Under the Magnolia (6 page)

"About you? Yes." He
grabbed another soda and handed her one anyway. "About you
hurting
me?
Nope."

"Maybe I just hate the idea of
looking like an idiot in front of you," she admitted ruefully.
She cradled the soda between her hands, but made no move to open it.
"It's not always pretty. I sweat and scream and cry and kick all
the blankets off and pretty much act like a crazy person."

He flashed her a grin and teased
gently, "What's wrong with that? I do the same thing when the
Bulldogs lose a bowl game."

For a second he thought she was
going to throw the soda at him, but she finally gave him a grudging
smile. "Fine. But don't say I didn't warn you."

"I have been
more
than adequately warned, Addie Jo." Wes opened his soda and took
a big gulp then stretched. "It's still early, but
damn
,
I'm tired."

"Don't call me Addie Jo."
She wrinkled her nose at him and shifted on the couch, but her eyes
were anything but annoyed. Warmth had crept back into them, and the
slightest bit of something a whole lot hotter. "You going to
curl up with me?"

"Not if you're going to punch
me in the nose," he retorted as he sat down and unlaced his
boots. "Scoot over and give me some of the covers, Addie Jo."

Chapter Four

It started the way it always did.
The dream she was having began to fade and rising horror took its
place. She struggled in her sleep, clinging desperately to the hazy
image of Wes and a beach and the sun glinting off his hair as he
laughed about something silly. It was a good dream, warm and
comfortable and slipping through her fingers like so much sand.

With the fear came darkness, and for
several seconds there was nothing but the sound of her own heart
beating frantically in her chest. She fought, desperate to wake up
before the vision claimed her.

It didn't work. It
never
worked. And between one heartbeat and the next, she was thrown into
terror.

Fire.

It surrounded her, crawling up the
walls and writhing like a living thing. The curtains had turned into
monstrous billowing sheets of flame, and Addie could
feel
the young woman's terror as she shook her husband again. "Wake
up, baby.
God,
wake up, Mark—"

She couldn't have been much older
than twenty-five, roundly pregnant and sobbing as she tried to rouse
the man next to her on the bed.

Addie knew he was dead, knew it
before the firefighter crashed through the door and dragged the young
woman away from her husband's body. Knew it before the firefighter's
partner moved to heft the man's dead weight.

The girl struggled, fought as the
firefighter lifted her bodily to pull her from the room. She screamed
her husband's name over and over in a broken voice, hoarse from tears
and smoke inhalation. She screamed until her words dissolved into
sick, wracking coughs.

Addie could see the future, and the
future was death. The building would collapse on everyone inside. An
unforeseen catastrophe, seven dead. Panic throbbed through her as she
fought back a scream and tried to remind herself that
she
wasn't inside. This wasn't happening to her, and she would wake up
safe in her own bed—

"Addie."

Find a clue, find
something
.

It could have been any bedroom in
any apartment in any city. The window was a mass of flames, and
outside she could just make out a building, a billboard showing—

"Addie, you're dreaming. Wake
up
."

The explosion was deafening, and
walls fell. She was stuck inside, trapped, and no matter how much she
struggled she couldn't break free--

Strong hands wrapped around her arms
and shifted her, pulling her against something solid and warm.
"Addie, honey—"

"California," she gasped
out, shaking. "A sign. For Disneyland." She couldn't stop
the words from tumbling out. "Oh God, they're going to
die
and she's pregnant."

"Shh," Wes soothed, his
hands threading into her hair. "Do you know when?"

Addie wasn't even sure she was
completely awake yet. Fear still gripped her, and her body trembled
as she dragged in a deep breath of cool, clean air. She forced her
eyes open and stared at Wes as she tried to organize her thoughts.
"I…I should have tried to find a date. Some mail, or a
newspaper…"

But she hadn't. Panic had taken her
again
,
and the knowledge of her failure burned through her as she fought
back tears.

"Hey, hey." He gathered
her closer, his voice low in her ear as he rubbed her back. "It's
not your fault, honey. You can't change everything, and expecting to
be able to help from clear across the country is asking too much of
yourself."

She shuddered again. She
could
change everything, or at least a lot of things. The government had
resources they'd devoted to breaking down precognitive visions and
preventing tragedy. Electronic monitoring while they slept,
therapists on call to walk them through the visions to pick out tiny
details. Dozens of computer gurus on call at all hours to track down
the slightest clue. SWAT teams standing by to avert catastrophe.

She could save dozens, maybe even
hundreds, of lives. But it would mean giving up everything she
had—her studies and her job, her friends. Living in government
custody for the rest of her life. Oh, it would be for her own
protection; every criminal organization from the mob down to
small-time bookies would pay well for their own precog. Drugs had
even been developed that could reliably induce visions, though their
safety was a hotly debated issue.

"Sometimes it makes me feel
guilty," she admitted in a small voice. "Sometimes I
think—I think of all the people who would still be alive if I
went to the government. If I turned myself in. But I'm too selfish,
Wes. I want a
life
."

He didn't say anything for a long
while, just rocked her gently and made low, soft noises of comfort.
Finally, he said, "I'm glad you haven't disappeared into some
federal program already. It's hypocritical, but there it is. I mean,
I put myself on the line for people every day, Addie, but I... The
thought of
you
doing it..." He shook his head.

"If it were just the visions--"
She shivered and curled closer to him, shifting to rest her head more
comfortably against his shoulder. "You hear things. About the
drugs. That it's not just the criminals who use them, but that the
government might, too. I met someone, once, who'd used them. He did
it to himself, because he
wanted
to see things." And it had driven him slowly insane. The
drug-induced visions were reportedly more intense than the real
thing, so terrifying and vivid that several psychics had suffered
fatal heart attacks.

"Okay, now, that's crazy talk."
His voice held an edge of fear. "You're not doing that kind of
shit. I will beat your ass first."

That startled her enough that she
jerked her gaze to his. "Oh
hell
,
no. God, Wes.
No.
I'm guilty, not suicidal. And I'm not a martyr."

"Good. Because if you even
thought
about it, I'd bring the wrath of Granny Gardner down on your head."

A giggle escaped her. It was
slightly hysterical, but it was better than sobbing. She dropped her
head back to Wes’ shoulder and gave in to tired laughter as her
stress began to seep away. "God. I would have slept a lot better
the past fifteen years if you'd been around."

She said the words without thinking,
but they fell into the easy space between them like rocks in a pond.
A whole world of might-have-beens started under a magnolia tree not
so far away. Maybe it never would have worked if they'd started
dating as teenagers. But maybe…

Maybe she'd wasted fifteen years of
her life when she could have been sleeping like this, curled up in
his arms and feeling safe and loved.

Wes just brushed her hair back from
her face and grinned against her cheek. "I hog the covers. And
you wouldn't believe the snoring. Still want to sleep with me?"

"We could give it a go. A trial
run, maybe." She pulled back enough to kiss him softly as she
lifted one hand to cup his cheek. "We seem to do all right with
the kissing, anyway," she murmured against his lips.

"Won't hear me complaining,"
he agreed, then urged her mouth open with his thumb on her jaw. His
tongue delved past her lips, exploring, and she moaned in
encouragement as she tilted her head.

Kissing him was right. It was
perfect
,
as if they each knew exactly what the other wanted. He probably had
far more practice at it than she did, but she could tell she was
doing fine by the way he groaned and tugged lightly at her hair,
tilting her head back farther so he could deepen the kiss.

Too soon, Wes lifted his head. His
thumbs caressed her cheeks as he stared down at her with heavy-lidded
eyes, his breathing fast and erratic. "We have to stop doing
that."

"Especially since I'm
practically naked already," she teased, her tone wicked. "Though
I suppose I could always avoid your Mama for a few days and hope she
doesn't find out I did bad things to you." The worst part was
that she was only half joking.

He chuckled and shook his head. "Oh,
no, you don't. I don't intend to have sex with you for the first time
on some skanky couch in a break room. We need flowers and wine and
sexy music."

Addie caught his lower lip between
her teeth, nipping at it teasingly, then pulled back and snuggled
down in his arms again. "Fine. But only because I'm pretty sure
we were on a bed in my incredibly sexy vision, and I wouldn't want to
mess that up."

"Fair enough." He shifted
carefully, stretching out this time and drawing her down to lie
against his chest. "I have nightmares sometimes, too, you know."

She rearranged the blanket over both
of them then relaxed against him. "What about?"

"Usually about the...the
telekinesis." His voice was low, halting, and his fingers
fiddled anxiously with her robe. "It doesn't always work, you
know. Sometimes it's easy, but other times... I concentrate so
carefully but I just can't get it done. And…and I have
nightmares that it fails me. When it really matters. When people are
going to die."

Controlling her abilities had never
been an issue—or even a possibility—for Addie. She'd
never really considered what it might be like to depend on it only to
know it might not always be there.

"You must be pretty strong,
though," she whispered as she rubbed a soothing hand over his
chest in aimless circles. "I mean, you tossed that branch out of
the way like it was nothing."

"It happens that way. Some
days, it's a snap. Other times, I can't flip a light switch from
across the room."

She frowned a little as she
considered it, her brain turning over the problem and offering a
hundred different ways to test his skills, to find out when they
worked and why. She made a rueful noise and forced herself to stop.
"You should never give me a mystery like that, Wes. Now I want
to take you home and start making you move plates until I can figure
out how it works."

He just laughed. "Don't think I
haven't tried. Though I usually work with books and free weights."

Addie propped her chin up on his
chest so she could look at him. "When it comes to bad guys,
you're the boss of me. When it comes to the scientific method,
I
am the boss of
you
.
Besides..." She slid one hand up a little, tickling at his neck.
"I bet I could think of all
sorts
of ways to rattle your concentration."