by Jo Leigh
Dax dropped the knife, and it clanged on the plate as he crossed the room and kneeled beside her. “I’m going to get you back, somehow, and you will get to teach. Ryan came back to this side, and if he can do it, then you can too. We’ve just got to figure out why your situation is so different than his was, and what we have to do to make it happen. But I swear, I won’t give up until we do.” Then his brows furrowed, and he stared at her cheek. “Celeste?”
“What?” she whispered, then wiped another tear away.
“Ghosts don’t cry.”
She blinked, and another swell of tears spilled free. “Well, I do.” Then she sniffed, and managed a smile. “Want me to add that to the list?”
“Yes. Definitely.”
She wrote it at the end, then she peered past him to the sandwich he’d barely started making. “Go on and finish that. You need to eat.”
He exhaled thickly, then nodded and returned to the counter. “We will figure it out,” he said, more to himself than to her, but Celeste nodded, and returned her attention to the list.
“The next thing is another question,” she said. “And I don’t understand it.”
“What does it say?”
“‘Can she see me?’” Celeste read, then looked toward him. “What does that mean?”
“When you’re in the middle, can you see me, on this side? Because ghosts can typically see those they care about when they’re on the other side. I’ve never met a spirit that didn’t say something about watching the ones they love.”
She shook her head. “Well, you’ve met one now. I can’t see you, and I can’t see my family either. I can’t see anyone when I’m in the middle.”
“What about here? When you’re on this side with me, can you think about your family and see them? Because that’s the way it works, you’d see them, and go to them, if you wanted to visit them again.”
She’d thought of that earlier, and had tried to picture them. “No, I can’t. I can’t see them at all.” She fought another impulse to cry, and wrote that down as well, finishing the list. “That’s the last thing you had,” she said, watching him spread a layer of olive paste on top of the mustard, then stack pastrami, salami and provolone cheese on top of it. He topped that off with the other half of the French bread, then brought it to the table.
“Can you think of anything else to add?” he asked, leaving the plate to go grab a napkin.
“No, I can’t,” she said, eyeing the massive sandwich. There was something about it…
He sat down and noticed where her attention had fallen. “I feel awkward eating in front of you when you can’t, but if I don’t eat, I’m not going to be good for anything later.”
Celeste grinned, knowing what he meant by “good for anything.” He might as well have said “good for everything,” because that’s what she knew he’d give her when they were together intimately again. Everything.
“I’m not hungry,” she said. “I promise.” She was telling the truth; she wasn’t hungry, really, but she did miss the ability to eat.
“I can’t do this,” he said. “You are hungry. I can see it on your face.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I promise I’m not, but I think I’ve tried that kind of sandwich before, and if I remember right, I liked it very much.”
“It’s a muffuletta. Surely you’ve had one.”
She recognized the name at once, though she’d heard it only that one time, that one day. “I had one in New Orleans, before the group boarded the bus heading to the camp.” She paused, then smiled at the memory. They’d had a lot of fun that morning, Celeste and the other counselors with the young campers. A lot of fun, until the bus crashed.
She saw realization dawn on his gorgeous features, the brown depths of his eyes showing intense compassion.
“You’re talking about the day of the crash,” he said softly. “That day?”
She nodded. “That was the first time I tried a muffuletta, and I really liked it.” Then she forced a smile and decided she wanted to change the subject, not necessarily because it bothered her, but because it bothered him. “Did you know the brown in your eyes shows more when you’re worried? But when you’re excited, they’re practically all green.” She grinned, even though he was obviously still thinking about the day of that wreck. She lowered her voice. “And when you come, the gold takes over, those tiny flecks practically glow when you completely let go.”
Mission accomplished. That took his mind off the first time she’d eaten a muffuletta, the last time she’d breathed. In fact, his hazel eyes shifted from dominantly chocolate brown to deep emerald green, and those gold flecks were present on both irises. Celeste loved his eyes, loved everything about him, in fact-his dark brown waves that seemed to always tease his forehead, and his mouth-have mercy, he had such a sensual mouth.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, taking a bite of the sandwich. “As if I didn’t know.”
“I’ll show you…later. For now, why don’t we talk about this list and see if we can’t figure something out while you eat your sandwich.”
He took another bite, and Celeste stood and moved to the refrigerator, then withdrew a Coke. She brought the can to the table, popped the top, then placed it in front of him.
“Thanks.”
“My father never remembered to get something to drink when he ate, either.” She returned to her seat and smiled, remembering her father. “You’d have liked him, and he’d have really liked you. He always tried to act like the big, burly tough guy in a house dominated by females, but once you got to know him, you’d have seen that he was more of a teddy bear than a grizzly.” She laughed softly. “Yeah, you’d have liked him.”
“He’s passed on?” Dax asked.
“No,” she said, shaking her head and wondering why she’d referred to her father in the past tense. He wasn’t the one who was dead. “I guess I’m just assuming that you’ll never meet him, you know, since that’d be kind of difficult to explain.”
His brows dropped a notch, and he took another man-size bite of sandwich. Finally, he swallowed and frowned. “I would like to meet him. I think he’d like to know that his daughter is still hanging out here, and maybe he’d even have an idea why.”
She chewed her lip, shook her head. “That’d just upset him, and I really don’t want to hurt him anymore. He, Mama and Nelsa were so happy the last time I saw them. They saw me off when I left for the camp. My parents didn’t even realize that I wasn’t technically supposed to go. Nelsa knew, but even though she wasn’t keen on me bending the rules, she knew how much I wanted to be with those kids, so she kept my secret.” Suddenly, she remembered…
“You know, there’s something else that I should probably add to this list.”
“What’s that?”
She wrote it down first, then read aloud, “Had the ability to cross, at first, but chose not to.”
He chewed his bite of sandwich and swallowed thickly, then asked, “What do you mean? This summer?”
She nodded. “I saw the light and felt it pulling me toward it. It was as big and bright as I’ve ever seen, and the other people around me, people from the same crash, were going on through. I even heard them laughing and chatting after they entered. They had no fear whatsoever and really seemed happy to get to the other side.”
“But you didn’t go.”
She shook her head. “There was that beautiful little girl standing over to the side and scared. She was trembling all over. The other kids weren’t scared at all, they were actually fine with heading on into the light, and I heard grandparents, and other family members, I suppose, calling them on in. But she was fighting it, and didn’t want to go. And I didn’t want to leave her. She kept saying that her folks were going to take her to the beach, and she really wanted to see it before she left them, and she wanted to see them again, too.”
“Chloe,” Dax said, obviously r
emembering the little girl’s request before she crossed over, to visit with her parents again, and to see the beach before she crossed. Her request had been granted, and Dax had consequently spent a week with her and her parents at the beach so they could communicate with Chloe before she crossed. Celeste had stayed with them that week too, to keep Chloe company, and she’d also fallen in love with Dax.
“Before I decided to stay with Chloe, I know I could have gone into the light, but I chose not to. I chose to stay with her. And then I met you, and I’ve been fighting the light’s pull ever since.” She smiled. “Now I don’t go through because I don’t want to leave you.”
Dax leaned forward, apparently putting these new pieces into the puzzle he was trying so desperately to figure out. “But when Chloe went back to the light, you left, too. That’s when I thought you must have crossed over. Where did you go?”
“I saw the light, and I watched her cross, but again, I wasn’t ready to go. I knew if I crossed, I’d lose all chance of seeing you again.”
“But you went somewhere, right? Where?”
“I don’t know. There’s another path that branches off from the middle. It’s dark, and a little scary to go down, but that’s where I have to go to rest. That’s all I know. And during those two months when I was away from you, I didn’t rest enough, or I’d be stronger now. I only went down that path a few times, and I never stayed very long. I guess I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find you again if I did. I don’t know, since I can’t remember what happens when I’m there. But during most of those two months, I stayed in the middle and tried to get back to you. Do you think-” She wasn’t sure how to finish the question.
“What?” he asked.
“Do you think if I wouldn’t have been going to that camp, wouldn’t have been in that wreck, that I’d have never met you? I mean, in real life? What if the only way for us to be together was for me to die?”
Dax shook his head as he spoke. “No, I can’t believe that. I think-I believe-that if two people are meant to be together, if they are truly soul mates, then they’ll find each other, someway, somehow. And I can’t believe that this is the way we were meant to find each other.”
“Gotta admit, it’d be a unique story to tell people about the day we met,” she said, then laughed, and was glad to see his gorgeous smile at that comment.
“Yeah, I think we’d beat all other first-date stories, hands down, though I’m not so certain many people outside of my family would believe it.”
“I think you’re right, though. I’d have found you, met you, somehow. Our paths would have crossed. I was so excited about where my life was headed, I’d gotten the job I wanted, and then I was going to follow through with the rest of my plan.”
“The rest of your plan?”
She nodded. “Fall in love and settle down. That was all that was missing, and if I’d have met you, I could have taken care of that as well.”
He’d only eaten half of his sandwich, but he stood, took the plate to the counter and wrapped the remainder in aluminum foil, then put it in the fridge. “Come on. Let’s go for a walk and chat. I want to hear more about your family, and anything else that might give me a clue about how to help you stay longer.”
“I thought you were starving. Don’t you normally eat all of your sandwich?”
“I normally eat two that size,” he said, smiling. “But I’ve had enough right now. I don’t want to waste any of our day together. In all honesty, we really don’t know how long we’ve got. I mean, we can try to stretch this out as long as possible, make certain not to exhaust you and cause you to have to leave before you absolutely have to go, but until I can figure out how to keep you here, I’d rather spend my time getting to know you better.” He held out a hand toward her, then frowned and stuffed it in the pocket of his jeans. “Damn rule.”
“It’s okay,” Celeste said, standing and placing her fingertips against his cheek. “I can touch you, and as we learned last night, you’re pretty good at touching me without your hands, aren’t you?”
He leaned toward her, nuzzled her neck with his mouth, then slid those hot lips against her ear. “Hell, yeah.”
She laughed and held out her arm. “Look what you did.” A waterfall of gooseflesh trickled down her arm.
“Okay, that definitely belongs on the list. I know I’ve never seen a spirit with goose bumps.”
“Maybe you just haven’t touched them the right way.”
“I haven’t touched any of my ghosts in any way,” he said.
His comment reminded Celeste that he still had a ghost that he was helping, unless Angelle had already crossed. “Before I forget, has Angelle’s school play happened yet? I told her I’d attend if I could, and since I’m here, if it hasn’t happened, I’d love to go. I’d always thought that it’d be fun to help my students put on something like that, and she was such a cute little girl, and so excited about her classmates singing her song.”
Dax glanced at the kitchen clock. “Actually, her play is tonight, and thankfully, it doesn’t start until eight.”
She turned to see the time. “It’s four-thirty now.”
“Exactly, which gives us time to visit a little longer, and to do-other things-before the show.”
“Other things?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, his suggestive tone holding a promise that she couldn’t wait for him to deliver. “Come on,” he continued. “I want to show you the levee, and the outside of the house, and I want to find out as much about you as I can before you have to leave again. There’s got to be something I can do to keep you here, or at least get you back.”
Her throat tightened at the reality of her limited time here. Maybe Dax was right; maybe by learning more about her, he could figure out what went wrong when she died, and whether there was any way she could get another chance at living, or at least another chance at staying with him.
He led her through a small mudroom that branched off the kitchen. Several wall hooks held rain gear, as well as a few gardening tools, and two deep, oversize sinks occupied one wall. A faded snapshot of a woman pruning a large shrub had been matted and framed and hung on the wall directly above the sink. Celeste recognized the striking woman immediately, even though she was much younger in the photo than when Celeste saw her yesterday. “Adeline.”
He paused, looked at the picture and smiled. “Yeah, she always loved tending to her flowers, particularly her poinsettias.” He pointed to the shrub. “I haven’t seen any around quite as large as the ones we have here. I’ll show you.”
Celeste leaned toward the photo again to examine the shrub. A poinsettia? Since the picture was black and white, she couldn’t tell whether the flowers were red, but they didn’t appear to be darker than the others. “Are you sure?”
He stopped at the door. “About what?”
“That that’s a poinsettia. I’ve never seen one that big, and I don’t see any flowers on it.”
“That’s because poinsettias don’t have flowers,” he answered with a grin. “The modified leaves at the end that most people think are flowers are actually called bracts.” He shrugged modestly. “They were my grandmother’s favorite flower, and she wanted the grandchildren to keep them a part of this plantation almost as much as she wanted us to keep the ghosts around. She liked the smell of magnolias, but you couldn’t keep her away from her poinsettias when she was gardening. Come on and see, then you’ll understand.”
Celeste followed him outside, and immediately noticed what he was talking about. Huge shrubs spanned the entire side of the plantation and were covered in red-tinged blooms-or bracts.
“They’re just starting to turn now, but in a couple of weeks, this will be a sea of red, and cover the entire perimeter of the house.”
“They’re incredible,” Celeste said, taking in the beauty of the shrubs, towering nearly to the second floor of the home. “How tall are they?”
“They’re only supposed to get to a maximum of ten feet or so, but I think ours are hitting twelve now.” He tilted his head and looked down at her. “You’ve never seen poinsettias growing outside?”
“I didn’t even know they’d grow outside of a pot,” she said honestly. “And I don’t think they’d grow at my parents’ house.”
He grinned. “Sure they would. They love the climate here.”
“But I don’t think they would there.” Her reply was drowned out by an older-model red Camaro that pulled up the driveway and then parked. A striking woman with shiny jet-black hair climbed out. She wore a black sleeveless mock turtleneck and black pants, and she looked like…a Vicknair. It wasn’t so much that her features reminded Celeste of Dax, but there was something about her eyes, and the way she studied Dax before she even spoke, that told Celeste this lady knew that this house, and Dax, had secrets.
“Who’s with you?” she asked, moving toward Dax and Celeste.
Dax grinned. “What makes you think someone’s with me?” He didn’t even look at Celeste when he spoke, so she remained silent. She wasn’t sure whether he wanted this lady to know she was here, Vicknair or not.
“For starters, you haven’t been out of your room all day, and that’s not like you, even on a Saturday, so I assumed you had company. Then there’s the fact that I haven’t seen you with a genuine smile in months, but you’ve got one now. And of course, there’s the other…”
“The other?”
“You’ve had sex and-” she tilted her head and lifted one brow “-I think you’ve currently got sex on the mind now. Yep, I’d say that’s a given.”
Dax shuddered. “How you do that is beyond me. And it’s not right.”
