Ss Soul Mates

7/30/2019 Ss Soul Mates

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Soul Mates

by Lisa ChildsSusannah 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. Whydid she still hurt so much? Maybe

because it was exactly twenty-five

years ago today.


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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, infact. 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 theGrand Haven shore had compelled

her to come here today.

Or had he?

For the past twenty-five years, hehad haunted hera ghost on her

heart and her conscience. No matter

how much her father and the

psychologist he'd brought her to


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had tried to convince her that it

hadn't been her fault, she had never

stopped blaming herself.

Her fingers dropped away from the

keys. She owed it to him to honor

the 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 west

from her home in Lansing to the

Lake Michigan shore: as if she'dbeen following hypnotic commands

rather than her own free will.

Only if she'd been hypnotized, it

had been twenty-five years ago whenshe'd stared into a boy's bright blue

eyes and fallen deeply, irrevocably in

love with him. Her heart still ached

with that loveand regret. She had


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loved him too much, and the burden

of those feelings had killed him.

She glanced down at the flowers she

held. Brown-eyed Susans. On their

first date, he had picked the same

kind of flowers, with their golden

petals and deep brown centers, forher. 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 onto

the asphalt. Sand gritted beneath

the soles of her shoes.He had died herein this parking

lot, in this very spot. Even though

twenty-five years had passed, she

remembered in vivid detail how


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she'd found him. She'd been so

young, just fifteen, and so excited

that she had run up to thepassenger's side door of his car and

pulled it open before she'd noticed

the blood on the windows. On all the

windowsSusannah shuddered. He'd died

here. And his mother had spread his

ashes in Lake Michigan, sprinkled off

the very pier that she now stood infront of.

The cool wind picked up, swirling

sand across the asphalt. Spring had

come late this year, the coldweather hanging on even into May, so

the beach and the parking lot were

deserted but for her. The cold

didn't affect Susannah; she had

already been chilled to the bone


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before she'd stepped out of her

vehicle.

Her legs trembling, she crossed the

boardwalk and climbed the couple of

steps to the pier. The brilliant rays

of the sun blinded her as it slid

slowly from the sky to drop onto theshimmering surface of the water.

She closed her eyes, welcoming the

heat on her face.

But it wasn't just the heat of thesun she feltbut of someone's loving

gaze.

Hewas here.

p>Shewas here. He'd hoped she

would come to him, that the

connection between them was as

powerful as he had remembered. But


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it had been twenty-five years. She

could have forgotten all about him,

or blocked those painful memoriesfrom her mind.

But here she was, standing before

him with her face bathed in the glow

of the setting sun. Twenty-fiveyears 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 darker

blond than it had been years ago,

the color richer and deeper. Insteadof falling halfway down her back as

it once had, it just skimmed her

delicate shoulders as the wind sifted

through it.


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Her eyes were closed, her lashes

lying thick and dark against her

cheeks. He needed to see into hereyesinto her soul. But she kept

them shut, her face lifted to the

sun.

He couldn't stop himself fromreaching out to her. It had been so

long since he had touched her. He

skimmed his fingertips along the

edge of her jaw.She gasped, but instead of pulling

back she leaned closer, and her

breath feathered across his lips. "I

must be dreaming," she murmured."This must be a dream"

His memories of her had always

seemed like a dream. But maybe that

had been because the memories


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really weren't his. But she was. It

didn't matter how many years had

passed since he'd seen her; his soulhis heartwould always know her.

But would she know him once she

opened her eyes? Would she realize

that he was the boy she had onceloved?

He slid his thumb up over her chin

and then across her bottom lip. On a

shaky sigh, she parted her lips. Butshe didn't open her eyes. She just

murmured a name. "Jordan"

It wasn't his name anymore. Not in

this lifeOn the outside, he wasn't the man

she had loved. She wouldn't

recognize his face. But maybe she

would recognize his touch.


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His kiss.

He leaned down and closed thedistance 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.

She could taste himrich, minty anddeeply masculine.

Masculine? Jordan had tasted of

sunshine and sodalike a boy, not a

man.


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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 wasflesh and blood. And real.

And oddly familiar to her. Somehow,

even his kiss and his touch had felt

familiar, even though she had neverseen him before. He wasn't a boy, as

Jordan had been. He wasn't anything

like Jordan with his blond hair and

twinkling blue eyes. She should havebeen afraid of this man; he was,

after all, a stranger to her. But she

was more afraid of her own reaction

to him.


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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-hairedstranger. A stranger who'd touched

her. Who'd kissed her.

The heat of embarrassment turned

to anger. "How dare you!" Not onlyhad he taken advantage of her

vulnerability, he'd destroyed the

lovely dream she'd been having.

"Sorry 'bout that," he said, but hislips curved into a slight grin despite

the apology he uttered in a Southern

drawl.


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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'dput her poor single father through

so much, even after she'd become an

adult. Even still, here she was,

twenty-five years later, bringing


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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 shehad come.

But as she walked to the end of the

pier, his footsteps echoed behind

her. Was he following her?


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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. Insteadshe focused on the water below the

pier. Leaning over the railing, she

dropped the bouquet of flowers onto

the dark surface."Forgot one," a deep voice

murmured. He dangled the lost

Susan over her shoulder.

Her fingers trembling, she reachedfor the flower but he held tight to

the stem.


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"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 noone else? She turned toward him,

fear squeezing her heart now, and

asked, "Who the hell are you?"

He had wanted to see Susannah's

eyes 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.

"Luke Devereaux." At least, that was

his name now.


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Her brow furrowed as she tried to

place him. His pulse quickened at the

thought that she might have heardof him. But then, it was quite likely

that she had; he was nationally

renowned in his field and a

bestselling author. But no sense ofrecognition 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. Andas the hours had dragged on, his

hope drained from him. He'd nearly

accepted that she'd forgotten all

about him. He'd decided to give her


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until after the sun setand then she

had appeared. Finally.

"How do you know about the flowers,

about this day?" Her brow furrowed

again as she tried to figure out how

he could have a dead man's secrets.

"Are you a friend of my father?"

A bitter laugh caught in his throat.

"I wasacquainted with your

fathera 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 onlydaughter's plan to run away with

Jordan Rogers.

She shook her head. "That doesn't

make sense. My father's never


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mentioned you. And how would you

have 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. "Hedied twenty-five years ago today."

Apparently she knew where he'd

died but what about how? Or why?

"Yeshere, in his car."


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"Are you a reporter or something?"

He smiled. In a way, he'dapproached 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 girlhad been harder to find. So he'd

had 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 have

so much information about Jordan?

He died so long ago, and you were

just born when he died. You couldn'tknow about the kind of flowers he

brought me, or the nickname he

called me." Her breath hitched.

"There's no way you could know


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because 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, hischeek stinging from the blow she'd

delivered.

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Ss Soul Mates