by Niki Savage
Her logic was sound, but he wanted to put her fears at rest. “Marcelle, what kind of man do you think I am? I would be dead if it wasn’t for you. Why would I hurt you?”
“I don’t know. Does what I did count for something in your world?”
“Of course it does. I could never repay you.”
“Oh,” was all she said, keeping her eyes downcast.
“I don’t want you to see me as a monster.” Stefan took one of her hands in his. He stared into her gray eyes, willing her to believe him. “I owe you my life. I’ll protect you with my last breath, and I’ll never harm you, ever. Do you believe me?”
She met his gaze, seeing in his eyes that he spoke the truth. “Yes, I believe you.”
“Tomorrow, I’ll tell you more about myself and what I do. I hope that will be enough to reassure you.”
Marcelle nodded. “Did you know that your eyes change color with your moods?”
“How do they look now?”
“A warm deep blue, like they did at first. Lately, your eyes have been so cold and pale. That’s what made me nervous.”
“Well, I will do my best to look friendly in future,” he said, closing his right eye in a quick wink.
She giggled, and he released her hand, rewarding her with a warm smile.
“Time to go to sleep, I think,” she said, getting to her feet. “I don’t want to get my butt kicked tomorrow.”
“Goodnight,” he said, stifling a yawn.
Marcelle went to her room, took off her robe, and switched off the light. She fell onto the king-sized bed, feeling unbelievably tired. She felt sure she would enjoy an undisturbed night’s sleep, and she needed it.
* * * *
Chapter Ten
Terrified screams woke Stefan a few hours later. They came from behind Marcelle’s closed door. He jumped to his feet as fast as his injuries would allow, and hurriedly made his way to the main bedroom.
He switched on the light to see her thrashing around on the bed, and now he could hear what she was screaming, “Jean...get out! The fire! No! Jean...Jean!”
He grabbed her shoulder and shook her. “Marcelle! Wake up!”
She woke in mid-scream, looking confused. Her body shook, perspiration running down her face as she tried to reassure herself, “It’s just a dream. I’m okay. I’m okay now.” She sat up, hugging her knees to her chest, barely aware of his presence. “Calm down...there’s no fire. Everything’s fine now...”
He got the feeling that this scene played itself out many nights, when she woke from the sound of her own screams. He wanted to hold her, to take this terrible suffering from her, but he sensed she was in her own world, her own way of coping, and would resent his intrusion.
Gradually her eyes cleared, and she looked up at him. “I’m okay. But it’s too hot in here. I can’t stand it.” She got off the bed, her summer pajamas clinging damply to her slim figure as she headed for the door.
“Marcelle, where are you going?”
She turned to look at him. “I’m going for a swim, and you’re going back to bed.”
Without another word, she disappeared down the passage. He let her go, and returned to his own room. He lay sleepless in the dark, racked with guilt, and listened for the sound of the elevator.
An hour later, he couldn’t wait any longer. He headed for the elevator, and punched in the code that would bring it down again. The doors opened and he stepped into the mirrored interior. Seconds later, the doors opened to the starlit sky.
Stefan shivered in the cool evening breeze as he walked up the stairs to the pool. Things were dark and quiet, too quiet. He switched on the lights.
She wasn’t in the pool, and alarm jangled down his spine. Then he spotted her motionless form in a recliner chair, and hurried to her. She was sound asleep, her soaked pajamas clinging to her body. Her skin was cold to the touch, and her damp hair hung over her closed eyes. He couldn’t let her sleep there for the rest of the night, though he had a feeling she often did when she was alone.
Under normal circumstances, he would have carried her downstairs. But with his left arm out of action, and his strength so depleted, it wasn’t an option. His attempts to rouse Marcelle only brought muttered protests from her. But he persisted, and eventually got her to her feet. She allowed him to lead her to the elevator, confused and sleepy.
Back in her bedroom, he took her straight to the bathroom. He sat her on the edge of the bath while he switched on the spray of the shower and adjusted the temperature to hot. He led her to the shower and pushed her under the spray, careful not to get his dressings wet.
She fought him for a second before she relaxed in the warm embrace of the water. Her eyes cleared, and she stared wordlessly at him, her pajamas transparent under the cascading water.
He averted his eyes. “I’ll make some tea. Can you finish here on your own?”
She nodded, and he went to the kitchen.
~ . ~
When Stefan returned with two steaming mugs of sweet tea, he found Marcelle seated in front of her dressing table, clad in a thick toweling robe. She had finished drying her hair, and the warmth of the blow dryer had put some color back into her cheeks. He put the mugs on the coffee table in front of the couch, and sank into the plush pillows of the couch.
She joined him a few moments later, and he handed her a mug.
“Great tea,” she said after taking a sip.
He nodded. “Was that one of those bad dreams you mentioned?”
She avoided his eyes.
“Marcelle, you have a problem. Let me help you.”
She sighed. “If I train myself into the ground, so that I fall asleep before dinner, the dreams stay away. If I don’t train hard enough, like the past week or so, they come back.”
“Have you spoken to anyone about it, tried to get help?”
“No. It sounds so stupid when I talk about it, but at night, it’s so real, and I hurt so much.”
“Can you tell me what happens in these dreams?”
She replaced her empty mug on the coffee table, and suppressed a shudder as she tried to explain what haunted her. “I see the accident again, but it’s different from how it happened. I’m terrified because I can hear his car coming, and I know what’s going to happen, but...I can’t prevent it. I start screaming. The car comes round the corner, and...” her voice trembled as she saw it again in her imagination, “starts spinning out of control. Jean could’ve recovered from that, but then, the front of the car hits the curb, and it starts cartwheeling, head over tail. I never knew a car could do that. And it doesn’t stop until it hits a concrete wall...and explodes.” She dropped her face into her hands, defeat in her voice. “Then I’m next to the car, trying to get to Jean-Michel, but the flames are too hot. And I can hear him screaming, but nobody wants to help, so I run into the flames, trying to reach him. But I can’t find him, and the flames start burning me... and then I scream myself awake. When I’m lucky, I wake up before the car starts burning.”
She looked at him for comment, but he remained silent, reaching out and putting a comforting hand on hers, wanting her to continue.
“I don’t know why I dream that Jean-Michel is trapped in the burning car. Yes, the car did burn, but they got him out in time.” A deep shudder ran through her. “He had severe head injuries, and the impact of the crash had damaged his body so much that they didn’t know where to start.” A flicker of pain crossed her features. “The doctors had told me that, apart from the head injuries, his back was broken. Jean-Michel would never have come to terms with that.” She took a deep breath, and continued, “I sat next to his bed for seven days, hoping that he would regain consciousness, if only to speak to me one last time. On the eighth day, the doctors told me they had run more tests. They said there was no brain activity, and that my husband was dead. Only the machines kept him alive.” She sighed as she remembered. “His parents sat with me when the doctors switched off the machines. I held his hand, hoping for just a fl
icker of life, or a goodbye of some kind. Jean breathed on his own for nearly a minute before he was quiet. I thought I would die too...”
Stefan reached out and pulled her to his chest, speechless in the face of so much grief. If he could change places with her dead husband, he would do so in an instant. He would do anything to ease the guilt twisting inside him. Regret really is the worst emotion of all, he thought, rubbing a soothing hand over her back.
“Sometimes I wish for total blackness,” she confessed, her face downcast in shame. “Just a massive expanse of nothingness where there’s no pain. I don’t know how much longer I can carry on like this. I just don’t know.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. Grief is a normal reaction to what must have been a dreadful experience for you.”
“I can’t find peace. There were things I needed to tell him, and now he’ll never know. Jean-Michel wanted a child, but I couldn’t fall pregnant, because of my hard training schedule. The doctors suggested that I take it easy for a year, so I could ovulate regularly, but I refused. Sometimes I think that’s why I dream about the fire. It’s my guilt, haunting me. I said to him, let’s wait a few years, it’s too soon. I didn’t know we were out of time. Maybe he did…”
“Try to remember the good times, Marcelle. Don’t concentrate so much on how it ended. I know about regret, and I know that if you focus on it too much, it will destroy you. Forgive yourself. Imagine Jean-Michel forgiving you.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“It takes time. And I don’t see that day approaching soon, not while you’re having these dreams. You need to get help.”
“The doc helps me.” The resistance in her body was immediately apparent.
He decided not to pursue the subject. Better to discuss it when she was less emotional. Instead he said, “Do you want to go back to sleep? It’s only four a.m.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to sleep. I wish I never had to sleep again, ever.”
“You need to rest. I’ll stay with you. We can sleep like we did last time.”
His persuasive voice washed over Marcelle’s tired mind like a soothing balm. Stefan had already banished the ice. Maybe he could do something about the fire. It was worth a shot. She nodded, finally looking up at him.
He laughed softly at what he read in the silvery depths of her eyes. “I promise I’ll be a gentleman. Your honor is safe with me.”
She smiled wanly at his humor.
He pulled the covers of the bed straight as she took off her robe, revealing silky pajamas. She lay down, and he pulled the duvet over her, before going to the other side of the bed. Lifting the covers, he joined her in bed. The curtains were open, and the security lights outside left the room dimly lit after he switched off the bedside lamp.
“Do you want to sleep in my arms again?”
She didn’t answer, but moved into the crook of his outstretched right arm, and pressed her head into the hollow of his shoulder. Sighing, she rested her right hand on his chest, careful not to disturb the raw wounds she had redressed earlier that night. He curled his uninjured arm around her shoulders and hugged her closer, intensely aware of her firm breasts against his naked chest. Only the thin cloth of her pajamas separated their bodies. Desire flared in him like a hot flame, signaling his returning health. He wanted to make love to her, to make her forget her pain, but he couldn’t shatter the trust she had placed in him.
He found his advice to her laughable. Forgive yourself. Try to imagine Jean-Michel forgiving you. How could he give her that advice, when he couldn’t even follow it himself? He wished he could help the young widow, and perhaps in the process exorcize his own demons.
Soon Marcelle’s deep breathing told him she had fallen asleep. Exhausted, he drifted off to sleep too.
* * * *
Chapter Eleven
Marcelle surprised him the next morning with a steaming mug of coffee. He had slept so deeply he hadn’t even stirred when she had risen. She had already dressed in cycling gear. It was the first time he had seen her in the clothes, and he whistled softly in admiration. The shiny black cycling shorts and the figure-hugging sponsors’ jersey displayed her slim figure to perfection.
She responded with a soft blush on her cheeks. “These are my working clothes, nothing special.”
Their eyes locked for a second before she turned to go back to the kitchen. “Breakfast will be ready in about five minutes.”
Stefan finished his coffee before returning to his room. He washed his face and brushed his hair before donning a robe and heading for the kitchen.
Marcelle motioned him to sit at the breakfast nook. She had prepared porridge, toast and fluffy scrambled eggs. In the centre of the table stood a selection of jams and honey, along with other condiments.
She tucked into the food with gusto, and he joined her. She spoke enthusiastically about the upcoming ride, and it looked as if she had shaken off the experiences of the previous night.
When they had finished, she packed the dishes into the dishwasher, and cleared the table. She turned to him. “I’ve put some chicken pies into the oven to defrost, and I’ve set the timer so that the stove will go on automatically. You can have lunch at one o’clock. Just listen for the stove alarm. There’s a salad in the fridge. Now don’t forget?”
“Thanks,” he replied. “What time will you be back?”
She thought for a moment, counting on one hand. “Around three.”
“So you want me to save you some lunch?”
“No, thanks. I’ll get something on the road.” She opened a cupboard above the counter and took out some energy bars, which she shoved into the pockets of her cycling shirt. “You’re welcome to have some if you want,” she said, pointing in the direction of the cupboard. “Treat this place like your own.”
Stefan went to the living room as she disappeared down the passage. She came back a few minutes later, wordlessly handing him his holstered handguns, extra clips of ammunition, and his sheathed knife.
He stared at her, searching her face, before he took the weapons from her. “You trust me with these around you?”
“Don’t disappoint me. I would never forgive myself if something happened to you because you didn’t have your weapons.”
She turned away, checking the contents of a small leather wallet. He saw that the wallet contained some money and a well-known credit card.
“You go cycling with a credit card?”
“Sure. If you have a breakdown of some kind, having 100 francs in your pocket just isn’t good enough. This way I can use my credit card to hire a car to get home, or I can book into a hotel.”
“Don’t you carry a cell-phone? It might be useful in an emergency.”
She grimaced. “No, I’ve been burned by cell phones more than once. Somehow, no matter how often I change my number, somebody always gets hold of it. Then I have to field calls from fans and crazies alike. I’ve also had problems with paparazzi using scanners to listen in on my conversations. Can you imagine seeing excerpts from a private conversation on the front page of a tabloid? So I’ve sworn off cell phones.”
“I see your point. Perhaps what you need is a cell phone like mine. The number is untraceable, and because it operates on a different frequency to normal cell phones, no scanner can find it. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but I promise your calls will be private.”
She laughed. “I might take you up on that, James Bond. Especially if it’s as small and compact as the one I saw.”
He smiled. “I’ll make sure yours is pink. I’m glad I can help.”
He watched as she pulled on socks and cycling shoes. The shoes had small plastic cleats attached to the soles, and he asked about them.
She handed him a shoe as she explained, “That cleat clips into the pedal so that it locks my foot to the pedal. To release my foot I just twist the shoe sideways, the same way I would release skis. My feet have to be secure, because I push down on the pedal, but on the up-stroke
, I pull up, so that I exert power all the way.”
“What if you crash?” Stefan asked, turning the shoe in his hand.
“Well, it’s better if my feet are locked in, because then my legs stay close to the bike, and I’ll just suffer skin abrasions, or roasties, as cyclists call them. It’s when you have legs flying all over the place that you’re likely to break a leg, or a hip, or even your pelvis.”
“Have you ever come off badly?”
Marcelle laughed. “Yes. Sometimes I’m a bit reckless on the descents and in the sprints, so I have come down more than once. I had a horrific accident when I was nearly nineteen, and sprinting for the finish. I was a mess, and in a coma for five days. But that’s a long story.” A devil-may-care expression crossed her face as she continued, “It helps if your opponents think you’re fearless, or even a little crazy. That way they’ll think twice before challenging you in a sprint or a corner. Jean-Michel operated on that principle, and it worked for him. Once he was ahead in a race, few people would try to pass him.” She sobered. “Of course, that’s what...” she took a deep breath, “that’s what finished him eventually.”
She took the shoe from him and slipped it on, using her hair to shield her eyes from his gaze. When she looked up, she had herself under control.
“I have to go,” she said, her shoes clicking on the smooth tiles of the kitchen as she fetched two water bottles from the fridge. She returned, and paused for a moment. “You’ll be fine, won’t you?”
“Of course, have a good ride.”
“I’ll see you later then.” She stepped into the elevator and waved to him as the doors closed.
Stefan walked back to the picture window of the living room and stared through the tinted mirror glass. Outside it was a beautiful day.
A few minutes later, he saw her pushing her bike out of the garage. She looked as if she was born to ride a bike as she cycled to the gate. She stopped and spent a few minutes talking to the guards. Then she cycled down the road and soon disappeared in the distance.
