Eternally Yours 1

by Gina Ardito

  Praise for Gina Ardito

  “…Ms. Ardito allows the reader to feel the sensations while grasping hold of the characters and never letting go…” - Coffee Time Romance on The Bonds of Matri-money

  “…I literally read this book straight through. I read all night. I could not put it down…. The characters were so endearing…. I’ve never read anything like it…” - The Romance Studio on A Little Slice of Heaven

  “…Never tedious or slow paced, this book is masterfully written and exquisitely drawn…” - In D’Tale Magazine on Echoes of Love

  Eternally Yours

  by

  Gina Ardito

  Published by Victoria Ardito

  Copyright 2012 Victoria Ardito

  All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Dedication

  For Tori, who said from the start, “This story is mine!” At last, it is.

  Always believe in yourself: dream big, love with all your heart, and seize every opportunity life offers you. I love you, Tkat!

  Chapter 1

  Jodie Devlin sucked at life. So she refused to screw up her death. No turning back, no chickening out, hoping life would get better tomorrow. Like, magically, some genie would appear to make her successful, beautiful, happy. Loveable.

  The Jeep explosion so many years ago in Castelan, El Salvador had stolen her parents, scarred her flesh, and ruined any possible chance she’d know love. Gabe had never loved her. She understood that now.

  He didn’t deserve you, some inner voice told her.

  No more fantasies, she fired back. After all, she knew the truth. She hadn’t deserved him.

  For once, though, she’d do something right. Her suicide tonight would go down perfectly. A combination of over-the-counter sleep aids, a brand new bottle of Grey Goose, and a filled bathtub gave her a trifecta guaranteed to succeed.

  On a half-dozen gulps of vodka, she downed all thirty blue pills, a handful at a time. The mixture hit her stomach like a prize fighter’s punch, but she swallowed hard to keep it all down. No way did she intend to exit like that 1940’s starlet she’d read about—Lupe Something-or-other. The Mexican Spitfire had set up a gorgeous room, donned the perfect gown, hand-picked the flowers and candles. Unfortunately when the cops found her the next day, poor Lupe sat hunched face-first in the toilet.

  Jodie required more dignity for her end. The dignity she’d never gained in life. Shivering at the bitter memories, she stepped into the hot, glistening water. Aaaahhhh. Who knew death could come so pleasantly?

  Gentle hands caressed her as she began her slow descent into nothingness. A cote of doves surrounded her, lifting her on snowy wings. Their feathers whisked her cheeks like the kisses of angels. Peace rolled over her, wrapped her in a precious homespun afghan. Her pain evaporated, leaving only sweet vanilla warmth. Closing her eyes, she allowed the birds to carry her onward…

  “Next! Yoo-hoo? Next!”

  Jodie snapped alert at the snotty woman’s prompt. Where was she? Was this hell?

  Blinking, she studied the polished golden marble walls and floor. Red velvet ropes with brass fittings encased her in a serpentine line along with a host of other barely attentive people. Each figure—male or female, tall or short, fat or thin—wore a diaphanous lavender toga. When she looked at her own body, she saw the same garment draping her limbs, soft as spun spider webs.

  They stood in a tremendous reception area of what might have been a five-star hotel lobby. Deep mahogany wood framed the glass elevators and a wraparound railing one story above her. Although a dozen doors broke up the monotony of solid walls, none held an exit sign or window which might lend a clue to her whereabouts. From the ceiling, at least a hundred stories up, chandeliers dripped filaments of colored light like purple rain. Was she in Prince’s house? Oh, God, this was hell!

  But no. Behind her, a waterfall, surrounded by lush ferns and majestic palm trees, splashed cool mist into primavera air. Men and women, garbed in white uniforms with gold braid, raced around life-sized white marble statues of angels, unicorns, and smiling dragons.

  “Neeeee-exxxxt!” The woman’s voice turned the one syllable word into two.

  Jodie’s gaze flew to a long reception desk with ten clerks behind and nine customers in front. A dark-haired, sloe-eyed woman in the same white and gold uniform leaned forward from the open slot and signaled to Jodie with a crooked finger. Confusion dogging her steps, she inched forward. The woman’s attention veered to a computer monitor and keyboard, fingers clickety-clacking with expediency. “Name?”

  “Jodie Devlin,” she replied through dry lips.

  “Any middle initial?”

  “R. Rosalind.”

  The woman frowned. “Date of death?”

  She almost answered with her birth date, but then stopped to think. “Date of…” A lump rose in her throat, and she swallowed with difficulty. “…death?”

  Over the polished mahogany top, the woman’s hands rolled in mid-air. “Can we speed this up, please? There are a thousand people behind you. What was your date of death?”

  “The eighth of A-April.”

  Brow cocked, the clerk sighed. “You’re not on my reservations list. Are you sure you’re supposed to be here?”

  Was she? She had absolutely no idea. After another glance at the marble and mahogany décor, the crowds of lost sheep, and the harried attendants, she leaned over the counter to whisper, “Ummm…where exactly is here?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” Palms against the marble edge, the woman pushed away from the keyboard. Her barstool-style wheeled chair skidded across the floor. Leaning, she slammed a large red button on a table behind her. “Sherman? I think I’ve got a thirty-six-slash-eleven over here.” She rolled back behind the counter, eyes narrowed. “Are you, perhaps, a suicide?”

  Heat rocketed into Jodie’s cheeks—did she have cheeks? Whatever she had, embarrassment shot flames through her face. She managed a slight nod, and then turned away.

  Through the milling crowd, a small man, only about as high as her shoulder and narrow as a swizzle stick, strode toward her. He was garbed entirely in white except for the gold studs winking in his earlobes. Despite the snow white clipboard he clutched under one arm, he extended his hands in greeting. “Miss? My name is Sherman, and I’m the spirit guide here. How can I help you?”

  He had a face like an apple left too long on a windowsill, ruddy bronze with sunken cheeks, wizened to a state that made him appear ancient, yet ageless. Long white hair, a lion’s mane, swept away from his high forehead and fell to his padded shoulders.

  “She doesn’t have a reservation,” the woman said with a sneer. “At least not for her current date of death.”

  Understanding dawned on his mushy face. “Ah. Miss…?”

  “Devlin.” Jodie’s reply sounded hoarse in her sandpaper throat. Swallowing, she tried again. “Jodie Devlin.”

  “Miss Devlin, why don’t you step away from the reception desk so we can continue moving others forward? If you’ll follow me, I’m sure we can straighten this out.” Without waiting for her reply, he turned to head back into the crowd.

  Sidling away from the snotty clerk, Jodie hurried to catch up to Sherman. “Straighten what out? What’s going on? Where are we? Is this heaven?”

  “Please, Miss Devlin. Follow me.” He led her beneath a carved marble archway to a set of double-doors. As he approached, the doors whisked open on a sigh of air. Inside, gold leather club chairs sat at each corner of an enormous white marble desk. He pointed to the chair nearest the entrance. “Have a seat, please.” He tossed his clipboard on the desktop and took up residence in the kingpin’s seat.

  Too antsy to
relax, she sat on the edge of the club chair, fingernails digging holes into the supple leather armrests.

  From the top drawer, he pulled out what looked like a small hand mirror and passed it to her. “Please focus your eyes directly in the two areas drawn on this device.”

  Taking the mirror, she noted twin dark circles in the center of the glass. “What is this?”

  “An identification scan,” he replied. “Now if you’d focus your gaze on those two pinpoints and count to ten, please? Oh, and try not to blink until after you’ve reached ten.”

  She lined up the two miniature circles with her pupils and counted. “One, two, three…”

  By the time she reached ten, the gentleman had turned his attention to the clipboard, which had suddenly begun to blink with an increasing and decreasing purple glow. Strange neon characters raced like ants across the clipboard’s face.

  “Ah, here we are. Jodie Rosalind Devlin. Only child of Rachel Andrea Gibbons Devlin and John Michael—also known as Jack—Devlin. Both deceased during a violent political coup in Central America. You were severely injured, but survived and returned to the United States where you attempted to rebuild your life. And you almost succeeded.” He looked up at her, brow steepled. “Your date of death should have been June 26, 2068.”

  The hand mirror doohickey fell from her hands and splintered into shards on the marble floor. “Wh-what?”

  He shot a glance at the shattered glass, frowned, and then reverted his steely gaze to her. “Oh, yes. You heard me correctly. More than fifty years from your suicide. Do you want to know what would have happened had you decided against designing your untimely end?”

  Nausea rose in her throat, and tremors danced across her flesh. Too stunned to speak, she nodded.

  “According to your file, which, of course, will now have to be updated, Jodie Rosalind Devlin, only child of Rachel Andrea Gibbons Devlin and—”

  “You said that already.”

  He waved a hand at her. “Jodie Rosalind Devlin married Gabriel David Sachs on September 8, 2012. Subsequently, she gave birth to three children: Jacqueline Monet Sachs, Iona Renoir Sachs, and Aidan Degas Sachs.”

  An ocean of self-pity threatened to drown her. Dear God, what had she done? Of course. Gabe, the art historian, would insist on naming his children after the Impressionists. She fisted her hand in her mouth to keep her agony inside.

  “These three children presented the couple with eight grandchildren,” Sherman continued reading, apparently unaware of her turmoil—or else, he didn’t care. “Would you like to know their names?”

  She shook her head, her tongue too thick inside her mouth to form words.

  Folding his arms on the desktop, he looked up at her, his agate gaze solemn. “You bore so much pain after the loss of your parents, my dear. I felt your agony when the fire ate your flesh in that explosion. I know the scars you try desperately to hide. I have ached for your loneliness. I have seen you struggle time and again to connect with someone in the outside world. Gabriel was your gift, your reward for a life lived with so much suffering. Had you been able to withstand this last test, you would have known a joyful life. Your choice to self-terminate destroyed your chance at happiness. And such a selfish act not only affected your future, but the future of your husband, your children, their spouses, their children, and so on and so on.”

  Rubbing fingertips over his eyes, he frowned. “Surely, then, you understand why we become perturbed at those who end their lives precipitously. Your rashness has disrupted the natural order we struggle to maintain here in the Afterlife.”

  Shame forced her head down, and she looked at the puckered pink flesh above her bare feet. “I’m sorry.”

  His sigh communicated indulgent surrender. “We’re accustomed to these kinds of glitches and will make the necessary rearrangements. However…” He paused to study the clipboard again.

  To keep from biting her nails, she sat on her hands. The silence in the room became a wall, threatening to suffocate her. “However?” she prompted.

  He shrugged. “Your rooms are not prepared because you’ve arrived long before your reservation is due to be processed.”

  “S-so…” She tried to force a light-hearted tone. Her stutter and his arched brows suggested she’d failed. “W-what happens now?”

  “We have contingency plans in effect for all untimely deaths, including suicides. You’ll be assigned a job here until such time as arrangements can be made for you to be transferred elsewhere.”

  “Transferred?” An icy hand clutched her throat. Shit. She’d totally screwed up. What would happen to her now? “Transferred to where? Purgatory?”

  His laughter diminished her little spurt of curiosity, shrank her into the leather until she felt as large as a hobnail. “There is no purgatory, my dear. Or heaven or hell. There is only the Afterlife.”

  “What exactly is the Afterlife?”

  Fingers tracing the animated characters racing over the clipboard, he offered her a sideways smile. “You’ll find out over time.”

  Great. That was helpful.

  Out of thin air, a musical interlude played. Jodie couldn’t place the melody, but it was lyrical and sweet, like harps in heaven.

  “Ah, look here.” He tapped an index finger on the neon characters, now immobile on the glowing clipboard. “The Board has found a job opening for you.”

  She stared at the purple geometric figures, recognizing nothing legible in the chicken scratch. “What kind of job?”

  He rose and held out a hand. “Come. First we will review your lifetimes with the Council of the Elders. And then you will meet your trainer.”

  ~~~~

  Luc Asante hated hanging around cemeteries. Of all the places his job took him—prisons, woods, abandoned hospitals, battlegrounds—only these mournful havens for the dead and the grieving made him long for his bleak room in the Halfway House. Even on a clear night like tonight, with no breeze, and a full moon illuminating the rows of headstones like books on a library shelf, his nerves frayed. Death was a constant reminder in a cemetery. And Luc needed no reminders about the Great Beyond.

  Twin white lights bounced up the pitted dirt road, piercing the eerie blackness.

  Oh, what fresh hell was this? The captain hated intruders. And if Luc didn’t bag the old sea dog tonight, his perfect record would be shot to hell. No way did he intend to return without the captain. One out, one back. Luc always got his man. Or woman. Or ghoul.

  The vroom of a noisy exhaust system preceded a rust-pitted sedan driving through the never-closed wrought iron gates. As the car drew closer, Luc caught a whiff of burning motor oil. The sedan’s paint color was sun-bleached adobe red, except for the primer passenger door. Only one human demographic would drive that kind of shitbox to a cemetery on a moonlit night. Kids. Had to be some dopey kids.

  Why did teenagers consider cemeteries great sites for consumption of ill-gotten booze, illegal smokes, and make-out parties? He wouldn’t be caught dead in one.

  Hmmm…poor choice of words there. As a living, breathing teenager, he wouldn’t be caught dead in one. These days, he didn’t have much of a choice. Still, he’d have to get rid of these interlopers.

  The car passed his hiding place, and sure enough, a young guy sat behind the wheel with a female passenger’s head leaning on his shoulder. Ah, young love. What a crock!

  Enjoy it while you can, pal. Pretty soon she’ll be after you for the material crap you can give her. If she isn’t already…

  The driver pulled to a stop at the edge of the south gate, near the cliff overlooking the water, and cut the engine. Heavy rock music thumped and wailed from the car’s interior. The couple locked in a shadowy embrace.

  He snorted back a laugh. Whatever these two planned for tonight was about to go vastly awry. Creeping out from behind the captain’s worn headstone, he floated toward them. By the time he reached the car, he’d transformed to mist. Not that the dopey teens noticed. The windows had fogged up so badly th
ere was no way they’d ever feel the drop in temperature or see how clouds suddenly obscured the full moon.

  Time to do the orb thing. He hated throwing orbs, those small haloes of energy that danced through the air and sent paranormal investigators into orgasms of delight. And since his uninvited guests had more interesting tasks on their mind than stargazing, he’d have to direct a tremendous amount of focus into making his orb bright, bold, and menacing enough to scare the crap out of them. And the energy he expended on these two brainless twits would leave him with less fight for whatever else lay in store tonight. What if the captain proved too stubborn to come along quietly? Unless…

  Maybe he should throw a series of orbs to resemble a police cruiser appearing behind their car. Yes. A much better solution. That would scare them away and not draw attention to his actual presence.

  Spreading his vaporous form thinly over the ground, he gathered atoms into static electricity bundles. Electrons skittered through him, and he flattened himself into a pool of negatively-charged plasma covering the dry dirt. When he’d amassed all the energy available in the nearby ground and air, he focused on creating two white lights the approximate size and luminescence of a car’s high beams.

  Needing more electricity, he pulled at the car’s battery. His depletion of sine waves converted the blaring music into a continual static hiss. If the teenagers noticed the change, they didn’t care. More likely they were too involved in each other, too intent on acting on their hormonal impulses, to wonder what happened to their favorite song on the radio. Their car rocked side-to-side in a rhythm Luc hadn’t forgotten from his own reckless youth. The good old days. Before he’d fallen for the wrong woman.

  Smothering the bitter memories, he focused his energies on balancing the two orbs with his mind, an inch or so beneath the car’s rear bumper. He then evoked a series of red and blue lights, which he aligned above his “headlights.” With his false image ready, he lifted the orbs into position directly behind the back windshield. For added effect, he moaned a quick, guttural whoop-whoop, which managed to sound remarkably official.