Firstborn Read online

  “These men who broke into your office,” she paused dramatically, “are dangerous. And they haven’t yet found what they were looking for. That means they will be back.” Her lively eyes no longer danced. Her wide mouth showed no sign of the contagious grin he’d admired earlier.

  “How can you be sure?”

  She studied him for a moment, considering how much she could tell him. “If they’d found what they needed, you would already be dead.”

  His eyes widened in surprise and then narrowed in skepticism. “Who would want to kill me?” he scoffed doubtfully.

  She tapped a short fingernail on the top of the cabinet before saying, “A bearded middle age man and a young blond man.” She met his eyes and added, “Does it sound like anyone you know?”

  He laughed incredulously. “You can’t be serious.”

  She didn’t bother to respond to his disbelief.

  “How do you know this?”

  She looked away and lifted her fingertips off of the file cabinet.

  “Did you have a psychic vision or something?”

  She could hear the strain in his voice as she bent at the waist to gather her phone and keys. “I used to be a top notch consultant for MaCall Securities, Dr. Archer. I know about security and am confident that the contract we have drawn up would suit your needs perfectly in a typical situation. But I also know that your situation is decidedly atypical.”

  “How are you so confident about that? There is no reason for anyone to come after me. Who could possibly want me dead?”

  “I don’t have an answer to that second question. And you don’t want an answer to the first. If you trust me, I will speak with my father about around-the-clock armed security.”

  He stared dumbfounded at her for a full six seconds before he shook his head in disbelief and met her lavender eyes. “I trust you, Jac MaCall. Your unconventional methods are a bit…unconventional, but according to you, I can’t afford to not trust you.”

  She nodded, having anticipated his agreement.

  His eyes fell on her golden shoulder that had been exposed when her hoodie slipped off to one side. She caught his attention and adjusted her hoodie, zipping it up a bit to hide her belly button ring, much to his disappointment.

  “Prepare yourself, Dr. Archer,” she warned. “We’ll be in touch.”

  As she shut the door behind her, he knew that she meant that someone from her father’s company would be in touch. Nevertheless, he hoped for a moment that it would be her.

  C

  hapter 2

  Gray Campbell cringed at the squeal of his tired breaks as he pulled ahead of the black Lexus stopped on the side of the road. It wasn’t just the water on the road that made them squeal. He’d been meaning to replace the breaks on his tow truck for two weeks now. Two weeks. He shook his head at his unusual procrastination.

  He used to be meticulous about maintaining his vehicles. Even as a teenager, he had done routine oil changes, tire rotations, transmission flushes, and general inspections of his belts, hoses and fluid levels. But in the two years since his return from Afghanistan and his military discharge, his life had changed. His priorities had changed.

  He adjusted the baseball cap on his head and checked out the blond in his rear view mirror. She was standing impatiently beside her luxury vehicle. He was certain she was impatient. She was wearing a business suit, even though it had been 85 degrees at noon that day. And her blond hair was twisted up and pinned somehow to the back of her head. Even soaking wet, he could tell that she would be perfectly composed. He looked at her feet and noticed one of her pumps was tapping. Definitely impatient.

  “This is going to be a blast,” he muttered sarcastically, opening his door and climbing down from his truck and stepping into the downpour.

  Taryn MaCall watched him approach with undisguised irritation. She had called him nearly twenty minutes ago and had been standing in the rain and kicking her flat tire for each of those twenty minutes.

  “It’s been twenty minutes,” she greeted coldly, trying to not notice how his jeans fit his spectacularly muscular thighs. And was it a trick of the downpour, or was he walking with a slight limp?

  He barely looked at her as he dropped his toolbox on the ground beside her flat tire and answered, “At least your watch still works.”

  Outraged at his nerve and disrespect, she growled, “I expect my bill will reflect a discount for this inconvenience.”

  “I was in the middle of replacing a fuel pump in a BMW. It wasn’t terribly convenient for me to jet out here to rescue your ass, either.” He liked the sound of her voice. It was a bit lower than your average female and had a bit of a sexy rasp to it. He glanced up from where he knelt as he loosened the lug nuts. He wondered what color her flashing eyes were in the sunlight. Under the cloud coverage and the pouring rain, he couldn’t tell.

  “How long will this take you?” she snapped.

  “Go sit in your car and get out of the rain. I’ll take care of it.”

  She muttered something to herself and turned on her heel. As much as she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of following his orders, she at least felt that she could take some pleasure in the knowledge that he was working in a hard rain while she was inside, nice and…cold and wet.

  She hoped that a large truck would drive by and saturate him on the side of the road.

  He looked over his shoulder as she walked away, admiring the shape of her legs in her skirt and high heels. She was exquisite. Tough…and exquisite.

  She couldn’t help but think that her sister had something to do with the rain. Her rational side knew that Jaclyn didn’t have any power over the weather. But she also knew that her sister had been highly irritated with being asked to handle the consult for her. She wondered how the consult was going. Jac was brilliant and talented. She would not only sign the Archer contract, but she would also get him set up with the best system money could buy. The only consultant stronger than Jac was…well…Taryn.

  When Jac had left the family business a couple of years before, their father had taken advantage of the opportunity to promote his younger daughter. He and Taryn had been talking about her becoming the Vice President of MaCall Securities, but her father had been afraid that Jaclyn would be offended. When she finally came to him and told him of her plan to start her own business, he had been both relieved and disappointed. He had been priming his daughters to take over his business since they were toddlers.

  His wife had died when the girls had been only four and five. Taryn favored her mother with the blond hair and the ice blue eyes. But Jaclyn had always had a closer relationship with their mother. She had warned her husband that both Taryn and Jaclyn would have the visions that had plagued the previous generations of women in their family. And when she died, she told him that the girls would some day need the benefit of his own knowledge and expertise. She assured him that their lives would depend on it. She also hinted at the possibility of their girls changing the world. He had snorted at the absurdity of his toddlers saving the world, and he was still almost certain that his wife had been exaggerating. Nevertheless, he had followed her suggestions and had trained both of his girls in his business. Both of them were very capable when it came to assessing a situation, recommending a security program, neutralizing a threat, and even handling a firearm when necessary. And when his girls were teenagers, Joe MaCall saw firsthand that his faith in his wife’s premonition had been wise.

  Jac had been thirteen when she’d had her first vision of the neighbor’s border collie wandering into the road in front of the house and getting struck by a passing delivery truck. She had raced across the street and found the dog lounging lazily on the front porch. She’d clung desperately to her collar for two hours, watching the road for the truck. Finally, her father had convinced the teen to come home for dinner. The next morning, the dog was out sniffing around the yard for the perfect place to empty her bladder when a squirrel darted in front of her. The dog had bolted a
fter the squirrel and into the road, only to be hit and killed by a passing UPS truck.

  Taryn remembered The Talk as though it had happened yesterday. Their mother had been dead for eight years, and Joe MaCall had dreaded the conversation he would need to have with the girls regarding their family legacy. Taryn had been horrified and had felt like she’d learned she was a twelve-year-old freak. She was pragmatic and had not personally experienced any of these premonitions at the time. But Jaclyn had taken it all in stride.

  Even after all these years, Jaclyn used meditation, crystals, and incense in an effort to stimulate premonitions while Taryn still tried to ward off any visions, as though they were unwanted migraines.

  Gray tapped on the closed window and watched her jump, startled. He wondered what she’d been thinking about as she stared through the windshield. Personally, he had been thinking about pinning her against the hood of her car and rumpling her tidy business suit.

  “Is it done?” she asked with impatience through the window she cracked open.

  “Well I’m not tapping on your window to invite you to tea,” he answered sarcastically.

  “How much do I owe you?”

  “I never know how to put a price on my time and convenience. But I suppose I could offer a discount on account of me feeling sorry for the discomfort you must feel with that stick up your ass.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him and clenched her hands around the steering wheel. She knew that she’d like nothing more than to shove open her door and introduce the piece of feces to the heel of her hand. She imagined him bleeding on his back in a puddle on the blacktop, and the image relieved some of the rage pulsating at her temples.

  The dome light was on inside her car, and he could see now that her eyes were blue. As blue as the flame of a candle. Her narrowed eyes drew attention to the slight tic in her left eye and her clenched jaw. He imagined her on her back in a puddle on the blacktop with her legs wrapped around his hips.

  “Send the bill to MaCall Securities Consulting,” she spat angrily.

  He stood grinning at her like an idiot. She wondered if he thought he looked sexy just then with the rain water dripping off the bill of his hat and his slightly crooked nose sheltering his full, curled lips.

  She shook her head, silently convincing herself that he wasn’t sexy at all.

  “MaCall Securities,” he repeated. “Joe MaCall paying for your fancy wheels here?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” she answered. When he didn’t step away from her car, she tapped her fingernails impatiently on the wheel and nodded at his feet. “You’re going to lose a few toes if you don’t move the heck out of my way.”

  “If I don’t what?” he laughed. A woman as cool and cold as she was didn’t bark at a man to move the heck out of his way.

  Exasperated, she put the car in gear and took her foot off the break. He stepped back as she rolled up her window and pulled away from him. He stood there watching her tail lights flicker through the trees after the road curved to the left, fascinated by the beautiful contradiction who drove the black Lexus. That was one woman who needed a man to keep her on her toes.

  ***

  It had been two months after Jac’s father had told her the story of their family’s visions when her mother came to offer her own explanation in the form of a dream. She had been dead for eight years, but Jac recognized her in an instant, though whether from her own memories or the images in the family photos in the living room, she couldn’t be sure. She was beautiful like Taryn, with long blond hair and wide blue eyes. Her smile, however, was wide and full of joy.

  As Jac strolled along the sidewalk that ran through the park at the end of her street, she saw the sun-dappled park bench beneath a tall, birch tree. On the bench sat this beautiful woman wearing a white flowing dress. She wore no shoes and, with the exception of her platinum wedding band, no jewelry. She embodied a simple grace and elegant beauty.

  She gestured to Jac and after only a moment’s hesitation, Jac stepped off of the sidewalk and joined her on the bench.

  “You’ve grown into a beauty, Jaclyn,” she greeted with a warm embrace.

  “Thank you.” She didn’t know quite how to address this stranger. She had called her Mama as a child, but she wasn’t five years old anymore.

  “Please never doubt that I am so proud of the young woman you are now and the woman you will become. I have seen what you have to offer the world, and you will become even more amazing than you already are.”

  “You’ve seen my future? Tell me,” she pleaded, her exotic lavender eyes tugging at her mother’s soul.

  “I will tell you a bit,” she agreed reluctantly. “Let’s start with my gift to you and Taryn.”

  “The premonitions.”

  “That’s an awfully big word for a young girl.” Then she reconsidered, “Then again, if you’re old enough to have them, you’re old enough to call them by the proper name. But they won’t always be premonitions of the future. Sometimes I see things that have happened in the past, things I could not have possibly witnessed. And sometimes I get glimpses of events as they are happening in some other place. And you may wonder why you get these visions, Jaclyn, but nobody can answer that question for you.”

  “What about you? Why do you think we get the visions?”

  Her mother shrugged her delicate shoulders. “I used them to do what I could to make a difference in the world. But mostly, I feel that my visions prepared me to be the best mother I could be to the two of you. You are so much more important than I have ever been.”

  “You have to say that,” she chided. “You’re my mother.”

  “I don’t only mean that you are important to me, darling. I only wish that I were able to stay with you longer so that I could help to prepare you and Taryn for this time in your lives. Accepting your gift is such a great challenge.”

  Jac shrugged with indifference. “Not so great a challenge.”

  Her mother smiled knowingly at her but did not dare to contradict her. “With these visions comes responsibility, Jaclyn. Use the visions for good only. And do not be selfish. I found in my experiences that efforts to force visions of my own future were never successful. So do not waste your energies and your gifts on yourself.”

  “I tried to save the neighbor’s dog,” she shared proudly. “But it didn’t work.”

  Her mother patted her hand in reassurance. “It won’t always work. But certain things sometimes help. I always used crystals to help center myself for my visions. When you and Taryn were still in diapers, I sat both of you down and did some energy assessments. Sometimes, different people find their subconscious aligns with different levels of energy vibrations. As a result, some respond more extraordinarily to one particular crystal. For you, Jaclyn, it has always been the amethyst. I wondered if your beautiful eye color wasn’t some testimony to your particular crystal,” she smiled.

  “What about Taryn?”

  “It’s the same with Taryn. An aqua aura quartz to match her electric blue eyes. But Taryn is not yet ready to embrace this gift from me, Jaclyn, and you must not force it upon her. You are the older sister, but Taryn will welcome her gift in her own time. Give her that time.”

  She nodded wisely, though her mother already knew that having patience with her sister’s aversion to her visions was going to be a constant struggle for Jaclyn, into her early adulthood. She could only hope that her daughters had enough strength and a close enough bond to overcome these differences of opinions.

  “Jaclyn, your future is full of very difficult decisions and challenges. There will be times when you acknowledge that you experience more challenges than most, but I caution you against wasting time crying about the unfairness of it all. Stay strong, adapt, and overcome. In particular, I want you to promise me that you will train with your father and embrace the gifts that he has to offer you as well. He is a strong and talented man with keen insight and knowledge. Trust in him and learn those skills from him. Work with MaCall Secur
ities and familiarize yourself with the team protocols and training so that you, too, could be one of the best in the industry. It will serve you well.”

  Jaclyn looked into the trees and focused on the soothing lull of her mother’s voice as she warned of dangers in her future and of great success, as well. She didn’t think that she could promise to commit to her father’s business, but she wouldn’t admit that to her.

  Her mother gazed at her, silently scolding her with her stern eyes. “You will get to pursue your own interests in good time, Jaclyn. But to begin, you will come home after school and work with your father. The moment you decide that he has nothing to offer you is the moment you get yourself and others you love killed. I mean that.” Her voice no longer lulled soothingly. Instead, it was sharp and frigid. “You will have plenty of time for your own dreams, Jaclyn. But first you must take the necessary steps to prepare yourself for any occurrence in your future. And you will know when the time is appropriate to leave your father’s business and pursue your own ambitions. But learn as much as you can from your father.”

  “I will,” she answered meekly.

  “Taryn will help you in this area. She has been more like your father from the moment she was born. And she will follow him in his business. That will be her greatest strength. She is strong, Jaclyn, and you will need her.”

  “Will anything be easy for me later in life? Or is it all doom and gloom?” she whined in the truly dramatic manner that is characteristic of an early teenage girl.

  “Love will,” her mother answered with a twinkle in her eye. “You will find everlasting love with an amazing man. You will experience a love like I have with your father. But do not force the issue. Love will come to you, Jaclyn. You must wait and be patient.”

  She blushed uncomfortably with the turn the conversation had taken.

  “Most importantly, darling, is to never underestimate the power of your gift. With the help of your father and your sister, you will change the world in ways that even I cannot imagine. And I’ve seen pieces of it for myself. The purpose of my gift, I think, was to pass it on to you. As for your own purpose, I cannot answer that. But just like your sister bears the strength and intuition of your father, I think you are more like me than we may have originally thought.” She stood beside her daughter, reaching to give her hand a squeeze. “I must go now. But always remember that I shared my gift in love and hope.”