Final Words

by Teri Thackston

  “Well, I can’t give you daylight right now but…” He put his coffee cup on the table too and then stepped to the door. Reaching inside, he flipped a light switch and flooded the rose garden with lights from below.

  “Oh,” Emma said, leaning further out. “That’s lovely.”

  Jason reached for her hand, enfolding her soft fingers with his own unsteady ones. “It looks even better from the beach,” he said and led her down the deck stairs.

  She went with him but with enough reluctance in her step that he released her once they reached the sand below. His palm felt empty then and he tucked it inside a pocket of his jeans as he led her a few yards away from the house.

  “On a clear, still night I can see the roses from a hundred yards out in the bay,” he said, turning back toward the house.

  Emma turned too and her gasp of delight energized him. The subtle lights he had placed along the base of the rose bed created a glistening upward cascade of white around the green and crimson plants. Each bush appeared as a lush bouquet of leaves and blossoms, alive and dancing in the salty breeze.

  “That is so beautiful,” she whispered. “Your sister and mother would be proud of what you’ve done, Jason.”

  “I hope so.”

  She smiled at him and his heartbeat quickened. He realized that he wanted to see that smile every day for the rest of his life. Waiting no longer seemed an acceptable option.

  Drawing his hands from his pockets, he took a step closer to her. “Emma—”

  Her eyes went large and dark in that moonlit setting but he thought she leaned slightly toward him. Her lips parted and he heard what sounded like a sigh of acceptance, a tiny sound that sent a ripple of need coursing through him.

  But before he could take what she offered, she drew back and cocked her head to one side.

  “Did you hear that?” she whispered.

  Jason could hardly hear anything above the throbbing of his heart. Then, on a wisp of wind, a faint cry reached him.

  “There.” Emma turned toward the bay. “It sounded like someone calling for help.”

  Jason faced the bay too. Moonlight tipped the waves but most of the water was inky black. “I can’t see anything,” he said. “It might have been a seagull.”

  Emma stepped closer to him and one of her hands came to rest on his arm. Just as his mind registered the heat sparked by her touch, a real voice came at them out of the darkness. They both looked to the right. Against the whiteness of the sand, a dark figure ran from one of the manmade fishing jetties some distance away. The beam from a flashlight bounced erratically ahead of the figure.

  “Billy?” the person—a young woman—shouted. “Billy, where are you?”

  Jason heard the other cry again and realized that someone was in the water calling for help. Pulling his cell phone off his belt, he pushed it into Emma’s hands. “Call 9-1-1. Tell them to come to jetty number three at Hyde Beach.”

  As Emma obeyed, Jason took off running toward his house and the lifeguard equipment he kept stowed in a locker under the deck for emergencies like this one.

  Emma talked to the 9-1-1 operator as she ran after Jason. He had grabbed some kind of flotation device and a flashlight and then raced down the beach. She saw him reach the young woman who still frantically shouted and kicked up the water in the shallows. The beam from her small flashlight swung wildly across the waves. Jason turned on his own light and swept a steadier, broader beam across the water.

  “We have a possible drowning victim,” Emma said in response to the emergency operator’s question. “We need an ambulance.”

  “Stay on the line, Dr. St. Clair,” the operator said. “I’m contacting Emergency Services right now.”

  Still holding the cell phone to her ear, Emma ran faster. Ahead, Jason pressed his larger flashlight into the young woman’s hands and then charged into the waves.

  Panic slammed Emma in the gut. She tried to run faster but the wet sand pulled at her feet. Kicking off her shoes, she raced toward the spot where Jason had gone into the water.

  “Oh, God! Oh, God!” The young woman stared with wild eyes at Emma. “Billy’s drowning! Oh, God! Someone do something!”

  Emma grabbed the girl’s wrist as she started to run into the water after Jason. “Stay with me,” she ordered. “An ambulance is on the way. Tell me your name.”

  “Mindy. My name is Mindy.” The girl’s chest heaved with panic. “Billy and I…we were fishing…off the jetty. He fell in and…the current…he couldn’t get out again.”

  Emma’s glance took in the girl’s semi-dressed state—a T-shirt and panties—and she knew they’d been doing something more than fishing off the jetty.

  “Sit,” she ordered and pushed the girl down on the sand. Still holding the cell phone to her ear with her left hand, she grabbed Jason’s flashlight with her right and swept the beam more steadily over the water. Several nerve-racking seconds passed before she located Jason swimming against the waves. His orange flotation device bobbed in the surf beside him.

  Hearing the cry for help again, she moved the light ahead of Jason until she saw something moving in the waves. Then, holding the light steady, she began to pray.

  Pausing to get his bearings, Jason saw the light on the undulating water. Thank God. Emma must have taken the light from the hysterical girl. The beam bobbed around and then fixed on the terrified face of a young man trying to swim against a riptide that had pulled him away from the jetty.

  Stroking through the water, Jason felt the current catch him too, carrying him and his rescue tube toward the struggling figure. Angling his body at the last moment, he slammed into the other man. A gurgled cry erupted from a water-logged throat. Then, in a panic, the man wound his arms around Jason’s head and neck as if trying to climb on top of him. For an instant, Jason considered clipping him on the chin with his fist, knocking him out long enough to keep him from drowning both of them. But not knowing how much water he had already inhaled, Jason wanted him conscious and struggling to breathe.

  “I’ve got you!” he shouted as the riptide pushed them further away from the shore. “Stop fighting me, damn it!”

  Shoving the rescue tube between them, he managed to separate himself from the panic-stricken young man.

  “Grab the tube!” he shouted.

  A wave slapped his face, filling his mouth and nose with briny Gulf Coast water. As Jason drew away, the man transferred his grip from Jason to the tube and they drifted together further out into the bay. Finally, the current seemed to vanish and they floated into calmer water.

  But the danger wasn’t over. The man had passed out. He dangled from the rescue tube, his face in the water.

  Swimming closer, Jason lifted the victim’s face out of the water. Then, taking a deep breath, he hooked his arm around the man’s neck and began to swim for shore.

  Emma ran into the surf as soon as the flashlight beam found two figures approaching a little further down the beach. The girl, Mindy, stumbled into the water after her and the two of them helped Jason and the unconscious young man onto the sand.

  “He needs…CPR,” Jason gasped, falling to his knees beside the man. “He’s…not breathing.”

  Seeing Jason’s exhaustion, Emma nudged him aside. The touch of her hands would reveal if it was too late for Billy. Tilting his head, Emma began to administer CPR. The kid lay still beneath her pumping hand, his lips lifeless against hers. But no spirit appeared and Emma, encouraged, kept up her effort.

  “Billy, please don’t die!” Mindy huddled on the other side of her boyfriend’s body, her hands clutched around one of his where it lay in the wet sand. “Billy, please!”

  Emma rose to pump his chest again. “Keep talking to him, Mindy,” she said. “Call him back. He’ll come.”

  “Billy.” Mindy leaned close to his ear. “Billy, come back. You have to come back. Oh, Billy, please! I love you!”

  Bending over, Emma pinched Billy’s nostrils together and breathed into his mouth agai
n. She felt a gurgle in his chest and, seconds later, he coughed up sea water.

  “Oh, thank God! Thank God!”

  As Mindy fell across her boyfriend’s heaving chest, Emma sat back and took a deep breath for herself.

  “Mindy?” Fluid still filled Billy’s mouth, garbling his voice. “They sent me back. I wanted to go but they sent me back.”

  A chill crawled through Emma and she glanced at Jason. He stared at Billy as if confused. Then he shook his head and shifted his gaze toward Emma. Although he still breathed hard, he managed a smile for her.

  “Didn’t I tell you,” he gasped, “that I know…how to show a girl…a good time?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Opening her eyes, Emma stared at the unfamiliar sunlit ceiling and gradually remembered where she’d spent the night. Wooden rafters and rustic beams hung overhead and the air breathed in a gentle, soothing rhythm around her as sunlight warmed her face. Lifting her head, she turned toward the light.

  Sheer curtains rippled over an open window as a breeze drifted inside, heavy with the scent of the sea and lush roses. Shifting her gaze, she saw Jason sprawled in a faded blue recliner near the foot of the floral sofa upon which she lay. His head tilted to one side and his eyes were closed. The white terrycloth bathrobe he wore gaped open across his chest and she could see a sprinkling of dark hair there as his chest rose and fell with deep, peaceful breaths.

  Memory swept over her. Soon after the ambulance had taken Billy and Mindy away and a pair of uniformed police officers had taken their statements, she and Jason had returned to the house. Chilled and weary, soaked to the skin, they’d changed into matching robes—a pair that his parents had brought home years ago from a cruise—and then settled in the living room. They’d sipped coffee laced with brandy and talked about the near tragedy on the beach.

  Jason hadn’t mentioned what Billy had said about not wanting to come back so Emma hadn’t brought it up, either. But she’d known exactly what the youth was talking about. It still puzzled her, though, that the young man’s spirit had not appeared to her during his few minutes of death. She’d thought she would have been able to communicate with him.

  As the night wore on, she’d stopped worrying about it as she and Jason chatted about college and families and their jobs. Finally, a comfortable silence had settled over them. She’d worried briefly over their state of dress and the interested gleam in his eye. But, true to his word, he hadn’t made a move on her. Comfortable in his presence, emotionally exhausted by the events of the night, Emma had eventually fallen asleep listening to the bay breathe outside his little house.

  Blood warmed her face now. She’d actually fallen asleep on the man!

  She looked at him again. He had to be uncomfortable sprawled sideways like that, one leg hooked over the arm of the chair, the other extended. She wondered if he’d meant to fall asleep there or if the peace of the night had simply overtaken him too. In spite of his awkward position, he looked relaxed.

  And sexy, she confessed to herself as her gaze skimmed the expanse of inner thigh revealed by a twist in his robe. Long legs, muscular and golden from his time spent living on the beach, sent heat curling through her like smoke and she had to force her gaze back to his face. Still and sculpted, more bronze than his body, it was as kind face as it was handsome

  But kindness, she knew from experience, often reached no deeper than a man’s epidermis. She couldn’t trust his look or his words. A man’s manner proved his nature more than the words of other people did. And that simple fact perplexed her. Jason MacKenzie’s manner last night had seemed at odds with everything she’d heard about him. He’d kissed her—a wonderful kiss—but he hadn’t pushed himself on her. He certainly didn’t act like a guy who went after anything in a skirt. Still, she couldn’t imagine that Brian, Marta and Skitch would have made up all of those stories.

  And there was another reason for her to be glad he hadn’t tried to seduce her last night. Her attraction to him could be a rebound reaction. His natural charm… Well, Alan had been charming and handsome too, so maybe she was just susceptible to such a personality.

  No, she decided. It doesn’t matter what kind of man he is. No matter what my instincts are telling me about him, even if Jason doesn’t live up to his reputation, I’m just not ready to get close to another man yet. Not until I know what I want.

  Jason inhaled deeply and opened his eyes. For a moment, he stared blankly at nothing. Then his gaze met hers. Flecks of gold warmed to life in each brown iris. Smiling slowly, he arched his neck. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning.” She sat up and her face grew warm again. She hoped he didn’t realize she’d been watching him sleep. “How’s your back?”

  “A little stiff.” Straightening his body in the chair, he tucked the robe more securely around himself. His feet, long and wide, settled on the floor. “How about yours?”

  “Great.” She ran one hand over the floral upholstery, watching her fingers to keep from looking at his sexy calves. “You have a very comfortable couch.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’ve passed out on it more than once.”

  She couldn’t resist looking as he stood up and stretched his arms. Her throat went dry when his robe rode up his muscular legs. “All that beer, I guess,” she said hoarsely.

  He narrowed one sleepy eye in her direction and lowered his arms. “There you go, throwing my reputation up at me again.”

  She swallowed to wet her raspy throat. “Sorry.”

  “No offense taken. I hope you’re hungry because I make a killer omelet.” When she smiled in surprise, he settled his hands on his hips. “Don’t tell me you’ve heard disparaging remarks about my cooking skills too.”

  “No.” She drew her legs in and held the robe closed at her neck. “I just don’t know that many men who can cook.”

  “Well, prepare to be impressed.”

  He stretched his arms toward the ceiling again. The hem of the robe rose until she could see the lean muscles in his sun-darkened thighs. Feeling a familiar tickle in the pit of her belly, Emma averted her gaze once more.

  “Your clothes are still in the dryer,” Jason said and stepped around the couch. “It’s in that cupboard next to the bathroom.”

  “Yes, I saw it last night.”

  He nodded. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen after you dress.”

  “Fine. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” Before she gave away what she was feeling, Emma escaped to the bathroom.

  * * * * *

  Jason poured oil in the skillet and then selected four eggs from the carton. What a night. Emma had spent it on his couch, within reach and he hadn’t laid a finger on her. After that brief moment on the beach, he hadn’t even tried to kiss her. He’d wanted to. The need to kiss her made him shake inside even now. But he could wait until she was ready to accept what he felt for her. Even the secrets she held no longer seemed to matter.

  He cracked the eggs into a bowl and listened to the splash of water in the bathroom halfway across the small house. It was a comfortable, feminine sound. He hadn’t brought many women to his home since his sister had died. A purse or sweater on the sofa or a pair of sexy shoes on the floor made the house feel strange. Perfume in the air disturbed its usual sense of privacy and left Jason feeling guilty for allowing other females to enter his sister’s home. The house had always seemed small and cramped and he’d eventually stopped inviting any woman but Charlie’s wife, Veronica.

  This morning, like last night, the house seemed just the right size. Picking up the whisk, Jason grinned and continued making breakfast.

  * * * * *

  Like the rest of the house, Emma noticed, Jason’s bathroom had a decidedly feminine flair. Violets adorned the wallpaper. White porcelain accented the faucets on the sink and bathtub. Lace tipped white hand towels. The style didn’t suit his masculinity and yet he seemed comfortable here.

  The contradiction had her shaking her head. She didn’t want to feel this attraction b
ut she couldn’t help it. He was the kind of man she could lose herself in. But that was unacceptable because she hadn’t really found herself yet.

  Emma studied her reflection in the small, framed mirror above the sink. She’d washed her face, combed her hair and used a toothpaste-covered index finger to scrub her teeth. From the neck up, she was presentable. But after sitting in the dryer all night, her blouse and slacks were wrinkled to a state that only a hot iron could salvage. But she didn’t dare risk staying in that bathrobe any longer. The temptation to strip it off and throw herself at him was just too great.

  Running her hands down the front of her slacks, she sighed and then turned and stepped out of the bathroom.

  With morning light spilling through the bathroom window into the short hallway, Emma noticed for the first time the gallery of family photos on the wall opposite the bathroom door. The photos captured images of Jason and a couple who must be his parents. Jason’s resemblance to his father showed in the dark, shaggy hair and gleaming brown eyes. In several other photos, Emma saw that his mother had passed on her laughing blue eyes to a young woman who looked oddly familiar.

  Emma slumped against the wall behind her as recognition struck. The young woman smiling from those pictures. Emma had seen her during her near-death experience in the emergency room. It was obvious from the photograph that she was Jason’s sister.

  His sister who had died in a hit-and-run.

  “Tell my brother I’m all right too,” the young woman had said in Emma’s dream. “Tell him to stop blaming himself.”

  Emma lifted the photo off the wall. A chill crawled through her as she gazed into those familiar, smiling eyes.

  Suddenly she knew that Jason’s sister had been the spirit with the message. A message for him. The rose in her hand would have been a clue if Emma had known about Jason’s gardening hobby. But even after seeing the plants last night, that clue had flown past Emma like a paper airplane propelled by jet fuel. Rose had wanted Jason to know that she was safe and she’d used Emma to pass the message along. Rose MacKenzie had chosen Emma…most likely because they’d shared similar accidents and they’d both known Brian Reiser. That explanation sounded as legitimate as any other.