by Anne Stuart
The same held for Rob Palmer. There was no one she could turn to, no one she wanted to turn to. Except Ethan. And he’d turned his back on her.
In the end, she called her future stepmother, thanking heaven a few minutes later for the inspiration. Madeleine asked no questions other than to ascertain that Megan was all right, and offered no information that Megan didn’t want to hear. A thousand dollars would be wired immediately, and Megan could come home and Madeleine would take care of everything.
For the first time that night, Meg started crying. She wanted a mother, someone to take care of her, tuck her in bed, scare away the demons. But she didn’t want them all scared away. What she wanted most of all was her phantom. And she was horribly afraid she’d never see him again.
She had to wait until seven in the morning to rent a car, and even then, they weren’t pleased with cash and no credit card, insisting on calling the police for verification. The car they rented her was not much better than the old clunker that had taken her to Ethan Winslowe. She thought briefly about that car, destroyed at the hands of Pastor Lincoln and his gang. She was going to have a fun time explaining that to the insurance company.
The storm of the night before had blown through, leaving the landscape sodden and clear. The endless trip from Millers Fork seemed twice as long as it had long hours before, and Oak Grove looked even more like a ghost town than it had when she’d first arrived. Except for the police cars patrolling the streets.
The smell in the air was unmistakable as she drove the long, twisting driveway back to Ethan’s house. She knew even before she got there what she’d find, but the reality of it was devastating. She pulled the car to a stop in front of the vast, smoldering ruins, and she felt like crying.
There was no one in sight, and she wondered why she would have expected otherwise. Even the outbuildings were destroyed, only some of the gardens having survived the scorching flames. She found herself hoping the maze had been reduced to cinders.
She stepped out of the car, shivering slightly in the cool air. She didn’t look for Joseph—he was gone. But Ethan was here, somewhere. And she couldn’t leave until she’d seen him. Until he told her to go.
He was in the moon garden. The white flowers had shriveled in the intense heat, the shrubbery blackened and stunted, and the shallow pool was filled with half-burned timbers. He was sitting in the back, still and silent in the fitful sunlight, and he didn’t move when she entered the garden, even though he was as aware of her as she was of him.
She was reminded of Joseph—there but remote. And like Joseph, Ethan’s bearing kept her at a distance.
She crossed the cinder-strewn paths, stopping a few feet away from him, waiting for him to look at her. She’d never seen him in full daylight. The mark across his face was a cruel travesty for a man blessed with such beauty, and the contrast was, as always, heartbreaking.
“Who is Joseph?” she asked, surprised that that should be the first question.
He looked up at her and his long hair flowed down his back. “My father.”
“Your father’s dead. He’s been dead for twenty years.”
“Yes.”
It explained everything and nothing. “Where is he?”
“Gone. This time for good, I imagine.” Ethan’s low, once-beguiling voice sounded lifeless, dead.
She moved closer, ignoring his unspoken need to keep her at a distance. “What are you going to do now? Are you going to rebuild?”
That startled him into a bitter laugh. “I don’t see much point in it, do you?”
She looked around her at the smoldering ruins. “Then what will you do?”
“Go back to the islands, I suppose. I own most of a tiny little island off Martinique. It’s very remote, very secluded, and the people there accept me for what I am.” He looked up at her then, and his eyes were dark with a pain she couldn’t understand. “What are you going to do?”
It shouldn’t have hurt so sharply. So deep a pain that she wanted to crawl away and hide, as Ethan had hidden most of his life. She wasn’t going to give up so easily, she told herself, bracing against the pain. She’d come back to fight, and fight she would. “Ask me,” she said. “Ask me to come with you.”
“I can’t do that.” The words were a death knell in her heart.
“Why not? Don’t you want me?”
He laughed, the sound bitter and uneasy in the morning light. “Not want you?” he echoed. “I’m not crazy, Megan. But I’m not going to have you.”
“Why not? All you have to do is ask me.” She sank onto her knees beside him in the mud, not touching him, afraid to touch him, afraid if she were to do so and he sent her away, she might hate him.
“I can’t ask you.”
She shivered, sinking back onto her heels. “And I can’t go unless you do. I can’t chase after you, throwing myself at you. You have to love me enough to tell me. You have to make that one small sacrifice. You have to commit yourself enough to just ask me.” Her voice was pleading. She hated the sound of it, but she had to.
“No.” The word was low, flat, final.
For a moment, she didn’t move, kneeling at his feet in the mud. Slowly, she pulled the Janus ring from her finger, her fingers caressing it one last time as she didn’t dare caress him. And then, dropping it in his lap, she rose, blinking back the tears.
It didn’t matter. He no longer looked at her. He’d dismissed her, wiped her out of his mind, out of his life.
“One word,” she said, her voice thick with grief. “One sign, and I’ll come to you.”
He looked up, remote, devil and angel side by side in his extraordinary face, and spoke one word.
“Goodbye.”
MEGAN KEPT WAITING for life to resume some semblance of normalcy. She stayed with Madeleine for a couple of weeks after she flew back to Chicago, but she felt as if she were only treading water. She reopened her apartment, she visited the foundering Carey Enterprises offices, she fired Rob Palmer, and she visited her father. But still she moved through the days in a fog.
She’d wake up at night, alone in her bed, and reach out for Ethan. It was absurd, after twenty-seven years of sleeping alone, two nights had forever changed her life. She’d walk down a busy street and imagine she saw Ethan reflected in a shop window. Ethan, who’d probably never walked down a busy city street in his life.
She kept her father uncomplaining, silent company as he went through his pretrial hearings and plea bargaining, saying nothing as he tried to wheedle his way out of the mess his greed had gotten him into. And when it was finally clear to him that there was no way out, he accepted his disgrace with his daughter standing beside him.
She waited until he married the ever-faithful Madeleine. She waited until he’d begun his three-month term at a place just a little bit fancier than the country club he paid thousands of dollars in dues to, waited until he was already beginning to improve his tennis game. And then she packed once more, ready to leave.
Maybe Ethan wouldn’t haunt her by the canals of Venice. Maybe he wouldn’t be at her shoulder along the Champs-élysées. Maybe he wouldn’t walk with her in Devon, hike with her in the Scottish Highlands, whisper to her in Vienna. But she doubted it.
She had no choice. Ethan was gone, disappearing from her life as effectively as his father had. She was fully alone for the first time in her life, and she was running away from the pain of it.
She wasn’t even pregnant. That had been her secret, wicked hope when she first returned to Chicago. Neither of them had used any precautions, and a pregnancy would have forced her to go after him.
But there was no pregnancy, no easy way out. He’d left her, and in this life, there was neither hope nor joy. He had to want her enough to risk his heart or in the end, he would destroy her. Because who could live with a broken heart and a broken life?
Her happy ending was so obvious to her. He could design his extraordinary buildings; she could build them. Together, they could do anything, anything a
t all—no obstacle was too great. But he didn’t believe that.
The early-morning flight from Chicago to New York seemed longer than usual. The three-hour layover was a pain, but one Megan was prepared to endure. She’d had to endure far worse during the last two months.
She was going to be trapped on a plane for six more hours—she certainly had no intention of spending the time waiting for her next flight sitting on her behind. She walked up and down the corridors, watching the travelers at each gate. The businessmen, the vacationers, the families and the lovers. The airline she favored flew everywhere. She passed each gate, thinking about the various destinations. Iowa, San Francisco, Honolulu. Tokyo, Vancouver, Martinique. Paris, Rome…
The plane to Martinique left in forty-five minutes. The waiting area wasn’t crowded—mid-June wasn’t prime time for the Caribbean. Megan stood there in the middle of the terminal, staring at the counter, at the sleek silver plane through the windows beyond.
Turning on her heel, she spun around, moving away from temptation, moving away at something close to a run. In the corner of her vision, she thought she saw a familiar figure, but she didn’t dare turn and check. Too often she thought she’d seen Ethan near her, only to find out it was a heart-tearing fantasy prompted by a longing so intense, it was going to kill her. She wouldn’t give in to weakness this time and look.
Her own gate was half the terminal away. A few transatlantic passengers were already there, but the area was empty enough so that there was no missing the figure waiting for her. The same, hauntingly familiar figure she’d seen at the other gate.
She looked at Joseph across the rows of orange plastic seats. No one else could see him, of that she was certain. She even wondered whether she could, or whether she’d just managed to conjure him up out of intense longing.
It didn’t matter. He simply looked at her, expressionless, waiting for her decision. And all hesitation left her as she nodded.
“Are there any seats left on this flight?” she asked the attendant outside the Martinique gate.
The woman smiled. “This must be your lucky day. We were booked solid, but we’ve just had two cancellations. How many?” Her eyes focused directly on Megan, not seeing the pale figure hovering at her shoulder.
“Just one.”
“Will you be checking any luggage?” She glanced down at Megan’s unencumbered hands.
Megan shrugged. “I’m afraid my luggage is on its way to London. Again.”
The attendant was all concern. “We’ll do our best to get it back to you as quickly as possible.”
“That’s all right,” Megan said as a belated confidence began to fill her. “I don’t expect I’ll be wearing much clothing when I get there.”
The woman blinked for a moment, and then she grinned, a conspiratorial grin. “Lucky you. Is he absolutely gorgeous?”
Megan smiled back, thinking of Ethan’s divided face. “Absolutely.”
She buckled herself into the window seat, impatient to be off, half afraid reason would rear its ugly head and send her tearing off the plane. She stared out at the tarmac, not looking when someone sat down beside her, rubbing her arms against the sudden chill on the air-conditioned plane.
“He needs you,” Joseph said, his voice soft and fading in her ear.
She didn’t bother to turn. She knew she wouldn’t see him if she did, just as she knew he was there with her, as he’d been that terrible night so long ago on the hilltop. I need him, she said without speaking.
“Go to him.”
She turned then, just in time to see a fat, sweating businessman lower his bulk into the seat beside her. He caught her scrutiny, gave her a bored leer and buckled his seat belt around his impressive bulk. Closing her eyes, Megan leaned back and waited for the silver bird to take her to Ethan.
THE TWO-HOUR FLIGHT FROM Chicago had been endless. The five-hour flight to Martinique was far too brief, despite the presence of the flirtatious Harley Beamer beside her. She had no idea what she’d find when she got to the island. She had no idea where Ethan was. He’d said something about another island, a smaller one, but she imagined there’d be quite a number to choose from. If people had actually seen Ethan, they’d remember him, but he had a talent for keeping hidden. He’d probably arrived in the dead of night, on a private plane, and Sal would have whisked him past any witnesses.
She’d have to be prepared to search. It would be getting on toward sunset when she arrived, and she probably had little choice but to find a hotel and start in the next morning. If she’d had any sense at all, she would have waited till she found out exactly where he was. The police in Millers Fork would have to know.
But she hadn’t had any sense, and if she’d waited, she might have chickened out. She couldn’t keep asking for something he wasn’t ready to give. It was time for her to take the risk herself.
In the end, it was astonishingly, fatefully easy. When she walked into the small airport terminal on the island of Martinique, she looked across the crowded space and saw a familiar, burly figure at a counter offering charter services. She moved swiftly through the crowds, afraid he might disappear before she caught up with him, but when she tapped him on the shoulder, he turned and looked at her with such glowering horror that she was afraid she’d made the worst mistake in a mistake-strewn life.
And then she realized it wasn’t horror on Sal’s face, it was shock. “What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded roughly.
She wasn’t going to let him scare her away. “What do you think I’m doing here?” she countered, sounding more self-assured than she felt. “What are you doing here?”
To her amazement, he laughed. “Chartering a plane. So Ethan can come and find you.” He shook his head in amazement. “I guess the two of you got the right idea at the same time. If he hadn’t decided to go, I swear I would have drowned him to put him out of his misery. I knew you’d destroy him sooner or later. You’ve come back to him, haven’t you?”
“I’ve come back to him. If he wants me.”
“You never struck me as particularly stupid,” Sal drawled. “Are you going to stay?”
“As long as he lets me.”
He nodded, satisfied. “There’s a boat waiting to take me back to the island. It can take you instead.” He looked past her. “Got any luggage?”
“None.”
He made that odd, wheezing sort of laugh again, and she realized that during her timeless sojourn at the strange old house, she’d never heard him laugh. “Don’t imagine you’ll need any. Come along.”
The boat was waiting at one of the jetties, a laconic native behind the wheel. Salvatore helped her into it, then stepped back.
She looked up at him. “Aren’t you coming?”
“Nope. He doesn’t need me anymore.”
She looked for signs of sorrow, of jealousy, of anger in Sal’s swarthy face. They were all there, but strongest of all was acceptance. “Will you ever come back?”
“Sometime. Right now I’ve got to find my own life. Take care of him, Megan.”
She spoke past the pain in her throat. “I will.”
“I know you will. Otherwise, I wouldn’t leave him to you.” He tossed her a box. “I was picking this up for him to bring to you. You might as well wear it.” And without another word, he turned his back and disappeared into the gathering twilight.
She knew what she’d find in the box. The Janus ring had been cut down, sized perfectly for her slender fingers. She slid it on the ring finger of her left hand, where it belonged, knowing a moment of irrational regret for the piece of lavender yarn that had held it in place. The fit was perfect, but when she tried to pull it off, it stuck fast. She looked down at the twin faces in the dusk and smiled.
There was no conversation as the boat crossed the darkening waters of the Caribbean. Megan sat huddled in a corner of the boat as night fell around her, marveling at the lopsided way the quarter moon hung in the sky, the brightness of the stars overhead.
&nb
sp; The island seemed small enough as they approached through the dark waters. She expected the operator to dock at one of the quays, but instead, he circled the island, and pulled up at an expanse of moon-silvered beach, then helped her alight.
“He’s here someplace,” the man said in his liquid voice. “you find the mon or he find you, it makes no difference.” And then he pushed off, leaving her alone on the sand.
She started walking up the beach, her high heels sinking into the sand before she pulled them off and tossed them away. The sand stuck in the feet of her panty hose, and she pulled them off, too, tossing her linen jacket, her purse, her belt and her earrings onto the pile of discarded clothing, so that she was dressed in nothing but a silk dress that flowed loosely around her, white in the moonlight. And then she started out in search of Ethan, her heart pounding.
She saw him long before he saw her. He was standing at the edge of the water, barefoot, shirtless, his dark hair tied at his neck, his marked face illuminated by the bright moonlight. The flowers growing in fragrant profusion around him were white, the same flowers that had filled that moon garden centuries ago. The same flowers that had covered her bed. And suddenly, Megan was afraid.
“Go to him,” Joseph said, his voice a whisper of sound on the soft trade wind. “Be with him. Hurt with him if you must. But stay with him.”
And then he left. This time forever. And with his passing went Megan’s last doubt. She’d wanted Ethan to ask, and the ring on her finger was enough.
“Ethan,” she called, her voice strong and sure on the moonlit air.
And he turned, already knowing she had come back to him, and held out his arms.
One More Valentine
by Anne Stuart
Anne Stuart writes:
This came about because I’m such a smart-ass. I was asked to write a novella for a Valentine’s Day collection, and I said “only if I can do the St. Valentine’s Massacre.” I was kidding, and ending up writing a cute story about Cupid and St. Nicholas, but the idea of the Chicago gangland massacre stayed with me, and I ended up writing it as a full-length novel. Our hero died that day, and each year he comes back to life in Chicago for 48 hours over Valentine’s Day, a cycle he’s doomed to repeat until he finds true love.
