as that had been after a few hours, it was still less work than trying to draw conversation out of Ethan.

What a relief when Joel came back into the room to announce that dinner was ready. Both Aislinn and Ethan jumped to their feet with almost humorous eagerness to follow their host into the dining room.

Nic was just lighting the candles in the center of her mother’s big mahogany table. She had been living in her widowed mother’s house for more than two years, since Susan Sawyer had moved to Paris to live with her son, Paul, a U.S. Embassy employee. Nic had met Joel when he’d bought the house next door. Friendship had blossomed into much more, and now Nic and Joel were planning their wedding, which would take place in only a few days.

Taking her seat at the beautifully set table, Aislinn studied the happiness gleaming in her friend’s dark-blue eyes. Though Nic had been dating someone else when she met Joel, Aislinn had never expected Nic’s relationship with Brad to last. Yet she’d had a feeling from the first time she had seen Nic and Joel together that the two were meant for each other. She hadn’t said anything to Nic at the time, but she had done her part to nudge them together—with obvious success.

They talked about wedding plans as they began to eat, Nic sharing a few anecdotes about how difficult it had been to choose the colors and flowers and music and menus for her upcoming wedding. “I had no idea there was so much involved,” she added with a groan. “I thought all I needed was a dress and a minister, but people kept adding things to my list.”

“What people?” Ethan asked.

“My mother, mostly. She’ll be here tomorrow, but in the meantime she’s been making long-distance wedding plans and she calls to update me three or four times a day. Sometimes she forgets the time difference and she calls in the middle of the night to suggest a brilliant idea she just had. And then there were my friends at work, who all had suggestions they thought I should be thrilled about. And my friend Carole, who volunteered to coordinate everything during the ceremony and immediately turned into a wedding-planner tyrant.”

Ethan shrugged. “You should have told them all to butt out. If you wanted just a dress and a minister, that’s all you should have.”

Nic wrinkled her nose in a good-natured smile. “It isn’t that I mind so much. Everyone knows I’m hopeless when it comes to these girlie things, so they were only trying to help. There were just so many decisions and details. It was mind-boggling at times, but I think it will all work out. I kept it as simple as possible.”

“Seems like a lot of trouble. You’re just as married if you elope to a justice of the peace as you are after one of these fancy ceremonies.”

This time it was Joel who responded to his brother’s cynical observation. “That’s true, but most people like to celebrate the occasion with friends and family. Nic’s mother would have been terribly disappointed if we didn’t make a bit of fuss—and, for that matter, so would ours. You know she’s looking forward to it.”

Aislinn was especially glad for her friend’s sake that Joel’s mother had endorsed the wedding. Elaine Brannon had made little secret of her reservations about the match when she had first met Nic eight months earlier.

She’d made it clear that it wasn’t because she had anything against Nic personally. She had been concerned because Nic was so very different from her son’s first wife, a supermodel-beautiful, socially conscious family counselor who had died in a tragic car accident less than a year after she and Joel were married. Elaine had wondered if her pediatrician son could be content with an impulsive, sometimes reckless small-town police officer who couldn’t care less about being on the social A-list.

Once Joel had convinced his mother that he couldn’t imagine being content without Nic in his future, Elaine had given her full approval to the match. All she had wanted, she assured them, was for Joel to find the happiness he deserved in life. If that was with Nic, then she was a welcome addition to the Brannon family.

Ethan mumbled something that seemed to imply that the mother-pleasing argument was no more likely to influence him than ordinary peer pressure.

“So you’re saying when you get married, you just want a no-frills elopement?” Nic asked him with a grin.

He set down his fork and reached for his drink. “Marriage isn’t on the agenda in my case. I’ve told you before that I can’t imagine finding anyone who’d put up with me for long—or vice versa.”

Aislinn’s immediate reaction to that assertion was a vague feeling that he was wrong. Ethan would find someone, she sensed. And it would be a lifelong union.

She couldn’t have explained how she knew that fact—and she did accept it as fact, since during her entire twenty-eight years she could count on one hand the number of times she had been wrong when her predictions had been accompanied by a particular feeling. It was not ESP, she had always insisted to anyone who questioned her. She just had better-developed intuition than most people.

Maybe she just paid more attention to her feelings, maybe she was just better at interpreting them—or maybe she was just a really good guesser. But she wasn’t “different.”

When they had all finished their chicken parmigiana, Nic rose to serve dessert. Reaching for plates, Aislinn offered to help.

“So?” Nic said when they were alone in the kitchen, loading plates into the dishwasher. “What do you think of Ethan?”

Aislinn shrugged. “He’s okay, I guess. A little aloof.”

“I agree that he’s reserved. But underneath, there’s a nice guy. He’s been very accepting of me, even when his mother was still trying to convince Joel that I was all wrong for him. And he’s obviously fond of Joel, very supportive and protective—which, of course, I find sort of endearing.”

“He seems to be suspicious of me—as if he thinks I’m trying to run some sort of a con on his family.”

Reaching into a cabinet, Nic shrugged. “He’s just naturally cautious around new people, I think. He acted a little suspicious of me at first, too. Not rude or confrontational or anything. Just wary. Reserving judgment until he knew what my motives were. Maybe he’s been burned a few times.”

“A few.” It was more a confirmation than a guess. She didn’t have the details, but she knew he’d been hurt.

Maybe Nic was right. Maybe that was the reason Ethan tended to be cautious. She would try to be patient during the getting-acquainted process. For Nic’s sake. And if it turned out that she and Ethan still didn’t like each other after the wedding, it was no big deal. He’d go back to Alabama and they would rarely see each other again.

A funny feeling went through her with that thought. Oddly enough, she had no clue of what it meant that time, if anything. It was just a…well, almost like a mental shiver. Probably nothing at all, she assured herself.

She noticed that Nic was scooping whipped cream onto the first of four bowls of what appeared to be chocolate lava cake. “Leave the whipped cream off one of the desserts,” she advised absently.

Nic didn’t even blink at the suggestion. She simply loaded three whipped-cream-topped desserts and one without topping onto a tray. “Will you bring the coffee carafe?” she asked over her shoulder as she headed for the dining room.

The Brannon brothers were involved in a discussion of billing practices when Nic and Aislinn rejoined them. Aislinn poured coffee while Nic set the dessert tray on the table. “Is there anyone who doesn’t like whipped cream?”

“That would be Ethan,” Joel said with a grin. “He hates whipped cream.”

Nic smiled at Aislinn before handing Ethan the untopped dessert. “Then I’m glad we left one plain.”

Ethan gave Aislinn a hard look, but he didn’t say anything as he dipped into his dessert. Concentrating on her own, she hoped the awkward evening would end soon.



Ethan was more than ready for this dinner party to be over. He didn’t much care for dinner parties anyway, being the barbecue-and-beer type himself. He wasn’t really into wedding planning, though he understood why Joel and Nic were preoccupied with that sort of thing now. And then there was the psychic….

Not that anyone had ever actually called her that. Joel and Nic had actually gone out of their way to avoid the label, claiming that Aislinn didn’t like it. She simply had “feelings,” they had assured him. She’d been gifted with a heightened intuition that made it wise to pay attention when she made predictions.

As proof, Joel had pointed to an accident Nic had been involved in while spending a few days in Alabama for Joel’s high school reunion. It had been eight months ago, the weekend when Ethan had first met Nic. Aislinn had called Nic’s cell phone several times during those few days with vague warnings of impending disaster.

As far as Ethan was concerned, it was simply an unfortunate coincidence that Nic had, indeed, been injured that weekend in an incident that had narrowly missed being tragic. There was no way Aislinn could have known a balcony would collapse beneath Nic’s feet, sending her plunging twenty feet to the ground below.

If Aislinn had been psychic, she’d have been a lot more specific than saying something “bad” was going to happen, right? Even if so-called precognition existed, what good was it if she hadn’t been able to stop her friend from being hurt? So far, all she’d done this evening was guess that he liked Chivas and hated whipped cream. Big deal.

Her alleged extrasensory abilities weren’t the only thing about Aislinn Flaherty that made him uncomfortable, he had to concede. Joel had told him that she was very pretty, but that had been a major understatement. Aislinn was gorgeous.

He didn’t know why she felt the need to pretend to have supernatural abilities. Surely it wasn’t an attention-seeking ploy, since a woman who looked like that could attract all the notice she wanted. She certainly didn’t dress for attention; she wore a modest beige knit top and brown pants that were rather plain in themselves but didn’t at all detract from her own natural beauty.

As far as he knew, she hadn’t asked for any money for her “services” from Nic or Joel—which didn’t mean she wasn’t conning other people. Perhaps it simply amused her to see how gullible others could be. Or maybe she sort of believed it herself, which was even more pathetic.

Reaching for his coffee, he hoped he would be able to make an escape as soon as dinner was over. He’d been sociable for about as long as he could manage.



“Good morning, beautiful.”

The woman who called herself Cassandra looked up from her knitting with a smile and an instinctive little preen. She simply couldn’t help reacting that way to young Dr. Thomas, with his warm green eyes and roguish smile. Even though she was old enough to be his mother, there was still enough of the flirt in her to respond to a good-looking man. And besides, this one was special.

“Hello, handsome.”

Walking with a rolling gait that was deceptively lazy, he crossed the room and propped one hip on the windowsill near her chair. She liked to sit here in the afternoons, where she could look out at the beautifully manicured grounds and watch the birds nesting in the trees outside her second-story room. She had always loved spring, with its whispered promises of fresh starts and new lives. Even if those promises inevitably died in the cold darkness of winter.

“I’ve been told you had a difficult night.”

Her smile faded in response to his gentle words. She looked down at her knitting, hiding her expression from him as she nodded. “Nightmares.”

“They’re getting worse again?”

“Not all the time. Just occasionally.”

“Do you want to tell me about them?”

Her needles clicked in the silence that followed the invitation. After a moment she said simply, “I don’t remember.”

“Cassandra.”

She could tell by his tone that he was disappointed she had chosen to lie to him. While she was sorry about that, she didn’t want to talk about the dreams. About the faces that haunted her days as well as her nights. The memories that were simply too painful to dwell upon, much less to share.

“You have a date tonight,” she said instead. “She’s pretty, but she isn’t the one. You’re wasting your time.”

Though she could tell he wanted to focus on her nightmares, he indulged her with a slightly strained smile. “You’ve been listening to the nurses gossip again, haven’t you? I swear, you can hardly sneeze in this place without everyone knowing about it.”

She merely smiled and continued to work her needles.

“That’s what I get, I suppose, for going out with someone on staff here,” he added conversationally. “Hard to keep it a secret. Not that I’m trying. But enough about me. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to talk to me about your dreams? It just might help, you know.”

She lifted her eyes then, studying him sadly. He was so young. So confident that he had all the answers. About her. About his other patients. About himself. Poor, sweet sap.

“It wouldn’t help me,” she told him quietly. “But thank you for caring, Dr. Thomas. You have a kind heart.”

He didn’t seem to know how to respond except to stand and murmur, “Thank you. I’ll prescribe a new sleep aid for you to try tonight. Maybe it will help you rest more peacefully.”

“Whatever you think best, Doctor.”

“I’ll see you in a few days, okay? If you need anything at all, you be sure and let someone know. I or one of the other doctors will take good care of you.”

“I know.” She waited until he had reached her door before saying, “Try to have a nice time this evening, Doctor. Despite everything.”

He chuckled quizzically. “You’re something else, Cassandra.”

“You have no idea,” she murmured after he’d let himself out. And then she turned her attention back to the garment taking shape in her lap.




Chapter Two


Four days after the dinner party at Nic’s house, Aislinn stood at the front of a small church, a bouquet of spring flowers clutched in her hands. As the traditional wedding ceremony began, she glanced toward the best man. A strange sensation coursed down her spine when she saw that he was studying her in return.

She looked quickly away, trying to focus on the minister as he spoke about the joys and responsibilities of marriage. But the uplifting message couldn’t hold her attention. Her gaze turned again to Ethan, handsome and remote in his stark black tuxedo.

He wasn’t looking at her now, but she sensed that he was still aware of her. Probably wondering why she kept looking at him.

She couldn’t have explained. She was simply having a hard time looking away, for some reason.

“Do you take this man…?” the minister intoned, and Aislinn forced her attention back to the ceremony. Her part was coming up.

“I do.” Nic’s voice was strong and steady as she gazed into her groom’s eyes. Eyes, Aislinn noted, that looked exactly like those of the best man—a thought that almost made her look his way again. She restrained herself with an effort, focusing almost fiercely on the bride and groom.

“I do.” This time it was Joel who spoke, proudly and confidently. Joel was almost amusingly impatient to begin his new life with Nic and he made no attempt to hide his feelings.

It was time for the exchanging of the rings. As maid of honor, Aislinn had been responsible for holding the groom’s gold band. She took Nic’s bouquet, passing the ring to her at the same time. For just a moment they smiled at each other, their long years of friendship forming a bond that let them say a great deal to each other without words.

And then Nic turned to her new husband, and Aislinn was aware of the faintest pang of regret, almost as if an era were ending. She and Nic would always be close, she knew—but it would be different now. Nic and Joel would share a long, happy life together, one that would eventually include a child. A boy who would look exactly like Joel.

Though she had known for a few weeks now, Aislinn hadn’t shared that tidbit with her friend. After all, it was only a feeling. A guess, really. And even though Aislinn’s “feelings” had an impressive record of accuracy, there were times when it seemed best to keep them to herself.

She glanced once again toward Ethan, who was watching Joel and Nic now. Strange how she’d had so few insights about him since she had met him. As well as she usually read people, she’d gotten very little from Ethan—primarily that he seemed suspicious of her and had from the start. She still wondered what he had been told about her.



Ethan took great pride in being a realist and a skeptic. He didn’t believe in mind readers, mediums, poltergeists, UFOs, vampires, Santa Claus or love at first sight. If he couldn’t see it, feel it, touch it or prove it, he had no use for it.

And yet—every time he looked into Aislinn’s exotically shaped near-black eyes, he felt something shift inside him. He couldn’t explain it any better than that, but something definitely happened. And he had been on edge ever since he’d met her.

Lust, he told himself. Nothing more complicated than that. And who could blame him? On a scale of one to ten, this woman was a twelve. A perfect heart-shaped face framed by long, glossy black hair. Eyes as dark as still water on a cloudless night. A full, soft mouth that could make a man want to believe anything she might tell him.

As for the rest of her, well, he had to remind himself that he was in a church just to keep his eyes from lingering too long on curves that made his mouth go dry and his palms itch.

Realizing the fanciful direction his thoughts had taken, he had to force himself not to scowl. He didn’t need to be standing up here glowering during the ceremony or people might get the idea he had a problem with the bride rather than the maid of honor.

It was too bad, really. Under normal circumstances, he might have been happy to spend some time with a beautiful woman like Aislinn while he was visiting the area.

It seemed appropriate that her bridesmaid dress was a bold, bright red. The color of danger.

“…I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

The solemn words brought Ethan’s attention back to the ceremony. He managed a slight smile as Joel enthusiastically kissed his bride to the accompaniment of sentimental sighs from the guests gathered to witness the occasion.

He was as pleased for his brother as everyone else was. Despite his initial concerns about police officer Nic Sawyer’s suitability for Joel, he had quickly been convinced that they were a very good match. Though she couldn’t have been more different from Heather, Nic was exactly what Joel needed now, six years after the tragedy that had changed the direction of his life. She made Joel happy again, which was all that really mattered as far as Ethan was concerned.

Beaming like two high-intensity bulbs, Nic and Joel turned to face their audience as they were introduced for the first time as Dr. and Mrs. Brannon. Holding her bouquet again in her right hand, Nic slipped her left hand beneath Joel’s arm for their walk down the aisle. Following the instructions he had been given, Ethan moved to stand behind the couple, presenting his arm to Aislinn.

She hesitated only a moment before sliding her hand beneath his arm. The pause was so slight that he doubted anyone else had noticed, but he knew he hadn’t imagined it.

Despite his skepticism of anything resembling premonition, he had the oddest feeling as he escorted Aislinn down the aisle in the wake of his brother and new sister-in-law. Had to be hunger, he told himself. Lunch had been a long time ago.



Aislinn had practiced walking out on Ethan’s arm during the rehearsal the evening before. She had been surprised then to feel such well-defined muscles beneath the conservative but casual business-consultant clothing—and she was struck again now by how strong and solid his arm felt beneath her lightly resting fingertips.

Funny how nervous she’d been about touching him each time, she thought as she smiled at familiar faces she passed going down the aisle. Whatever inspired her hunches, she had never been overly influenced by physical contact. Yet she had been so wary of touching Ethan, almost as if she’d been worried that doing so would trigger some previously unknown ability within herself. How silly.

Or maybe the reason for her hesitation had been a lot more basic than that. Maybe it had more to do with the fact that she found Ethan Brannon just a bit too attractive for her own peace of mind. Dropping his arm the moment they stepped out of the sanctuary and into the vestibule, she reminded herself that he didn’t seem to like her very much. She wasn’t particularly fond of him, either, with his cutting remarks and obvious suspicions.

“Oh, my gosh.” Nic looked a bit dazed as she turned to Aislinn. “I think I just got married.”

Aislinn laughed, as did everyone else within hearing. “You did, sweetie.”

“Too late to back out now,” Joel said cheerfully.

His bride grinned up at him. “That goes both ways.”

Aislinn noted that Joel didn’t look at all perturbed by Nic’s reminder.



The reception was held in the ballroom of a local country club. It wasn’t an overly large room but big enough for the intimate crowd Nic and Joel had invited to celebrate their marriage with them. A local country band, made up of four talented teenagers who were already getting statewide attention for their singing and songwriting talent, provided the music.

Unpretentious but delicious food was served buffet-style, with coffee, fruit punch and sparkling grape juice for beverages. The lack of champagne or other alcoholic choices had nothing to do with the wedding budget but everything to do with Nic’s relentless campaigning against drinking and driving. Through her career she had seen entirely too many tragic accidents involving alcohol and she had no intention of contributing to the statistics by serving drinks to people who had driven to her reception.

It wasn’t as if public transportation was plentiful in the smallish central-Arkansas town. Whole months often passed without Aislinn seeing one cab. When the locals wanted to go somewhere, they drove. This was part of the reason traffic was such an issue as the thriving area grew more rapidly than the aging street system.

She cast a quick, assessing glance at the table that held the wedding cake, making sure it was still in pristine condition for photographs and the ceremonial cutting by the bride and groom. Though Nic had requested an understated cake to go with the simple theme of the wedding, Aislinn had spent hours crafting the perfect wedding cake for her best friend. She had taken her inspiration from Nic’s heirloom wedding gown, first worn in the mid-1940s by Nic’s grandmother, then by Nic’s mother, Susan, in the early seventies.

The gown was satin, covered with lace painstakingly dotted with seed pearls. It had been hand sewn by Nic’s great-grandmother, making it a priceless family treasure, immaculately preserved. Only a minimum of tailoring had been required for Nic, and Aislinn had no doubt that the gown would survive for another generation or two, perhaps to be worn by Nic’s future daughter-in-law, or maybe a granddaughter.

Aislinn had so few heirlooms from her own family that she could only imagine how much the gown meant to Nic and her mother. So the dress had seemed to be the logical theme for the wedding cake. Borrowing Nic’s matching veil for a few days and using photographs of the dress as inspiration, Aislinn had designed a white-on-white cake that looked as though it was covered in the same lace as the dress.

It had involved hours of eye-crossingly intricate string work and hundreds of tiny, hand-set edible “pearls.” She had created gentle folds in the fondant “fabric” and had cascaded a spray of white-frosting roses entwined with green-tinted frosting ivy down one side, as if a bouquet had been carelessly laid upon the satin-and-lace cake. She’d forgone the overused bride-and-groom topper, using white gum-paste roses instead.

She had been pleased with Nic’s reaction upon seeing the finished cake for the first time. Nic had acted as though she had never seen anything more beautiful in her life, even becoming uncharacteristically misty as she had examined every angle of the cake.

“It’s gorgeous, Aislinn,” she had said huskily. “The best you’ve ever done. I feel as though you should enter it in a competition or something, not just give it to me for my reception.”

Laughing, Aislinn had shaken her head. “There’s nothing I would rather do with it,” she had assured her friend. “As far as I’m concerned, this is the most special cake I’ve ever created because it’s for you.”

The guests at the reception seemed to be properly appreciative of the effort. They gathered around the cake, oohing and aahing, asking Aislinn repeatedly if all the details were actually edible. Laughing, she assured them that, as intricate as the decorations were, the cake was meant to be eaten.

“So you made that?”

She turned to find Ethan standing behind her, a glass of punch in his hand, his gaze focused on the cake. “Yes, I made that.”

If he noted her wryly mocking repetition, he ignored it. “It looks nice.”

Feeling a little petty now, she replied more genuinely, “Thank you. It was the most important cake I’ve ever done.”

“You and Nic are pretty tight, huh?”

“We’ve been friends for a long time. Since elementary school.”

“And when did you start the psychic thing?”

She counted mentally to ten, then gave a fake smile and a slight wave aimed toward a pillar on the other side of the room. “If you’ll excuse me, Ethan, I see someone I should say hello to. Perhaps you should offer your mother another glass of punch. She looks a little wilted.”

Before he could answer, she was already moving away, congratulating herself on her restraint. There was absolutely no way she would do anything to put a damper on Nic’s wedding reception, but Ethan Brannon could try the patience of a saint.

She didn’t know what it was about her that made him feel compelled to bait her, but he never seemed to miss an opportunity. Fortunately she could think of no reason for spending any more time with him once this evening was over.



“Ethan.”

Having been unaware that his brother was anywhere nearby, Ethan grimaced a little before turning around to face Joel with an expression of feigned innocence. “Hey, bro. Nice party.”

“Yes, it is. So stop trying to mess it up, okay?”

“I’m not doing anything,” Ethan muttered into his punch glass.

“You were picking on Aislinn again.”

Faintly amused by his brother’s wording, Ethan shrugged. “I was just talking to her. You know, making small talk. Isn’t that what one’s supposed to do at these things? I told her I liked the cake.”

“There was more to it than that. I didn’t hear what you said, but I could tell she didn’t like it.”

“So are you into mind reading now?”

“Leave her alone, Ethan. She’s not a fraud and she’s not a crackpot. She’s Nic’s best friend, almost a sister to her—which makes her, like, an honorary sister-in-law to me now. So be nice to her,” Joel ordered sternly.

Ethan sighed. “I’ll try. It’s just that whole psychic thing. I’m not buying in to it.”

“Nobody’s asking you to. Certainly Aislinn’s not asking you to. She hates when anyone calls her a psychic or talks about her…well, gifts, for lack of a better word. Just treat her like you do anyone else. No, scratch that. Be polite to her.”

Because it was Joel’s wedding day and Ethan was feeling uncharacteristically magnanimous, he said, “I’ll work on it.”

Joel clapped him on the shoulder. “I appreciate it.”

Still looking radiant in her white satin and lace, Nic broke away from the final group of well-wishers who had lingered with her at the end of the reception line Joel had just escaped. “What are you two plotting over here?”

Ethan lightly chucked her chin with the knuckles of his free hand. “I was just commiserating with my kid brother. Now that he’s married a cop, he’s going to have to toe the line.”

“You’ve got that straight.” Nic’s sudden tough-girl expression was especially funny considering the delicate lace draping her. “I’ve got handcuffs.”

Looking intrigued, Joel slid his arm around her slender waist. “Maybe we should discuss those…later.”

Ethan groaned and looked down at his empty punch glass. “I think I need some more of this fruity stuff. Since there isn’t anything stronger.”

“Nic. Joel.” Nic’s mother, Susan Sawyer, hurried toward them, a look of determination on her face, which so strongly resembled her daughter’s. “The photographer wants to take a few more pictures of you while the guests are in line at the buffet tables.”

Though Nic rolled her eyes a bit, she took Joel’s arm and turned obediently with him. “Yes, Mother.”

Joel looked back over his shoulder at his brother. “Try to look like you’re enjoying yourself, will you? I know you don’t like parties—but you could pretend you do.”

“To paraphrase a cheesy movie I caught on cable recently—this is my party face.”

Joel moved on with a resigned shake of his head, leaving Ethan to reflect that when it came to parties, he had always been pretty much hopeless. He didn’t do small talk, he wasn’t much of a dancer, he was uncomfortable in crowds and he was lousy at pretending to be having a good time when he wasn’t.

He stood unobtrusively at one side of the room while the other guests gathered around Nic and Joel or sat at the comfortably arranged small tables to enjoy the finger-foods buffet provided by the caterer. Ethan wasn’t hungry, so he remained where he was, watching.

His gaze turned toward the cake table in its place of honor. The cake was so fancy that it was almost a shame to destroy it, he thought, wondering how many hours Aislinn had spent on those incredibly detailed decorations. Hers was an odd business. All that time and effort spent on something so transient. A plain cake tasted just as good as one covered in fake lace and flowers.

Still, as a small-business consultant, he appreciated the fact that she had found a market for her skills and was apparently making a living at it. He wondered idly if she was charging enough for her time, taking full deductions on her supplies and other expenses. If she had a solid business plan to keep her on track to grow and expand her cottage industry.

“You’re thinking about work, aren’t you?” His mother, petite, blond Elaine Brannon, slipped a hand beneath his arm as she spoke indulgently. “You always get that exact look in your eyes when you’re trying to figure out how to make money for someone else. Are you already planning how to restructure your brother’s business office?”

“Something like that. How are you holding up, Mom?”

She gave him a look and spoke firmly. “I’m fine. The wedding was lovely, wasn’t it? Very simple and sweet.”

“It was nice. Nic was right to resist overdoing things. I hate those splashy, overblown, pretentious affairs.”

“You’re referring to your cousin Jessica’s wedding last year?”

He grimaced. “Bingo. The circus with the twelve bridesmaids and four flower girls and two dogs in tuxedos and the white doves and oversize ice sculptures and clowns and horse-drawn carriages and full orchestra and endless speeches by inebriated guests.”

“There weren’t any clowns,” Elaine murmured, though she couldn’t refute any of the rest of his drawled description. “I was sorry I coerced you into going to that one. I knew Marlene and Jessica would go overboard, but I didn’t think they would get that carried away.”

“Yeah, well, the worst part was that Marlene and Ted are going to be paying for that production long after the marriage is over.”

“I’m afraid you’re right.” Elaine shook her head in disapproval. “Jessica and Bobby have already separated twice, and last I heard, things aren’t looking any better for them. Still, Marlene could have made an effort to come to Joel’s wedding after we all made the trip to Iowa for Jessica’s.”

As much as he knew his mother enjoyed family gossip—the reason he’d brought up the juicy topic in the first place—Ethan was bored with discussing his father’s sister and her ostentatious lifestyle. “You and Susan seem to have been getting along very well,” he remarked, glancing across the room to where Nic’s mother stood chatting with the minister.

“She’s an interesting woman,” Elaine agreed. “She has some fascinating stories about living in Europe with her son. He has to return tomorrow because of job demands, but she’s staying here another week to visit with her friends before rejoining Paul in Paris. She even offered to provide accommodations and guide service if your father and I would like to visit there. Wasn’t that nice?”

“Good luck getting Dad to Paris,” Ethan murmured. “He would be convinced his practice would collapse and termites would eat the house to the ground while he was gone.”

Elaine sighed gustily. “He has to retire sometime, right? He can’t keep practicing orthodontia for the rest of our lives.”

“You know he would drive you crazy if he quit the practice. But maybe he’ll agree to take you to Paris later this summer since Susan made such a nice offer. I’ll even promise to check the house every day for termites.”

Smiling at the gentle mockery of her husband’s one odd obsession, Elaine said, “Between the two of us, maybe we can talk him into it. I would love to see Paris.”

Ethan made a mental note to persuade his father to book the trip as soon as possible. And then, because his mother faced a rather significant medical appointment next week, he tried to assure himself that there would be no reason for her not to enjoy that long-overdue vacation.

“You’re sure you don’t want me to come back to Danston with you? Because I can come back and reorganize Joel’s operations later….”

She shook her head sternly. “You will stay here, just as you’ve planned. It’s the ideal time for you to look over Joel’s office procedures and to keep an eye on things while he and Nic are away. I never should have told you about my appointment. If you hadn’t happened to be there when the nurse called, I would have waited to tell you when I tell Joel—after I have all the results back.”

“Yeah, well, Joel’s going to be ticked off that you didn’t tell him sooner, just as I would have been.”

She leveled a finger at him in the same gesture she had always used when delivering a maternal order. “Don’t you dare say a word to him, Ethan Albert Brannon. I won’t have his honeymoon spoiled by worrying about something that will probably turn out to be nothing at all.”

He sighed and responded as he always did to that particular tone. “Yes, ma’am.”

“They’re getting ready to start the dancing.” Elaine glanced toward the corner where the band was starting to play again. “Interesting choice of musicians. They look young enough to be high school students.”

“They are. I think a couple of them are Joel’s patients.”

“Really? How odd. But pretty much what I’ve come to expect from Nic.”

“Admit it, you like her.”

“More all the time,” she confessed with a smile. “She really is a dear, isn’t she? And she loves Joel so much.”

“Obviously mutual.”

“Oh, yes. He’s crazy about her.” Looking pensive now, Elaine gazed across the room to where Joel and Nic were moving to the center of the dance floor. “I can’t help thinking back to Joel and Heather’s big, formal wedding. It was so different from this intimate little affair. Beautiful in its own way but different. And as happy as Joel was with Heather, this seems so much more fitting for the man he is now.”

Ethan didn’t want to talk about his late sister-in-law tonight, six years after her death. “This is who Joel is now,” he agreed simply, then changed the subject. “Do you want something to eat? I’ll get a plate for you.”

“No, thank you. I’d better go join your father. He’s starting to give me signals that he’s ready to be rescued from Nic’s uncle’s fishing stories. By the way, you really should ask the maid of honor to dance. I know you don’t care for dancing, but it is sort of tradition, you know.”

He frowned as he glanced instinctively across the room to where Aislinn sat at a table eating with Nic’s mother and brother. “Considering my dancing skills—or lack thereof—she would probably just as soon I didn’t ask her.”

“Nonsense, Ethan. You’re perfectly capable of moving in time to the music. And why wouldn’t you want to dance with her? She’s very pretty. There’s something a little…I don’t know…different about her, but I suppose that’s to be expected from Nicole’s best friend, isn’t it?”

Elaine seemed to have no idea just how “different” Aislinn was rumored to be—and not just in Nic’s refreshingly unpredictable way, Ethan mused after his mother went off to rescue his dad. No surprise, of course. He wouldn’t have known himself had it not been for that incident back in the fall, when Aislinn had called to warn of Nic’s impending accident.

It wasn’t as if anyone around here ever openly talked about it—not that he’d heard, at least. They simply acted a bit wary around Aislinn, as though they weren’t quite sure what to say to her.

Oddly enough, he was sometimes treated the same way back in Danston. As though he didn’t quite fit in with everyone else. Though, as far as he knew, no one had ever accused him of having any supernatural abilities.

The bride and groom finished their dance, and everyone else was encouraged to take the floor. With a slight shrug, Ethan moved toward Aislinn. What the heck. It wasn’t as if there was anything else to do. And dancing with a beautiful woman—even one who pretended to be a psychic—was more entertaining than just standing there being bored.




Chapter Three


Aislinn was taken completely off guard when Ethan asked her to dance, which perhaps explained why she couldn’t come up with a quick and polite excuse to decline. Not that there was any real reason why she shouldn’t have accepted, of course, she reminded herself as they moved toward the small dance floor. It was sort of expected for the best man and the maid of honor to share a dance.

She was aware of that same odd hesitation when he turned to take her into his arms, almost a wariness of letting him touch her. She still couldn’t understand why she felt that way around him. She’d touched nearly everyone else in this room, shaking hands in the reception line, exchanging brief social hugs with the people she had known most of her life. There had been no unusual flashes of insight, no unprecedented reactions to the physical contact. There was just something about Ethan….

“Why did you look so surprised when I asked you to dance?” he asked as soon as they music began.

Keeping as much distance between them as politely possible, she shrugged lightly before answering, “I just didn’t think you would.”

Mentally she dared him to make some smart-aleck remark about how he would have expected her to predict the invitation, but to her relief, he let it pass. Maybe he’d gotten tired of making digs about her so-called abilities. At least she hoped that was the case.

“I guess you and I haven’t gotten off to a very good start,” he said abruptly. “And I suppose that’s my fault. I’m not very good at the social thing—meeting people, making small talk. Saying the right things.”

“You choose not to be good at it because it isn’t important to you,” she murmured in return. “You’re perfectly capable of making polite conversation when you make the effort.”

She was almost surprised when he agreed with her rather than challenge her again. “You’re probably right. I just don’t choose to make the effort very often.”

“I’m not exactly a party animal either,” she admitted after a moment. “I prefer small gatherings to large crowds. And I sometimes have trouble knowing what to say to people I don’t know very well. So I’ll take part of the blame for any awkwardness between us.”

“Very generous of you.”

His tone sounded more humorous than mocking, so she smiled. “Yes, I thought so.”

He seemed to search for something else innocuous to say. “They’ll be cutting the cake soon, I guess. Will it bother you to watch them chop it up?”

“No.” She was amused by his wording. “Why would it?”

“Well, you must have spent a lot of hours on the decorations.”

“That’s my job. I charge well for my time—though I made this one as a gift to Nic and Joel.”

“Nice of you. Do you run your business out of your house or do you have a bakery with helpers?”

“I recently leased a small shop because I’d outgrown my kitchen at home. I have two part-time employees for baking and deliveries, but I do most of the work myself. I prefer it that way for now.”

“As good as you are at it, you could probably build up a pretty decent business. Hire a few more people to do the mixing and baking while you concentrate on the arty part. Maybe teach a couple to decorate in your style for everyday orders, saving yourself for the really complicated stuff. You could advertise in Little Rock and online, get your name out there….”

Laughing a little, she tilted her head to look up at him, seeing a gleam in his eyes that had nothing to do with her and everything to do with her business. “Hey, just because you’re here to organize Joel’s office, don’t make the mistake of thinking I want the same thing. I’m perfectly happy with my little operation and I’m making enough to take care of my needs for now.”

“For now, maybe,” he agreed, “but what about the future? You should be thinking about—”

“Ethan, this is a wedding reception, not a business conference.”

His mouth quirked in a slight smile. “I’m painfully aware of that.”

The weak joke passed by her as she found herself staring at his mouth. If just that hint of a smile had softened his expression so much, she couldn’t imagine how much a full-blown grin would change him. Though she had a strong feeling few people saw him that happy and relaxed, she wished she could see him smile like that, just once. Only to satisfy her curiosity, of course.

He glanced toward the band. “They’re pretty good, considering how young they are.”

“Yes. They’re going to hit it big,” she agreed absently, still thinking about Ethan’s smile.

He was quiet for a moment, then asked, “Was that just a guess?”

Feeling the muscles of her stomach tighten, she nodded coolly. “Of course. They’re very talented. Why wouldn’t they be successful?”

Aislinn knew very well that they were listening to a young band who would eventually be stars in their genre. A guess? Maybe, though without the doubt that usually accompanied a shot in the dark. Intuition was a more comfortable word for her—one she found easier to accept. Whatever lay behind her occasional predictions, she had enough experience with them to know that she was rarely wrong.

None of which she had any intention of discussing—especially with Ethan, who had made his doubts about her very clear.

She was rather relieved when the song came to an end. She stepped away from him with a bright smile. “I guess I’d better get back to mingling.”

He nodded, his own expression unreadable as he studied her face. “I’ll walk you back to your table.”

Because she didn’t want to rebuff him when he was making an effort to be sociable, she nodded and fell into step beside him. On the way back to the corner where she had been sitting with Susan and Paul, they passed a table at which Ethan’s parents sat chatting with the minister and his wife.

Elaine Brannon smiled approvingly at Ethan as they walked by, and Aislinn suspected that Elaine had pretty much ordered her older son to participate in the party. Had his mother been the reason he had asked her to dance?

Glancing at Ethan, she noted the expression in his eyes when he looked at his mother and she caught her breath. There was something she suddenly wanted to tell him, but she hesitated, knowing how he would react.

Maybe she should just keep her mouth shut. After all, these feelings of hers came with no guarantees. She and Ethan had just had a pleasant dance, ending on a fairly friendly note, for them. Why make waves now?

She sighed, aware that she was wasting time arguing with herself. After seeing the worry in Ethan’s eyes and knowing it was eating at him, she had to at least attempt to set his mind at ease.

“You don’t have to worry about your mother, Ethan,” she murmured, turning to him just before they reached her table. “She’ll be fine.”

His brows dipped into a frown. “What are you talking about?”

“The tests will be clear,” she continued quickly, before she changed her mind. “The mass is benign—nothing to be concerned about. So try not to worry too much about it.”

“How did you—?”

“It’s just a feeling I have, okay?” Anxious to get away from him now, she turned toward the table. “Thank you for the dance, Ethan. I’ll see you.”

He caught her arm. “Aislinn…”

Maybe it was because she hadn’t braced herself this time. Hadn’t been prepared for the touch. But she felt the jolt of reaction run through her, all the way from the contact between his hand and the skin of her arm to someplace hidden very deeply inside her. A place she had never wanted to examine very closely herself.

Something changed in his expression, irritation replaced instantly by reluctant concern. His hand tightened around her arm. “Aislinn? Damn it, you’ve gone white as a sheet. What’s going on?”

“I—uh—”

“Aislinn?” Nic appeared suddenly at her other side, looking quickly from Aislinn to Ethan. “Is anything wrong?”

“I—” Abruptly brought back to the present, she looked around, relieved to see that no one else seemed to be looking at them. Not at the moment, anyway. “I think I need some fresh air. If you’ll excuse me…”

“I’ll go with you.”

Aislinn forced a smile for her friend and spoke brusquely. “You’ll do no such thing. This is your wedding reception. Go find your groom and dance again. I just need a couple of minutes alone. You know how I am when a lot of people are around.”

Because she did know, Nic backed off. “All right. Let me know if you need anything.”

“I will.”

Without looking at Ethan again, Aislinn made her escape, wishing she could go straight home but knowing she had to stay a while longer yet. For Nic.



Ethan woke early Sunday morning with that sense of disorientation that usually accompanied waking in a strange bed. It took him only a moment to remind himself that he was in his brother’s guest room, the only occupant of the house since Joel and Nic had left after the reception for a weeklong Caribbean honeymoon—the longest either of them could take away from their demanding careers. Ethan would stay here until they returned, at which time—assuming everything at Joel’s office was running smoothly—he would head back to Alabama.

Joel had invited his parents to stay at the house, too, but they had chosen to stay in a nearby hotel instead, planning an early departure this morning. Their father was eager to get back to his routines. It was going to take a lot of persuasion for Elaine to get him away for that European vacation she longed for, Ethan thought with a shake of his head. Lou Brannon was the very epitome of a contented homebody. Something Ethan understood a bit too well.

Glancing at the clock on the nightstand, he saw that it was just after seven. Yet he’d bet his parents were already on the road. His dad liked to get an early start.

So here he was, the only member of his family in a town where he hardly knew anyone. During the five days he had been here, he’d spent several hours at Joel’s clinic, meeting the partner and staff, looking over the operations with an eye toward streamlining bookkeeping and maximizing profits. Joel and Bob were literally putting their business into his hands.

He and their newly hired office manager, Marilyn Henderson, would meet with several software salespeople during the next week, as well as have long discussions about existing office practices. They would pore over the books and filing systems, deciding what to change and what to leave alone—though there would be very little of the latter.

Joel and Bob were great guys and excellent doctors, but neither of them had paid much attention to the business part of the practice they had opened just under two years earlier. They could definitely use some help in that area, and Ethan already had a plan in mind. Fortunately Marilyn seemed to be in agreement about the way a pleasant yet efficient medical office should be managed.

Since he was alone in the house, he pulled on a pair of jeans and zipped them but left the snap undone. Barefoot and shirtless, he wandered into the kitchen, yawning and wondering what Joel had left for breakfast. He found orange juice in the refrigerator and poured himself a glass, then popped a bagel into the toaster. Only then did he admit that from the moment he’d opened his eyes he had been trying without success to forget about Aislinn Flaherty.

He had every intention of avoiding her for the remainder of his stay in Cabot. Shouldn’t be too hard. He doubted that she would visit the pediatric practice. And he wouldn’t be ordering any cakes.

He’d given up trying to decide if she was crooked or crazy, but her comment about his mother’s upcoming medical tests had made a cold chill go down his spine. He’d known for a fact that no one knew about those tests except his parents and himself. Just to confirm, he’d casually asked his mother afterward if she had mentioned the situation to anyone else. Anyone at all.

She had reminded him that she wanted to keep the tests absolutely secret until after she learned the results. She had been especially adamant that Joel was not to be told until after his honeymoon.

So how had Aislinn known?

He knew that so-called psychic con artists performed what were known as cold readings—throwing out vague comments and then watching carefully for the most minute changes in expression and subtle body language from their gullible marks. But as far as he’d been able to tell, Aislinn hadn’t prefaced her remarks about his mother’s health with anything he would have considered fishing for clues. And she hadn’t spent much time talking alone to either of his parents, so he kept coming back to the same question….

How had she known?

Not that he had changed his mind about her alleged abilities. Guess or guile, she hadn’t just pulled that prediction out of the ether. And while he fervently hoped she was right about the tests resulting in good news, he would consider it no more than a happy coincidence if it turned out to be true.

Just as well he wouldn’t be seeing her again anytime soon, he told himself as he finished his breakfast. He was just too uncomfortable around her, for quite a few reasons.

Someone rang the front doorbell, startling him as he set his dishes in the dishwasher. He pushed a hand through his tousled hair and moved toward the front door. He couldn’t imagine who would be at Joel’s door on a Sunday morning when everyone knew Joel was out of town. Maybe his parents hadn’t gotten that early start after all.

Having no psychic abilities of his own, he was surprised to find Aislinn on the other side of the door. She wore a gray T-shirt, jeans and sneakers, her dark hair pulled into a loose ponytail, no evidence of makeup on her striking face. She looked as though she had crawled out of bed, thrown on the first clothes she’d found and driven straight over. “What are you doing here?”

She didn’t appear to take offense at the blunt greeting. “I need to talk to you.”

“What about?”

She sighed. “May I come inside?”

For only a moment, he hesitated, tempted to close the door in her face. He finally stepped aside, not because he didn’t want to be rude but because he didn’t want to think of himself as a coward.

“Okay,” he said, facing her from several feet away, his arms crossed over his bare chest. “What is it? Another ‘prediction’?”

She looked around the room, her expression distracted, and then she turned and moved toward the hallway. Frowning, Ethan dropped his arms and followed her. “Where are you going?”

Without answering, she turned left, into Joel’s bedroom rather than into the guest room on the right where Ethan had been staying.

“Aislinn, what the hell are you—”

“There’s a photograph,” she said vaguely. “I need to—oh, here it is.”

The small, framed photo sat on top of a bookcase in one corner. The paperback mysteries Joel liked to read to relax at bedtime filled the bookcase almost to overflowing. On the wall above hung a framed watercolor painting of a peaceful lake cove surrounded by trees and boulders. Joel was the artist; until Nic had told him a few months earlier, Ethan hadn’t even known Joel liked painting with watercolors.

“You sure know your way around Joel’s house,” he muttered as Aislinn picked up the photograph.

“I’ve never been inside this house before,” she replied absently. “We’ve always gathered at Nic’s instead.”

So how had she…? Shaking his head impatiently, he told himself that he had no way of judging if she was even telling the truth. “Okay, what’s going on?”

She drew a deep breath and looked at him. He noted abruptly that she still looked as oddly pale as she had when they’d parted last night. Perhaps that was why it was no surprise when she warned, “You aren’t going to like this.”

He was pretty sure that would prove to be an understatement.



Aislinn had been too focused on finding the photograph to pay much more than passing attention to Ethan when he’d let her in. She’d managed maybe two hours of sleep last night before she had finally given in to the overwhelming urge to drive to Joel’s house. She’d waited as long as she could, doubting that Ethan would appreciate being awakened before dawn so she could find a photograph that was haunting her. Not that he’d been overjoyed to see her as it was.

Only now did she really look at him. He, too, seemed to have only recently crawled out of bed. His hair was mussed, he hadn’t shaved and he wasn’t wearing a shirt or shoes. His jeans weren’t snapped. A stark contrast to the tidy and tuxedoed groomsman she had seen the evening before, she thought.

She wondered if it was weird that she thought he looked even better like this than he had at the wedding. More natural. This was the real Ethan—and despite his forbidding expression, he was a very attractive man.

Pulling her gaze away from the well-defined muscles of his lean chest and abdomen, she moistened her dry lips, her fingers tightening around the small silver frame clutched in her hands. She wasn’t exactly sure how to begin, since she already knew he wasn’t going to believe a word she said.

“Well?” he prompted impatiently.

Might as well stop stalling. She turned the photo toward him. “You recognize this picture, of course.”

He glanced at it, then shrugged. “It’s my family, obviously. Some thirty years ago.”

“Your father. Your mother. You.” She pointed to each figure as she named them. Ethan was perhaps six in the photograph, maybe seven. She indicated the younger boy next to him. “And this is Joel.”

Ethan nodded, a muscle clenching in his jaw as they both turned their attention to the baby sitting in Elaine’s lap.

“Who is this?”

For just a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer. And then he muttered, “That’s Kyle. I assume you already know he died when he was almost two.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

He crossed his arms over his chest, making the muscles bulge just a little. If he was trying to look intimidating, he succeeded. Of course, he also looked sexy as all get-out, but she couldn’t think about that right now.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Please, Ethan. Just humor me for a few minutes. I know this must be difficult for you.”

“It happened a long time ago,” he said with a slight shrug. “I hardly remember him.”

It took no special ability at all for her to know that he was lying. She looked at him without responding.

After a moment he shook his head and spoke curtly. “He drowned. It happened during the aftermath of a tropical storm. There had been a lot of flooding, a lot of local destruction, and even though the weather was still bad, Mom had gone out with one of her charity groups to try to help some of the people who had suffered the most damage to their homes. Dad was at his office, making sure everything there was okay. They left Joel with the nanny who took care of us while Mom was busy with her volunteer work, which was pretty often back then.”

“And there was an accident?”

He nodded. “Joel and I were spending the week with our maternal grandparents in Tennessee, as we did every summer while they were living. Mom thought Kyle was still too small to be gone for that long. Anyway, for some reason, the nanny took him out during that heavy rain. No one knows why they left the house. They were in her car, a cheapie little compact.”

He cleared his throat, then continued, “Apparently she hydroplaned, went off the road and was swept into a flooding river. The car was found a few days later, overturned in very deep water, but it was empty. Several other people drowned during that same tropical storm and resulting flood. There was another man whose body wasn’t recovered for several months, but neither the nanny’s body nor my brother’s was ever found.”

There was no identifiable emotion in his tone, though his eyes looked darker than usual. He obviously believed every word of the sad story he had just told her. The story that had been told to him.

She moistened her lips again. “It isn’t true,” she whispered.

He frowned more deeply at her. “What isn’t true?”

“Any of it. I mean, I know that’s what you think happened. What you all believe. But…”

Ethan’s arms dropped to his sides, the fists clenched. He took a step toward her, making her instinctively move backward. “If you’re going to try to feed me a load of crap about how you’ve been talking to my dead brother…”

“No!” She shook her head forcefully. “It’s not like that, Ethan. I’m not a medium. And even if I were, it wouldn’t apply in this case.”

“And just what is that supposed to mean?”

She drew a deep breath, then blurted out the words before she could lose her nerve. “Kyle isn’t dead.”




Chapter Four


A gentle breeze ruffled Cassandra’s snow-white hair, one straight lock tickling her right cheek. She reached up to tuck it back, savoring the scent of the flowers that bloomed in the gardens around her.

As she often did, she thought of how fortunate she was to be at this pleasant, exclusive, private facility. It was expensive, but her late husband had made sure she would be well cared for after his passing. Just as she had known he would when she’d married him.

She sat alone in her little corner of the garden. She didn’t mingle much with the other residents here, most of them being quite a bit older. Besides, she wasn’t interested in socializing. She actually enjoyed her solitude, for the most part.

She didn’t come outside very often, but she had allowed herself to be persuaded this afternoon, thinking that the fresh, warm air might clear her mind. She didn’t like the new medications. They left her feeling groggy. Lethargic. And she still had the nightmares. Not as often, maybe, but just as vivid and disturbing when they came.

She would have to ask Dr. Thomas to make another adjustment.

Her knitting needles clicked with a slower-than-usual rhythm as she tried to immerse herself in the soothing sounds of the birds singing in the trees above her head, the water splashing gently in the nearby fountain. Lovely, peaceful sounds that almost—but not quite—drowned out the echoes of her dreams.

“Here you are.”

She couldn’t have said how much time had passed between her thoughts of him and his appearance. A few minutes. An hour, perhaps. Time had a trick of slipping away from her. “Hello, Dr. Thomas.”

He sat on a concrete garden bench, crossing one leg over the other. The casual pose stretched the fabric of the khaki slacks he almost always wore with a solid-color shirt and brightly patterned tie beneath the required white coat that made him look so handsome and professional. She liked the way he dressed. Not too stuffy but neatly enough to show regard for his patients here.

There had been a trend away from ties and white coats a couple of years ago, but the residents hadn’t liked seeing their physicians in blue jeans and polo shirts and other members of the staff in T-shirts and flip-flops. Now that the doctors were back in their white coats and the rest of the staff wore tidy uniforms, everything seemed to run much more smoothly. More civilly. She firmly believed that the general decline in polite society could be measured by the pervasive loss of respect for proper attire.

And weren’t there people in her past who would find that attitude hilarious, coming from her?

“What are you thinking about so seriously?”

She made herself smile as she replied candidly, “Neckties and panty hose.”

To give him credit, he didn’t seem at all taken aback by the non sequitur, asking merely, “Are you for ’em or agin ’em?”

She chuckled, thinking of how much she liked this nice young man. “I’m for ’em.”

He tugged lightly at the blue-and-green-patterned tie he wore with a blue shirt that contrasted nicely with his light tan. “I was afraid you might say that.”

Laughing again, she shook her head. “Don’t try to con me. You like looking nice or you wouldn’t give so much thought to matching your shirts and ties. Unlike some of the doctors who show up in mismatched patterns and colors that make one’s head hurt to look at them.”

“Now, Cassandra, don’t make fun of Dr. Marvin. Everyone knows he’s color-blind.”

“Then he should always let his wife dress him in the mornings, bless his heart.”

Grinning, the doctor nodded. “You’re probably right. So how are you?”

She told him about the effects of the new sleep aid, finishing with a request for a change.

Dr. Thomas nodded gravely. “We’ll make another adjustment. I still think it would be good for you to talk about your dreams with someone, though. If not with me, at least with your counselor. We don’t discuss specifics about our clients, as you’re aware, but I get the feeling you aren’t being much more forthcoming with her than you are with me.”

“I tell you both everything you need to know,” she assured him, catching a dropped stitch.

“I would like to think you trust me, Cassandra.”

The sincerity in his voice was genuine, not like some of the doctors who only pretended to be truly concerned about the residents here. Dr. Thomas cared so much that she was tempted at times to advise him to put a bit more distance between himself and his patients. As appealing as his empathetic nature made him, it also made him more susceptible to burnout and disillusion. As fond as she was of him, she would hate to see him fall prey to either of those conditions.

“I trust you as much as I trust anyone.”

He sighed lightly. “I suppose I have to be satisfied with that.”

Nodding, she let her hands rest. “How was your date last week?”

“We were talking about you, not me.”

She lifted her needles again.

After a moment, he conceded. “We attended a symphony performance. We had a flat tire on the way to the concert hall, but I was able to change it without messing up my clothes or making us late to the concert. On the whole, it was a pleasant evening.”

“But a little dull,” she interpreted, reading easily between the lines. “You probably won’t ask her out again. I told you she wasn’t right for you.”

He shook his head in obvious exasperation. “Maybe you can introduce me to Ms. Right,” he muttered.

“I can’t introduce you, but I can tell you that you’ll know when you find her. And you will find her.”

“A seer, are you?” he teased.

She didn’t smile in return.



“You’re crazy.”

Aislinn flinched in response to Ethan’s blunt words. “I’m not crazy.”

“Then you must think I am. Because there is no way I’m buying whatever it is you’re trying to sell.”

“I’m not trying to sell anything, Ethan. I just…know.”

“You don’t know anything.” He took the photograph out of her hands and set it a bit too forcefully back into place on Joel’s bookcase. “I think you’d better leave now.”

She sighed wearily. “I knew you would react this way.”

“Did you? Well, hell, maybe you are psychic.”

He stalked to the doorway, pausing there with one hand motioning for her to precede him. It wasn’t a request.

Though she moved past him out of the bedroom, she wasn’t ready to completely give up. “If you would just let me tell you what I—”

“I’m really not interested.” He kept walking, straight toward the front door, making her have to hurry to keep up with him. “I know Nic thinks the world of you, and Joel seems to like you, too, so I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you really believe the things you say. Maybe you’ve guessed correctly so many times that you’ve convinced yourself you really do have some sort of gift. But this time you’ve taken it too far.”

“Don’t you think I know how bizarre this sounds?” she retorted. “Can’t you understand how hard it was for me to come here, knowing how you would respond?”

“Then why did you come?”

She sighed and pushed her hands into her pockets. “I had to,” she muttered. “I couldn’t sleep last night and I knew I wouldn’t be able to rest until I talked to you about the…about the feeling I had about your brother.”

“And just when did you get this…feeling?”

The slight note of mockery behind the word wasn’t lost to her, but she answered evenly, “Last night. At the reception. When you touched me, I—I knew there was something I had to tell you. I wasn’t sure what it was until later, during the night, when I got…I don’t know…some sort of a mental image of this photograph. When I looked at it, when I held it, I knew what I had to tell you.”

Ethan’s expression didn’t change during her halting, stumbling explanation. She swung out her hands in frustration. “I know it sounds crazy! I spent most of the night wondering if I really have lost my mind. I don’t have visions, Ethan. I don’t get flashes when people touch me. Like you said, I make guesses—and they usually come true. But this is different. This isn’t something that has ever happened to me before.”

“Really?” He made no effort to hide his disbelief. “How about last year, when you kept calling Nic in Alabama to warn her that something bad was going to happen to her?”

“I told you—that was a feeling. Just a vague sense of uneasiness that made me worry something might go wrong. The sort of premonition ordinary people get all the time.”

Ordinary being the operative word. It was all she had ever aspired to be.

Ordinary.

Normal.

He shook his head. “Coming into my brother’s house, going into his bedroom, telling me Kyle didn’t drown thirty years ago—that’s not the sort of thing ordinary people do, Aislinn.”

She swallowed. “I know.”

Letting his breath escape in a long, slow exhale, Ethan pushed a hand through his hair, leaving it even more mussed than it had been before. “I’m not sure what I should say here. I’m not very good at this sort of thing. Maybe you should get some help. You know, see someone. If you need me to call anyone—a friend, maybe, a family member—just tell me the number.”

Oh, great. Now he was trying to be nice even as he suggested that she should be taken away in a straitjacket.

“You know what, Ethan? You’re right. I shouldn’t have come here,” she snapped, moving toward the door. “I should have known how you would react. I did know, but I thought I could persuade you to listen. I was wrong about that, but I wasn’t wrong about Kyle. He didn’t die in that flood. He’s very much alive.”

He didn’t respond, but she hadn’t really expected him to. She grabbed the doorknob and jerked open the door. She’d stepped only halfway through when she turned to throw one last reckless comment over her shoulder.

“You want a real, live prediction from a real, live freak? Fine. Your parents are on their way home. They’ll arrive just fine, but they’ll be delayed by several hours because they’re going to have a blowout in a little town just inside the Alabama border. The left rear tire, and it’s going to take them a while to have it repaired. So figure out how I ‘guessed’ that, why don’t you? I certainly don’t know.”

She slammed the door behind her with enough force to rattle the diamond-shaped glass pane in the center. And still it didn’t seem hard enough to express the full extent of her anguished frustration.



Ethan was trying his best to concentrate on his work when the telephone rang later that afternoon. Glancing at his watch, he decided it was exactly the time his parents should be arriving safely at their home, probably without any untimely delays at all. “Hello?”

“Hey, bro, it’s Joel.”

So he’d guessed wrong. “What are you doing calling on your honeymoon? You don’t have enough to keep you entertained there?”





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