The First Prophet (32 page)

“The first time?”

“Yeah, I ended up going back. Picking up a couple more degrees in subjects that interested
me.” He shrugged jerkily. “Not that any of them helped me find Lydia.”

“So you began looking for a psychic who could tell you where Lydia was.”

“I’d always been interested in the paranormal. And I had to know. What had happened
to her, to the baby. I had to know they were all right. But the so-called psychics
I found couldn’t tell me anything useful. It was mostly garbage, the standard you’ve-lost-your-love
kind of crap they told every other customer. And even the few people I believed had
genuine ability couldn’t seem to tap into anything other than my need to find her.”

“But you kept searching.”

He nodded. “More than eighteen years now. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about
Lydia. About our child. Lydia thought it was a boy, from the very first, when she
told me. He’d probably be in his junior or senior year of high school now, planning
for college—”

Sarah looked away.

Tucker swallowed hard, a dull, cold ache spreading through him. “Except he isn’t,
is he?”

“No.” Sarah’s voice was almost inaudible. “He isn’t.”

Tucker closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. Steadily, he said, “Tell me.
Tell me what happened to them.”

With obvious reluctance, she said, “I think…I know…the baby died very soon after birth.
He just…went to sleep and didn’t wake up. Crib death, I think.”

Tucker thought of all the years spent searching. And the daydreams, sometimes reluctant
but always vivid and detailed, of his child growing up somewhere. The first steps.
The first baseball glove. The first bike. First day in school. First lost tooth. First
kiss. First date.

All the firsts he had imagined missing. And now, to know that none of it had happened
at all.

He was somehow surprised that it hurt so much, but he wasn’t surprised by the guilt.
If he hadn’t run out on Lydia, would it have been different? Would their child have
lived?

“It wouldn’t have ended differently,” Sarah said, still without looking at him. “If
you and Lydia had married. If you had been the most wonderful husband and father possible.
It would have ended the same way. I know you don’t want to believe that, but it’s
true. Some things really are meant to happen just the way they happen.”

He didn’t have the emotional energy to argue with her about destiny. Not again. In
any case, the idea that he could not have made a difference in his child’s short life
didn’t offer much comfort.

“What about Lydia?” he asked.

Sarah shook her head slightly. “She…she’s gone too. But later, I think. A few years
ago.”

Tucker never doubted that Sarah was telling him facts. There was no question in his
mind. Just an overwhelming weariness and the echoes of that cold, dull pain deep inside
him. And regret.

“So I’ll never even be able to tell her I’m sorry.” He
leaned his head back against the hard chair and closed his eyes. “Christ.”

“She knew you were sorry.”

“Not everybody is psychic, Sarah. How the hell could she know that? There was no sign
of it from me.”

“She knew you. The kind of person you were. She even knew you’d come back in a few
days.”

Tucker raised his head and opened his eyes, staring at her. “Trying to make me feel
better?”

Sarah was looking at him now, her eyes once more darkened and her expression intent.
“No. I’m telling you what I know. Lydia knew you’d come back. She knew you’d marry
her, even if you didn’t know that yourself. She knew that all she had to do was wait
for you to work it out.”

“Then why the hell didn’t she?”

Sarah tilted her head a bit in that listening posture, and spoke slowly. “She realized
what she was asking you to do. Give up your dreams of writing, or at the very least
put them aside for a long time. She realized that what she wanted in life was not
what you wanted, at least not then. She was sure she could make it on her own, raise
her child alone. And she really couldn’t bear to watch her mother die. So she left.”

After a moment, Tucker rose from his chair and crossed the room to sit down on the
couch beside Sarah. “How can you know all that, Sarah? What is it you’re tapping into?”

“I don’t know.” She frowned a little, looking at him
and yet somehow beyond him. “It’s a…place. A sort of crossroads where everything meets.
Past, present, future. A place we all pass through. We leave a…an imprint behind,
a sense of what we feel and think and are. I know what Lydia left there, so I know
her. Who she was, what she thought and felt. It’s all there, and I can see it.”

Tucker knew there was a theory of a universal consciousness, a kind of energy field
made up of all the thoughts and knowledge accumulated by humankind in all its history,
a field some people claimed to be able to tap into. Thinking of that theory was as
close as he could come to understanding what Sarah was talking about. Even so, in
all his study of the paranormal, he had never—ever—read or heard of any psychic with
the abilities Sarah was beginning to display.

He had the feeling that if the other side really knew what she was capable of, they’d
be breaking down doors to get to her, and to hell with being sneaky about it.

Sarah blinked and suddenly focused on his face. Her pupils were still enormous, but
a smile played about her mouth. “Everything that was, and is, and will be is there.
We’re there.”

“We are?”

She nodded. “We’re going to be lovers, you know.”

Tucker’s first response to that was purely physical and immediate, but he rode out
the surge of desire as if it were an unruly bronc and did his best to control it.
He hadn’t realized just how badly he wanted her until that moment. “Are we?”

Sarah nodded again. “It’s our destiny.”

Even as he watched, her pupils were returning to normal, and it was the most fascinating
thing he’d ever seen. Hypnotic. He couldn’t stop staring at her, and his voice was
almost absentminded. “Destiny. We’ve talked about that, Sarah. I don’t believe our
lives are planned for us.”

“Not our lives. Just some things. We will be lovers.”

“And what if I don’t want to play along with destiny?” he asked, even as he wondered
why on earth he was objecting.

“You don’t have a choice. Not about this. Don’t you know? Haven’t you always known?”

His mind flashed back to the first time he’d seen her, standing before the ruins of
her home in her pretty dress, and he thought he had known, even then, that they belonged
together. Why else had he so instantly involved himself in her life? And why had he
been so wary of her, if not because he had known immediately and instinctively what
she could be to him—and he hadn’t been ready to face that?

He hadn’t been prepared to fall in love with the most complex woman he’d ever met
in his life.

Tucker drew a breath. “I thought you were probably still grieving for David, but…I
wanted you from the moment I set eyes on you.”

“David is dead,” Sarah said quietly. “Like Lydia. I couldn’t have saved him any more
than you could have saved her.”

Tucker reached out to touch her cheek. “Maybe I couldn’t have saved Lydia, but I failed
her. I don’t want to fail you, Sarah.”

She didn’t argue with him or reassure him, she just went into his arms and lifted
her face with mute need.

“Sarah…”

“It’s destiny,” she whispered, just before his lips covered hers.

“Anything?” Varden asked.

Astrid frowned but didn’t open her eyes or remove the fingers pressed tightly to her
temples. “If you’d stop asking me that, maybe I could make some progress.”

“It’s taking too much time.”

“You didn’t ask me how long it would take. You just asked me if I could do it.”

“And you said you could.”

She opened icy blue eyes and glared at him. “I can. But this isn’t easy, you know.
No—you don’t know, do you? That’s sort of the point.” A mocking note entered her voice.

Coldly, Varden said, “Don’t forget the other point.
You
know only because we allow you to. Stop being helpful, and…”

He didn’t have to finish that sentence. Her boldness seeped away, and she closed her
eyes once more. “All right, all right. Are you sure Duran okayed this? He must be
getting desperate, if he did.”

“Don’t you know that he did?” Varden asked dryly.

“Of course not. Nobody can read Duran. Now shut up and let me concentrate…”

Sarah woke with a slight start, though she had no idea what had startled her. The
bedroom was quiet, lamplit. Even as she began to relax, Tucker pushed himself up on
an elbow beside her and smiled down at her.

“That was a short nap,” he noted.

She couldn’t see the clock, but an inner sense told her it was still before midnight.
“I slept most of the day, remember?” And it was difficult, now, for her to sleep more
than an hour or two without waking, uneasy and anxious.

Even, it seemed, in Tucker’s bed.

“Mmm.” He leaned down and kissed her, briefly but not lightly.

She reached up to push a heavy lock of fair hair off his forehead, then let her fingers
glide through more of the silky stuff until her hand finally wound up at his nape.
How long did they have? A few hours? This night? What would happen when tomorrow came?

Time was passing so relentlessly, pushing them inexorably toward the future. Her future.

That yawning grave.

“Sarah? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She pushed the whispering little fears out of her mind, determined not
to spoil tonight.

It might well be all she ever had of him.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded. “It’s just…I’m surprised, that’s all.”

“Why?”

Sarah felt her cheeks warm, which was, she told herself, ridiculous. “I’ve never—
That is…”

“Haven’t you?” His hand slid to her inner thigh and stroked her sensitive flesh lightly.

The warmth was spreading through her rapidly, but Sarah tried to concentrate. “No.
I mean…like I said, it surprised me. To feel like that. I didn’t expect it.”

“What did you expect?” He leaned down, nuzzling the sheet aside as his lips trailed
over her upper breast.

“Pleasure. But not like that.” Her fingers tangled in his hair and she shifted a bit
to better feel the hard length of his body against hers. “Not like this.”

“I’m glad I could surprise you.” His eyes gleamed at her in a fleeting glance. “It’s
obviously something I won’t be able to do very often.”

She wanted to tell him he was more right than he knew but had a hunch that this was
not the best time to explain that the passion between them had sparked yet another
aspect of her peculiar abilities.

I’m not alone anymore. You’re with me.

Something inside her had opened up to him, had flung itself wide and invited him in,
and whether he knew it or not, Tucker had accepted the invitation. It was not something
she had expected, or even wanted consciously, yet it was what she had needed. It was
the most amazing sense of closeness Sarah had ever known, an inner warmth that seemed
to wrap gently—and protectively—around her soul.

It wasn’t that she knew what he was thinking or feeling.
It was more than that. Deeper than that. She knew him better than she would ever know
herself, and far, far better than he would ever know himself.

What that would mean, to him and to her, Sarah didn’t know. The door that had opened
so abruptly and shown her the “crossroads” where she had found the intimate knowledge
of Lydia and the certainty that she and Tucker would become lovers on this night had
closed just as abruptly. And since she had no idea how she had managed to tap into
that place at all, she doubted the door would open again anytime soon.

“Sarah…”

“Hmmm?”

“Dammit, pay attention to me.”

She couldn’t help but smile when he lifted his head to show her a glare that was only
half-feigned. “I’m paying strict attention to you.”

“You were thinking. This is not the moment to be thinking.”