“Why do all the hot ones have to be so damn crazy?” she asks, sounding exasperated.

“Why do you say that? I mean that he’s crazy?”

Without looking at me, she answers.  “Because he definitely is.  He’s, like, talks-to-dead-people crazy.  One-flew-over-the-cuckoo’s-nest crazy.  Twelve-monkeys crazy.”  She stops in the middle of the road and looks me in the eye.  “Not that it makes him any less attractive.  I mean, God, what I wouldn’t give to get that man naked. I’d do him six ways from Sunday.”

She smiles wistfully and continues walking, half-dragging me along behind her.  My mind is spinning with a million questions.

“Does he really talk to dead people?”

“Yep,” she replies. “Well, supposedly. I’ve never heard him, but it’s pretty common knowledge.”

Holy shit!  That’s pretty crazy!

“Who does he talk to?”

She doesn’t answer me until we are back in my yard, and even then she lowers her voice.  “His daughter.  At least that’s the only one I know of.”

His daughter is dead?

I close my eyes, resisting the urge to bend over and put my head between my knees.  Oh sweet God!  I feel like someone punched me in the chest, all the air whizzing out of my lungs in a harsh hiss.

“Hi-his daughter?”

Jordan nods.  “Yep. I think she might’ve died in a car accident.  Nobody seems to know much about it, though.  That or they just don’t talk about it.  You know, out of respect.”

I want to ask more questions, but I can’t.  The words won’t come past my lips.  All I can think about is my Emmy and what I would do…how I would feel if she…

No. I can’t think that way.  I couldn’t live without her.  I just couldn’t.

 “I guess in a lot of ways, his life ended that day. Had the world in the palm of his hand.  Rich, hot, successful football player, beautiful wife, adorable daughter and then bam!  Gone.  Everything.”

“How did it–”

My question is interrupted by Jason.  “Jordan, I told you to go open the store.  Strom Tuggle just called.  He’s been waiting in the parking lot for fifteen minutes.”

“Oh screw Strom!  He’s just there for his daily glance at my ass. He can wait.”  Jordan gives me an apologetic look and twirls her keys on her finger.  “Stop by the grill sometime. I’ll buy you a drink and a chicken sandwich.”

“I can’t really…not with Emmy…” I hike my thumb back toward the cottage, my heart aching as I think of my little girl, my whole world, sleeping peacefully inside. Alive and well.

“Oh, right right.  Well, I’ll come to you then.  I need a new girlfriend.  This town’s in dire need of some not bitches,” she declares with a grin.

“Jordaaan,” Jason prompts warningly.

“I’m going, I’m going.”

As Jordan saunters to the truck, I stand staring after her, wishing she’d come back and answer my million questions.

FIVE

Eden

THE OLD OVEN is preheating and I’m stirring muffin mix when Emmy comes racing out of her room.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” I call over my shoulder when I hear the patter of her feet. “What’s got you–”

“Momma, look what I drew!” she says excitedly, stopping at my side and stretching up on her toes to shove a piece of paper in my face.

I set the bowl down and take the crayon picture from her fingers.  Although it’s rough, as the drawings of most six year olds are, it’s easy to make out the sandcastle and the oversized daisy poking out of the top of one turret.

“It’s beautiful, pumpkin!” I exclaim, my heart hurting all over again when I think about the man across the street.  “Maybe we can try to build one the next time we go to the beach.”

“Can we go today?”

“No, you’ve got schoolwork today, young lady. But maybe tomorrow. If it’s not too cold.”

With a squeal, Emmy snatches the picture from my fingers and runs to the refrigerator, where she yanks a drawing from two days ago out from under a magnet and replaces it with this one.  When she starts to walk off, I stop her.

“Emmaline Sage, pick that up and put it in the drawer, please.” I’m already stirring again, so I tip my head toward the picture, which now rests on the floor. It’s the crayon rendering of a dog we saw trot by the other day.

Emmy doesn’t complain; she simply scoops up the paper and deposits it in the kitchen drawer where all her other artwork goes when she’s tired of seeing it on the fridge.

She skips off and, seconds later, I hear the television click on followed by the musical sounds of her favorite cartoon.  I pour the blue-tinted batter into a muffin tin, scraping out the last blueberries from the bowl.  I lick a bit of the mixture from my finger as I set the bowl in the sink and run water in it.

When I open the oven door to slide the muffins in, a cloud of smoke wafts out to choke me.  Coughing and sputtering, eyes watering, I set down the pan and wave my hands in the air so that I can at least see my way to the window to open it.

Of course, it’s stuck, a thick layer of fresh paint sealing it shut.  I run to the front door and yank it open, pushing back the screen door in hopes that the smoke will make its way outside.  I grab a straight-backed rocker from the porch and wedge it in the opening so the smoke can drift out while I go back inside to shut off the oven.

I’ve got a magazine I’m using as a fan when stomping draws my attention back toward the door.  I stop everything–moving, thinking, breathing–when I see him. It’s Cole Danzer, bigger than life and twice as beautiful, walking into my kitchen.  He looks around for a second and then reaches over the sink to wrench up the sticky window.  He does it with remarkable ease and, for a few seconds, I’m focused only on the sleek muscles of his biceps.

In addition to being lustily mesmerized, I’m stunned.  Of course.  He just appeared out of nowhere.  And now he’s here. In my house. In my personal space.

And I realize how very much I want him here.  In my house. In my space.

I guess that’s why I just stand statue-still in my stained T-shirt, holding a magazine, mouth hanging open, staring at him.  I’m not as surprised by his surly demeanor when he turns his nearly-furious gaze on me, though. I’m beginning to think he’s always this way.

“I thought your house was on fire,” he growls in his bedroom voice. “What happened?”

He’s like a thundercloud, popping and crackling with irritable electricity.  He even makes the hair on my arms stand up, like he’s reversing the polarity around me.  I think it’s his proximity.  His face is within a few inches of mine where I’m still tucked into the corner of the cabinets. I was fanning smoke toward the door.  Now I’m just standing here, oddly mystified.

He seems to be even taller, even broader standing in front of me here in my tiny kitchen.  And despite the gagging smoke, I can smell the clean scent of his soap–fresh and piney.  I make the mistake of inhaling deeply, which only makes me cough.

His ever-present frown deepens initially as I sputter, but when I catch my breath, it softens as he raises his brow.  Without uttering a word, it says, Well?

I can’t even remember the question when he looks at me this way.

“P-pardon?” I stammer, continuing to stare despite how rude I must seem.

Good Lord, he’s gorgeous! I mean, I thought he was incredibly handsome the first time I saw him.  And he still is, whether he’s angry or frowning or pretending to ignore me.  But like this…when he’s not scowling at me… he’s the most magnificent thing I’ve ever seen.  His blue eyes are bluer, his lips more chiseled, his jaw even stronger.  The pull of my body, of my soul toward him is magnetic.  Gravitational.  Irresistible.

“What happened?” he repeats, helping to shake me from my stupor.