Page 20 of Sterling Stone

Simon Gilbert is a dark-haired nine-year-old Trudy has claimed to be her grandson, and he’s particularly attached to our brother Judd in a sort of big brother relationship. With a mitt and a ball in his hand, he’s running toward the field when Trudy exits the passenger side of the front seat and says, “I’m not raising no Tasmanian devil here.”

Her kind but strong voice has the young boy doing a one-eighty, racing back to the vehicle to close the car door.

Trudy is roughly the age my mother would have been, so in her late sixties, like Mary. She’s a robust woman with ebony skin, and her current hairstyle is a short cut with sharp bangs. Because she exited the passenger side of the vehicle, I squint in the direction of the driver’s side, curious about who else is joining us today.

Trudy greets Cort and Vale first since they stand closest to the drive.

My gaze, however, is aimed at Trudy’s car, like I can’t seem to look away until I know who drove her and Simon here. The pull to that vehicle is unsettling, pleasantly eerie. Like the air almost crackles, yet it’s a perfectly sun-filled day.

Must be the heat, I decide, until a feminine form finally slips from the driver’s side, standing tall and curvy in all the right ways with a ponytail of wild, dark curls on the top of her head.

I’m frozen in place, watching as she shuts the door, and then approaches where Trudy stands near Vale and Cortland.

Large, dark sunglasses cover her eyes, while she wears bib overalls with a skin-tone tank top underneath. She looks like a fucking supermodel. The air around her says don’t speak to me. And yet, without seeing her eyes, I already know what they look like.

Mercury and magic, and haunting, because I haven’t been able to get them out of my head for three long months.

Three months where I’ve been kicking myself for not asking her if I could come into her hotel room. If I could have her real name and her phone number.

Three months where I still feel her lips against mine.

Three months of imagining all the ways she’d press against me, beneath me, above me. With my hands on her hips, like my palms were made to fit there.

“Vale, I don’t know if you remember my niece, Tallulah.”

My head swivels from the tongue-tying beauty to Trudy Wallace and back.

What?

Tallulah? How close the name is to the nickname I’d given her . . . Delilah. When she’d called me Samson at first and ended the night calling me Superman.

Hell, her voice has been haunting me as well, saying things she didn’t say, like she wanted me to invite me into her room, wanted me inside her body.

Eventually, I feel my toes and move my feet, crunching over the gravel to approach this new collection of guests.

Vale is hugging Trudy while I stand just off Cort’s left side.

While I’ve finally been able to move closer to them, the one thing that refuses to shift is my gaze. From her. Tallulah.

“Stone,” my sister says, at the same time as Tallulah looks in my direction and quietly gasps. Her lush lips separate only for a brief moment before she slowly removes her sunglasses.

The resemblance to Trudy is non-existent, aside from their similar jet-black hair. Tallulah is almost willowy on top with wider hips. Her eyes are shaped differently, sharp and silver compared to the warm, rich brown of Trudy’s. And her lips are deeply pursed.

Remaining stuck in place, like a deep-rooted weed, my tongue is knotted, my eyes transfixed, until she catches on them and immediately looks away.

Stricken.

Like a baseball bat to the gut, I feel the hit.

What the hell was that expression all about?

Finally, I find my manners and move my feet again, stepping toward this surprising, stunning, puzzling newcomer.

“Um. Hey. Welcome to my home.” I sound like a fucking robot as I extend a hand, equally robotic in action, when I’ve had my lips on hers. When I’ve already felt the warmth of her palms and the curve of her hips.

When she finally sets her hand in mine, we don’t shake as much as hold our hands together. Wrapping my fingers tighter around hers, a sense of rightness circles me.

She’s here. This is her. Destiny did not fail me.