Something to Live for (Moonlight Dating Series) (5 page)

“
Melita
...”

Palms flat
against his chest, she rocked above him, neither slow nor fast, while their
eyes held – a sultry enchantress, fair and soft and feminine. As his senses
responded he became a little more enthralled with her, a little more
infatuated. His hands clasped her rounded hips, steady and possessive.

He couldn’t let her go.

When her
gaze unfocused, he knew she was at pleasure’s door. She picked up her pace and
threw her head back. Alex gripped her tighter. When she fell apart in his arms,
he immortalized that moment in his brain.

Only when
he heard her cry did he unbolt the heavy door of his mind and let go, allowed
himself
to go to a plane where he could never feel pain.

Before he
drifted off, it occurred to him that he hadn’t used protection. That had never
happened to him. He should have felt horrified, but he wasn’t.

No, he couldn’t let her go.

***

When
Melita
woke up the roosters crooned in the neighbouring
fields, to hail a new day. The first threads of light had already woven
themselves in the black sky. She retrieved her mobile from the nightstand and
looked at the time. Five fifteen AM.

The night
would be over soon. Alex’s even breathing calmed her and brought to mind the
conversation they’d had about their lives and their work. While he
systematically emptied an entire tray of its contents, Alex had told her about
Brushstrokes,
his family’s business, and
a name she recognized. She told him about her practice and how she craved a
bigger challenge at this point in her life.

“Where
does all that food go?” she marvelled at the size of his appetite.

“Hey, a
man needs his strength,” he quipped.

Then they
made love again with this new awareness of each other. After they’d shared
their deepest, darkest secrets, it wasn’t worth even talking about what would
happen after the present. Their connection couldn’t be denied. Yesterday, the
date of their
meeting,
was the link that bound them –
one that would bind them forever, whether they wanted it to or not.

It was
fate that had brought them together for they’d both made the right choice, at
the right time. What was it they called such a thing? Happenstance…

That was
the word, which led to a wild thought sneaking into her head.

She turned
to catch a clouded glimpse of Alex, who slept peacefully, spoon fashion, behind
her, his arm circled protectively around her middle. In the dimness, he looked much
more like a shadow cloaked over her.

What they
just did, the pleasure they shared, she fancied a communion of their psychic
energies. Perhaps the past they shared had made it all the more special, even
before they’d made the connection on a conscious level. It was possible that
their fused energies – again, in the right place, at the right time – could be
used to lay the past to rest, once and for all.

Could they
do this? The idea seeded in her mind. It was farfetched, which meant nothing in
the scheme of things.

She placed
her hand over his and ran two fingers over his knuckles. Her touch made him
stir.

He
murmured something unintelligible and breathed into her hair.

“Alex,”
she called softly.

“
Mmmm
.”

She
switched on the lamp and turned into his embrace. “Alex, wake up,” she coaxed,
as she smoothed his hair and traced the shape of his ear.

She didn’t
need perfect vision to discern how vulnerable he looked with his face relaxed
in slumber. She could just imagine what he’d looked like as a young boy who
idolized his older brother. A boy who’d lost all that was left of his innocence
through the actions of someone else. How do we ever return to looking at the world
with hope when the worst nightmare imaginable slaps us into its steel
vise
?

It
occurred to her that there were so many children and youths who faced terrible
tests in life, issues so overwhelming that even adults would find it difficult
to cope with such situations. There was the opportunity to help such people in
her work, especially if she involved herself with certain organizations and the
education system, even on a voluntary basis.

She
grappled with a newfound enthusiasm, a feeling she’d felt only at the start of
her career. She’d had so many plans, so much eagerness to help others in her
field, that
gradually losing that passion had felt akin to
losing a beloved relative. This was what she always wanted to do, after all.

Alex’s
story was the catalyst that made her realize that what she needed was an
adjustment of course and attitude, not a drastic change of profession.

She ran
her hand down his back, while she admitted to herself how great it was to wake
up next to him.

“Alex,”
she repeated.

 
He opened his eyes this time, and blinked.
“Morning, sunshine.
Slept well?”

“I did.”

“There’s
time. We can stay a bit more.”

It would
be so easy to let his smile seduce her into weaselling out and staying in bed. “No,”
she said. “There’s something I want to do.”

“What?”

She got
out of bed and grabbed his arm. “I’ll tell you while we get ready.”

At six
that morning,
Melita’s
hand reached out for Alex’s as
they stood in the small clearing under the cypress trees in
Buskett
Gardens. With each passing minute the darkness faded and the dawn sky made way
for the waking sun.

Alex was a
bit reticent at first when she suggested to him to drive them here, but she
insisted it would be the best way to for them both to face their fears and find
closure.

“Usually,
I’m not a big fan of reliving traumatic experiences, but in this case I have a
strong feeling it may be the only way to help us go forward.”

“What use
could it be, though? It’s not like we can change the past.”

“It’s a
shot in the dark, but today is a special day – a day that means something to
both of us. Perhaps what happened tonight is a sign that all we need to do is
believe and our questions will be answered.”

He said
nothing at first, only gave her a disbelieving look.

“Do it for
me?” she pleaded. She was clutching at straws because what she’d said was as
far from science as she could possibly get. But if he didn’t understand, nobody
could. She had to try.

“I suppose
we can,” he gave in after an interminable pause. His tone was full of sadness
but also present was a faint thread of hope.

So here
they were now, hand in hand. Unvoiced emotion cast itself around them with
every breath they exhaled into the crisp dawn air. The foxgloves and cypresses
were still around, and not much had changed with the passage of time, except
that there were no dead bodies around. No remnants of blood and gore that
marred the perfect balance of the natural world.

Deep
within her,
Melita
had no doubt that mystical secrets
lived here – secrets that divided the known world from the other side. Yet there
was nothing now but the quiet woods and the precious sound of silence in the plain
outdoors, pure, untouched. Theirs was the only human presence in that serene
place, which remained nonetheless just like she’d always loved it in her
childhood.

Whatever
the truth was, she couldn’t come to believe that her apparition had come from a
hostile or evil source, or that it meant her harm. She sent a silent prayer to
the forces that had once manifested themselves to her.

Please, say something. Tony, are you there?

Please.

The
occasional snap of a twig beneath their soles was the only sound she heard. Her
resolve started to waver.

She and
Alex looked at each other. He was close enough for her to read the weariness
marked on his face and sense the strain that weighed him down like a
cinderblock.

“I’m
sorry,” she simply said.

He turned
to cradle her cheek with a cool hand. “Don’t be. I’ve lived with it so long.
I’ll just keep going as I
was,
no big deal.”

But she
wasn’t fooled. It
was
a big deal. He
pulled her close and replaced his hand with warm lips on her cheeks.
 

“You think
Jeanette Lagrange knew about our association?” he asked, while they hung on to
each other. “They do say she’s got a nose for these things but I thought it was
just a marketing ploy.”

She pulled
back. “If she did, she either has a direct line to…” her gaze lifted skyward, “or
she’s made a thorough background check on us.”

She stared
sideways at the spot where that cold, ghostly hand had shoved her to the
ground. It all seemed so long ago now. What had it been?
Just
a ghost?
A portal to another world?
She
supposed she’d never know.

 
“Perhaps Tony’s happy now and wherever he is,
he’s not sick anymore,” Alex said gravely, as if reading her thoughts.

She
gripped his hand tighter and observed his profile. Oh, how she wished to see
every line, every angle, every blemish on his face. “I like that thought.
Perhaps what I stumbled upon that day was Tony crossing over to the other side.
I wasn’t supposed to be there so the hand pushed me back. It’s all the
explanation I can think
of
, although it sounds crazy
enough.”

How else
could she make him feel better? How could she remove the millstone of guilt
that held his heart captive?

“You
really think so?” he said.

His lips
curved up. Even through the permanent fog, she could see his smile was wan but
beautiful. The more the days passed with Alex in her life, the better she would
be able to see the way his smile brought into relief the lines around his eyes
and mouth, and eased the severe lines of his face.

With time, the better it will be
.

“I really
think so,” she replied with conviction, while daylight bloomed.

He kissed
her softly, solemnly. It felt like a vow – one that she’d always protect his
heart and, from his end, a promise that he’d cherish her, help her truly live
like she never had. Life had a way of giving back that was sometimes hard to
process; it was both a blessing and a curse.

They
turned to leave together, their arms around each other. Two steps forward, and
a rustle, followed by a soft bumble, made them pause.

Then
came
an unpleasant grating sound that plucked at one of the
fragmented strings of her memory.
The one that took her
fifteen years to the day.

Heart
pounding, she swivelled them both in a u-turn. Then it dawned on her.

“Alex,
turn back now!” she cried.

She
clasped his head and pulled it down, buried his face in her shoulder while she
looked away from the blinding flash. The raw electric charge sizzled around
them. She knew the exact moment when it dulled down because the harrowing glare
mitigated to a warm, golden radiance that flirted with Alex’s hair and the back
of her hand.

She
released him and gingerly turned toward the circle of light. This time there
was no hand but the figure of a tall man who stood at the entrance. He looked
half real, half wraith-like, and the halo that framed him cast a deeper shadow
on his form.

He stepped
away from the radiance and onto the earth. The sun sneaked through the foliage
above and revealed further the ethereal features of his face. Still, the
creature seemed nothing more than an indistinct phantom to her.

“Tony!”
Alex gasped. He broke away from her and took a step toward the figure in front
of them.

“Oh, God.
Is it him? Alex, is it really him?”

Alex didn’t
answer her, transfixed as he was. “Tony, I want to… Tony, I’m so sorry.”

Tony’s
face transformed into a thing of beauty when he smiled at Alex. His expression,
earnest and full of love, conveyed a silent message. If she managed to notice
it, Alex
had
to see it.

“Why did
you do it? I miss you.”

Tony
turned to her, then back to Alex. He extended his hands toward both of them.
Alex reached out but
Melita
stopped him. She curled
her fingers around his arm and held him back.

“That’s
his world, his place. Let him be. He’s at peace.”

Tony
nodded to them when she spoke those words.

Alex
stared at his brother. Silent suffering oozed from his pores, as though he
waged some brutal inner battle and no matter who prevailed, there’d be no win.
His body felt somehow tougher, more rigid, like rock. He was strong enough to
shake her off and rush through the portal if he wanted to, but fortunately, he
relented and accepted her gentle restraint.