Wild Flower Read online

  “Fuckin’ right,” Justin replied in his usual poetic fashion, licking along my throat, closing his teeth around my earlobe; I shuddered and gasped, feeling his grin against my neck.

  “Don’t you dare stop,” I ordered, and he deepened his touch at once. I clung to his back, leaving nail marks, biting the firm muscles along the slope of his shoulder as I came against his stroking fingers, reaching immediately to grasp his cock. I shifted and took him within the slick, heated wetness he’d created.

  He groaned, “Holy Jesus, woman…”

  I arched upward and Justin slowed his pace at this wordless request, grinning down into my half-closed eyes as I quivered beneath him. He pressed soft, suckling kisses upon my chin, whispering, “I know you’ve got one more…c’mon, baby…”

  “Justin,” I moaned, as turned on by his words as his touch, as he bent to my breasts and lifted my hips in his big hands. No more than minutes later I tightened in bursting waves and he shuddered, overcome, sweat trickling along his temples as he plunged one last time.

  “See?” he murmured, forehead bent to my shoulder. “I knew it.”

  “You always know it.” I was utterly content, my fingers sunk into his hair. I kissed his jaw, scratchy with stubble. “You’re the world’s best lover.”

  He laughed, tickling my skin, and gently shifted us, turning so that my spine fit against his chest.

  “I aim to please, that’s all.”

  “That’s the secret,” I giggled.

  From behind, he slipped one hand over the sloping curve of my belly and murmured, “How’s the boy?”

  “No doubt traumatized.”

  Justin’s chest rumbled with laughter. “Nah, he must be used to it by this point.”

  As though in response, our son poked what was either a knee or an elbow just beneath my belly button. I caught Justin’s hand and maneuvered it to the spot. He smoothed his palm over my skin and said with quiet reverence, “Hello there, son. Did we wake you?”

  “I’d say that’s a big yes,” I responded. The baby pushed against our joined hands and I snuggled closer to my husband.

  “G’night, my sweet little woman,” he whispered, leaning to click out our bedside lamp. He was snoring within a minute but I lay awake while the baby moved in gentle somersaults, content to watch the waning moon as it inched diagonally across our bedroom window on its journey westward. Though we hadn’t officially confirmed that I was pregnant with a boy I knew my prediction was correct, just as I’d known with Clint and Rae.

  Since childhood, I’d experienced these inexplicable flashes of absolute knowing; my great-aunt, Minnie Davis, had also been endowed with such illogical (but no less real) abilities, and it was from her that I learned, if not when, at least what to expect when a Notion overtook me. Notions were unpredictable; spontaneous, they often occurred in the form of dreams, though a dream containing a Notion was different than the regular, disjointed jumble of images from any other night. I had learned to accept and even appreciate these strange instances of precognition, and thanked the powers that be for Minnie’s presence in my early life; without her, I’d probably have assumed I was crazy—or eventually become so.

  Great-Aunt Minnie foresaw my first husband’s death when Chris and I were still teenagers and only dating; he’d gifted me with a promise ring for my birthday less than a year before this particular Notion struck Aunt Minnie. I could even pinpoint the moment the Notion overtook her thoughts—a warm spring evening in 1985 as we sat together on the porch, along with Gran (my grandmother and Minnie’s little sister), while Minnie fixed my hair. I’d sensed the sorrow flowing from her fingertips, the briefest of pauses in the motion of her gentle hands. She refused to divulge anything that evening except for the fact that I would be all right; though it took me over a decade and a half to fully realize it, Great-Aunt Minnie was correct in this prediction. When I was twelve years old she’d said, You’ll never see more than you can handle, Jillian. My grandma had the gift. It stretches far back in our family. Trust it, doll, always trust it, even when you don’t understand exactly what it shows you.

  And I always had.

  This autumn would mark mine and Justin’s three-year wedding anniversary. I’d been so blissfully happy on the night of my birthday, three years ago, when Justin asked me to be his wife. Not so much as a flicker of a Notion warned me of Gran’s impending death or the car accident that nearly killed me just days later; I clung to the belief that all things (joyous or dreadful) happened for reasons not always revealed, and struggled not to blame myself too harshly for the instances when a Notion failed to alert me to danger. Minnie had never spoken the words but I sensed that a Notion was a sign of what was to come—but not necessarily something capable of being changed. Fate or destiny, or whatever one wanted to call the forces beyond anything’s control, were entities moving outside of my reach. If, at times, I was allowed a glimpse of a future event, I understood that I must recognize this as something fixed, something I could not change. As a result, though some people suspected that I possessed an uncanny sense of observation, very few people outside our family actually knew the truth.

  My older sister, Joelle, didn’t tell me until later just how terribly Justin had suffered to see me in the hospital bed those unending days and nights, unmoving and unresponsive, knowing I was pregnant but not if I would survive. The thought made me cringe even now. I still hated driving a small car after dark, preferring either Justin’s oversized truck or the work truck from Shore Leave, besieged by the memory of being broadsided that night. Since we’d been married, Justin sold his old house a few blocks from Fisherman’s Street, where he had lived for the duration of his marriage to Aubrey. Working over a period of a year, we (with considerable help) cleared out a section of woods on the property about a quarter-mile to the east of Shore Leave, where we proceeded to build our own cabin. It wasn’t grand on the scale of some of the places ringing Flickertail Lake like majestic pearls on an expensive necklace, but instead cozy and functional.

  I’d been insistent on a few small luxuries, such as a master bathroom and a decent entryway, spacious enough to accommodate our messy outer gear during the average six months or so of winter we routinely experienced in northern Minnesota. Our cabin also featured a gorgeous picture window, complete with a bench seat, and a stone fireplace that Dodge helped Justin craft, piece by piece. Our cabin was built with three bedrooms; the baby would sleep with Justin and me for probably the first year of his life; Clint’s room would eventually become the new baby’s. The thought of my oldest son moving away for college was like the throbbing ache of a new bruise, though it wasn’t as excruciating as it would have been without Justin and Rae.

  I remembered where I’d been three years ago, lonely as hell, in love with Justin without fully realizing it. I’d been adrift back then, Justin so bitter from both the terrible accident that scarred his face and the embarrassment of a cheating wife; in a small town like Landon, everyone had known within twenty-four hours that Aubrey not only left him, but left him for someone else. Recalling that summer when we’d at last admitted our feelings for each other made me scoot closer to my sleeping husband, shifting to press a soft, lingering kiss to his chin. Even in sleep, his arms tightened around me.

  Aubrey’s barbed words in the grocery store returned to me as I lay in continued sleeplessness, along with her clear intention to elicit guilt. I sighed a little, considering what she’d said. Beneath the surface a strong connection had always existed between Justin and me, there was no denying; even unacknowledged, it raced along, swift and powerful. As much as I’d once loved Clint’s father, Chris Henriksen, there was a part of me that had always belonged to Justin. Even Aubrey, who was shallow and petty, discerned this, so perhaps I deserved to feel the sting of guilt, at least a little.

  You still hate her, admit it.

  Fine, I still fucking hate her. Even if she has a tiny little bit of a point.

  Wouldn’t Aubrey be justified in her anger after o
bserving that her husband expressed undue concern over another woman? I considered anew, chewing my lower lip, increasingly troubled at my own culpability in this matter. But then my thoughts strayed to even more unwelcome territory; Aubrey and Justin had dated in high school, marrying shortly thereafter, and as his wife she’d therefore been the recipient of his love, his kisses and his incredible passion, for many years.

  Jilly, quit it.

  The blaze of jealousy overtaking my blood was, of course, ridiculous. Nevertheless, I gritted my teeth as I imagined all the way back to the days when Justin was a lanky football player and Aubrey a popular cheerleader. She’d intimidated me to no end back then; though we’d been in the same grade she always possessed an attitude of being worlds ahead of the rest of us. The only person not snowed by Aubrey’s behavior was my sister, Joelle, who was (and still is) a complete knockout, and was at that time dating the most over-confident and notorious boy in Landon High, Jackson Gordon. Jo had married, and later divorced Jackie; their three daughters were the only good thing that came of their union. As though conjured by my thoughts, the phone suddenly rang; I knew it was Jo. I kept the ringer turned off on our bedside cordless but heard the one in the kitchen jangling. I eased from beneath the covers and hurried down the hall before both Justin and Rae woke up. The microwave clock read 11:37.

  “What’s up?” I asked my sister, settling carefully upon my chair at our table, leaving the room encased in darkness. I propped my feet on the chair opposite, Clinty’s usual spot. “I was just thinking about you.”

  “Jilly Bean, sorry to call so late.” Jo sounded hushed and apologetic. “But I knew you were up. I didn’t wake anyone, did I?”

  “No,” I assured her. Joelle and her new husband, Blythe, lived just a stone’s throw from Justin and me, in a similarly-styled cabin, though they’d built theirs with four bedrooms to accommodate their son Matthew and two of Jo’s three daughters; Joelle’s oldest, Camille, lived in my old apartment above the garage at Shore Leave, along with her fiancé, Mathias Carter, and her little girl. I asked my sister, “You want to come over and sit on the porch for a while? I can’t sleep, either, and it’s gorgeous out.”

  “Yeah, I was hoping you’d ask.” I could hear the smile in her voice. “I’ll be there in a sec.”

  I plucked Justin’s worn flannel shirt from the peg in the entryway and stepped into my red flip-flop sandals before heading out under the stars. Justin and Clint hung a wooden swing from the porch beams the first week we’d lived here and I claimed my usual place on it, listening with pleasure to the sounds of the night. The air was warm and the humidity had been swept away by a whispering breeze. A pair of great gray owls lived in the woods just beyond our yard; their haunting calls made me long for my grandmother, dear Gran, who also loved the sound of owls. Jo appeared from the path that led to her house no more than a minute later, wearing cut-off jean shorts and wrapped in a hooded sweatshirt of Blythe’s, carrying a candle lantern that I recalled from our childhood, which Mom claimed had been in the Davis family for over a century. The nail holes punched into the tin threw apricot light in a thousand tiny pinpricks, as though Jo was being preceded by a flock of dancing fireflies.

  “God, I wish we still smoked,” Jo said as she climbed the porch steps, hanging the old lantern on a cast-iron peg near the front door. I scooted over so she could join me on the swing.

  “You can say that again,” I murmured, not even attempting to disguise the longing in my voice. Gran and Great-Aunt Minnie would have scoffed at us, as both of our menfolk (rather than ourselves) had driven the decision to abandon the bad habit. I recognized that it was the right choice but I still truly missed the feel of a burning cig in my hands. I missed blowing smoke rings; I missed the way a cigarette helped me slow down, gather my thoughts. I knew there were healthier ways to do so, but shit, I was a creature of habit.

  “How’s my nephew?” Jo bent a knee on the swing, smoothing her palm over my belly.

  “He was doing acrobatics just a minute ago.”

  “Matthew finally nodded off. We can manage to get him into his toddler bed, most nights anyway, but he’d still rather sleep with us.” She added, with soft affection, “Bly just can’t refuse him anything.”

  “He’s as much of a marshmallow as Justin when it comes to the kids,” I agreed. “We have to be the disciplinarians, Jo, we can’t back down.”

  “Yeah, that’s a scary thought. It is hard to say no to Matthew, I admit. He’s so darn adorable. And Bly just worships him, can hardly let him out of his sight.” Jo shifted a little, tucking her loose golden hair behind her ears. “You know.”

  She meant the fact that years ago, when he still lived in Oklahoma, Blythe’s ex-girlfriend had become pregnant and then proceeded to have an abortion, without telling Bly. The ache of this would always be present in Blythe’s sensitive soul, Jo and I both realized, and so I understood that she couldn’t be too irritated with him regarding their son.

  “So, I have two things,” Jo said then, and in the lantern light I studied my sister’s face, its graceful contours more familiar to me than just about any other in my life. I was so glad she lived near me again that it was difficult to express in words; I knew she felt the same. I waited patiently for her to continue.

  “First, I’m worried about Camille.” She leaned to grip my knee. “Jills, have you seen anything?”

  I curled my hand over hers. “I would tell you immediately, you know that. And besides, Camille is so happy it radiates off her like a beam of sunshine.”

  “I know, and I’m grateful for it. They’re so in love.” She paused to sigh, tapping her lips with an index finger. “Though, on that subject, I’m worried she’s going to get pregnant before their wedding. Seriously…”

  “They are pretty…active,” I giggled in agreement, shying away as Jo flicked her finger against my bare leg. “But come on, they’re engaged, and Mathias is very…” I bit back additional laughter at all of the adjectives popping around in my mind, words a mother may not really want to hear in conjunction with her daughter’s lover, such as virile, sexy, or studhorse-like. I finally settled for, “It’s that Carter magnetism.”

  Joelle rolled her eyes, knowing I was right, setting the swing into gentle motion with one foot.

  “Like you should talk,” I pestered, letting suggestive innuendo flood my tone. “Your own man is awfully…magnetic. In fact, if I don’t mistake myself, I’d guess he proved that to you this very evening. Probably more than once!”

  Jo snorted a laugh, elbowing my ribs.

  “So, what’s worrying you, exactly?” I asked. “Do you want a drink? If I can’t have one at least I can watch you enjoy. I’ve got gin…or a beer…”

  “No, Jills, I’m fine, just relax. Mathias told me just yesterday that he’s worried about Camille’s nightmares. You know…”

  I did; Camille and I had discussed it. Further, I could sense that something very real was wrong—but nothing more. But I knew better than anyone that a Notion could not be forced. Camille had never experienced Notions that I was aware, but I felt strongly that her nightmares were indicative of something different, connected with the past rather than the future, centered around an old photograph she’d found two years ago, a picture with tremendous energy surrounding it; I’d held it in my hands for only seconds before recognizing this.

  The photo showed a man named Malcolm and a horse named Aces, the man one of the first Carters in the Landon area, both of them standing in the light of a long-ago sunset. The back of the image was scribbled with the words Me & Aces. Camille was obsessed with discovering what had happened to Malcolm—there was a troubling but unsurprising (given the amount of time that had passed between his life and hers) lack of information. The dreams to which Jo referred had plagued my niece since last winter, dark dreams of loss and terror, of wandering without end. I knew at the heart of her deepest fear was that she would somehow lose Mathias, utterly unable to prevent this loss from occurring. The worst o
f it was, as Camille had said, that she was certain she’d lost him before now, maybe in another life. Or maybe I’m just crazy, Aunt Jilly, she’d moaned. I simply held her that night; words of comfort seemed hollow.

  “And with everything last Valentine’s Day…” I muttered, trailing to silence, thinking of the strange and terrifying night last February when Mathias had been attacked in the woods on the north side of Flickertail Lake; he’d been walking his trap lines at dusk and someone had not only struck him in the head, but then proceeded to drag his unconscious body through the snowy undergrowth. If not for Camille experiencing a premonition that he was in serious danger, and her subsequent swift reaction, Mathias might have been hurt far worse, even killed. Months later, none of us possessed satisfactory answers. No trace of the perpetrator was discovered, no hint as to why anyone would use a weapon to strike an unarmed man in the woods. The only clue were two bars of solid gold, stamped with their minting date of 1876, found in the woods near the scene of the attack. I wished for the ability to reassure my niece, to tell her that everything was all right in the aftermath—surely Mathias was no longer in danger—but my gut suggested otherwise. And I was not one to ignore gut instinct.

  What sort of danger? I wondered for the countless time. And in what form? Who would want to cause him harm?

  I had no answers, and remained aggravated by this; further, I understood that Camille likewise had none, despite her intensifying dreams. The past spring had proved relatively calm and I tried to be reasonable. Camille and Mathias were planning a trip out to Montana, in addition to their October wedding, and there should have been nothing but sunshine on their collective horizon.

  “For Mathias to come to me means he’s really worried.” Jo’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. “I hope they find some answers on their trip, Jilly. They leave in just a week or so.”