Eden's Spell (24 page)

Jason shook his head and stared up at Toni.

“Grown-ups are strange!” he concluded.

Katrina dragged Mike with her and plopped down beside Jason, hugging him so he squirmed.

“Hey! You're the one who wanted a mad scientist for a stepdad, huh?”

And Jason had to smile. “Yeah, I guess that I did!”

“M
OM! MOM! COME QUICK!”

Katrina started slightly. Usually, she would have been attuned to the urgency in Jason's voice and responded instantly to his call. Somewhere in her subconscious, though, she knew that it was a cry of laughter and excitement, not of fear. And today …

Something about today had cast her so deeply into her own thoughts that she remained where she was, cocooned in a dream world.

It might have been the wind; it might have been the lulling dip of the palm fronds, or the slow ripples moving across the surface of the pond. There was a scent of wild orchids in the air today too.

She was remembering their wedding. Her parents had been there, as well as Jason, Toni, Frank, the Denvers, Harry, and what seemed like half of the Second Fleet. A score of Navy men and a few scattered Marines all had come to give their best. The admiral had been there, as had Stan, smiling away as if he had planned the entire thing himself.

There had been a honeymoon, in Switzerland. They were accustomed to sun and sand and the beach, so snowcapped mountains and cozy fires were a romantic change.

But still …

For Katrina the best time had been here. Here by the pool, with the sun beating down on them, with Mike swearing that he had fallen in love the second he had seen her, a wild thing, bursting from the shade of the palms and the tangle of the subtropical jungle like a goddess set to do battle….

“Mom!”

This time Jason's shriek did penetrate the fog of her thoughts. She catapulted to her feet, spinning like a dancer on her bare toes for a moment as she tried to locate his position.

South … she was certain that the cry had come from the south, by the second inland pool.

She ran, led by instinct. Past a patch of crotons, wild hibiscus, and bitter cherry. She found the path, which was shaded by a line of palm trees. It was almost dusk, and the sun was casting patterns of red and orange and primitive pink.

“Jason!”

He was there, and Harry was there.

Jason looked up at her, smiling. “Mike's at it again, Mom!”

And he was. The pool was surrounded by fog, by a light, powdery, pink fog that seemed to create a magic realm, beautiful and surreal.

“Oh, no!” she breathed.

And Mike, in cutoffs, bending over the little pellet on the ground that created the fog, laughed.

“Jason,” Harry said, “I think that the experiment is over. What say we run over to the main island for an ice cream cone?”

“Mom, Mike, can I?”

Katrina nodded, in a daze. “Yes!”

She thought she saw Harry give Mike a wink, then he and Jason disappeared through the trees.

She wasn't wearing her teal maillot today. She was wearing a two-piece, which was held together by thin spaghetti strings. With her hands on her hips she walked around the pool, ready to lash into her husband. Long before she came to him, she saw that he was grinning. That his silver eyes gleamed like the stars, that he was very lazily stretching out on the sand—waiting for her, expecting her!

“Michael Taylor! You promised—no experiments out of doors!”

He shrugged, patting the clean white expanse of sand beside him. “Come talk to me, I'll try to explain.”

“No,” she murmured warily, but the magical pink fog was all around her. It made the setting sun even more beautiful; it touched the air with a hint of dampness that made the brush of it against her feel like silk.

She came to him, falling to her knees in the sand. Her hand stretched out, cupping the contours of his cheek. Then she was leaning toward him, desperately hungry for his lips, for the taste of him.

In seconds she was beside him, touching him, stroking him, feeling the ripple of muscle beneath her fingers, luxuriating in the quickening of his breath, and her own. She felt his hands, coursing along her spine, finding strings to pull, then savoring the naked flesh that was revealed. His kisses moved over her breasts until she was on fire, certain that she was the flame that created the glow all around him. She was lost in sensation, swirling on clouds.

The sun streaked over them, crimson, magic, real and unreal. The breeze around them was cool, a shimmering embrace against the rampant heat of their bodies. They were moving in time, in rhythm. The sun made a last, mercurial streak against the sky; it was a pinnacle of beauty and pleasure, a soaring streak of splendor across the sky. And then it began slowly, slowly to ease into shades of softest pink and yellow, drifting, drifting with them as they came, gently and tenderly, back to earth.

Curled against his chest, content and sated, Katrina wrinkled her nose against the damp tendrils of hair on his chest.

“You're definitely a madman, a devil!” she accused him.

“Hmm.” He kissed her forehead. “Madly in love with my wife. But”—he moved away from her slightly, meeting her aqua eyes, which were shimmering like the sea—“I've a confession to make. The fog—the pink fog. It wasn't 44DFS. It was just a colored steam pellet.”

“Well, my love”—she drew a pattern against his flesh, following the triangle of hair down his chest, to his waist and below, causing his breath to quicken all over again—“I've a confession too. I knew that it wasn't 44DFS.”

“You did?”

“Certainly. You'd never break a promise.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“And it is our anniversary. And a night out on the town did sound a little tame—for you.”

“So you were expecting something.” He laughed. “I love to be obliging….”

She smiled and came to his arms again. Night came, and the stars shone down, a gentle, gentle light, made for lovers. The breeze became cooler, and still they lingered, warmed by their love.

At last Mike rose, pulling her to her feet. “We'd better get to the house,” he told her. “Jason will be home soon, and Toni is coming in.”

“She is?” Katrina gasped with delight.

“I told you I had a baby-sitter for Jason.”

“I had thought you meant Harry. But what a nice surprise!”

“I had thought it only fair to tell Toni and Jason together.”

“Tell them what?” Katrina demanded, feeling her heart speed.

“About the baby.”

Her fingers curled around him, she buried her face against his chest. “I hadn't told you yet!” she whispered. “I meant to tell you tonight. With candlelight and champagne. How did you know?”

He chuckled, smoothing the hair from her face. “One, I'm still a doctor”—he paused to sweep her into his arms—“and two, I am the man who loves you with all his heart, forever.”

“Oh, Mike, that's lovely!” she said, wide eyed.

He kissed her nose. “Thank you!”

And laughing together, holding each other, they returned to their house.

Heather Graham (b. 1953) is one of the country's most prominent authors of romance, suspense, and historical fiction. She has been writing bestselling books for nearly three decades, publishing more than 150 novels and selling more than seventy-five million copies worldwide.

Born in Florida to an Irish mother and a Scottish father, Graham attended college at the University of South Florida, where she majored in theater arts. She spent a few years making a living onstage as a back-up vocalist and dinner theater actor, but after the birth of her third child decided to seek work that would allow her to spend more time with her family.

After early efforts writing romance and horror stories, Graham sold her first novel,
When Next We Love
(1982). She went on to write nearly two dozen contemporary romance novels.

In 1989 Graham published
Sweet Savage Eden
, which initiated the Cameron family saga, an epic six-book series that sets romantic drama amid turbulent periods of American history, such as the Civil War. She revisited the nineteenth century in
Runaway
(1994), a story of passion, deception, and murder in Florida, which spawned five sequels of its own.

In the past decade, Graham has written romantic suspense novels such as
Tall, Dark, and Deadly
(1999),
Long, Lean, and Lethal
(2000), and
Dying to Have Her
(2001), as well as supernatural fiction. In 2003's
Haunted
she created the Harrison Investigation service, a paranormal detective organization that she spun off into four Krewe of Hunters novels in 2011.

Graham lives in Florida, where she writes, scuba dives, and spends time with her husband and five children.

Graham (left) with her sister.

Graham with her family in New Orleans. Pictured left to right: Dennis Pozzessere; Zhenia Yeretskaya Pozzessere; Derek, Shayne, and Chynna Pozzessere; Heather Graham; Jason and Bryee-Annon Pozzessere; and Jeremy Gonzalez.

Graham at a photo shoot in Key West for the promotion of the Flynn Brothers trilogy.

Graham at the haunted Myrtles plantation, Francisville, Louisiana.