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HjkSoul Mates

by Lisa Childs

Susannah Quist-Carter had found

her soul mate when she was fifteen,but a tragic twist of fate had taken

him from her. Now, twenty-five

years later, she meets a man who

claims to have his reincarnated soul.But is it possible to love someone so

deeply that even death can`t keep

you apart?

Pain clutched Susannah Quist-Carter's heart.

Twenty-five years had passed. Why

did she still hurt so much? Maybe

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because it was exactly twenty-five

years ago today.

Her hand trembled as she reached

for the keys in the ignition. She

should start the car and drive away.

Coming here had been a terrible

idea.

But it hadn't really been an idea; she

hadn't thought about it at all, in

fact. She'd just slid behind her

steering wheel and started driving,as if by instinct. Or perhaps it had

been more like a compulsion, like the

Grand Haven shore had compelled

her to come here today.Or had he?

For the past twenty-five years, he

had haunted hera ghost on her

heart and her conscience. No matter

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how much her father and the

psychologist he'd brought her to

had tried to convince her that ithadn't been her fault, she had never

stopped blaming herself.

Her fingers dropped away from the

keys. She owed it to him to honorthe silver anniversary of his death.

She reached now for the flowers

that she had bought in the same way

she'd driven the two hours westfrom her home in Lansing to the

Lake Michigan shore: as if she'd

been following hypnotic commands

rather than her own free will.Only if she'd been hypnotized, it

had been twenty-five years ago when

she'd stared into a boy's bright blue

eyes and fallen deeply, irrevocably in

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love with him. Her heart still ached

with that loveand regret. She had

loved him too much, and the burdenof those feelings had killed him.

She glanced down at the flowers she

held. Brown-eyed Susans. On their

first date, he had picked the samekind of flowers, with their golden

petals and deep brown centers, for

her. But he couldn't bring them to

her anymore.So she had to bring the flowers

hereto him.

Drawing in a deep breath, she

opened the door and stepped ontothe asphalt. Sand gritted beneath

the soles of her shoes.

He had died herein this parking

lot, in this very spot. Even though

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twenty-five years had passed, she

remembered in vivid detail how

she'd found him. She'd been soyoung, just fifteen, and so excited

that she had run up to the

passenger's side door of his car and

pulled it open before she'd noticedthe blood on the windows. On all the

windows

Susannah shuddered. He'd died

here. And his mother had spread hisashes in Lake Michigan, sprinkled off

the very pier that she now stood in

front of.

The cool wind picked up, swirlingsand across the asphalt. Spring had

come late this year, the cold

weather hanging on even into May, so

the beach and the parking lot were

deserted but for her. The cold

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didn't affect Susannah; she had

already been chilled to the bone

before she'd stepped out of hervehicle.

Her legs trembling, she crossed the

boardwalk and climbed the couple of

steps to the pier. The brilliant raysof the sun blinded her as it slid

slowly from the sky to drop onto the

shimmering surface of the water.

She closed her eyes, welcoming theheat on her face.

But it wasn't just the heat of the

sun she feltbut of someone's loving

gaze.Hewas here.

p>Shewas here. He'd hoped she

would come to him, that the

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connection between them was as

powerful as he had remembered. But

it had been twenty-five years. Shecould have forgotten all about him,

or blocked those painful memories

from her mind.

But here she was, standing beforehim with her face bathed in the glow

of the setting sun. Twenty-five

years ago she had been a cute girl

with a sprinkle of freckles across

her upturned nose. Now she was a

woman of such beauty that she

literally took his breath away.

Her skin was golden and smooth. Her

hair was also golden now, a darkerblond than it had been years ago,

the color richer and deeper. Instead

of falling halfway down her back as

it once had, it just skimmed her

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delicate shoulders as the wind sifted

through it.

Her eyes were closed, her lashes

lying thick and dark against her

cheeks. He needed to see into her

eyesinto her soul. But she kept

them shut, her face lifted to thesun.

He couldn't stop himself from

reaching out to her. It had been so

long since he had touched her. Heskimmed his fingertips along the

edge of her jaw.

She gasped, but instead of pulling

back she leaned closer, and herbreath feathered across his lips. "I

must be dreaming," she murmured.

"This must be a dream"

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His memories of her had always

seemed like a dream. But maybe that

had been because the memoriesreally weren't his. But she was. It

didn't matter how many years had

passed since he'd seen her; his soul

his heartwould always know her.But would she know him once she

opened her eyes? Would she realize

that he was the boy she had once

loved?He slid his thumb up over her chin

and then across her bottom lip. On a

shaky sigh, she parted her lips. But

she didn't open her eyes. She justmurmured a name. "Jordan"

It wasn't his name anymore. Not in

this life

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On the outside, he wasn't the man

she had loved. She wouldn't

recognize his face. But maybe shewould recognize his touch.

His kiss.

He leaned down and closed the

distance between his mouth and

hers. His hands still cupping her

face, he tipped her chin up. Then he

brushed his lips gently across hers in

a whisper-soft kiss.

Susannah never wanted to awaken;

she never wanted this dream to end.

It was so real. She could actually

feel the warmth of his breath as hesighed against her mouth before

deepening the kiss. His lips pressed

against hers, parting them.

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She could taste himrich, minty and

deeply masculine.

Masculine? Jordan had tasted of

sunshine and sodalike a boy, not a

man.

Confused, she stepped back,

breaking the connection, and opened

her eyes. To a stranger.

Who the hell had she just kissed?

He wasn't a figment from a dream.

Or a ghost. Tall and muscular with

dark hair and tanned skin, he was

flesh and blood. And real.

And oddly familiar to her. Somehow,

even his kiss and his touch had feltfamiliar, even though she had never

seen him before. He wasn't a boy, as

Jordan had been. He wasn't anything

like Jordan with his blond hair and

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twinkling blue eyes. She should have

been afraid of this man; he was,

after all, a stranger to her. But shewas more afraid of her own reaction

to him.

What the hell had she done? Had

she lost her mind?

Heat rushed to her face, but it

wasn't from the sun. It had already

sunk beneath the surface of the

lake. She stood now in the twilight,in the shadow of the dark-haired

stranger. A stranger who'd touched

her. Who'd kissed her.

The heat of embarrassment turnedto anger. "How dare you!" Not only

had he taken advantage of her

vulnerability, he'd destroyed the

lovely dream she'd been having.

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"Sorry 'bout that," he said, but his

lips curved into a slight grin despite

the apology he uttered in a Southerndrawl.

Her anger increased, warming skin

that the brisk wind had chilled.

"Why Why did you kiss me?"

"Why did you kiss me back?" he

challenged, his gaze intent on her

face.

"I thought you were someone else."

Tears stung her eyes, but she

blinked them awayjust as she

needed to push away the memories

of Jordan again.So many times over the years she

had tried to forget about him. She

had attempted to move on, as her

father had begged her to do. She'd

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put her poor single father through

so much, even after she'd become an

adult. Even still, here she was,twenty-five years later, bringing

Jordan flowers and imagining him

with her, waiting for her, kissing

her.And she'd wound up making a fool of

herself by kissing some strange man.

Her anger faded to regret. She

wanted to forget the momentarylapse in judgment had ever

happened. But her lips tingled yet

and she could still taste him.

"I'm sorry." Putting more distancebetween them, she stepped back

again and moved around the man.

She wouldn't let whoever he was

distract her from the reason she

had come.

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But as she walked to the end of the

pier, his footsteps echoed behind

her. Was he following her?

Don't worry about him. Do what you

came to do.

The wind whipped around, tugging at

her hair and the bouquet of flowers.

One brown-eyed Susan wrestled

free of her grasp and blew behind

her. She didn't glance back. Instead

she focused on the water below thepier. Leaning over the railing, she

dropped the bouquet of flowers onto

the dark surface.

"Forgot one," a deep voicemurmured. He dangled the lost

Susan over her shoulder.

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Her fingers trembling, she reached

for the flower but he held tight to

the stem.

"I kissed you," he said, "because

you're my Susie Q. My own brown-

eyed Susan."

Jordan's words They reached

inside her, squeezing her heart tight

in a painful clasp. How did this man

know what she had shared with no

one else? She turned toward him,fear squeezing her heart now, and

asked, "Who the hell are you?"

He had wanted to see Susannah'seyes again but not like this. Not wide

with fear. But there was anger, too,

in her gaze and in her flushed skin.

"What is your name?" she demanded.

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"Luke Devereaux." At least, that was

his name now.

Her brow furrowed as she tried to

place him. His pulse quickened at the

thought that she might have heard

of him. But then, it was quite likely

that she had; he was nationallyrenowned in his field and a

bestselling author. But no sense of

recognition eased the fear and

suspicion in her eyes."How do you know who Iam?" she

asked.

"I didn't, not for sure," he admitted,

"until you showed up here,on thisdate, with those flowers."

He had waited all day for her. And

as the hours had dragged on, his

hope drained from him. He'd nearly

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accepted that she'd forgotten all

about him. He'd decided to give her

until after the sun setand then shehad appeared. Finally.

"How do you know about the flowers,

about this day?" Her brow furrowed

again as she tried to figure out howhe could have a dead man's secrets.

"Are you a friend of my father?"

A bitter laugh caught in his throat.

"I wasacquainted with yourfathera long time ago. But we were

never friends."

"Did he tell you about the flowers?

Did he know about them?" she asked."Judge Quist knew about

everything." Specifically his only

daughter's plan to run away with

Jordan Rogers.

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She shook her head. "That doesn't

make sense. My father's never

mentioned you. And how would youhave been acquaintances long ago?

You're not very old."

"I'm twenty-five. Today."

She sucked in a breath. "Then

there's no way you could know

anything about"

"The flowers? Your nickname?" It

was because he had been born

twenty-five years ago today that

he didknow everything. "Jordan

Rogers gave you the flowers and the

nickname."She gazed beyond him toward the

parking lot and she shuddered. "He

died twenty-five years ago today."

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Apparently she knew where he'd

died but what about how? Or why?

"Yeshere, in his car."

"Are you a reporter or something?"

He smiled. In a way, he'd

approached his search like a

journalist would. It had taken him

awhile, but he'd learned everything

it was possible to learn about the

boy who'd died so tragically. The girl

had been harder to find. So he'dhad to wait for her to come to him.

"No, I'm not a reporter," he said.

She shook her head, dismissing his

claim. "Then how is it that you haveso much information about Jordan?

He died so long ago, and you were

just born when he died. You couldn't

know about the kind of flowers he

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brought me, or the nickname he

called me." Her breath hitched.

"There's no way you could knowbecause I never told anyone. Not

even my dad"

"There is one way I could know," he

said.

She stared up at him, her brown

eyes narrowed with suspicion. "And

what's that?"

"Because Iam Jordan Rogers."

He'd no sooner uttered the claim

than his head snapped back, his

cheek stinging from the blow she'd

delivered.

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