by Renee George
Frank out and out guffawed. “That’s how it worked for me.”
“You being in love with your best friend might have had something to do with the way your wife behaved,” David said.
Frank shook his head. “You’re going to give Liv the wrong impression. You know I loved her.” He looked at me. “I never strayed, not once. Ray and I didn’t admit to our feelings until after she passed.”
I nodded. There are other ways to hurt someone than cheating, but now was not the time for judgment or recrimination. Life was too short, a lesson I was learning quicker than I liked.
David kissed my cheek. “Today, I’ll love you. Tonight, I will love you and cherish you. Tomorrow, I will love you, cherish you, and fight like hell to break Moloch’s hold over you.”
I patted his cheek. “It’s a deal.” I didn’t want to think about tomorrow or the next day. I just wanted to live in the now. To be with David as if it was the beginning, not the end.
“So, when are we having this shindig?” Frank asked. He transferred the bacon to a paper towel to drain.
“Will you and Ray stand with us?” David asked. “Be our witnesses?”
“That’s a dumbass question. You already know the answer is yes. You think we’re going to hide in the barn while you all exchange I do’s. Don’t be a dolt.”
“All right,” David said, swiping his hand in Frank’s direction, and sounding a lot like a cantankerous old man. “You don’t have to be an ass about it.”
Ray strolled into the kitchen looking much healthier than he had the day before. “Now, don’t you two mind Frank. He’s mad because I won’t make another chemo appointment.”
Frank threw the metal spatula into the sink. It clanged as it bounced against a spoon and coffee mug. “Breakfast is ready,” he said grumpy as all get out. When Ray tried to help him transfer the bacon to the table, Frank snatched it away from him. “Just go sit down, will you?”
Ray held up his hands in surrender and took a seat at the table. I carried the plate toast over.
“No eggs?” asked David.
“Are you asking for trouble?” I said as Frank’s face turned the color of freshly peeled beets. “This is great, Frank. Mmm mmm. Love me some bacon and toast.”
Frank plopped the plate of bacon down on the center of the table. He’d already set up plates, forks, and napkins. “Someone go get Ennis. He’ll work himself stupid if you let him.” Before Ray could get up again, Frank said, “Not you.”
“I’ll get him,” David grumbled. Then he grumbled a bunch of unintelligible stuff as he left the room.
“I’m starting to get a clear picture of what it’s been like around here since I left.” I put a piece of toast on my plate and stacked four pieces of bacon on top. “You guys are the rural version of Grumpy Old Men.”
Ray smiled. “With Walter Matthau. I loved that movie.”
Frank fixed me with an intense stare. “You don’t have any idea what it’s been like, Liv. David’s not been the same since you left. The past two days, I’ve seen my friend again.” His hard eyes softened. “Thank you.”
Ray put his hand on mine. “It really is good to have you back, Liv. You and David. No matter how long it lasts, we won’t regret it. At our age, there are very few second chances.” He leaned sideways and kissed my cheek. “Congratulations on your engagement.”
We agreed to get married at four in the afternoon. Frank and Ray banished me to the upstairs, while Ennis kept David occupied in the basement. Personally, I thought the notion of keeping us apart was archaic, but it did allow me time to get a few of demon hunting supplies out of the back of my car. I still couldn’t believe Sandra stole my purse. Was nothing sacred anymore? She proved unequivocally, there may be honor among thieves, but that didn’t apply to minions.
I spent the afternoon in David’s room going through of my arsenal of supplies, silver spikes, wooden stakes for vampires, though I’d only ever met one of them, and I didn’t get a chance to stab him in the heart, Solomon’s Key, or what some called a devil’s trap, diagram, charred branches from the Ficus Religiosa otherwise known as the sacred fig, much more powerful than using chalk when enacting drawing spells, Dead Sea salt, candles, sulfur, brimstone, a carton of cigarettes, and a lot of other odds and ends I’d picked up over the years. At the bottom of my bag was an old biscuit tin. The label had worn off years ago from the constant friction of traveling in a stuffed bag. It was the size of a large book. I’d bought it in 1910 at a general store, and after I ate the biscuits, which were more like cookies than real Southern biscuits, I used it for storage.
I opened the tin, something I hadn’t done in a while, and held my breath as the first thing I saw was my mother and father’s hand-written wedding announcement on an old piece of cream-colored linen paper. Jonathan B. Madder and Olivia C. Warden. Tied to the fragile paper with a piece of lace was two plain gold bands. His and hers. I had retrieved them from the farm, along with a few pictures of my Char, Liz, and Lise dressed in frilly frocks after my sisters had died and the farm went up for auction.
A quiet knock startled me. I looked up to see Ray standing in the door. “How are you doing?” he asked.
“Fine.”
“This is your wedding day, not your execution. Though Frank likes to say that weddings are much like executions.” He smiled. “Can I help you with anything?”
“You can make sure that soul spell of yours works.” I was teasing, but not kidding.
“I’m eighty percent confident it will work.”
“I guess that’s better than the fifty-fifty odds you gave me yesterday.”
“David has a mighty fine collection of occult books. I was able to parse more information that ups our odds of success. Can I come in and sit a spell?”
“Sure,” I said feeling guilty I hadn’t offered. “Come in. I’m just going through some stuff.” I closed the lid on the tin.
Ray sat down on the other end of the bed. He nodded to me. “What are you wearing for the wedding?”
“I don’t know. I don’t have anything white. Too hard to get the blood stains out, even with dry cleaning.”
“After the ruckus you and David made up here last night, I don’t think you could wear white without bursting into flames.”
I flushed. “You all heard us?”
“This is an old farmhouse, Liv. The vents act like echo chambers.”
“Oh, God.” Note to self for honeymoon night: Kick everybody out of the house.
“I’m pretty sure I heard one of you say those very words.” He sniggered. “Multiple times.”
“You can just git if you’re going to keep razzing me.”
“Seriously, though. What are you going to wear? We have about an hour before the ceremony, and Frank has informed me that I can nap or relax up here with you.”
“He’s worried about you. Why are you quitting the chemo, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Ray shrugged. “You and David. You both are making the most of the time you have left with each other. I can’t have any quality of life as long as I keep up the chemo and radiation. I just want to enjoy the time I have left. These past two days have been the most fun I’ve had in a year.”
“I’m glad my crisis is making your life more exciting.”
“I didn’t mean—”
I laughed. “Now, I’m just razzing you.” Ray’s mouth and eyes relaxed, and I gave him a quick hug. “Let’s live life.” I stood up. “I’ll show you what I got in dresses, you tell me if any of them are wedding appropriate.” It made me wish Eliza was here. She was the best when it came to dressing for social and formal events.
“Wear the lavender dress, Olivia,” Eliza said as if my wishing for her made her appear. “It compliments your pale skin tone and your periwinkle blue eyes. And wear your hair up. A wedding deserves an updo.”
“Liz? Are you okay? Have you seen Charlotte and Elise?”
“Enjoy your day, sister,” she said, her sweet smile fading as fast a
s her ghostly image. “I am with you.”
And with that, Eliza was gone.
“Did you just get another visit from your sister?”
“Eliza this time.” I’d managed to see all three of them. And weirdly, during times when I needed them the most. I went to my trunk of clothes that David had brought up from the car for me before he’d gone off with Ennis. I opened it and shuffled my way through my items until I pulled out the lavender halter dress Eliza had encouraged me to wear. “My sister says this one will work for a wedding.”
Ray nodded, “You’re gonna look pretty as a picture, Liv. David’s a lucky man.”
Only he wasn’t. Neither of us was lucky. But he’d been right the night before. Not stealing joy when we could, would be worse than death.
A piano rendition of Walking After Midnight preceded my walk down the stairs. Ray lent me his arm to escort me down the steps. Nervous sweat dripped down my back, making me wish I’d bathed with David’s Speed Stick. Strangely, I rarely perspired. I’d always thought it was a side of effect of my immortality, but right now, I was making up for it by the bucket full.
I fanned myself. “Sheesh, is it warm in here?” I asked Ray.
He patted my hand. “I think it’s you, sweetheart. Everything’s fine.”
As we approached the lower steps, I saw the living room for the first time. All the furniture had been pushed away from the center. David, dressed in a black, ill-fitting suit, but more handsome than I thought possible, teared up as I stepped into the room. He held a bouquet of wild chicory flowers, purple rain sage, and wild bergamot, all lavender-colored flowers. I fought to breathe through the emotions burbling inside me.
Ennis stood in front of David, and Frank finished playing the Patsy Cline song as Ray handed me off to my fiancé. I smiled. Soon, he would be my husband. “Liv, you’re beautiful.” His hazel eyes glittered with unshed tears. “Today, I am the happiest man alive.” He gave me the flowers. “I hope you don’t mind that I made this for you from wildflowers around the farm.”
“I love them. They match my dress.”
He took my other hand and brought it to his lips. “I’ve always loved you in lavender.”
Had Eliza known that? Is that why she’d chosen the dress? I smiled and blinked through my own tears. I always thought I was taking care of them, but maybe they’d been taking care of me too.
“Are you ready?” he asked me.
“I want nothing more than to marry you right now. To be your wife.”
We turned to Ennis as Ray and Frank took up positions on either side of us.
“David and Olivia. We are gathered here today to celebrate the union between my best friend of seventy years and the woman he’s loved for almost as long. I know that in my lifetime I’ve seen many impossible things become possible. Miracles, if you will. But this, seeing you two together as if it were yesterday, this perhaps is the greatest miracle I will ever witness.” He grinned, then reached up with this thumb and pushed up his upper plate. “Damn dentures.”
David, Ray, Frank, and I all laughed, easing the nervous tension in the room.
“Do you all want to say something before we get on with this?” asked Ennis. “I mean, do you have vows you want to exchange?”
I hadn’t prepared anything to say, but David nodded and said, “Yes, I wish to speak.”
Gah! I gulped as he turned to face me.
“Liv, the first time I met you, you were wearing jeans, work boots, a man’s tee-shirt, and you had a scarf holding your hair up, and all I could think was, damn, who is this woman, and how can I get her in my life? You were brash and fierce, and tougher than any man I’d ever met.” He smiled. “Present company included. When you left, a part of me left with you. And when you showed up this week,” he put his hand on his chest, “I felt that piece return. You know how after a long drought everything is shades of brown and gray and it just feels like the world is covered in dust.”
I nodded.
“You are the rain. You wash it all away, the gray, the dust, and make everything green again.” A tear rolled down my cheek, and David wiped it with his thumb. “There you go,” he said, his voice gentle. “Making it rain.” He held my hand tightly. “I love you, Olivia Madder, and I will never stop loving you.”
“Until death do us part,” I said, unable to keep the bittersweet tone from my voice.
He cupped my chin, his hazel eyes bright green now with emotion. “I already died once, sweetheart, and it didn’t stop me from loving you.”
“David, I have been on this earth for one hundred and seventy-eight years. I have seen wars fought, dictators rise to power and fall, I’ve lived through the Depression, through assassinations, and I’ve seen just about all the evil this world has to offer.” Cripes. My vows were off to a depressing start. “But you,” I said softly, “you made me believe...Oh, Jesus.”
Frank handed me a clean hanky he’d used as a pocket square. I dabbed my eyes then blew my nose with it and handed it back. He took it, albeit, reluctantly.
“Thanks, Frank. Uhm, what was I...oh, yeah, you made me believe that hope existed. That it was real and tangible. Not just something poets wrote about. I could touch it. Being with you, loving you, it’s the only thing real in my life.” I shook my head. “I’m really terrible at this.” I should have just let Ennis do his thing when it was my turn. I gazed into David’s eyes, his grin infectious. “I guess, I’m saying, I don’t care if we have one day or one minute, I don’t want to spend a second of whatever time we have left without you. I love you, David Bryant Jensen, and I want to be your wife more than anything in the world or beyond.” David squeezed my hand. He was smiling so hard it made my cheeks hurt.
“That was beautiful,” Ray said. He made a great honking sound as he blew his nose on a hanky he’d had in his pocket. “Just beautiful.”
David and I turned back to Ennis. “We’ll skip the rings,” said Ennis.
“No.” I cleared my throat. “I have rings.” I’d used the lace from my parents’ wedding invitation as my something old to decorate my hair. I carefully untied it and slid my parents’ rings off into my hand. “I don’t know if they’ll fit, but they belong to my momma and my poppa. Is that okay?”
The unshed tears in David’s eyes dripped as he blinked. “Yes,” he said. “More than okay. I’d be proud to wear your father’s ring.”
“Excellent,” Ennis said. Followed by a sniff from him, then Frank, and another nose honk from Ray.
I giggled. Men.
Ennis looked at David. “Place the ring on Olivia’s finger.”
David, hands shaking, slid the gold band over my left ring finger. It was a tiny bit big, but I didn’t mind. After, Ennis nodded. “David, do you take Olivia as your lawful wedded wife?”
“I do,” David said. “I desperately do.”
Now I was grinning.
“Olivia, will you place the ring on David’s finger to symbolize your eternal love?”
I slipped Poppa’s ring on David’s right ring finger, and it fit him as if it had been made for him. He beamed at me with love and pride.
“Olivia, do you take David as your lawful wedded husband?”
“I do,” I said. “With the same desperation.”
David chuckled.
“What God has bound together, let no man separate,” Ennis said formally, then continued with, “David and Liv, I pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss now.”
And kiss we did. Heaven’s mercy, that man curled my toes.
I took David’s hand when we came up for air and turned to our three compadres. “It’s going to be a long night, boys. Better break out the earplugs.”
David swooped me off my feet, and I squealed as he carried me to the stair.
“Wait, wait,” I said.
“What for?”
I looked back at the three men, and yelled, “Head’s up!” as I tossed my bouquet.
It landed on the floor between them. They all jumped away from it
like it was a snake ready to strike. Spoilsports.
As we rounded the top stair to the hall, I saw the briefest flicker of Charlotte, Elise, and Eliza, but it was too fast to know if it was real or a trick of my imagination. Tomorrow would be for them, but tonight was for David and me, and I wouldn’t cheat him of our last night together with any amount of sorrow.
“Take me to bed, my husband,” I told David.
“It’s my pleasure, my wife,” he replied.
Chapter 17
I lost track of how many times we made love, but when the grandfather clock downstairs starting to ring at midnight, I felt something inside me break.
Searing pain wracked my entire body, and I screamed.
“Liv!” David shouted. “Damn it, Liv! What’s happening? What’s wrong?”
“It hurts,” I cried as incredible terror ripped through me, twining with the agony that vibrated in every nerve ending. “It hurts like nothing I’ve ever felt before.”
“Crap, Liv, you’ve got bruises all over your body.”
“Moloch.”
“No,” said David. “You still have time. We have a day left!”
The plan had been for everyone to be in the same room when my deal officially broke—and the second I died, Ray would enact the spell to capture my soul. But apparently, we’d misinterpreted the timeframe. “My deal is officially done,” I huffed. The breath whooshed from my chest as a punching pain hit me in the gut. “I think I’m getting my ass kicked by time.”
David threw on his underwear, wrapped me in a quilt, and scooped me up. Him carrying me downstairs while I was shrieking in pain wasn’t nearly as romantic as when he carried me up. Ray was right about the vents being echo chambers because all the guys were stumbling out into the hallway as David yelled, “It’s go time!”
“What?” yelled Ennis. “Now?”
“You wanna wait until she’s dead?” asked Frank. “Ray, come on.”
