Forever by Linda Cassidy Lewis Read Free Book Online Page A

her a question. “Sorry. What did you say?”
    “I asked if you’re married.”
    “No,” she snapped. “Not anymore.”
    “Hey, I didn’t mean—”
    “I have a younger sister. Kate,” she said, the words racing past her lips. “She lives with me. We’re just about total opposites, so we squabble a lot, but really we’re very close.”
    Tom took her cue. “I have an older brother. We’re tight too. When I was fifteen, our mother remarried and made it obvious I was in the way, so Dave took me in and kept me on the straight and narrow. He moved to Alabama a couple of years ago.”
    “So there’s no one around to keep you in line now?”
    He grinned. “Actually, there is. I have a black Lab named Max who keeps me on a short leash.”
    Oh, yes. She was in love.
     
    The cafe customers came in waves, before and after movie showings, and while Annie waited on them, Tom stepped outside to smoke. He looked often at his watch, judging how much time he had left before heading home. Once, alone in the men’s room, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and stopped to force a closer look. He saw a man—okay, technically a middle-aged man—but still one who might be considered attractive by a beautiful younger woman.
    He spoke to his reflection. “You know, Old Man, as soon as you finish discussing those visions it’s back to your normal life.”
    Hadn’t he been honest with Annie and told her he was married? But why hadn’t she made any comment? Was it that she didn’t care that he was married because she had no intention of seeing him as anything other than a stranger with whom she’d had a strange encounter? Or was it because she had no qualms about seeing married men? Somewhere in the shadows of his mind, a voice tried to tell him the second option shouldn’t matter because he was a faithful husband. But Tom didn’t want to hear that voice tonight. He was stone sober but nonetheless intoxicated.
    Neither of them brought up the subject of the visions the rest of the night, and they didn’t touch again. They behaved like new friends getting to know each other, chatting about nothing important, but enjoying it. When Tom left at eleven o’clock, he had Annie’s phone number written on a napkin.
    During the drive home, he decided it would be best to park the truck in the driveway to prevent Julie waking when he opened the garage door. Then it occurred to him that if she were still awake when he got home, she would expect to smell alcohol on his breath. He stopped at a liquor store near his home and bought a beer. After he took a couple of swigs in his driveway, he tossed the empty bottle in the garbage can and wheeled it out to the curb for the morning pick-up. He’d already slipped his key into the front door lock before he remembered the napkin in his pocket.
    Tom returned to the truck and tucked Annie’s number behind the visor—not to hide it from Julie—but because he drove his truck every day and having it there was more convenient. At the last minute, he’d asked for her number because they’d never actually discussed the significance of the visions. Plus, he’d decided she would distract him less on the phone. When he had the time—in a few days—he would call her.
    * * *
    Julie pretended to be asleep when Tom came to bed, but she was far from it. Within minutes, his first soft snores filled the room. She curled tighter into fetal position.
    All night her nerves had been like mad dogs in a pen, waiting to charge, snarling and slathering, at anyone foolish enough to come close to the fence. If Tom had come home twenty minutes earlier, he would have stepped right into that pen, but the intensity of her cramps had taken all the oomph out of those dogs now. She was spotting too, but her period was not due for at least ten days. A voice in her head, the one who wore the black hat, told her this was more than a menstrual cycle gone awry. Dull claws ripped through her again and then withdrew.