“It’s been sort of a day,” she said fretfully. “You know—a day?”
Tucker thought back to when he and Damien used to have this discussion, and his stomach twisted hard with regret. “I’ve had a few,” he said softly. “What happened with yours?”
“It’s just so stupid.” She sighed and looked yearningly at the untouched half of his two-pound hamburger. Tucker cut off a quarter of it and put it on the fry plate for her, and her smile grew misty.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “I mean, I was going to order my own, but eating alone….”
“Sucks,” he said, nodding. “So, I’m Tucker Henderson—”
“Old Ruth’s nephew?” she said with interest.
“Yes, ma’am.” He hadn’t seen Aunt Ruth in several years. She’d helped administer his parents’ estate, sending him personal checks every month—ostensibly to help him through college, but the estate was more than enough to live on. He’d appreciated the gesture, though, and had called or written with every check, but she’d never asked him up to see her at Daisy Place, and Tucker….
Well, Tucker’s entire life had become the inescapable knowledge, the pull under his breastbone, the pressing weight of being some sort of karmic tool. Quite literally. Leaving downtown Sacramento—where he didn’t even have a car because he never knew when he’d get the call and stopping when walking or riding his bike was so much easier than driving—had been beyond him for a couple of years. Aunt Ruth didn’t ask, and he didn’t insist.
They’d barely spoken about the reasons—but she knew. He was very aware that she knew.
“I’d come to visit, Auntie, but I’ve got… uhm, things. Things I can’t explain.”
A sudden electric silence on the telephone. “Oh, honey. I’m so sorry. I know those… things. I have them living in my house. You be careful. Those things can be difficult on the soul.”
“Folks are going to miss her,” the pretty woman said in the here and now, her smile going melancholy. “Most of us played in her garden at one time or another.”
Tucker remembered his own time there, stalking imaginary lions in the jungle of domesticated flowers that ran riot over what must have been ten acres of property. All of the people wearing strange clothes, walking through the benches and over the lawn. He was pretty sure he was the only one who had those memories, though. He’d eventually figured that seeing ghosts was part and parcel of the whole empathic gig. It had taken having a lot of “imaginary friends” until he’d been about thirteen and figured it out, but whatever. His parents had only visited Ruth a handful of times when he was a kid, but she’d always had cookies—the good kind, with chocolate. None of that persimmon crap either.
Ruth had been sweet—if eccentric. He’d always had the feeling that she had a particular ghost of her own to keep her company, but if so she hadn’t mentioned his name.
“I didn’t know the garden was a whole-town thing,” he said. A town the size of Foresthill probably had a lot of close-knit traditions.
“Well, my grade school class anyway,” the girl said with a shrug.
The skinny high school kid with spots and an outsized nose who was waiting the few tables in the place came up to them. “Hiya, Miz Fisher. Can I get you anything?”
She smiled again, but it didn’t reach her eyes this time. “A diet soda, Jordan.” She gave one of those courtesy smiles to Tucker. “Ruth Henderson’s nephew seems to have taken care of my meal.”
Jordan nodded, gazing at “Miz Fisher” with nothing short of adoration. “I’ll get you the soda for free,” he said, like he was desperate for her approval. “It’s not every day your English teacher just strolls in on your watch in the middle of July.”
Poor Miz Fisher. Her courtesy smile crumbled, and what was left made Tucker’s heart wobble. There was a reason he hadn’t quit on life after his second attempt to ignore his empathic gift had backfired so horribly. This woman was part of it.
“Former English teacher,” she reminded Jordan gently. “Remember? They had to cut the staff this year.”
Jordan’s smile disappeared. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “Sorry, Miz Fisher. I’ll go get your soda.” He wandered away, the dispirited droop of his shoulders telling Tucker everything he needed to know about how much this woman—homegrown by the sound of things—had been appreciated by her community.
“Lost your job?” Tucker prompted. “Miz Fisher?”
“Dakota,” she said, taking another fry. “Dakota Fisher. And yeah.”
Tucker knew that wasn’t all there was to the story. He cut her hamburger into bites and handed her a fork. He might not have known squat about this town, but he was on his own turf now.
BY THE time they left the restaurant, he knew how much Dakota loved teaching. By the time they got to her tiny cottage and got their clothes off, he knew how much she loved her hometown and her parents and the kids she’d grown up with. And helping people.
By the time they fell asleep, sated and naked, she knew what she had to do. It wasn’t what Tucker would have predicted, not at all, but it was right for her.
That’s what Tucker did—what was right for other people. Because the results of doing what was right for him were too awful to face again.
WHEN THE simple white-walled room was still gray with predawn chill, he opened his eyes and blinked.
Damie?
No. It couldn’t be.
But the young man sitting cross-legged on the foot of Dakota Fisher’s bed looked like Damien Columbus. Dark blond hair, freckles, full lips, green eyes—so many superficial details were there that Tucker could be forgiven for the quick gasp of breath.
He blinked hard, then got hold of himself and took in the nuances.
No—this person had a slightly more delicate jaw, a pointier chin, and his eyes were… well, Tucker had never seen eyes the actual shade of bottle glass outside of contacts and anime cartoons.
And whereas Damie had worn skinny jeans and tank tops—looking as twinky as possible for a guy who’d professed to be straight until… don’t go there, Tucker—this guy was wearing basic 501s and a white T-shirt. He looked like a greaser or a Jet, right down to the slicked-back hair.
Although—and this had been the thing that had first terrified Tucker to his marrow—this guy was also dead. Or astral projecting. Or something. Because his body wasn’t depressing the frilly yellow-and-pink coverlet on Dakota’s bed even a little. He just sat/hovered there, tapping the bottom of his red Converse sneakers with his thumbs, scowling at Tucker as if Tucker had somehow disappointed him.
“Can I help you?” Tucker mumbled, squinting at him some more. Oh yeah. The more Tucker looked, the less this guy resembled Damien. Which was good. Because he wasn’t sure how to deal with… Damien. Watching him sleep naked.
Not after all this time.
But then the penetrating gaze of this stranger, this not-Damien, wasn’t doing him any good either.
Tucker hadn’t been with anybody of his choosing in a long time, and he’d assumed the part of him that did choose had been killed off by grief. Imagine his surprise when he felt his stomach flutter.