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  Since he was off duty, Morgan drove her to school and picked her up after classes ended for the weekend. His crimson pickup practically proclaimed his occupation and he took her to eat seafood as promised. Aislin had planned to go dressy, but he wore jeans and told her it wasn’t necessary.

  The rustic restaurant, Shay’s, a few miles outside of town on a bend in the river wasn’t fancy, but the food was fantastic. Fried catfish caught fresh had been prepared to Southern style perfection. The shrimp, both boiled and breaded, tasted wonderful. Clams, oysters on the half-shell, salmon filets and croquettes, Parmesan-crusted tilapia and fried flounder were also on the buffet table. Baked potatoes, rice pilaf, fries, an array of salads, and desserts were provided. Aislin devoured the hushpuppies and corn fritters too.

  They dined on the veranda overlooking the flowing waters and afterward, they walked a path beside the river, arm in arm. Morgan kissed her more than once beneath the full-bellied moon. “Do you want to go dancing?” he asked.

  “No,” she replied with a smile.

  “Bowling? A movie? Roller skating?” he said, teasing.

  “Let’s go home.”

  “And watch television?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  And they didn’t. They made love and he slept over again. Morgan stayed until he had to report to duty. It became the pattern of their days. When he wasn’t on duty, he came home to Aislin.

  As the days passed, she talked a little about her gifts. Sometimes Aislin delivered messages from his grandmother and she learned, with some difficulty, to make the Scottish dishes Jenny once had. Morgan, a confirmed skeptic in the beginning, began to believe Aislin.

  And Aislin loved him more, in spirit on a deeper level than she had ever known, but she worried about Morgan being in danger.

  There wasn’t anything to do but wait, so they did.

  ****

  One Saturday when Morgan had duty, Aislin went down to the firehouse at his invitation. She joined the crew for chili and nachos, then played cards with them for hours. He introduced her to his buddies, to Bill Johns, his best friend and to the others, Dylan, Josh, Anna, and Kay. Although Aislin longed to be alone with Morgan and schemed how she could make it happen, she settled for sitting next to him, thighs touching, and basked in his presence.

  Afterward, he walked her down to the street. Morgan glanced up and down the dark thoroughfare. “I could sneak off long enough to walk you home,” he said. “It’s late and I hate for you to take any chances.”

  “I’m a big girl.”

  He shook his head and pulled her close to nuzzle her neck with tiny kisses. “You’re my girl.”

  Aislin didn’t even try to deny it. She tilted her face up for a kiss and he delivered with his mouth sweeter than pastries, hotter than salsa. Morgan took his own sweet time about it and when he stopped, he put his arm around her. “I’m walking you home, no argument.”

  “If you get that far, you know what’ll happen.” Her psychic powers weren’t necessary to call it.

  Morgan grinned. “You bet I do. If they need me, they know where to find me and I doubt any of the team will be too surprised if I’m gone for an hour or so.”

  Her blood quickened and her body tensed with electric desire. “Only an hour?” she asked. “I’d better make the most of it.”

  In her bedroom, on her bed, sprawled across the sheets that smelled of lavender, Aislin did. She tantalized him with slow caresses and led him on until his cock-stand threatened to become permanent. Then she mounted him, rode him with his dick thrust upward into her pussy with a low, slow rhythm that brought them both to the brink. Aislin meant to tarry, to tease with slow measure, but Morgan flipped her over. Once he had her on her back, he took her with swift savagery. She shrieked as he penetrated into whatever core of being she had, deep as possible and speared her into an incredible, intense orgasm. Her body bucked like a rodeo pony beneath him and her hands curved into claws to caress with sharp precision.

  “Now, now, now,” he chanted.

  The pent up tide of pleasure exploded into a crimson tide of pure physical delight. Aislin saw nothing, blinded with passion. If a hundred spirits had hovered, shouting messages, she wouldn’t have heard anything. They merged together, two bodies into one extreme pleasure and strained in unison until they hit the peak.

  Shock waves, each one filled with sweet delicious wonder, brought her back down to reality and her body was too spent to protest when Morgan untangled to dress. “Don’t get up,” he said. “I want to remember how you look lying there, hair a mess, naked and so beautiful with that smile on your lips.”

  “I love you, Morgan,” she told him.

  He smiled. “I know and guess what? I love you too.”

  Whatever happened, Aislin reflected after he had gone, Morgan Carmichael was the love of her life. There couldn’t be anyone else she could love so much.

  ****

  They dined that Friday at Shay’s, a favorite for them both, eating seafood and touching nonstop. Her foot stretched beneath the table to rub his leg with the unabashed delight of a lazy cat. Morgan held her hand part of the time and after they each had a full glass of a sweet white wine, he raised his glass.

  “Happy anniversary, honey,” he said. “Six months together.”

  “Happy anniversary,” she repeated. Sometimes it seemed so much longer, as if they’d been together forever and were meant to be. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” he said. “Am I still in danger or do you know?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But I still don’t get when or where.”

  “That would help a lot.”

  “Yes, it would.”

  Aislin still dreamed about Morgan surrounded by fire and woke upset. On rare occasions, she suffered waking visions but she couldn’t pinpoint a time or place. Neither could Jenny who just kept saying, ‘soon, lass.’ Aislin had never been very religious, but she did believe in God and couldn’t imagine He would allow them to find each other, only to take Morgan away.

  “Let’s go dancing tonight,” Morgan said. He had suggested it almost every weekend and although she would rather go home to make love, this time she agreed.

  “All right.”

  They had just climbed into his truck when his cell phone erupted with the wail of sirens. “Shit!”

  “Ignore it,” Aislin suggested.

  “I can’t,” he said. He sighed. “It’s work.”

  She waited, listened, and tuned in to her six senses. Before he hung up, Aislin knew. “I have to go on duty,” he said. “There’s a big fire out at the manufacturing plant and they need everyone. They’ve called in every volunteer department for miles, too. I’ll take you home first, then get my gear and report to the scene.”

  Something hard and cold as a January icicle replaced her spine. A terrible anxiety crawled through her nervous system. “I want to go, too,” she said. “I promise I’ll stay in the truck.”

  “It’s not a good idea, Aislin.”

  For whatever reason, she had to be there for this one. It’s the one, she thought, it’s time. Tonight he lives or tonight he dies. “It’ll save time,” she told him. “Besides, Morgan, this is it.”

  Morgan stilled. He turned to stare at her, eyes gone huge and color drained from his face. “You mean it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me how I prevent myself from dying, then.”

  Aislin scraped the words together and spit them out. “I don’t know. In the dream, your breathing apparatus fails and you take it off. Then you get lost and disoriented. You can’t find your way out.”

  “So if I make my equipment is working right and I don’t get lost, I’ll be fine?”

  Where in the hell was Jenny when she needed her advice? “I hope so,” Aislin said. She wanted to cry but didn’t.

  Neither spoke on the way back through town, not during the stop at the station for his gear or on the way along the two-lane old highway to the plant. Aislin saw the eerie
glow, like a reflection from the fires of hell, as soon as they headed out of town. Red radiated in the night sky like the northern lights, but a twisted, evil version. When they turned into the parking lot, she spotted the flames clawing from the roof into the heavens. Plumes of smoke turned into thick clouds and bits of ash floated in the air like snow.

  Morgan stopped twice to show his badge before he parked behind a pumper truck. “Stay put,” he told her. “Whatever happens, you stay here.”

  She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. “Morgan…”

  “Don’t argue with me.”

  Aislin swallowed back tears. “I love you.”

  He paused long enough to kiss her. “I love you too.”

  Morgan had dressed in his uniform at the station. Now, he retrieved his equipment from the back of the truck and donned it. In his heavy coat, the boots, the helmet and the breathing apparatus, he was a stranger. Aislin watched, fist in her mouth as he walked toward the inferno. He vanished into the ranks of other firefighters and out of sight.

  Fifteen minutes crawled past, then thirty. After an hour, Aislin had twisted her hands together until they hurt. Her head ached and she thought she might puke. Her efforts to tune Morgan in failed. Her nose and throat choked with the still billowing smoke but when the sweet scent of lavender replaced it, she knew who had arrived.

  “He’s going in again, the braw man,” Jenny Carmichael said. She stood outside the open passenger window. “There’s two people trapped in a bathroom inside, ye ken, and he’s going after them. And he’s gey tired, worn to a frazzle, he is. Do you love him, lass?”

  “I do.” More than you know, more than I knew until now.

  “It’s the time,” she said. “You warned him. There’s naught else you can do but wait.”

  Aislin imagined sitting in the truck, smelling smoke, hearing the terrible crackle of flames, and not knowing anything. She’d tried to see Morgan, to be aware of what he was doing, but her gift wasn’t working. Maybe her emotions were too close, maybe her fear was too great. If she sat here, doing nothing, she would go crazy. She shook her head. “I won’t,” she told his grandmother. “I can’t.”

  Before Jenny said anything more, Aislin climbed out of the truck and ran across the parking lot. When she recognized Bill Johns, Morgan’s best friend from the fire station, she headed for him. When he saw her, he waved her back. “What the hell are you doing? You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Where’s Morgan?”

  “Inside,” he shouted over the noise.

  “Is he okay?”

  Bill gave her thumbs up. “Yeah, he was on the radio a minute ago.”

  She took a position beside the truck but out of the way and waited. Ten minutes later, she overheard Bill tell the captain they’d lost contact with Morgan. Aislin’s heart clenched into a knot as she reached out with her mind, using her gift to find Morgan and this time, it worked.

  Just as in the dream, she saw him pull the mask from his face with a disgusted expression. The different element, the thing she never expected, were the two women he pulled behind him. They clutched his hands and tugged at him. If he died, they would perish too. Aislin’s vision revealed his location and how to get there. Before anyone could stop her, she ran toward the building and into a corridor. As the door banged shut behind her, she heard Bill and the captain shouting but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t or Morgan’s life would be lost.

  Through it all, she inhaled lavender. Jenny’s here. She’ll lead him out. I know she will. Please, please, please. Let me find him, too and we can come out together.

  Within moments, distracted and crying, Aislin lost her way. Smoke poured down the hallways, thicker than any fog she had ever experienced. She coughed and waved her hands, but it didn’t diminish. Although she saw no flames, the heat reached her. She stumbled forward and found herself in a dead end hallway. Morgan wasn’t there. She used her mind and saw him exiting the building with his two rescued victims in tow, following a thin, wispy Jenny.

  He gasped hard to draw fresh air into his lungs, but he’d made it out somehow. Morgan staggered toward his captain as the paramedics rushed forward to treat the other two. The captain shouted something about a woman running into the fire and she saw with clarity Morgan’s expression of complete fear tempered with sorrow.

  “It’s Aislin,” Bill shouted. “She’s looking for you.”

  “I’ll go get her,” Morgan said, coughing.

  “She’s gone,” the captain said. “You’ll never get to her before the roof goes.”

  “I have to try,” Morgan yelled back. He took the gear Bill handed him and he headed back into the fire.

  Above Aislin, the ceiling groaned. A few bits of burning tile fell to the floor beside her and more smoke rolled from beneath the closed doorways. As she succumbed to the smoke, her lungs desperate for air, her vision faded as Aislin realized Morgan would live but she wouldn’t.

  ****

  Spirits came to her and surrounded her. She recognized her grandparents, her aunt she’d lost to cancer, the cousin who’d drowned at a family reunion, and her best friend from high school who lost her life in a car accident. They reached for her as she swam through smoke. Her spirit floated above her body slumped on the floor. Aislin felt none of the joy she’d heard the passing from life into death spirits had described to her, nothing but loss, regret, and sadness.

  One voice from the spirit world cut through the others, insistent and loud. “He’s coming for you, lass, he’s coming. Morgan won’t let his love die. Hang on, Aislin, he’s almost here.”

  She wanted to, very much, but although she thrust herself back into her body, Aislin couldn’t breathe. Her eyes refused to open and she failed to force a scream through her lips. A brilliant light cut through the smoke and she knew it was for her. Aislin resisted, but the struggle proved difficult and she prepared to enter it when Morgan lifted her into his arms. He ran forward a few steps, moments before the roof crashed down raining bits of fire and boards everywhere.

  “Aislin,” he screamed. She heard him but with her mind because he wore the mask. “Don’t you fucking die! Don’t!”

  His voice boosted her to make the effort and she fought against the light. She batted away the spirit hands struggling to bear her toward it and her fingers curled tightly against his heavy coat. Morgan didn’t seem to notice as he careened toward the exit, his gait clumsy and exp

  They burst into the night and she drew a hard, deep breath, then another. Aislin forced her eyes open. She gazed upward into Morgan’s face, black with soot, filthy except for the twin trails where his tears poured from his eyes. He cradled her so close, body wracked with sobs. At some point, he’d shed the apparatus but she had no idea when. I must’ve blacked out, maybe more than once. Maybe it’s been longer than I thought.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Aislin, I failed you.”

  He thinks I’m dead and he’s grieving. He can’t do that. With incredible effort, she touched his face. Then she choked and coughed, hard. Speaking was almost impossible, but she struggled to say his name. “Morgan.” It came out rough and with a harsh gasp.

  He glanced down at her, then staggered forward and almost dropped her as he went to his knees. “Aislin,” he cried. “You’re alive. Oh, my God, oh, my God. I thought I’d lost you.”

  And I thought I lost you too, she thought but lacked the strength or wind to say it.

  He lowered his mouth to deliver a quick kiss. Paramedics surrounded them, but Morgan directed them to treat her first. As pure oxygen rushed into her lungs, Aislin realized Morgan sat behind her, cradling her against him. She leaned back against him. Tears trickled down her face from joy, not sorrow. He was alive and so was she.

  Jenny Carmichael appeared for a moment, face wreathed in smiles. “Blessings on you both,” she said. “You’ve a long life ahead of you, together.”

  As her form began to dissipate, Morgan said, “Thanks, Granny.”

  The old woman’s ghost nodded and vani
shed after a fleeting smile.

  “You saw her?” Aislin asked. Some minutes had passed, maybe more. Her thoughts were clearer now. Talking came easier too and so did breathing although she remained on oxygen.

  Morgan nodded. “Yeah, now and in the building – she led me out and then back to you.”

  Aislin smiled. “I thought I would die in there, but you’re my hero.”

  “If it wasn’t for you – and for Granny – I’d be dead,” he said. “Besides, I couldn’t make it without you. Are you all right?”

  “I will be,” she said, coughing. “We both will.”

  ****

  The local media hailed Morgan as a hero and Aislin, proud of her man, loved it. All the television stations did segments on him and the newspaper did a full-page spread. He hated it but loved her and avoided the media whenever possible. They recovered from smoke inhalation and the emotional trauma of the fire, together, always together. Any doubt Morgan had harbored about her gifts had vanished with the smoke.

  Six more months passed and summer returned, a season filled with sunlight and promise.

  They sat outside on the patio, a soft wind teasing through her hair. Morgan flipped burgers on the grill and she savored the delicious aroma of the meat. Her yard had never looked better after he’d trimmed the grass and tamed the weeds. Together they had planted a bed of lavender as a memorial to his grandmother.

  “This is good,” Aislin said after she tasted the burger.

  “So’s the potato salad,” Morgan replied. “I’ll teach you to make Cullen Skink yet, though.”

  She laughed. “I’ll do my best.”

  After the meal, when he reached into his pocket, she thought he must be getting his phone but when he revealed an antique ring box, her heart hammered. “Aislin,” he said. Morgan knelt on one knee and gazed at her. “Would you marry me?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Oh, yes.”

  “Then will you wear Granny’s ring?” he asked. Morgan opened the box to reveal a marquise cut diamond set in a platinum band.