Forgiveness.
“I didn’t know it,” she said. “Not until he ran into the fire, and I—” She looked up. “Why did he kill himself?”
Sorrow washed across his face, and she remembered what he’d said to Avery, how he’d admitted his own role in the tragic dance of three tangled lives.
“Perhaps the guilt was finally too much,” he said. “Avery confronted his own evil. He felt Sophie’s death—”
She shook her head. It had been more than that, though she knew Avery had relived Sophie’s suffering just as Jesse had. “I saw his eyes, in the cabin,” she said. “Gary knew what he was doing. He wasn’t fighting any longer. He didn’t hate me. He wasn’t even afraid.”
“But you risked your own life trying to save him, knowing what he was.” He stroked her hair. “You humble me, Jesse.”
She gave a ragged laugh. “I’m not that noble. I wasn’t even thinking when I went in. It was instinct.” She clutched the lapels of his jacket to stop his protest. “You still blame yourself, don’t you? Even for what Avery became. You don’t think two hundred years of limbo was enough punishment for mistakes you made in one lifetime.” She closed her eyes. “God knows I’ve made plenty. I hated Gary without realizing how much of that hatred came from another life, just as he couldn’t know … how much Avery was a part of him. And Sophie—”
Sophie hadn’t been perfect. She had suffered, but she wasn’t exempt of responsibility for her own life, her own happiness. She had forgotten how to communicate in any way but by manipulation, tricks, and outbursts of rage and weeping. She had lost herself.
“Sophie had so much anger left inside her when she died,” Jesse said. “We … had to work it out, she and I. She thought she wanted revenge, against you and Avery. For a while she … had to have her say.” Jesse laced her fingers into the hair beneath David’s high collar. “But I never completely lost who I was, David. I didn’t stop loving you.”
He looked skyward, and his throat worked. “Ah, Jesse,” he whispered.
He still didn’t believe. “I can feel that Sophie is at rest,” she said. “She’ll always be part of me, because we share a soul. But she’s let go. The past won’t control me anymore.” She smiled sadly. “I’ve spent my entire life trying to avoid what Sophie was. Jesse, the self-reliant. Trying not to need anyone or put myself in a position where others could leave me. I made my own kind of isolation and thought I was safe. I didn’t even know I was trying to break the old pattern. But I couldn’t have done it on my own, David. Not without you, and Al, and Megan—” She swallowed. “Even Gary—”
“You are free, Jesse,” David said. “The madness is over.”
She pulled his head down to hers. “Maybe we all had lessons to learn. About forgiveness. Forgiving each other and letting go. Don’t you think it’s time we started forgiving ourselves?” Her mouth brushed his. “I love you, David.”
David felt the warmth of her breath on his face and knew what she was offering. More than her lips, or her body, or her heart; she was offering her life, her hope, her future. Unconditionally. Eternally.
All the things they could never share.
Gently he set her back, though he was desperate to taste her lips one last time. It would be cruelty to deceive her now, after she’d borne so much. He’d lied to her again and again; he wouldn’t leave her with more false hope.
“I can’t stay, Jesse,” he said. He forced himself to hold her gaze, to endure the bewilderment and rebellion that awakened in her eyes. “I could come back … only for a short time. Now my task is finished.”
He sounded cold to his own ears, almost indifferent. He might as well have struck her; she went very pale, and then the angry color rushed back into her cheeks.
“No!” She balled up one small fist, as if she’d as soon plant him a facer as kiss him. “I won’t accept that. When you’ve done so much, there must be a way—” She slammed her fist into his chest. “I won’t let you go. I’ll fight this every step of the way.”
He caught her hand between his. “You can’t, Jesse. I have no choice.” He wanted to weep, but he kept his voice harsh with command. “You have a life to live. You have Megan. She needs you.”
“No. She needs both of us—” A strange expression crossed her face. “Both of us, David. The way it was meant to be.” She grabbed the hilt of his sword and half pulled it from its sheath. “You’re as real as you’ve ever been—more. Al saw you. It must mean—”
“I was given these last moments,” David said, “only at a price.”
She froze, and her gaze fixed on his.
“I made a bargain,” he said. “You’d set me free, and I was being called back to the other place. The only way I could return even for a few hours was to … give something in exchange.”
“You mean … you could never come back to me,” she said. “Not to this life.”
She’d answered her own unspoken question, and it was best to let her believe that fiction. “Your life meant too much to me, Jesse. More than the chance to see you again.”
“Oh God.” She offered it up as a prayer—for courage, for strength, for an answer. Then, as if that answer had been given, she seemed to gather all the light around her and draw it inward, so that she burned as bright and hot as the fire beyond them.
“Do you think I won’t wait for you?” she asked, her love a deathless flame in her eyes. “This life. The next. It doesn’t matter. We will be together.”
David wanted to shout and curse at the tragic injustice of the pain she must suffer, of hope lost forever. But there was no one to blame. Not even himself. He had made the choice, and he couldn’t regret it.
“No,” he said thickly. “Don’t wait for me. I beg you. Live as you were meant to. Love, Jesse. For both of us.”
“You’re a part of me,” she said with a radiant, unshakable conviction, the kind that only came of the purest faith. “No matter how long it takes—”
“The bargain I made was in exchange for my soul,” he said in anguish. “My soul, Jesse. I won’t be reborn. There will be no more lives.”
He hadn’t wanted to tell her, make a sacrifice of what he had done gladly for her sake. He didn’t wait for her shock, the cries of denial that he knew would come. He pulled her into his arms.
“Your life is everything to me,” he said. “I love you, Jesse. Love can’t be destroyed. Not while you live.”
She was utterly limp in his embrace, passive for a dozen heartbeats. And then she exploded, tearing free of him, spinning away to confront the sky with arms wide and face uplifted.
“Is this your idea of justice?” she cried to the heavens, tears wet on her cheeks. “Is this what you want—sacrifice? Then I’m ready.” She turned in a close circle, hands raised in supplication. “I love him. Do you hear me? I give my own life for his. My soul for his. Let him move on. Let him live again, and be happy.” She dropped to her knees. “Please—”
David had almost reached her when the quality of the air changed, an electric ambience that raced through David’s body and lifted the hairs on his head. He gathered Jesse into his arms. She was too quiet, too still—
“No need to worry about the fair Miss Copeland,” a voice said from the crackling air. “You were right, Captain. We could have used her like on the Peninsula.”
Wellington floated comfortably in the boundless soft luminescence that the world had become, an approving smile on his lean face. David saw that the road was gone, and the fence, and the woods; every edge and shape and form that defined the earthly plane. Jesse’s eyelids fluttered and opened.
“Is this a dream?” she said groggily.
David cradled her in the protective curve of his own body. “Leave her alone,” he said, glaring at his spectral commander. “She didn’t mean what she said—”
“Oh, but she did,” Wellington said. He floated lower and studied her intently. “She’d give up her life for you, out of love. There’s hope for the human race yet.”
“No,” David said. “I won’t let you take her. I’m ready to return with you. Let her go—”
“Ah, David.” He shook his head. “You have nothing to fear. You chose the path of love. Don’t you know by now that love makes anything possible? Your willingness to sacrifice even your soul to save her, and her willingness to do the same for you, without selfishness or regret—the ability to forgive even those who’ve done you great harm—such qualities have the power to make miracles.”
David’s heart stopped beating. Jesse stirred, her lips parted as she gazed at Wellington.
“I see I shall have to be more explicit,” Wellington said. “You believed that you were being punished for your sins, Captain. But the punishment was of your own making—as is your salvation. There are always choices, but they can require time to become clear. Love is the choice that leads to freedom.”
David rose, carrying Jesse with him. “Then Jesse is free to live her life?”
Wellington smiled at Jesse, almost tenderly. “Do you wish to share your life with this scoundrel, Jesse?”
She laced her fingers through David’s and stared Wellington straight in the eye. “With all my soul.”
“And is that also what you wish, David Ventris?”
His heart surged painfully back into motion. “If it is possible—if there’s any hope—”
“Hope, like love, is everlasting,” Wellington said. His face became suddenly stern. “There will always be battles, children. But how you face them is your decision.”
Disbelief became joy as David felt Wellington’s meaning, in his mind and then with his body, until acceptance seeped into his very soul. “Thank you,” he whispered.
Wellington lifted his hands as if in benediction. “Love each other. Share your love. I ask no more.” He turned to Jesse. “Do not weep for your mother, Jesse. She will find her own peace.”
“And Avery?” David asked softly.
“He, too, is on his road. And now I must return to mine.” He nodded to Jesse, saluted David, and began to fade into the omnipresent light.
“Wait!” Jesse said. “Who are you?”
“A friend. A messenger. Remember that you’re never alone, Jesse Copeland.”
Then he was gone, and the world closed around them again, sunshine and firm ground and the smell of pine and smoke. Jesse swayed in the curve of David’s arm, blinking.
“What happened?” she asked. “Was I dreaming?”
He tilted her face to his. “A wonderful dream,” he said, “that came true.”
Understanding filled her eyes, overflowed as tears of joy and gratitude. “You can stay,” she said, laughing aloud. “You can stay with me.”
In answer he kissed her chin, the corners of her mouth, the curves and contours of her precious and beloved face. She grabbed him in a hug worthy of a bear and returned his kisses with unbridled enthusiasm. David was intent on making up for lost time, and Jesse would have pulled him to the ground where they stood if not for the piercing wail that invaded their private paradise.
Jesse broke away. “Sirens.” She gave her head a little jerk of disbelief. “The fire. They’re coming to put it out.” Her practical rescuer’s demeanor snapped back into place, and she gazed intently toward the broad plume of smoke that hung above the resort. The scarlet of flame was visible through the fence and screen of trees. “It hasn’t been too long. I hope they can save—”
A dark blue automobile emerged around the bend of the lane and pulled to a stop behind them. Jesse tightened her grip on David’s arm.
“Al,” she said. “He’s already seen you. Everyone else will be able to see you now—” She caught her breath and grinned, as if she’d realized all over again that she and David had a future to share. “I think that maybe we’d better hide you until we can figure out a good way to introduce you to Manzanita. You know how small towns love gossip. And there’s going to be plenty after this.” She gestured toward the fire and grew sober. “Al deserves to know what really happened—”
And Al, David thought, was likely to insist. He was already striding toward them, heavy brows drawn.
“The fire department’s right behind me,” he said. “I told them what happened to Gary, and the police are on their way. Now, would you mind explaining …”
Jesse grabbed David’s hand and drew him forward. “Al, I’d like you to meet the man who saved my life, David Ventris. David, this is my closest friend, Al Aguilar.”
Al’s gaze raked David from boots to crown, restrained amazement in the lift of his brow. David offered his hand. If Al took it, that would be the final proof.…
“So, you’re Jesse’s David,” Al said. Jesse threw him a startled glance, and he half smiled. “You did mention him once or twice during our sessions,” he said. “I just never realized he existed.”
“Jesse has spoken of you often,” David said. “Thank you for being her friend, for standing by her.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Al gripped David’s hand and shook it firmly. “Forgive my surprise, but you seem to have popped out of the woodwork.”
They looked at each other, a silent acknowledgment that couldn’t have been put into words. Al had loved Jesse. Still did, perhaps. His unflinching gaze held full recognition of what David and Jesse shared. But there was no jealousy in his face or in the clasp of his blunt fingers. Only infinite sadness.
He deserved to be told the truth. To know that Jesse would be well and deeply loved, in this life and beyond.
“I wasn’t hiding him—not in the way you think,” Jesse said. “There is an explanation, and you’re probably the one man in the world who’ll get the unexpurgated version.” She chuckled dryly. “I hope you still have an open mind.”
Al released David’s hand. “After what I saw today, I could believe anything,” he said. “I’ve come to understand … how much I still have to learn.”
“Don’t we all,” Jesse said. “Don’t we all.”
The first fire truck arrived with a roar and shriek of sirens, followed by the police. Al gave David a brief nod, acceptance in his dark eyes, and went to join the uniformed men who rushed to ready their equipment.
Jesse started after him and cast David an apologetic glance. “I have to go talk to the police,” she said. “Just a few more minutes, and then we can—”
David didn’t argue. He swept Jesse behind the nearest tree and resolutely finished their interrupted kiss. Only after a rapturously oblivious interlude did he let her go.
“I won’t be long,” she said breathlessly, backing away step by reluctant step. “Wait for me …”
He caught up with her and cradled her face between his hands. “We have forever, my love. I’m yours, body and soul.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Megan’s birthday party was a rip-roaring success. Nearly everyone Jesse invited had shown up at Al’s for the occasion—a celebration as much for new beginnings as Megan’s special day. Kirk Moran and his mother were the guests of honor. Kim was there, and several of the staff members from Blue Rock, but others had come as well—townsfolk Jesse’d never gotten a chance to know, people who would have called her crazy only a few weeks past.
Since Gary’s death and unmasking a month ago, Jesse had become the celebrity of the day. And she didn’t occupy that dubious pedestal alone.
She looked across the dining room during a brief lull to the table spread with colorfully wrapped gifts and a half-devoured birthday cake. A man sat on one of the chairs, laughing as Megan scrambled into his lap.
David looked almost ordinary now. As ordinary as an incredibly handsome aristocrat could look, dressed in jeans that did as much for him as his previous snug trousers, and a T-shirt just close fitting enough to draw the admiring glances of every woman in the room.
His “formal” appearance in town had come on the heels of Gary’s death, carefully orchestrated to seem as normal as possible in the midst of so much drama and commotion. No one saw any reason to question Jesse’s story t
hat David was an old Peace Corps colleague, traveling in California, whom she’d invited to stay with her. By the time the brouhaha over Gary had died down, Jesse’s obvious relationship with her handsome guest was already starting to seem like old news.
David, however, was anything but old news. People were fascinated by his accent and sometimes quaint speech, which struck them as pleasantly exotic. He charmed everyone without trying, and the fact that Jesse had landed such a catch was another mark in her favor.
All too recently Gary had been the magnet who drew that kind of attention and admiration. Now even his memory was persona non grata. The police had found Gary’s discharged gun at the resort after the fire was extinguished, and Al had given his account of Gary’s self-immolation and Jesse’s attempt to rescue him. Al had left out David’s part in the drama, but with the addition of Wayne’s testimony about Gary’s explicit threats against Jesse in their final conversation, and Joan Copeland’s letter and evidence, it was suddenly clear to even Gary’s most ardent supporters that he’d been a fraud, a cad, and a murderer.
Poor Jesse, they said; a pity that she’d been at his mercy, but she’d stood up to him in the end. Everyone agreed that they’d never quite trusted Gary Emerson. Wayne had even come to Jesse, hat in hand, to apologize for his support of Gary and his misjudgment of her. It had been his warning phone call that sent Al to the resort in time to witness Gary’s death.
Good old Al; he’d been prepared to confront Gary head-on to defend his friend. He had accepted David and his otherworldly origins with hardly a blink, and in spite of their differences the two men seemed well on their way to a strong friendship. Jesse had overheard Al mentioning Vietnam to David, one soldier to another, in a way he never would have done in the past.
Al had left behind his philosophy of noninvolvement, and Jesse had a feeling that he, like so many others in Manzanita, was about to make some changes in his life.
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