Dawn Atkins - With His Touch

TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

To David…for taking the risk

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Coming Next Month

I owe unending gratitude to Laurie, Laura and Suzan for showing me that I was limping on a broken leg, introducing me to Ms. Free To Be, and helping me see my way to a new writing life.

“HERE’S TO THIRTY-FIVE and our sexual peak!” Sugar Thompson tapped her prickly-pear margarita against her two friends’ wide glasses. The burgundy liquid sloshed against the prickly-pear jelly on the sugar-dusted rim before she brought it to her lips for a tangy slurp.

“Hey…” Autumn Beshkin hesitated, glass in midair. “But you said women get several sexual peaks, Sugar. Only men spike at nineteen and decline from there, right?”

“That’s true.” Sugar had been a couples’ therapist before she opened her sex resort with a partner five years ago, so she served as the intimacy expert for the trio of friends who celebrated their birthdays together each year.

As a stripper, Autumn knew a thing or two about sex herself, though from a different angle than Sugar’s. Sugar valued Autumn’s down-to-earth practicality, a trait they shared. Both believed what they could see, taste, touch or smell over anything emotional or theoretical or certainly romantic.

“The point,” said Esmeralda, “is the seven-year lunar shift.” A nail tech, Esmeralda McElroy also read palms and studied all things psychic. Sugar thought her theories goofy, but she loved Esmeralda’s big heart and generous spirit. She was always helping her clients with loans, a place to stay or a shoulder to cry on. Sugar could tolerate a ton of woo-woo for a few minutes in the warm sun of Esmie’s kindness.

It was Sugar’s secret weakness.

“We’re thirty-five. Our fifth cycle. A biggie and it’s palpable. Can’t you feel it?” Esmeralda closed her eyes and took a yoga-style breath.

“Cycle, schmycle,” Autumn said. “I’ve already changed my life.” She’d gone back to school the previous year to become an accountant, since she had a gift for numbers. She was still dancing, but the shift to school had eased her gritty defensiveness, made her more sunny and hopeful. Sugar was happy for her.

“Here’s to becoming a CPA.” Sugar lifted her glass again. Under Autumn’s bravado, Sugar sensed a core insecurity that even top grades in her first year hadn’t eased.

“Here’s to all of us,” Esmeralda, ever the mother hen, said.

Sugar clicked glasses, then gulped the rest of the icy drink so fast she got brain freeze. Damn. Her partner, Gage, was always after her to slow down. But that’s not how she worked. Progress was her mantra, movement her mode.

She was desperate for change at the moment. Spice It Up, their sex resort in San Diego, seemed stagnant and she had a proposal to shake things up that she intended to spring on Gage at the Sex Expo this upcoming weekend. Unlike Sugar, Gage wasn’t big on change.

“Tea leaves, Tarot or a Chinese reading?” Esmeralda asked. A psychic encounter was one of Esmie’s contributions to their birthday celebration, a tradition they’d kept up even after Sugar had moved to San Diego, leaving the other two in Phoenix.

No matter what, Sugar made time for the gathering. She counted on her friends as her private pep squad, her sounding board, her heart’s voice, which was the role she served for them, too.

“Tea leaves,” Sugar said. “Never done that before.”

“Doesn’t matter to me.” Autumn shrugged. “Read my roots for all it will mean.” Autumn’s cynicism hid a fear of disappointment. Sugar hoped school and whatever wonders befell Autumn this year would resolve that pain.

“Tea leaves it is, then,” Esmeralda said, and fetched a baggie of tea from her huge satchel, which clunked with whatever she had in there. Chicken bones? Tibetan bells? A crystal ball?

Sugar smiled, but kept an open mind. When Esmie had read Sugar’s palm, she’d accurately interpreted the meandering lines as proof of her restless nature, so she had something going on.

“Chinese tea,” Esmie said, waving it under their noses for a sniff. She ordered a pot of hot water and instructed Autumn and Sugar to sprinkle the loose leaves into their cups, then sip slowly to the dregs, swirling the leaves so they made patterns she could read on the sides and bottom of the cups.

Sugar was the first to hand over her cup, eager to see if her plans would show up. Esmeralda swirled the leaves, whispered a request for clarity and wisdom, then studied the leaves.

“What is it? What?”

“Give her a minute,” Autumn said.

“Big changes are afoot,” Esmeralda said slowly. “Open your eyes and see what you’ve ignored.”

“What I’ve ignored? What does that mean?”

“Your hunky partner Gage, maybe?” Autumn said.

“No way.” There had been heat between them, back in college when they met and again when they started the resort, but they’d stuck to what mattered—their partnership. “Is that all?” she asked, leaning over to see the sprinkle of leaves. She was startled to see what looked like the outline of Gage’s lower face, complete with five-o’clock shadow, and she got a little shiver.

“That’s all for now,” Esmeralda said, wearing a cat-with-cream expression. “The psychic’s skill lies as much in knowing what not to reveal as in what she sees.” Esmeralda said that every time Sugar pushed for details. And she always pushed.

“Hmm,” Autumn said, staring into her cup. “Looks like I’m getting acne…or maybe chicken pox.”

Esmeralda motioned for the cup, which she studied. “Changes? Oh, yes. In the three Hs—head and hearth and heart and the heart will lead.”

“Head is school, I guess,” Autumn said. “But I’m not moving, so forget hearth and, as to my heart, it’s just along for the ride.” Autumn thought sex was safer than love—an attitude Sugar shared, but for different reasons. Sugar wasn’t built for love. Some people weren’t.

“Just don’t kick your heart to the curb,” Esmeralda said, exasperated. “Have faith.”

Autumn shrugged. Esmie sighed. Sugar cleared her throat, determined to avoid a debate between Autumn Glass-Half-Empty and Esmeralda Glass-Endlessly-Overflowing. “What about you, Esmeralda?” she asked. “Did you get a reading?”

Esmeralda looked troubled. “More than one, actually. Because of the odd message.”

“About your job?” Sugar asked.

“No. That’s fine. By the way, my final interview is Monday.” Esmeralda had applied to staff the Dream A Little Dream Foundation created by a client of hers, an eccentric heiress who wanted to fund people’s dreams. “No. I must begin anew with a man from my past. That’s the message.”

“Your ex-husband? The financial sinkhole?” Autumn asked.