Sapphire: A Paranormal Romance (45 page)

* * *

Jeremy Liden awoke to a bright,
sunshine-filled morning and blinked his eyes as the rays pierced his eyes.  He
yawned and listened to the sound of his wife, Amelia, showering and singing in
the bathroom down the hall.  She had a beautiful voice; it was something he’d
grown accustomed to waking up to and he looked forward to the sound.  It was
certainly better than waking up to an alarm or some of the nonsense that passed
for music on the radio these days.

When Jeremy had wasted what he felt
was enough time he decided to crawl out of bed.  He was very lucky in that he
had a job which allowed him to work from home (although he kept a small office
downtown that he used often just so he didn't go insane living and working in
the same space all of the time).  That was the luxury of being a writer. 
Jeremy’s wife, however, worked in an office down in the city.  She had to get
up early every morning to get on the road and promptly sit in traffic. 
Fortunately, she usually kept a positive attitude on life, which allowed her to
deal with the traffic issues while continuing to sing and not killing anyone.

"Good morning!" Jeremy
yelled as he walked past the bathroom on his way toward the kitchen where
coffee awaited along with his morning bagel. He was still in his pajama bottoms
and t-shirt.

"Hi, sweetie!" Amelia
called back between verses.

"Should I join you?"
Jeremy called with just a hint of naughtiness in his voice.

Amelia laughed in a way that
indicated the naughtiness was appreciated. "If you had gotten up a little
earlier, sleepy-head, then I would have said yes.  I don't have time now,
though.  You know we rarely do any actual showering once you and I are both
behind this curtain?"

Jeremy laughed. "That's kind
of the point, isn't it?"

"Are you going to call Mike
this morning?" Amelia called out just as he shuffled into the kitchen and
pushed the button on the toaster.

"Yes, dear," Jeremy
answered.  He rolled his eyes. She’d already reminded him to call Mike about a
hundred times and that was just last night.  "I was going to call him
about nine o'clock. That should give him time to get up."

"Okay," Amelia called as
she shut off the shower and pushed back the curtain.

By the time Amelia emerged from the
bedroom in her work clothes and makeup, Jeremy was sitting in front of the
television munching on his bagel.  Jeremy looked up at her and smiled.  Amelia
never failed to impress him when she was fully dressed and ready to go to
work.  She also smelled fantastic.  Her hair was long and blond, cascading down
over her shoulders, almost to the middle of her back.  Her blue eyes sparkled
in the morning sunshine.

"You look fantastic,"
Jeremy said.

"You always know just the
right thing to say," she replied.  She walked over and leaned in to kiss
him.  “What time are we leaving today?"

"You know what time,"
Jeremy said. "I've already told you."

"Indulge me," she said.

"Just after noon, so you
better make sure you can disengage yourself from work, my dear."

"This shall not be a
problem," Amelia said as she leaned in for another kiss.  She let this one
linger a bit longer.

"I really wish you could be
late this morning," Jeremy murmured.

"Me too, but with my leaving
early tomorrow..."

"Yeah," he said, "I
get it."

Amelia stood up and gathered her
purse and the small bag she used to carry her lunch in.  "You
behave."

"Don't I always?"

Amelia smiled and stepped out the
door.  As it closed behind her, Jeremy sighed and promised himself he would
take a very cold shower.  Right now, though, he was firmly in his morning
ritual and there was nothing that could derail that.

Jeremy was a guy who always managed
to fall into a pattern.  When he liked a certain food, he would eat it
regularly until he grew tired of it.  When Jeremy found a show he liked to
watch, he made sure to be in front of the television whenever that show was on.
While some people thought this boring, he always found it comforting.  He
always knew where he was going to be, or hoped to be, nearly every night of the
week.

Jeremy’s mornings were highly
ritualized.  The only variations involved his sex life with his wife. Some
mornings he arose early and joined her in the shower, which was always a lot of
fun and usually extended his mornings a bit.  Other mornings Jeremy stayed in
bed until Amelia was well on her way toward getting ready.  Then it was out
into the kitchen, making a bagel, making coffee, and sitting down in front of
the television to watch the news or whatever program he found interesting on
cable. There he would eat his bagel and drink two cups of coffee. Once the
caffeine was in Jeremy’s stomach, he would start his own showering and getting
dressed.  By the time he was done he would be ready to spend the morning
writing, contacting his agent, doing rewrites, or whatever was necessary. 

However, this week was different. 
This week, Amelia and Jeremy were planning to meet up with their friends,
Stephen and Veronica, who were headed in from out of town.  The plan was for
Jeremy to pick them up at the airport that morning.  At that point, Amelia was
to leave from work and meet them all back at the apartment.  From there it was
piling into Jeremy's car and driving up north, about four hours, into Wisconsin
where Amelia and Jeremy owned a house on the lake.

The house was built from wood and
resembled, in many ways, a log cabin, although it wasn’t entirely made out of
logs.   It was peaceful, though, and Jeremy always smiled when he saw it.  It
was two stories with a large wooden porch at the front.  Inside were two
bedrooms, a living room, a quaint kitchen and a dining room. There was no phone
(nor decent cell phone service), television, or anything else that would
distract from the peace and beauty of the woods and the lake visible from the
front window.  The only indulgence and intrusion from the outside world that
Amelia and Jeremy allowed was a radio they kept in the kitchen.  It was the
perfect getaway for the two of them since they spent most of their time in the
city.

Their friends, Stephen and
Veronica, had been married for years.  Stephen was Jeremy's friend from college
and Veronica was the gorgeous blonde who’d managed to steal his heart and
settle his wandering spirit.  However, as of late, they’d been having trouble. 
Veronica wanted to go in different directions from Stephen. She wanted to focus
on her career, and there were other times when she wondered if maybe Jeremy was
not ‘father material’.  She woke up one day and suddenly found that she no
longer wanted to go the same way, on the same journey, that Stephen wanted, at
least when it came to children.  Jeremy and Amelia had the faint hope that
maybe this weekend would somehow help them-- although neither of them held any
illusions that they would be able to bridge the gaps that seemed to be forming
between them with a simple trip to the lake.

One of the first things Jeremy had
to do before he even got dressed or made his way to the airport, was call Mike
Thurnbridge, who was the caretaker they’d hired to maintain the place on the
lake during the winter.  Outwardly, Mike was a nice, older man, but who, Jeremy
suspected, secretly hated them.  Jeremy guessed this was not because they had
done anything in particular to Mike, but merely because they were from
Illinois; and dyed-in-the-wool Wisconsiners hated Illinois people from birth. 
Still, Mike’s services weren’t too expensive and he always did a great job.  He
kept the place looking nice, mowing the lawn and trimming the bushes, making
sure the house was presentable.  Jeremy needed to let Mike know they were
coming so that he could make sure the house was in order.

Jeremy managed to get a little work
done before nine o'clock rolled around, which made him feel like he had
accomplished something.   At that point he picked up his phone, wandered onto
the little, screened-in front porch area of their second-floor apartment and
made his call to Mike.  Mike was a man just old enough to still have an
answering machine rather than voicemail and he liked to wait until about seven
rings before picking up.

"Hello there," Mike said.

"Hi there, Mike," Jeremy
replied.  "It's Jeremy Liden. How are you?"

"Oh, hey there, Jeremy. Things
are doing just fine here. How's by you?"

"Not too bad, Mike,"
Jeremy said.  "Amelia and I were going to come up to the cottage this
weekend.  We're going to bring a couple of friends, too.  Is that too much of a
problem?"

"Oh no, jeez," Mike
replied. "Things are still pretty slow around here right now, Mr. Liden. I
can have the place ready with no problem.  It’s a little overgrown at the
moment, but it shouldn’t take me too long to get it trimmed up nice."

"You're a saint," Jeremy
said.

Mike laughed. "Yeah, well,
tell my wife that."

"Thanks again." Jeremy
hung up the phone, sat back in his chair and threaded his fingers together
behind his neck.  He shook his head and resumed work.  With his major task for
the day out of the way, he was able to get several chapters of his latest novel
done.  It was going to be a great weekend, he just knew it.

* * *

"Oh, that
goddamn flatlander!"  Mike Thurnbridge cursed into the air as he slammed
the phone down.

"What's wrong now?"  His
wife called from the kitchen.

"That damn Jeremy Liden,"
Mike yelled back.  "He calls to tell me now that he's coming down this
weekend.  Like I’m just sitting up here on my ass waiting for him to call. 
Asshole!"

"Calm down,” she said.
"He pays well."

"Well, you'd think he'd give a
man a little time. I had plans for this afternoon."

"What plans?" she asked.

"Well," Mike said
sheepishly. "I was going to watch the Brewers."

"I thought that might be the
case." She sighed.  "Mike, just get your ass out there and do your
job and stop complaining.  You just love to complain about those people because
they're from Illinois."

"Damn flatlanders!" Mike
cursed again.

Mike looked around for his shoes
and took great care to act like putting them on was the most difficult thing he
could possibly do.  He then made a great show of looking for his car keys. 
After that he stormed around until he found his hat and tromped out of the
house.  Mike paused just long enough to kiss his wife. Naturally, she failed to
appreciate his show of pain and agony and just rolled her eyes at him.

"I'll be back in a few
hours," Mike said in the saddest tone he could muster.

"The Brewers will still be
there when you get back," his wife replied.  "You can always listen to
the game on the radio."

Mike frowned. "It's not the
same."

“Right,” she replied.  “There’s
nothing better than seeing grown men spitting and grabbing themselves.”

Mike sighed and stepped out of the
house.  His beat-up pickup truck was stationed in the driveway.  In the back,
his tools were scattered.  Mike prayed the damn thing would start, since it had
been giving him trouble lately. It was yet another thing Mike had been planning
to take care of and just never had the chance.

"Damn those flatlanders,"
Mike muttered again as he stepped into his truck.

Mike twisted the key in the
ignition and the engine ground and whined.  He pushed on the gas, cursed under
his breath, and turned the key again, harder this time, as if the truck could
feel his determination.  This time the engine caught, sputtered, and died.

Mike turned the key again and
pushed in on the gas.  Whether or not he flooded the engine was not a concern
at this point, he just wanted to take out his frustrations on the gas pedal. 
This time the engine coughed and started to life.  Mike cursed this, too, just
to remain consistent.

He pulled the gear shift and put
the truck into reverse.  The truck bumped its way over the driveway.  He pulled
out onto the gravel road and spewed dust into the air from his tires.  Mike
stepped on the gas and the engine promptly quit again.

"God damn it!"  Mike
screamed, his voice already raw from yelling.

He turned the key and started the
engine again.  He stomped down on the gas, swerved a bit and then roared down
the last stretch of the short road.  He hurled curses out the window as he went
just because he felt like it.

* * *

Stephen Bishop
stood in front of an open suitcase and did not move.  His eyes stared into the
bag, but his mind was not seeing what was in front of him.  Inside, Stephen was
a seething cauldron of anger, sadness, frustration, and disappointment.  He was
supposed to be packing; instead, he felt unable to move.  He just wanted to sit
on the end of the bed and scream, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes
until he saw colors.

"Why are we doing this,
again?"  Veronica said from the bathroom just off of the master bedroom.

"We promised," Stephen
said quietly.

"Do you really think it's a
good idea?"

Stephen sighed.  "I have no
idea at this point."

He looked up at his reflection in
the mirror on the back of the bedroom door.  He was a handsome man with thick
dark hair and hazel eyes.  He’d put on some weight since marrying Veronica, but
the part of him that had been an athlete was still there beneath the
pot-belly.  He wore a goatee which he kept meticulously groomed.  Wire-rimmed
glasses perched on the end of his nose, which he now adjusted absently as he
stared.  He didn't want to go back into the world of dating again, and he
wondered if he could get himself back into shape if he had to do that.  He
looked alright, he guessed, but he’d thought that all of those concerns were
behind him.  Now, he wasn’t so sure.  Now, nothing he’d been sure about before
seemed stable or consistent or real.