Dream Lake (34 page)

“That’s … me?” Alex asked in bewilderment, backing away. He looked down at his arms and legs. They weren’t there.
Nothing
was there. He was invisible. His gaze returned to the two figures on the road … the body Zoë was crouching over. “That’s me,” he said, his emotions racing across the spectrum from joy to despair.

He wanted to cry, he could feel the agony of sorrow, but his eyes remained dry.

“You never get used to grief without tears,” came a quiet voice beside him. “Who’d have thought one of the things you miss the most is crying?”

“Tom.” Alex turned and seized his forearms desperately. He was shocked to be able to feel the texture and strength of a human form. “What do I do now?” he asked.

“Nothing.” Tom stared at him with grim compassion. “All you can do now is watch.”

Alex’s gaze returned compulsively to Zoë. “I love her. I have to be with her.”

“You can’t.”

“Goddamn it, I didn’t get to say good-bye to her!”

“Easy with the language,” Tom said. “You’re not one for hedging your bets, are you?”

“There are things she needs to know. My life can’t be over yet. I didn’t have enough time with her.”

Tom looked exasperated. “What do you think I’ve been trying to tell you, you lunkhead?”

“If there is a God, I’d like to tell Him to—”

“Shut up.” The ghost shook free of him impatiently. “I just heard something.”

All Alex could hear was Zoë’s broken crooning.

Tom stared distractedly up at the sky, wandering away a couple of steps.

“What are you doing?” Alex demanded.

“Someone’s trying to tell me something. I hear a voice. A couple of voices.”

“What are they saying?”

“If you would just shut your piehole long enough for me to hear them, I’ll—” His attention returned to the sky. “Okay, I get it. Yes. Uh-huh. Right.” After a moment, he looked at Alex. “They’re letting me help you.”

“Who’s they?”

“Not sure. But they said we only have about fifteen seconds left before it’s too late.”

“Too late for what?”

“
Quiet.
They just told me how to fix this, and I’m trying to remember everything.”

“Fix what? Fix me?”

“Don’t distract me. Shut up and go stand next to the body.”

The body.
His
body. Alex wanted so damn badly to be alive, to inhabit that broken carbon shell even for a few moments. Just long enough to tell her what she meant to him. Standing over the prone form, he saw his own still face. Zoë’s hand caressed his motionless jaw, her fingers trembling against his parted lips. The sounds she made were like the fabric of a soul being torn apart. He would never have dreamed anyone could feel such grief for him.

Precious seconds were ticking away.

“Tom,” he said desperately, his gaze locked on Zoë. “Nothing’s happening.”

“I’ll take care of my part of this.” The ghost was at his side. “You do your part.”

“Which is?”

“Focus on Zoë. Tell her what you’d say if you had a couple of extra minutes with her. Pretend she can hear you.”

Alex knelt over her, longing to stroke her hair and dry her tears. But he couldn’t hold her. He couldn’t feel or smell or kiss her. All he could do was love her. “I’m so sorry,” he said urgently. “I don’t want to leave you. I love you, Zoë. You were the one miracle I believed in. You made up for all the rest of it. I wish you could hear me. I wish you could know that.” He felt dizzy, felt himself fragmenting, the bonds of spiritual matter dissolving. The remnants of consciousness slipped between the blurred margins of life and afterlife. His last few seconds were slipping away. Words were no longer possible. Only thoughts were left, moving outward like a row of toppling dominoes.
No matter what I become
…
I will love you. No force of heaven or hell could stop me, and damn anyone who tries. I will love you forever.

Everything went dark, the stars extinguished as the sky collapsed and the world folded in on itself.

“Blaspheming to the end,” Alex heard someone say dryly. “Can’t say I was surprised.”

Alex recognized Tom’s voice. He felt like he’d been encased in lead, his limbs too heavy to move. And then it hit him: he was in a body. He had a physical form.

“Wasn’t easy to get you in there,” Tom informed him. “Like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube.”

Gathering sensations in a frantic rush, Alex perceived that he was lying on asphalt, his neck angled uncomfortably because of the way Zoë was clutching his head against her chest. His lungs felt like they were about to burst.

“Try breathing,” Tom suggested.

Alex pulled in a rush of cool, blessed air, blinked his eyes open, and began to move.

Zoë let out a startled cry. “Alex!” Her shaking hands moved over him. “But … you were … your chest was all … there was no way you could have …” Overcome, she covered her mouth with one hand, staring at him in terrified wonder.

With effort, Alex levered himself to a sitting position. He grasped Zoë’s wrist and pulled it away, and crushed a hard kiss against her lips. He tasted the salt of her tears. “I love you,” he said hoarsely.

Breathing in sobs, Zoë stared at him with streaming eyes.

Tom spoke to him urgently. “Help Emma. She needs to go inside the house.”

Emma was kneeling nearby, watching them blearily, the breeze blowing locks of silvery hair across her face.

Alex struggled to his feet and pulled Zoë up with him.

“Maybe you shouldn’t try to walk,” Zoë protested.

“I’m fine.”

“Alex, you were
hurt.
I saw it.”

“I know what it must have looked like,” Alex said gently. “But everything’s okay. I promise.”

The driver of the car, a distraught middle-aged woman, was babbling about insurance and phone numbers and calling paramedics. Alex said to Zoë, “If you could take care of her, I’m going to bring Emma inside.” Without waiting for a reply, he bent to scoop Emma into his arms. He carried her to the cottage. She was astonishingly light in his arms.

“Thank you for saving me,” Emma said.

“No problem.”

“I saw the car hit you.”

“Just a little bump.”

“The front grille was caved in and the headlight was smashed,” she told him.

“They don’t make cars the way they used to.”

She gave a raspy little chuckle.

Alex carried her into the house and directly to the bedroom. After setting her on the bed, he removed her slippers and pulled the covers up to her chest.

“I was looking for Tom,” Emma said, reaching up to pat his cheek.

Alex bent to kiss her forehead. “He’s here,” he murmured.

“I know.”

Zoë entered the room and fussed over her grandmother, asking worried questions, coaxing her to take a sip of water. As Alex left the room, he heard Emma say a bit testily, “Let me sleep, Zoë. I love you, too. Let me rest.”

When Zoë finally turned out the lights and left the bedroom, Tom went to lie quietly beside Emma.

“I wanted you,” she whispered after a moment. “I couldn’t find you.”

“I’ll never leave you again,” Tom told her. He didn’t know if she could hear him, but he sensed that she was relaxing, settling into sleep.

A plaintive murmur. “I don’t remember anything.”

“You don’t have to,” Tom replied, smiling at her in the darkness. “I found all your memories tonight. I’m keeping them safe for you … they’re waiting inside me like a heartbeat. And I’ll give them to you when the time is right.”

“Soon,” she whispered, turning toward him with a sigh of relief.

“Yes, love … very soon.”

Zoë gestured for Alex to follow her. She led him to her room, her throat tight, her eyes flooding with fresh tears.

He looked down at her with infinite concern. “What’s the matter?”

“I was so scared,” she said in a watery voice, blotting her sore eyes with the sleeve of her robe.

“I know. I’m sorry I pushed Emma like that. But she seems okay now—”

“I meant
you
.” She went to the tiny bathroom, found a tissue, and blew her nose vehemently. Her jaw quivered as she continued. “I saw you get hit by that car—”

“Bumped.”

“Hit,”
she said, letting out a coughing sob, “and you were all s-smashed up on the ground, and I th-thought you were—” Breaking off, she swallowed painfully against another burst of crying. She would never recover from the sight of him unconscious on the road. The fear still hadn’t left her. Her shaking hand touched his shoulder, just to make certain he really was there, that he was alive.

He took both her hands and brought them to his chest, where she could feel the strong, steady thump of his heart. “Zoë. I have so much to say to you, it could take all night. A year. No, a lifetime.”

“Take as long as you want,” she said with a sniffle. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Alex put his arms around her, gathering her into a deep, secure embrace. So strong. So vital. He was silent for a long time, understanding somehow that she needed the feel of him. She laid her head against his chest, breathing in the scents of dirt and tar and night air.

Pushing aside her hair, Alex pressed a few light, hot kisses against the side of her face. “When you told me you loved me,” he said quietly, “I got scared. Because I knew when a woman like you says that, it means … everything. Marriage. A house with a porch swing. Children.”

“Yes.”

He sank his hand into her hair and tilted her head back. He looked into her eyes with a sober intensity that she couldn’t doubt. “I want those things, too.”

She had been shaking with nerves and fear before, but she felt shaky in a new way now, because she understood that he meant it.

His mouth caressed hers, a searing pressure that lingered until her knees went weak. “We’ll take it at your pace,” he said. “As fast or slow as you want.”

“I don’t want to wait,” she told him, her hands creeping up his warm, hard back. “I don’t want to spend a night without you ever again. I want to move in together right away, and get engaged, and set a wedding date, and …” She stopped and gave him a sheepish glance. “Is that too fast?”

Alex laughed quietly. “I can keep up,” he assured her, and took her to bed.

Alex awakened in a wash of morning light. He lay still, relishing the feeling of waking up in Zoë’s bed, his head half buried in lavender-scented pillows. His arm swept across the white sheets, reaching for her, but all his hand encountered was empty space.

“Zoë’s in the kitchen,” he heard Tom say.

Opening his eyes, Alex did a double take as he saw that Tom wasn’t alone. A slender young woman stood beside him, their hands clasped. Her blond hair was arranged in smooth curls and parted on the side. She had a lovely, slightly angular face, her eyes bright with intelligence.

Alex sat up slowly, keeping the sheet pulled up to his waist. “Good morning,” he said, dazed.

She gave him a familiar smile of mischief. It was more than a little disconcerting to see Emma’s smile in this drastically younger version of herself. “Good morning, Alex.”

His wondering gaze slid over the two of them. The air was luminous with happiness, emotion translated to light. Tom had lost the ever-present shadow of loneliness, his dark eyes snapping with joyful vitality.

“Everything’s okay, then,” Alex said, giving them both a questioning glance.

“Glorious,” Emma said. “Everything is the way it should be.”

Tom’s gaze lingered on Emma before returning to Alex. “We came to say good-bye,” he said. “We’ve got places to go.”

“Do you?” It hit Alex that the ghost was finally leaving him. They were both free. What Alex had never expected was that he would feel so forlorn at the prospect. “I’ve never been so damn glad to get rid of anyone,” he managed to say.

Tom grinned. “I’ll miss you, too.”

There were things Alex needed to say …
I will never forget you and your obnoxious singing and smartass comments, and the way you saved my life. You became the friend I didn’t even know I needed. And you made me realize that the worst thing isn’t dying, but dying without ever having loved someone.
However, it didn’t seem that they would have the time or opportunity to talk. And he saw from Tom’s gaze that he understood all of that, and more.

“Will I see you again?” Alex asked simply.

“Yeah,” Tom said, “but not for a while. You and Zoë have a long life ahead of you. And a big family to start on—two boys and a girl. And one of them is going to grow up to be—”

Emma interrupted hastily. “Alex, pretend you didn’t hear any of that.” Turning to Tom, she clicked her tongue reprovingly. “Still a troublemaker. You know you weren’t supposed to tell him anything.”

“It’s your job to keep me in line,” Tom told her.

“I’m not sure anyone could manage that,” she retorted. “You’re a tough case.”

Tom lowered his head to hers until their foreheads touched. “Not for you,” he murmured.

They were silent for a moment, their pleasure in each other’s company almost palpable.

“Let’s get going,” Tom murmured. “We’ve got some lost time to make up for.”

“About sixty-seven years,” she told him.

He smiled into her eyes. “We’d better get started, then.” Sliding an arm around Emma’s shoulders, he guided her to the doorway. Stopping at the threshold, they turned to look back at Alex.

He saw them through a sudden blur. He had to clear his throat roughly before he could speak. “Thanks. For everything.”

The other man smiled in understanding. “You and I both got it wrong, Alex: love does last. In fact … it’s the only thing that does.”

“Take care of Zoë,” Emma told him gently.

“I’ll make her happy,” Alex said in a gravelly voice. “I swear it.”

“I know you will.” She held his gaze for a long, affectionate moment. “Work on that foxtrot,” she eventually said, and gave him a wink.

The next moment, they were gone.

Putting on his jeans, Alex went barefoot to the kitchen, where a pot of coffee was brewing. But Zoë wasn’t there.

Seeing that the door to Emma’s room was ajar, he realized she had gone to check on her grandmother. He found Zoë sitting on the edge of the bed with her head bent. Although he couldn’t see her face, he could hardly miss the glitter of tears falling into her lap.