In This Life (25 page)

“I realized some very important things today, David.” I studied his resolute profile and his unblinking eyes and the way he kept staring ahead, as if constructing an invisible wall between us. “And there will be a time, a more appropriate time, to explain it all to you, but now isn’t it.”

He didn’t react.

I took it as a signal to keep going.

“You need to know that I didn’t sleep with Galen.”

He blinked, once.

“I’m attracted to him. I won’t lie to you about that. But you’re my life. You always have been and always will be.”

David remained silent and still, and I started wondering if my reconciliation was too little too late.

“I went to his house this afternoon to talk,” I added, “and Galen said some things that resonated with me.”

And so here you are, faced with another decision similar to the one you made before.

I instead ask you to look to your future. A new and different one.

“I understand better now why I’ve been so distant with you,” I said. “And why I’ve avoided marriage. Someday, when we’re both ready, I’ll tell you the whole story. Just know that I never intended to hurt you. I was running away from something wonderful simply because I was scared, and it was Galen who helped me understand why.”

David straightened. “I’ve always known you were scared of marriage, Lottie. This isn’t news to me.”

His blunt words, and the impatience behind them, pushed me into the offensive. If I was going to make this right, I had only one shot and only one time to do it.

“True,” I said, “but the reasons for my fear are because of a decision I made a long time ago.”

He made a face that said he wasn’t completely convinced. “Let me guess. Your memories?”

“I understand your irritation, David. I’ve demanded a lot from you recently and, if the situation was reversed, I’m sure I would have acted on the same disbelief and distrust that you did.” I paused, recognizing the precious gift David had given me throughout my regression. “You gave me the opportunity to figure out my life with Galen as a guide, and the freedom to find what I needed to find. I’m not sure I would have been able to do the same for you, which probably doesn’t say a whole lot for who I am as a person. What I’m trying to say is, I love you. My life feels right with you, and only you. It has always been that way, and always will be.”

David drew in a long breath and held it. He was thinking, hard, and when he let the breath out a small smile emerged on his lips. “Funny. I’d been thinking the very same thing while I stayed at my mom’s and dad’s.”

I pulled back, surprised, though I shouldn’t have been. David had a relationship with his parents that I envied.

“That’s where you went?” I asked. “Your parents’ house?”

He nodded. “Had a long talk with them, too.” Then he shuddered. “Though it was really more of a lecture. Do parents ever stop doing that?”

“I don’t think so,” I said with a small smile of my own. “But you should feel grateful you have parents who love you enough to still give you one, David.”

He glanced at me and grimaced.

“I see many clients who would give anything to have parents who set limits and give guidance,” I told him. “It’s more a blessing than a curse, believe me.”

“I’m thirty years old, Lottie.”

“Thirty or sixty, it doesn’t matter. That’s what makes it so wonderful.”

I thought of Logan and Mrs. Reynolds and the empty, manipulative relationship they had shared. It was a sad situation made worse by lies and insecurity.

David unclasped his hands and sat upright. “I know I have a tendency to strong-arm you, but you know it’s only because I want to protect you, right? And since your episodes started, I haven’t been able to stop myself.” David leveled his gaze with mine. “And I’m willing to bet that it didn’t help us any. Hell, maybe it even made things worse between us. I don’t know. I’m just so tired, I don’t know what to think anymore.”

David may have not have known what to think but I did. In fact, I couldn’t stop thinking about Bakari’s sword and what may or may not have happened that night thousands of years ago. It was the last memory I had, where time from bygone, bittersweet days ended and my second life began.

The reason for David’s protective nature was more than clear.

“I think I understand why you want to safeguard me,” I said. “And, in all honesty, it’s not something I want you to change.”

David took my hand, laced his fingers through mine and studied them with an expression that bordered on fascination, as if he’d never seen them linked together before.

“Letting you go was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he admitted. “As much as I hoped you’d come back, I tried imagining a life where you didn’t and I couldn’t do it.”

“I know you were thinking about moving out, though.”

His head came up and his tone, along with his expression, turned somber. “For a while, I was.”

“But not anymore?”

David shook his head. “No. What’s happened between us — ” He stopped, taking the time to think about what he wanted to say. “We have a lot of work ahead of us, you know.”

Of course I knew. I’d allowed mistrust and doubt to enter our relationship, not to mention another man. And Galen’s appearance in my life exposed new issues between David and me that would, eventually, have to be addressed. It was going to be a challenging road ahead.

“I’m willing to work at us,” I told him. “Are you prepared to start over again, too?”

David thought about it and for a moment, I had a feeling he might be reconsidering. “I think I’d prefer to pick up where we left off.”

He leaned in and kissed me, and warmth spread through me like a gentle summer breeze. Tender, inviting, and perfect.

He moved in, ready to kiss me again, and stopped. “I almost forgot,” he said, reaching around and grabbing something from my nightstand. It was black and silver and the size of a tiny watch battery, and he held it up carefully between a thumb and forefinger. “I found this tucked inside the corner of the baseboard heating.”

“Is this what I think it is?”

He nodded. “A listening device.”

I tried taking it from David to get a better look but David pulled it away. “Careful. I’m sure this has prints.”

“What on earth were you doing looking inside the baseboard?” I asked.

“I wasn’t looking for anything. I was exhausted when I got home tonight and went right to bed. When I grabbed the television remote, something in the corner of the room reflected the light from the screen and I checked it out.”

He placed the device back on the nightstand.

“I think that’s how Mrs. Reynolds heard our conversation last Friday,” he went on. “It’s inactive now because I busted it, but Nat thinks it was controlled remotely from a computer.”

“Mrs. Reynolds has never been to our bedroom,” I said. “There’s no way she’d have been able to set this in place. Besides, the person who called me was a man, not a woman.”

“I thought about that, and there are only two other people who could have done this.” David gave me a pointed look. “Logan or Paul.”

“It was Paul,” I said over a sigh. “I know in my heart that it was him. The listening device, the envelope and the hair. All of it. He’d stop by sometimes while you were away on missions and could have very easily slipped into our bedroom without me knowing it. And as a psychiatrist, he’d have access to all kinds of people to help him get the job done.”

David squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry he hurt you. I know how important he was to you.”

It took a lot for David to admit that, about a man he’d hated through two lifetimes. I swallowed down my grief and felt tears start to burn in my eyes. Recovering from Paul’s deceit was not going to be easy.

“So should we hand over the listening device to the police, too?” I asked.

“Definitely. And we’ll do that tomorrow.” David edged in closer. “I have other plans for tonight.”

My eyebrows arched at the suggestiveness in his words. “Oh?”

“Yes.” David brushed my hair away and pressed his mouth to my neck. His breath felt warm, his lips hotter, and I tilted my head, giving him better access. “Did you know this is going to be a great night to watch the Perseid meteors?”

My interest faltered. Those weren’t the plans I’d expected him to offer. “Uh, no I didn’t.”

His mouth moved up to my ear. He slipped my tee from my shoulder, slid down the bra strap, and dropped another kiss there. “Remember when we used to bring a blanket and cheap wine to the beach, hide away in that area behind the dunes, and watch the stars?”

I did. And I remembered doing that with Bakari, too.

I shivered under David’s touch and whispered, “We didn’t only watch the stars.”

“I know, and I say we do it again. Tonight.”

At the rate David was seducing and I was responding, I wasn’t sure we’d make it past the bedroom door. “You mean now?”

“Yes.” He tugged the tee down even lower.

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I guess we could, but … ” I sighed when David slid his hand underneath the tee and his fingers brushed across my stomach. “We need to get the blanket,” I said, and his hand started moving upward. “And we need the wine.”

David stopped.

“What’s wrong?” I panted. “Why did you stop?”

He pulled back with a sheepish look on his face.

“David?” I asked again, now starting to worry. “What’s wrong?”

He hesitated, like he was about to admit something he didn’t want to confess. “I sort of snagged a couple of bottles from my parents’ wine cellar today.”

I leaned in, not sure I’d heard right. “You what?”

The sheepish look disappeared and conviction moved into its place. “I stole wine from my parents this afternoon, and I don’t know why I did it.”

It took a few seconds for the message to register. Then I burst out laughing, remembering how Bakari used to steal wine all the time. “David,” I said, cupping his face with my hands and planting a kiss on his lips, “that is probably the most perfect thing you’ve said to me tonight.”

His brows knit together.

“Never mind,” I told him, adjusting my shirt into place and feeling charged with renewed enthusiasm. If David stole wine, then it only made sense that we ended our night by the water, too.

I told him to get himself back together and meet me downstairs. Halfway to the bedroom door, David grabbed me and stopped me. When I turned and faced him, his bright gaze seized mine and, in those peaceful seconds that passed between us, what I saw in their depths made my heart stutter. He leaned in and kissed me with softness, tenderness, and promise.

Soon after, we sat in David’s packed SUV and headed for the beach, ditching our sneakers to make our way over cool, dry sand beneath a flawless, brilliant night sky. In the distance, waves thundered and crashed to the shore, and far to our right I spotted a campfire near the shoreline surrounded by dozens of people dancing and singing.

David maneuvered us into the dunes, spread out the blankets and set down two bottles of wine. I settled onto the blanket and stared up at the star-dotted sky. David followed.

“You know,” David said, “the ancient people used to think the stars were their gods.”

“Sirius, in particular, was an important star for them,” I added.

“Yeah, I heard something like that recently. A show on NatGeo, I think.”

We fell into silence, letting ourselves become enamored with the beauty stretched out before us. A meteor streaked across the sky.

“David,” I said. “Do you ever think about second chances?”

Another meteor shot through the darkness. A warm breeze rustled over the tall, wild grass that blocked blowing sand and hid us from curious eyes.

He shrugged. “Sometimes.” When he realized my question wasn’t as innocent as it seemed, he turned to me. “Why?”

“I’ve been thinking. About us.” In his eyes, I saw the moon’s reflection and something more. Something meant only for me. “Maybe it’s time we started talking about making us more permanent.”

David’s lingering stillness was broken by the sound of the crashing waves, and it compelled me into explaining further.

“I’m not saying I want to plan a specific date. Or get a ring right this minute. But, well, I think I’m open to the idea of talking about it.”

David didn’t look so certain. “What changed your mind?”

“It wasn’t a what. It was a who.”

His brows rose. “Galen?”

I nodded.

“This guy’s full of all kinds of surprises.”

“And then some.”

David did a double take. “Does this mean we’d have to invite him to the wedding we haven’t discussed, which hasn’t been discussed yet because of the engagement we haven’t discussed, but that could happen sometime soon before I’m fifty?”

“Very funny.” I jabbed him in the ribs. “And I think it all depends on what kind of relationship you have with him.”

David pressed his lips together.

“You’re not going to admit him to your team,” I said, reading into his expression.

“Actually,” David said, leaning back on his elbows so he could look up at the stars, “I’m going to meet with him tomorrow to discuss this again.”

“Really? What changed your mind? I thought you were looking for any excuse to shut Galen down, and I figured I was the excuse to do it.”

David shrugged. “I realized I was initially biased against him for no reason. Didn’t think that was fair. So I’m going to give him another shot. I can’t be a good commander if I let my personal life mix in with my professional one.”

“You weren’t biased against him for no reason, David. Instinct and intuition, even feelings of déjà vu, are powerful behaviors that shouldn’t be ignored. I learned that valuable lesson myself.”

David kept staring at the velvety night sky. “Is that why this feels right? Sitting by the water, drinking wine, and watching meteors?”

I leaned back on my elbows so I could study the heavens, too. “David, you have no idea how very right this is.”

We didn’t say anything more after that. We simply sat on the blankets, sharing wine and admiring the dark, star-dotted sky. By the time we opened the second bottle and darkness descended completely, the Perseid meteors lit up a spectacular show. David pulled me on top of him, slid off my clothes, and molded the two of us together. His skin felt hot, his body ready, and when he slid inside me, we both stilled.