the dining room, pointing the blade out wildly in front of her. Her temples continued to vibrate and she rubbed her forehead with the back of her knife hand.
Oh God, was this it? Was this what had happened to her father when he disappeared all those years ago? And Stacy?
A surge of strangling heat started at her toes and rose upward, clutching at her chest and pythoning her airways. She could hardly breathe.
It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be happening. Good Lord, no.
Then, like the snap of an off-switch, the vibration in her head stopped. Gone.
Relief flooded over her and she dropped the knife on the dining room table. She drew in a few raspy breaths and the constricting panic disappeared, fading into a calm assurance that she was safe.
What happened to her father had nothing to do with this. She didn’t know why. She just knew.
Seconds ticked into minutes and her breath eventually evened out.
Although she didn’t hear the voice again, something tangible still called to her. A silent longing tugged at her heart as an ache settled into her bones.
Her lips throbbed, felt swollen, and she detected a slow rhythmic sensation in her head. Not painful, just strange. It didn’t seem to match that of her own heart doing cartwheels and clanging around her rib cage. The sound in her temples was steady and quietly reassuring.
Two heartbeats? Okay, think. Well, she knew she couldn’t be pregnant. It took a man as well as a body capable of carrying a child. Two things she didn’t have. No, definitely not pregnant.
What about the missing chunk of time? What if… She felt between her legs and rubbed her hands over her breasts. Nothing. She’d know if she’d had sex last night, especially since it had been ages. No, she was positive she hadn’t been with a man.
Could the migraine be coming back? What the hell was happening to her? She needed to seriously calm down and figure this out. There had to be a completely rational explanation for this…this…whatever this was.
Air. She needed fresh air. She flung open the French doors of the dining room, and a rush of coolness whispered over her damp skin and hair as she scanned the perimeter of her backyard. For what, she had no idea.
The dewy green of spring was everywhere and her cherry tree was starting to blossom. Ceramic pots on the patio waited to be filled with flowers, and a swallow swooped under the eaves, its beak filled with bits of dried grass. Everything seemed the same, normal, but she knew things weren’t.
She concentrated on the slow thumping beat in her head, rather than her racing heart and was startled to find that the more she focused on it, the more comforting it became. Gradually, the tempo of the two beats got closer together and eventually meshed into one.
One rhythm. One sound. One heartbeat.
She leaned against the doorjamb, her skin flushed hot, and for some crazy reason, she imagined the crush of a man’s muscular body against hers. She closed her eyes, wrapped her arms around her toweled body, and could almost feel the strong muscles of his shoulders moving beneath her hands. The musky fragrance of his passion in her lungs. Wetness surged between her legs as if her body were readying itself for him.
Her breath came in short bursts, and drawn to the backyard by an invisible thread, she stepped onto the patio. Like an electric charge, an unseen yet shimmering presence in the air, something called to her. She wanted to respond, to answer, but she didn’t know how.
Then, just as it had started, the second heartbeat was gone. Not a gradual fading, but a tearing away. A bandage ripped from a wound. She waited a few moments, but it was gone.
Shuffling back inside, she collapsed into a chair.
What the hell just happened?
She had to be losing it. Or going completely mental—as her mother’s British friend at the nursing home would say. Imaginary orgasmic sensations? Oh great, how would she explain that one to a doctor?
“Well, I was home alone, when I heard an imaginary guy talking to me, and then I almost had a real orgasm.”
Yeah, right. Can you say crazy? She forced herself to laugh, hoping to lighten her mood so she could think more clearly.
But there was something about the voice in her head that nagged at her. Like she should know it. Like she had heard it before. She racked her brain but came up with nothing.