LITMIR.BIZ

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the stifling military environment, she’d finally found a rich, nurturing place to plant her roots. Granted her photography took her all over the world, but she always came home to here.

      “Want to play with the tarot cards?” Patti asked half an hour later when they’d finished their lemon-infused vodka. Eden wasn’t drunk, she didn’t even qualify as bonafide tipsy, but she was definitely relaxed. And tarot cards were the kind of thing you did with a longstanding friend on a summer night in Nawlin’s. Plus, Patti seemed to have a gift with the cards. Tomorrow night they were going out for zydeco dancing, but today they’d strolled through all the French Quarter shops and tonight was for catching up.

      “Sure. You grab the cards and I’ll light the candles.” Dusk had yielded to night while they’d talked.

      Patti disappeared into the house for the tarot pack she’d bought that afternoon and Eden padded barefoot across the bricks. She always risked stepping on an insect, and she had run across the occasional snake, but it was worth it to feel the sun-warmed bricks against her bare feet. She retrieved the lighter from a waterproof container she kept in the palm’s pot and moved around the small courtyard lighting the tiki torches. She paused in the far corner of the yard, across from the lemon tree. For all that she loved the bright sunny spot and the happy yellow fruit, she was equally enamored with the opposite corner, where the sun only reached briefly.

      She brushed her toes over the soft moss that carpeted the bricks in this spot. “Hello, handsome,” she said softly as she lit the torch, illuminating the worn statue nestled amongst ferns and fragrant banana shrubs.

      “Uh, is there someone else here that I don’t know about?” Patti asked from behind her.

      Eden laughed. “Patti, meet Mercury, Roman messenger of the gods,” she said, gesturing toward the moss-covered life-size concrete casting of the nude god with winged feet. For the most part he blended in with his verdant surroundings. “Mercury, meet Patti, who knows and loves me best.”

      “All righty, then. Hi, Mercury.” Patti shook her head. “You know this is just damn weird that we’re talking to a statue.”

      “Hey, he spoke to me first. I found him one day when I was knocking around an antique shop. I turned the corner and there he stood, stopping me in my tracks.” Lean face, chiseled lips, sculpted muscles—she’d had to have him.

      “I’m guessing you didn’t just toss him in your backseat and haul him home.”

      Laughing again, Eden shook her head. “Two guys, a dolly, and a lift truck and it was still a bitch to get him back here. Isn’t he beautiful?”

      “How many times have you photographed him?”

      Patti knew her too well. “Lots.” She’d fired off hundreds of shots. “He’s paid for himself many times over. I did a numbered series of him and it sold phenomenally well.”

      “Good deal.” Patti grabbed the lighter and flicked it on. Holding it lower, she cocked her head to one side and peered closer. “His schwing could be a little bigger.”

      Eden had thought the same thing—all those nicely defined muscles in the arms, chest, abs, ass and legs, but the penis was on the pretty-damn-small side, even for an unaroused state. She’d told herself it was simply a matter of the artist in her objecting to the lack of physical symmetry. Still, she had to tease Patti. “You know, you have an obsession with male genitalia.”

      “As if you don’t. Please tell me when you’re fantasizing you give him a better package.”

      Eden grinned. “Well, yeah.” The sixteenth century sculptor could’ve been way more generous.

      Reclaiming the lighter, Eden finished lighting the garden torches. Patti followed. “You know you seriously need to get out more if you’re fantasizing about a statue.”

      “Says you. He’s got a better personality than the last couple of guys I met.”

      Patti giggled. “Idiot.”

      “For real. Pickings are pretty slim in the man pool.” Eden sat back down in the wrought-iron chair and tucked her heels on the edge, bringing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs.

      “Maybe you’re fishing in the wrong pond.” Patti began to shuffle the tarot deck.

      “Pond? I’ve fished in every friggin’ ocean I’ve crossed. There was the local guy here who wanted to wear my panties. No thanks. Then there was the guy I met in Canada who turned out to be married. The Asian guy who wanted us to meditate to an orgasm without touching one another.” She paused to draw a breath and Patti held up a staying hand.

      “Okay. Okay. I gotcha.” She cut her eyes in a sly way. “I just offered you a new pond to fish in. Hot paratroopers.”

      “I’d rather sign up for a lobotomy. Wait. Getting involved with a military guy would be the same thing. I don’t think so. Actually, I believe you’ve lost your mind.”

      “Far from it. You’ve just got such a rigid mind-set—guess you get that from your father.”

      “Kiss my ass.” Okay, so Patti had struck a chord. Her career military father only saw things in black and white. It drove Eden crazy. Had always driven her crazy because she was all about shades of gray and Technicolor.

      “Think compromise, liebling. Think about hard bodies, males in their prime in top-notch condition. Think of hot, sweaty sex. Think about you wrapping up the assignment, and then spending your time anyway you please. I get what I want, which is the best damn photographer in the business shooting my calendar, and you get what you want, a little mattress time with a real-life hottie instead of a concrete fantasy.” She put one finger on her cheek and pretended to ponder. “And didn’t your assistant text you this afternoon about a job rescheduling?”

      Patti had had Eden wriggling in her seat with her talk of all that hot, sweaty sex. It had been too long. But she didn’t want a soldier. That was just…she wasn’t going there. “You’re manipulating me.”

      “You’re all black and white.”

      And Patti had just moved from manipulation to outright psychological warfare. She knew that was Eden’s Achilles’ heel. Eden would rather do something impulsive and stupid than be rigid and uncompromising like her father. Actually, it didn’t take a psych degree to know that her upbringing probably drove her impulsive tendencies. “Remind me again why we’re friends.”

      Patti remained unrepentant. “I tell you what—let’s consult the cards. I’ll do a reading for you.”

      “Fine. And if the cards say no, you won’t mention the calendar job again.” And Patti’d better not mention Eden being rigid like her father. Her father’s unyielding mind-set had always been a point of contention.

      Her BFF handed over the deck. “You know the deal. Shuffle. And if the cards say yes, you’ll shoot my calendar. Ask the question and seal your destiny.”

      “Should I shoot the paratrooper calendar?” Eden carefully divvied the cards into three piles in a classic three-card spread—the past, the present and the outcome.

      Patti took over from there. “The past,” she intoned, turning over the top card. A shiver slid down Eden’s spine and she could swear the breeze blew just a tad cooler for a second.

      Then Patti spoke. “The King of Swords. An au thority figure. The sword could indicate the military, which all fits with your father. And it is, after all, your dad’s career that makes your past what it is.”

      “It fits,” Eden said.

      “Okay. Now, the present.” Patti moved on to the second deck, and flipped over the card to reveal The Star card. Her wide smile revealed the slight gap in her front teeth. “You know the star portends a new beginning, a move to hope after a bad period. Maybe in your case a new way of seeing the military.”

      The hair on the back of Eden’s neck stood up.

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