A high-pitched scream jerked his head around. He said something short and succinct. “Wait here.”
Two youths—one with long, greasy blond hair, an iron bar held in a two-handed grip, the other shorter, with dark hair, holding a knife—had backed two young women up against a park bench.
Bayard grabbed the one with the iron bar, knocked the bar out of his hand and flung him to the ground. The guy with the knife wheeled, spitting abuse. The two young women scrabbled for their purses, which had fallen to the ground, and ran toward a lighted parking lot.
Sara watched, heart in her mouth, as the knife wove through the air. Another figure darted out of the cover of a clump of trees. Adrenaline pumped, Bayard was easily strong enough to take on two attackers, but not three, and the knife tilted the odds against him.
Without thinking, she darted forward, letting the jacket slide from her shoulders, and grabbed the iron bar. Bayard spun, his gaze locked with hers for a split second. A blow from the blond guy, who had pushed to his feet, caught him on the jaw, rocking his head back. The knife arced and for a dizzying moment time seemed to stop. Emotion roared through her. The iron bar chopped down on the knife-wielding thug’s arm, the shock of the blow numbing her fingers. The bar spun away. Fingers closed in her hair, jerking her sideways. A split second later, her attacker was on the ground. Bayard had laid him out with one well-timed punch.
The short, dark guy had disappeared. The third youth, a carbon copy of the greasy blond, jerked his friend to his feet. Within seconds they had melted into the trees.
Bayard picked up the knife and tossed it into a nearby trash can, his dark eyes glittering. “You should have stayed out of it. You could have been hurt.”
“What I did worked out.” She massaged her scalp, which was stinging. Her head felt weird, throbbing and heavy.
“You are hurt.”
She glanced down, saw the dark stain on her side, and registered that she was bleeding.
Bayard dragged the flimsy silk top up. Reaction shivered through her as he probed the cut across her midriff. Now that she knew it was there, the stinging pain made her eyes water.
“It’s long, but it’s just a scratch. You won’t need stitches, but you’ll probably end up with a scar.” He shrugged out of his shirt, and folded it into a pad. “Is your tetanus shot up to date?”
“I had one last year when I cut my foot swimming in the river.”
The sweet scent of blood filled her nostrils. Bayard’s warmth swamped her as he tied the makeshift bandage around her waist. Her eyes squeezed shut as the pressure in her head tightened another notch.
Icy water flowing. Rank upon rank of dark pines.
Cavanaugh…bandaging the deepest cuts. Then they were moving, skirting tracts of open land that glowed, stark and bare beneath the moon. Cavanaugh babying her along, his arm around her waist—
Not Cavanaugh…Bayard.
Her eyes popped open again. She stared at Bayard, the moment of recognition shocking in its intensity.
Bayard frowned. “Who?”
It registered that she must have said the name, Cavanaugh, out loud. She blinked, shaking off the weird, shifting sense of déjà vu, the clinging tendrils of that dreamworld.
“Damn. Steve said you weren’t dating.”
His hands closed on her hips, his mouth brushed hers, clung, and the memories evaporated in a raw surge of heat.
Sound burst from her throat, smothered and urgent. Her fingers dug into the smooth pliant muscle of his shoulders. Her breasts were flattened against his chest. She could feel the firm shape of his arousal pressing into her belly. One hand gripped her nape, the other cupped her bottom, uncomplicatedly carnal. He hauled her hard against him, and the concept that she was emotionally cold and incapable of feeling passion dissolved in a white-hot flash.
Her arms closed convulsively around his neck. A split second later she was off the ground, her feet dangling, the short skirt pushed up around her hips. A short, sharp shock went through her as she felt Bayard, hot and heavy, between her legs. The constraints of his jeans and her panties aside, if he got any closer they would be making love.
His mouth lifted, sank again, taking her under. She gasped for air, breathing in his heat, his scent. She felt as if she was drowning, dying…
Cold, pure air, burned her lungs. Harsh light bounced off towering peaks. Numbing pain, like a vise crushing her chest.
A detonation, echoing…
Shock spasmed through her. She jerked free, stumbling back a step. Bayard’s fingers closed around her arms. If he hadn’t grabbed her, she would have fallen.
“What’s wrong? What is it? Was I hurting you?”
“No.”
Yes.
She had died.
Her heart was pounding. On an intellectual level, she knew that if she had memories of a previous life, then of course she had to have died. How else could she be here now? But in all the time she had dreamed and remembered shadowy, insubstantial fragments of that past life she had never remembered the moment of her death.
Nausea rose at the back of her throat. She pushed free, needing the distance. With shaky fingers she smoothed her skirt down around her thighs. Her mouth felt swollen. She could still taste Bayard; her body was throbbing. But the emotion was somehow entwined with the memory of her death.
She couldn’t say, “I remember you, but not from here, now.”
The phenomenon had stopped, years ago, when she was twelve.
The year Bayard had gone away to boarding school.
Comprehension hit. The answer so simple she wondered she hadn’t seen it before. The dreams had started when she was seven. The year the Bayard family had moved into the big house next door. In that first year, Steve, who lived less than a mile away, and Marc had become inseparable, and Marc Bayard had become a part of the Fischer family. Until he had turned twelve and gone away to boarding school in Baton Rouge.
Ever since then she had been normal. The memories, the visits to specialists, had become a part of her past. She had almost forgotten them, and she had needed to forget.
Now, Bayard had walked back into her life and suddenly she was remembering again. And more sharply, more distinctly.
She dragged her gaze from Bayard’s jaw and the memory of that hot, crazy kiss. His face was shuttered; he probably thought she was insane. She had lost count of the number of times she had considered the possibility herself. There was no way he wouldn’t have heard at least the basic details of her illness. Living in such close proximity, it was a cast-iron certainty that Mae Fischer had shared her worries with Mariel Bayard.
“Sara—” Bayard reached for her hand.
She evaded his grip on the pretext that she needed to retrieve his jacket. She bent and picked up the buttery soft leather, wincing as the cut throbbed. “You’d better have your jacket back.”
She pressed her hand to her side where blood was leaking through the makeshift bandage.
Bayard draped the leather jacket over her shoulders. “You need it more than I do.”
The fleeting pressure of his touch, his clean masculine scent enfolding her, was a reminder of what they had been doing just minutes ago, and how close she had come to more. A part of her still craved him, which was doubly crazy. She