Be My Hero

  So was she. Squirming underneath me, she tried to twist out of my grip as she laughed. I kept tickling her because I loved that sound, and I swear I loved her too. I had no idea how I knew that. I just knew. She was everything to me.

  "Patrick Jason Ryan," she scolded me. "I'm warning you." But there was too much warmth and joy in her voice to be of any real threat.

  She loved this as much as I did. My body responded, and I was ready for more of that sex I decided wasn't so bad after all.

  But just as I leaned in to kiss her, a small voice asked, "Mama? Daddy? What're you guys doing?"

  Startled the fucking shit out of me.

  I wrenched my head around to find a little girl of four, five, hell, maybe six years old standing in the doorway, watching us curiously as she hugged a pink stuffed pig to her chest and sucked on her thumb. She was freaking adorable. Startling blue eyes, just like the woman on the couch with me, but darker hair.

  Kind of like mine.

  "Skylar." The woman gasped, unable to break free of me. "Help me, baby. Tickle Daddy. Get him!"

  Daddy?

  My eyes widened, but the wider I tried to make them, the less I saw. With a bright flash of white, I was jerked away from both girls.

  The woman returned, thank God. She had coiled her pale hair up into formal silky rolls with white pearls woven through the locks and a veil trailing down her back. I sucked in a breath as I saw the wedding dress she wore.

  Surrounding us, hundreds of people became a distant muted blur as they milled around the large reception hall just as the deejay started a new song. Our song.

  "And this one's for the happy couple." The deejay sent me a nod, telling me I was up.

  Ignoring how stiff the shoulder pads in my tux jacket were, I held out a hand to the blonde in the wedding dress. "Mrs. Ryan," I said, feeling as if everything inside me was going to burst out through my pores. "May I have this dance?"

  This was my wife. My fucking wife. I couldn't remember ever feeling more gratified than I did in that moment when she gave me a giddy grin and took my hand. I pulled her close and twirled us onto the dance floor as I lowered my mouth to her ear.

  "Tink. God, I love you. So much."

  When I noticed the letters P.I.C.K. tattooed in neat black script just behind her ear, my heart pounded from all the emotions rushing through me. I buried my nose in her pearl-coiled highlights and breathed in the fresh scent of lilac.

  She pressed her mouth against my neck, and I swear the impression of her kiss followed me as I was sucked into yet another scene, a backyard with vivid green grass that was perfectly trimmed on a warm, sunny day. I'd never lived in a neighborhood with a lawn so immaculate, which made me swell with pride because I knew this was my lawn. My home.

  I was so fucking happy, even though the pair of scrawny arms wrapped around my neck were nearly choking me into unconsciousness. The weight of the small body pressed into my back made it worth it.

  "Faster," a boy's voice encouraged in my ear. "Come on, Dad. Faster."

  So I spun faster, making my boy laugh as I whirled us in a circle on that amazing, lush lawn. The world around us blurred into a blissful oblivion. When I finally stopped after making us both dizzy, I bent down, resting my hands on my knees so he could slide off. And the little girl from the earlier vision—Skylar—immediately appeared before me, tugging on my elbow.

  "My turn next," she begged, her mommy's blue eyes making it impossible for me to say no. "Please, Daddy."

  But from the house, the sliding glass door opened and the woman—Tinker Bell—appeared in the opening. She wore a bright red t-shirt that bulged over her very pregnant belly, but she radiated with a jovial glow that made everything inside me brighten.

  "Pick!" she called. "Julian. Skylar. Time for dinner."

  And just like that, the vision was gone. In the next, a paper mask over my mouth and nose caused my hot breath to moisten my cheeks as a prickly cap wrapped snug around my head itched my scalp. When I realized I was wearing surgical scrubs, I arched an eyebrow. What the hell? Was I a doctor now?

  But that voice—her intoxicating, amazing, love-filled voice—from the bed next to me had me turning until I saw her. My Tinker Bell lay on a hospital bed. Her face was flushed and damp but her tired eyes were lit with love as she grinned up at me. Cradling a small, wiggling bundle in her arms, she lifted the infant.

  "Pick, come meet Chloe."

  A sense of peace and joy filled me.

  Before I reached for our child, I cupped my wife's cheek in my hand and just looked at her, trying to convey to her how much I loved her. "You did good, Tinker Bell."

  I was about to reach for my daughter, our little Chloe, when the darkness sucked me back in.

  I cried out, scrambling, desperate to return to any of those visions, but I found myself back on the cold, wet ground in the witch's front yard.

  Madam LeFrey released her fingers from my eyes and I flopped limply to the ground, shuddering from loss and confusion. Keeping my lashes closed, I panted, willing myself back to wherever she'd just taken me. But the pain in my ankle kept me grounded to the bitter present.

  Shuffling beside me told me Madam LeFrey was standing up and moving away, but I didn't care about her anymore. My brain was jumbled, shifting between the pain in my leg and the memories stirring in my head.

  "There. You have your hope back now." Her ragged old voice angered me.

  I opened my eyes and managed to glance up at her. "Wha . . . what was that? What did you do to me?"

  "I gave you a glimpse."

  "You gave me a what? What the hell is a glimpse? What does it mean?"

  "Mean?" She cocked her head as if confused by the question. "Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. It shows you what your life would look like if you lived it to your heart's content."

  My yearning heart thumped hard in my chest. "So . . . so that's going to happen to me? That's my future?"

  Shit. It didn't seem possible. I had never done anything good enough to deserve a life like the one I'd just had a glimpse of. Elation roared through my veins until the fucking witch shook her head.

  "No. It's only your future if you live to your heart's content," Madam LeFrey repeated solemnly.

  "So…" I gulped, wanting to deny it. "It's not true then? It won't really happen?" More tears filled my eyes. Would I never meet that girl? Would I never have a beautiful backyard with plush green grass? Never have three perfect children who meant the world to me? Never belong to a family?

  "The future is not ours to know. I only showed you what could happen if you lived happily ever after. It's up to you to make that happen."

  "But . . . " I reached for her, desperate for answers. "How do I do that? I don't even know that girl. I've never seen her before in my life. How do I find her?"

  The witch had been busy picking her shotgun off the ground. But she paused at my frantic questions. "Girl?"

  "Yes! The girl. The girl you kept showing me. Who is she? Is she even a real person?"

  With a confused shake of her head, the old bat stared at me as if I was crazy. "I showed you only you. Five glimpses of you. That's all. If you saw another in one of your visions, that means you love that person."

  "But I . . . she was in all of them, not just one."

  Stepping closer, Madam LeFrey eyed me as if I was a new species she'd never heard of. "Can it be?" she whispered in awe.

  "What?" I demanded, almost panicking. I wanted to know more about that girl and how I could live that life with her where I'd been so fucking happy. I'd never been that content before.

  Madam LeFrey shook her head as if unable to believe what she was about to tell me. "A soul mate," she rasped. "How very rare."

  "What? She's my soul mate?"

  I was a little giddy over the idea. A soul mate sounded good. Soul mate, someone to love me, a happy future, a place to belong. Family. Now, all I had to do was find her.

  Except the fucking old bat looked concerned. She grabbed my ar
m. "Find her," she told me, urgency lacing her voice. "You're not complete until the two halves come together. You're only half a soul."

  I tugged my arm out of her grip. "Well, where is she?"

  Instead of answering, she jerked backward as if I was tainted. Stomping on something by my ankle, she released the trap I'd been stuck in. I cried out from the rush of blood that shot to the injury and created a shit ton of pressure. As I gritted my teeth and clutched my leg, Madam LeFrey turned her back on me.

  "Go away now," she said, as if she were afraid of me. "Don't come back."

  "But . . . wait! How do I find her? What's her name?" When she didn't even slow down, I growled out my anger and pain. "Damn it. Can't you do some spell to draw her here? I just want what you showed me." Why would she show me that if she wouldn't help me get it?

  When she reached the porch, she glanced back. "No spell can touch this. It's bigger than any spell. It's fate."

  Before I could say anything else, she scurried into her house and slammed the door, leaving me to find my own way home on a bum ankle.

  Though I was no longer held prisoner, I just stayed there. Breathing hard and rattled in more ways than one, I held onto my injury and filled my head with all the damn glimpses the witch had given me. A cool mist on my face told me it had started to rain.

  I knew I'd never be the same again. Up until tonight, I had convinced myself that my life would always be shitty and hopeless. But Madam LeFrey's glimpses made everything even worse. Because now I wanted something. I wanted it so damn bad I could taste it. I wanted that future and happily ever after. And if I never found that girl, if I never found even a portion of those glimpses, the disappointment would probably kill me.

  Eva's Prologue

  MEET EVA MERCER

  Five Years After Pick's Prologue

  I snuck in the back door half an hour after curfew. Someone had turned off the lights in the kitchen, so I hoped everyone had already gone to bed.

  To be on the safe side, I slipped off my sandals with the extra-hard heels that were über noisy and padded barefoot across the cool tile. But when I reached the entrance to the back hall, I noticed the light in Daddy's office was on.

  He'd left the door cracked open too, which he never did, so I guessed he was waiting up for me, trying to catch me coming in late. Again. A shiver of dread curled up my spine as my limbs went cold.

  Even though fear made my breathing quicken, I wasn't about to give up on my attempt to sneak in. Tiptoeing with each step, I held my breath and tried to become one with the floor. I'd just reached the large Oriental rug when the first creak under my toes gave me away. I halted in my tracks, closing my eyes and cursing in my head.

  Please don't let him have heard that. Please, please, plea—

  "Eva." The baritone I hated most in the world boomed from Daddy's office, making me jump. "Get in here. Now."

  For the briefest moment, I considered running. Maybe I could outrun him this time. Maybe—

  I bit my lip and shook my head. Running was bad. He'd only come after me; the fucker loved a chase. And he'd catch me, he always caught me, and it always ended worse when that happened.

  But lately, I'd been able to talk my way out of it. Maybe I could reason with him tonight.

  Swallowing the dread rising up my throat, I pulled back my shoulders and lifted my chin with all the false confidence I could muster. I hadn't been confident about anything—especially myself—since I was twelve, not since the first night he'd snuck into my bedroom. But I'd been bluffing my courage for two years now. All I had left was one big fake bluster. So I bluffed my confidence all the way to his office.

  Setting my fingers on the cool surface of his door, I opened it just enough to peek inside.

  When I saw the whiskey decanter on his desk sitting beside the crystal tumbler full of ice and that dreaded amber liquid, my hopes crashed. I inched a step in reverse.

  Yeah, no way was I talking him out of anything tonight, not when he'd been imbibing that. My breathing increased its pace. It'd been four months since he'd last touched me. They'd been a good four months. I wanted to make it to five months.

  He sliced me with a lethal glare when I crept backward another step. "Sit down."

  My hands balled into fists at my sides. Oh, how I wanted to defy him. How I wanted to spit in his direction and tell him to go fuck himself. But with a single arch of his brows, he held me captive. I was powerless but to obey his command.

  An urge rose for me to wrap my arms around myself and hide away every bit of flesh I exposed. I hadn't meant for him to see me dressed like this; I'd worn the short, tight skirt and halter-top for all the boys who'd been at the party I'd attended. I'd wanted them to watch me and want me. I'd needed one of them to take me to some private corner and erase haunting memories of other, awful hands.

  I'd gotten my wish too, but now it seemed to be coming back to bite me.

  It didn't matter to me that all my friends called me a slut behind my back, or that I was only fourteen, a month shy of entering high school, but had a more active sex life than most twenty-year-olds. It wasn't like I was pure by any means and needed to preserve the sanctity that was my untouched body. Dear old Dad had made sure I was no longer a virgin.

  I just craved the blissful void that came over me whenever a boy got me alone. I could escape into the safe place in my head where nothing touched me while fumbling hands did whatever they wanted. For a short time, I felt free in that place. Free from everything. Especially him.

  "I said sit down," Daddy snarled.

  My nerves rattled under his harsh tone, but I made damn sure that outwardly I appeared unruffled. He could physically hurt me all he wanted, but I still had something he couldn't touch. Attitude.

  Tossing my blonde hair over my shoulder, I sauntered to the couch against the far wall and settled onto the soft cushion. When his gaze skimmed over my legs as I crossed them, I wanted to vomit all the beer I'd chugged earlier before I'd let Jimmy Santos explore under my skirt.

  I sneered and picked at my cuticles. "Whenever you're done ogling your own daughter, I'm ready for the lecture I know you're just dying to give."

  Even as I smarted off those words, my heart leapt into my throat. I'd never been quite so smarmy and bold with him. With everyone else, yes. With him, no. But I don't think I'd ever been quite so intoxicated when he'd caught me alone before either.

  His jaw went hard. After picking up his drink and tossing back the rest of the contents, he slammed the tumbler down on his desktop. "I thought we'd already been over this. You're not really mine, remember?"

  Ah, yes. He'd made that quite clear the first night he'd stumbled into my room, right after having an argument with Mom and learning one of her faithless encounters had brought me into the world. The whole thing had been to exact revenge against her. And it had pissed her off. I'd heard them arguing about it many a night, but it never prompted her into leaving him, or getting me out of his clutches and saving me.

  A marriage in our respected, affluent neighborhood wasn't supposed to end in divorce. Husbands and wives simply had bigger closets built so they could hide away more of their skeletons and dirty little secrets.

  And so Mother kept sleeping around, Father kept drinking and visiting my room because I guess once he got a taste of little girl he just couldn't stop. And I turned into someone I didn't recognize or like.

  I sent him a little smirk. "Yeah, because calling it molestation and pedophilia sounds so much better when you don't tack on the incest."

  The rest of the world thought of him as my biological father, and he was the only father figure I'd ever known, so to me, it was just as bad. Just as disgusting. Just as traumatic.

  Eyes narrowing, he drummed his fingers against his empty glass. "Be careful, Eva. Or I'll put that smart mouth of yours to better use."

  I gagged a little on my own puke. Despite wanting to back off and curl into a ball until he finally left me alone, I kept my back ramrod straight as I
glared back.

  No. I wasn't going to fold to him anymore. And the liquor flowing through my veins had already provided me with all the courage and bluster I needed. So I just kept digging my own grave with more attitude.

  "Oh, I'm sorry." I set my fingers over my chest with sarcastic regret. "Did my honesty offend you?" I dropped my hand as well as the fake cringe of apology and shrugged. "I guess you've exhausted all your intimidation tactics on me. I'm just not that scared of you anymore."

  "Is that so?"

  When he rose slowly from his chair, air hissed from my lungs, replaced with a fear so thick I couldn't breathe. Fuck attitude. This wasn't funny anymore. But I wasn't sure what to do now, so I remained seated in my casual, who-gives-a-fuck pose, even though my head went dizzy from terror and my instincts told me to run.

  "Well, let's see." I twirled my finger through my long hair and tilted my head in thought. "You can no longer tell me everyone will know what a naughty, naughty girl I am if I tattle on you. They already think I'm the slut of the century. And you can't use Mom against me. She's never really cared what you did to me." As I rattled on, he crept out from behind his desk and inched unnervingly closer. "I guess you could stop putting money into my account, but then I'll just go to the police. And even if they didn't believe me, the mere hint of such a scandal would probably ruin your career. So you see, old man, I hold all the cards now."

  I was mostly bluffing. I would never go to the police. I didn't want anyone to know what had happened to me, least of all a bunch of officials who'd make it public.

  But my father didn't know that. He leapt at me.

  I squeaked out a scream I hadn't meant to let loose and flew off the settee. My scramble toward the doorway was deterred when my bare feet slipped on the polished wooden floor. I went down and banged my knee against a solid plank. The pain made my stomach rebel, but I was so desperate to escape, I kept going anyway.

  He beat me to the door.

  Surging in front of me, he pressed it shut with his back, successfully trapping me inside the office with him. This was his way. He liked playing spider and letting me get caught in his web before he actually pounced.