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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.