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  Piper decided that the show had gone on long enough. It was time to step in and play the best friend role and bring her back to earth.

  “Ardra, it’s really not that big of a deal. We all know that it’s because she’s jealous. You really shouldn’t be this upset about it! I mean, it was cool to see you stand up to her like that and all, but jeez! You’re kinda going a little overboard here.” She held her hand up in front of her face and mimed pinching a penny for emphasis.

  Piper stood and wrapped her arms around her distraught friend then held her at arm’s length to look her dead in the face. She could see reason returning to her eyes. The fire in them cooled visibly and she collapsed back into the chair that she had jumped out of mid-rant.

  “Oh my gosh.” She moaned into her hands. “I just flipped out on my grandma!”

  Piper could see that she was back to being human so she continued, “Yeah, but it was pretty legendary.”

  The scene that had transpired flashed through Ardra’s head and she cracked a smile. “It was pretty epic, huh?”

  They exchanged hushed giggles and Ardra decided that she couldn’t simply go downstairs and apologize. She had been completely justified in standing up for herself. Removing the necklace and going back down to join the others would have to be good enough. Everyone would be shocked at her outburst and chalk it up to a onetime thing that was best swept under the rug.

  Hushed voices reached her ears as she came down the stairs and she strained to hear what they were saying. She only caught the tail end of the conversation before she walked into the kitchen, silencing even their whispers.

  Ardra saw Barbara’s eyes go to her neck and when the woman saw that she wasn’t wearing the necklace anymore, she visibly relaxed. Ardra on the other hand, felt herself growing defensive and had to literally bite her tongue. Her parents were completely lax about the whole thing. No physical signal that anything had ever happened. Arlene was obviously pleased with her granddaughter’s performance. She didn’t say anything, but she seemed very smug behind yet another cup of coffee. Ardra could see the twinkle in her eye as they exchanged glances.

  The conversation wound down as Anne and the matrons of the family removed themselves to the kitchen to start cooking. The girls and Frank sat around the table and talked about school plans and work and shopping until Frank finally disappeared into his office to wait for dinner to be served.

  Frank’s favorite dinner was placed on the table a couple of hours later to celebrate the first night of the insanity that was bound to transpire between her birthday and New Years. Spaghetti and garlic bread tended to be served in the Cooper house at least once a week.

  Taking several hours to prepare, her mother’s spaghetti could hardly be called just “spaghetti”. After browning some ground beef, you had to put it in the sauce with kielbasa, green peppers, onions, garlic, and her mom’s secret blend of spices. At that point, it did nothing but simmer until the vegetables were all but goo and all the flavors had seeped out into the sauce. The smell that permeated the house for hours following the meal was the same scent that she associated with the kitchens of old Italy.

  Pavlov had nothing on her mom’s spaghetti.

  Piper made a joke about needing to be carted home in a wheelbarrow and thanked Anne for the meal before hugging everyone and waving goodbye as she walked out of the front door. Her departure signaled the end of the night and the family dispersed to their own areas of the house to wind down.

  Ardra was preparing for bed when there was a soft knock on the door and her grandma Cooper popped her head in.

  “Hey honey. Can I come in?”

  “Of course!” Ardra grabbed her clothes that she had put aside for the next day off of her chair and motioned for her grandmother to have a seat. She plopped herself down on the edge of her bed and continued to brush her hair. “What’s up?”

  The older woman let out a sigh as she sat in the chair and relaxed. “Oh nothing. I just wanted to make sure you were really ok after that scene earlier. I thought I was the only one who stood up to Barb like that.”

  Arlene smiled as she clearly recalled her granddaughter’s temper tantrum. Ardra could almost see the drama unfolding in the old woman’s eyes.

  “Well, to be honest, up until today, you were the only one that stood up to her like that. I don’t know what came over me! And over something so trivial! I mean, I know I was right and all, but I still shouldn’t have lost it like that. And now I can’t bring myself to apologize to her.”

  “Apologize to her? Why on earth would you do that? She had it coming! Someday she will realize that she can’t walk around treating everyone like they are below her.”

  Ardra smiled at her grandmother and nodded her head as she ran one last brush stroke through her hair and put the brush back down on her nightstand. As she pulled her hair up into a ponytail she admitted, “I’m glad you’re not angry with me over it. I can tell that everyone else wants to say something about it, but in this family it’s just part of the routine to pretend things like this don’t happen at all.”

  It was Arlene’s turn to nod and smile, saying, “Always has been. Always will be. I just wanted to check on you and make sure you weren’t still harboring any negativity. I’ll let you get to bed.” She rose from the chair and paused by the door to add, “Good night sweetheart. Sweet dreams.” Before she shut off the light.

  Ardra thought back to the conversation that she had interrupted in the kitchen earlier. She had heard her father say, “Not even a glimmer. It can’t be her.”

  Sleep overcame her before she had a chance to think much more about it.

  It came in flashes at first; a heavily muscled bicep, a strong jaw line thickly stubbled with blond hair, soft and gentle lips, a wet and powerful tongue. Electrifying blue eyes.

  The sensation of his lips on her hip bones and his tongue tracing a blazing hot trail across her stomach shot straight to her core. Something inside of her clenched tightly again and again with every new inch of her body that his mouth discovered.

  He took his time licking, kissing and nibbling his way around her abs, chest and neck before finally making his way to her lips. When they met, the spark that flew between them had fireworks bursting behind her closed eyelids. A gentle moan escaped her lips only to be gobbled up by his. He swallowed it down and let it reverberate through his chest in a low, possessive growl.

  The sound made every hair on her body stand on end.

  The feeling of his rough cheeks on the inside of her thighs as he licked his way upward had her heating up like a furnace. She could feel her own heat radiating outward and warming the area surrounding his ultimate destination.

  When his hot breath combined with her heat, the clenching became unbearable and something snapped inside of her. The waves of sensation that rolled through her as the muscles inside of her fought for control forced her to gasp as she grabbed a fist full of his hair and held onto the only thing that still seemed solid.

  She woke up drenched in sweat and her pajama pants and tee shirt clung to her uncomfortably as she climbed out of her bed.

  Most of her bedding was already wadded up and kicked into a heap on the floor but she stared at the sweat soaked fitted sheet that still clung to the corners of her mattress. It needed to go too.

  She needed a cold shower first.

  Christmas came and went without incident. Everyone got along and the necklace had remained in Ardra’s room even though she put it on every day and let the warmth that always came with its touch spread throughout her body. At first she thought that it was nothing more than an odd sensation from having something so beautiful in contact with her skin. However, she was growing accustomed to the beauty of it and instead of the feeling dimming like she thought it would, it was intensifying. Not only was the initial glow intensifying, but she was starting to tingle whenever she touched it.

  New Years Day, the grandparents had their things packed and sitting in the foyer near the front door. Frank an
d Anne were going to take Barbara to the airport and Arlene was driving the four and a half hours back to Mesquite.

  Ardra was sad to see them both go. She hated that she only got to see them twice a year. Even though she’d had the spat with Barbara this time, she was still her grandmother and had always been a big part of her life before she had moved.

  She hugged them both and they exchanged tearful goodbyes. Ardra waved from the porch as the two vehicles pulled out of the driveway and cautiously made their ways over the ice that clung to the streets. She watched until they disappeared around the corner then stepped back inside and closed the front door to block out the chill.

  She went back to her room slightly perturbed by the silence that seemed to have soaked into the walls of the house. It felt like she could yell and her own voice would answer her from the empty walls. The loneliness that she was feeling was a regular occurrence after the holidays. She always grew accustomed to the constant chatter that filled the house for those two weeks, and when it ended, it always freaked her out to suddenly have it missing.

  She grabbed a change of clothes and headed for the bathroom to shower. The cold piled on top of the loneliness had left her feeling miserable. She hoped that the sound of the water would also help fill the silence.

  She cranked the handle for the hot water as far as it would go and then slowly added cold water until it was barely cool enough that her flesh didn’t melt right off and turn into a puddle in the bottom of the shower.

  Her body relaxed and her mind began to wander as the heat slowly worked its way into her core. She thought back to the holidays and the wonderful gifts she had received, again on how much she was going to miss her grandparents, then, for the hundredth time, she went over the fight with Barbara.

  She could laugh about it now that she had had time to work through it in her head. It was truly a one time, freak accident. That just wasn’t the kind of person she was. It had to have been due to the stress of all she had taken on lately. That was the only viable explanation she could come up with.

  She couldn’t remember a single time in her whole life that someone had had anything bad to say about her. For something that someone said to bother her so much was really strange. She didn’t yell at people. She didn’t storm out of rooms. And she absolutely did not slam doors. She had done all three because her grandmother had expressed her dislike for a piece of jewelry.

  The woman could have been a little gentler with her appraisal, or lack thereof, nevertheless, Ardra should have kept her emotions in check. She should have taken the opinion in stride and carried on like she always did instead of blowing a head gasket and throwing the kind of temper tantrum that parents with toddlers dread.

  At least it was in the past. Everyone seemed to have moved on and this was the first time that Ardra herself had given the event any real thought. Sure, she had played the event over and over in her head, but she hadn’t actually thought about it in depth. The distraction of the holidays had done a good job of keeping the whole situation hidden in the back of her mind. It had been more of an annoyance than an actual problem to solve.

  Now she had nothing but silence and warm water to cajole her brain into thinking about the things that she had been blatantly ignoring.

  Next in line appeared to be the self doubt. It came creeping out of its pretty little box and dug its ugly little tentacles into her brain. She could literally feel the black wisps of uncertainty course through her body. For the first time, she allowed herself to actually look at it closely. She thought about it. She let it consume her. She let herself wallow in the seemingly endless darkness as the black mist continued to pour forth from within the box until she was sure that if she opened her eyes she would see it streaming from her nose.

  She searched within herself to find the source of it, but it was so thick that she couldn’t see anything other than the dark, slippery ooze. She couldn’t feel anything beyond the feeling of its filth coursing through her veins like mud. She could even taste and smell it. It smelled of rotting flesh and death and she nearly wretched.

  As she prepared to cry out in despair a piercing green light flashed through the darkness, slashing through it like a knife. She could almost hear the creature cry out in pain as it retreated back to the box that she normally worked so hard to keep shut. She slammed the lid closed and flung the box to the darkest recesses of her being in an effort to get it as far away from her as she could.

  As the green light softened and dulled, she thought she felt a familiar warmth sink into her muscles and a slight tingle set into the center of her chest.

  Of its own accord, her hand went to the spot where she had felt tingle. As her eyes opened and the last of the fog that had filled her mind dissipated she stood under the spray, stunned. It took several minutes before she realized that the once scalding water had gone cold.

  She had no idea how she had managed to empty the entire contents of the water heater during her internal debate. In the ten years her family had lived in the house, she had never had a shower run cold.

  She shut the water off and climbed out of the shower, anxious to see how long she had been standing there. After drying off and dressing, she all but ran to her bedroom to check the time. The digital display on her phone told her that it had been just shy of two hours.

  Desperately wanting to feel the familiar comfort it brought, she snatched the necklace out of its box on her desk and clasped it around her neck. She noticed that the warmth that had, thus far, been present whenever the cool metal touched her skin, was missing.

  However, the tingling sensation was still there.

  And spreading rapidly.

  It started in her chest and spread to her neck, arms, stomach and beyond. The tingle quickly turned into a vibrate. Her whole body hummed like a cell phone buried in a pocket.

  She was getting freaked out and reached up to remove it. The room swam once before coming into sharp relief.

  A split second later it went black and she collapsed to the floor.

  When she came to, she spun around and found herself standing in the center of an endless garden. Huge paving stones were seated in lush green grass and marked paths through the vibrant gardens filled with rioting colors. Behind her was a gigantic marble fountain spraying water into the air. It flowed from a small, round bowl at the top into six bowls that got progressively larger the closer they got to the ground.

  Sitting at the edge of the pool at the bottom of the fountain was a tall, tan, blond haired, blue eyed, beef bus. Lean muscle stacked on a perfectly constructed frame. He was wearing what seemed to be Armani and had that scruff that only models seemed to be able to grow.

  Her libido recognized him long before she did and her entire body flushed a brilliant shade of red.

  Right before she fell to her knees at his feet, a small breeze kicked up and she caught a whiff of the cologne that he was wearing. It reminded her of what she had always imagined heaven would smell like. The perfect amount of man had been mixed in with the fragrance.

  When he smiled at her, she turned to goo. She was not the type to swoon over a guy, she preferred to leave the swooning to them, but she was pretty sure she was about to faint with all the grace of a southern belle.

  He stood from the edge of the fountain with a huge, gleaming smile on his face. “Finally! I’ve been waiting here for you for a very long time. I was beginning to think you’d never show up.”

  This took her by surprise and pulled her out of her stupor. “You’ve been waiting for me? How do you know me? Who are you?” The questions tumbled from her lips one right after the other. She gave him no time to answer before spitting out yet another, “Where am I?”

  She felt panic rising in her stomach as memories of her unwelcome dream bubbled to the surface and assured her that the man standing in front of her had been the leading male. She tried her best to push them back down into the depths they had risen from, but every time she shoved one away, there was another to take its plac
e.

  He took a step toward her and she got the feeling that he wouldn’t be answering her questions. She shut her mouth and matched the pace of her retreat to that of his advancement. She hurriedly stepped backwards until her legs bumped into something knee-high and solid. She tumbled over the marble bench onto the thick carpet of flowers without a single ounce of the southern belle she had envisioned only minutes before.

  She came to her senses and realized that it had to be a dream. As he reached out towards her, she closed her eyes and told herself to wake up. She felt his hand close around her arm and panicked. She threw every ounce of her thought into returning to her bedroom in the dreadfully quiet house.

  She felt a sharp tug at her belly button and woke up on her bedroom floor.

  With her heart pounding like she had just run a marathon, she jumped up from the floor and reached up to rip the pendant from her throat. That’s when she noticed the clump of hair in her right hand. Thick, soft and yellow.

  It smelled like heaven and man.

  After her encounter in the garden, Ardra had taken the necklace, stuffed it in its box with the clump of hair, and stuffed the box in the back of the bottom drawer of her dresser. She had been freaked out enough that her parents had asked her what was wrong, and they tried to make it a habit not to ask about her bad moods.

  “Just a bad dream.” She told them.

  She couldn’t exactly tell them the truth after all. She was fairly certain that the hair was proof that it was more than a dream, but explaining to her parents that she had taken a vacation from her body to rip a clump of hair out of the most beautiful man she had ever seen was not a conversation she wanted to have. With anyone. She was certain it would have ended with her being institutionalized. While the thought of a rubber room with one way in and one way out was tempting, she didn’t think it was entirely necessary yet.