And those for James Cahill?
Hate?
Love?
Time would tell.
Rivers set the pen down and stared at James Cahill’s work gloves and sunglasses. Had he worn them recently, when the bright rays were blinding against the snow, or had they been sitting on his desk since last summer, taken off and becoming part of the landscape that he never noticed?
No time like the present to find out.
First, Rivers picked up the polarized shades, feeling the plastic between his fingers, trying to find images. He saw himself, as James, behind the wheel of his SUV, the dog usually on the seat next to him. James was worried. About the business, about finances, and about women. He had to break up with one because of the other . . . but neither one was right for him. He knew that; he’d probably known that for a long while. Through Cahill’s eyes, Rivers saw images of the women, but the one that came into the clearest focus was Rebecca Travers, and the phrase the one that got away seared through his brain.
The images of Megan were filled with anger and guilt.
There was no memory of Jennifer Korpi, but Sophia was ever present.
Sophia excited James, and sexual images flashed before his eyes—her wet blond hair as she stepped from a shower; her long legs as she bent over and worked them into a boot that was too tight due to her broken toe; her smooth, perfectly round rump; the freckles that bridged her nose and were visible on the back of her neck. And then, again, the image swung to Rebecca.
With Rebecca’s face came a deep searing regret as other sexual images came to mind, her auburn hair curling from the mist of a rainstorm, her perfect breasts and the curve of her spine, the little mole beneath one shoulder blade that he always kissed when he was making love to her and she was face down on a pillow, the way her lips parted when he touched the underside of her breast.
Rivers tore off the sunglasses. Dropped them onto the counter.
Felt like a voyeur.
Make that a thief and a voyeur.
And dirty—invading others’ most intimate of thoughts while his own pulse was racing.
“Careful, darling,” Astrid seemed to whisper in his ear. “You’re going to get caught and when you do—oh, my. The you-know-what is really going to hit the fan. Face it, Brett, you’re sick.” She laughed then, that trilling, nasty little Astrid laugh. “Do you get off on this? Does it feel good? As I said, ‘Sick, sick, sick!’”
“Go away,” he said aloud and realized he was sweating, his heart pounding. That happened sometimes.
He hadn’t been born with this gift—or, more accurately, this curse. He’d never had this kind of insight until late in high school after a bout with pneumonia and a fever that had spiked and fallen only to spike again. He’d spent nearly a week in the hospital, when the prospects for his recovery had been touch and go. He’d been in a semi-conscious state for seventy-two hours, and when he’d finally come to, he’d realized that he’d missed two important basketball games and that his girlfriend, Belinda Sommers, had started seeing Juan Martinez, the fastest tight end the Eagles football team had ever seen and one of Rivers’s best friends.
Belinda hadn’t mentioned that she’d started seeing Juan when she’d broken up with Brett once he was home. She’d thought she’d given him back a simple class ring that she’d kept on a chain around her neck. What neither of them had known at the time was that the ring had been so much more. When Rivers had returned it to his finger, he’d been stunned by images of Belinda making out with Martinez in the back seat of his classic Dodge Charger. Rivers had felt her passion, her fear of getting caught, her excitement at being with Martinez, but she’d never experienced one ounce of guilt about cheating on her hospitalized boyfriend.
Rivers had figured he was better off without her and had tossed the damned ring out of his bedroom window.
The class ring had been his entry into this new world. His first, but far from the last, and now Rivers couldn’t help but use whatever this insight was to his advantage.
Now he was a little calmer, the perspiration on his forehead receding.
Letting out a sharp breath, Rivers picked up the work gloves, once tan leather, now stained on the palms, the stitching stretched, a small hole near the index finger of the right hand. He slipped the gloves over his hands and closed his eyes, seeing images of James driving a tractor in the spring, lifting baled trees onto a trailer while snow was falling, riding a horse through the woods, another horse beside him, a woman rider laughing as they splashed through the icy banks and slow-moving current of a stream. But he couldn’t make out the woman’s face, nor the color of her hair, nothing about her.
The image shifted, and he felt anger, dark and seething, saw the axe lifted high, then come crashing down, splintering wood, sending kindling spinning. Another chunk was placed on the chopping stump. Another ferocious swing. Crrraaack! Pieces of wood splitting and flying away from the blade. And again. And again. He felt the sweat, the strain of muscles as the axe was swung hard and fast, sensed the anger burning through the axe-wielder’s blood.
Anger at a woman.
Hate. Rage. Blind fury.
Megan’s face floated into view, no longer a smiling girl with honey-colored hair and a quick, sexy smile. Now . . . red-faced, teeth bared, she screamed, “You don’t love me. You never loved me!” They were outside, near a stable where horses peered from their stalls. She picked up something—a grooming brush?—and hurled it at him. It bounced against the wall, near a stable door, and the chestnut in the stall shied and reared, neighing in fright.
“Are you nuts?” James demanded, and as he calmed the horse, Megan ran out of
