The Ghost of a Chance (27 page)

Oh, God, don’t go…

I must, my darling.
 
And I’m not sad about it, so don’t be sad for me.
 
There are so many adventures ahead—for both
of us.
 
And someday we’ll meet again.

I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you—

I love you, sunbeam.

And then, as Jason comes barreling toward us, his
metal weapon pointing straight ahead, Catherine sidesteps at the very last
moment before contact…

And Jason hurls himself off of The Rock, his beam
clattering behind him and landing upon his chest with a terrible, unforgettable
crack.

Chapter Twenty

There are flowers everywhere—roses, lilies, pink
carnations with snipped-off stems in a glass bowl.
 
Our friends and co-workers have showered us with cards and
casseroles and hand-delivered bouquets.
 
Even Annabelle sent a box of fresh-cut daffodils, with a note that read,
"Wishing you simple joys."
 
And Caroline, Alis’ lesbian co-worker, sent tulips with a lipstick-stained
card—addressed to me.
 
Apologetic and a
little put out, Alis told me that she was certain Caroline wouldn’t have dared
to do such a thing had she known about
us.
 
And she promised—with an adorably possessive gleam in her beautiful
blue eyes—to set Caroline straight the moment she returned to work at the
hospital.

As I move through the rooms now, I breathe deeply
and smile to myself.
 
The house smells
like a garden, despite the blizzard whirling beyond the windowpanes.
 

 
I carry the
latest delivery, a crystal vase containing a dozen full-bloomed red roses, with
a card addressed to Alis, upstairs.
 
The
landing creaks when I step onto it, and Alis calls out, "Darcy?"

"On my way."

Pausing just outside her open bedroom door, I exhale
softly as I peer in at Alis, curled up on Catherine’s lavender afghan with a
historical novel.
 
My lips curve fondly
down at her.
 
"These just arrived
for you."

"For me?"
 
She rises from the bed to take the vase from my hands, ducking her head
down to smell the luxurious petals.
 
Then she presses her hand to her chest and flutters her lashes as if
she’s on the verge of swooning.
 
"Ohhh, these are incredible!
 
I’ll keep them right here beside the bed, so that I dream of
roses."
 
She places the vase on the
small table to her right, clasping her hands before her and turning to grin at
me.
 
"Who are they from?"

"Here’s the card," I tell her, still
smiling as I watch her open the little envelope and remove the pink-colored
note inside.
 
Her eyes skim the paper,
after a moment growing wide and shifting to gaze wonderingly at me.
 
"You?
 
The roses are from
you
, Darcy?"

I take a step nearer and place my hands on her hips,
mouth curving, heart skipping, bowing my head to gaze at her.
 
"I realize flowers are hardly in short
supply around here, but I wanted to…"
 
I glance away, searching for the right words, drawing in a heady,
rose-scented breath.
 
"I needed
to
show you how cherished you are.
 
To give
you something beautiful, something worthy of you.
 
After everything that’s happened…
 
Oh, Alis, you were so brave."
 
I stare at her, searching her eyes, moving my hands to the small
of her back; she lets the card flutter down to the floor.
 
"I feel so honored to know you, Alis
Baker."

Her gaze darkens with emotion as she whispers,
"And I you, Darcy Morrow."
 

"It’s unbelievable, isn’t it?
 
I mean, all of it…"
 
I swallow, silencing myself, unwilling to
relive the grim events of the past several months—there will be time for
reflection later, so much time.
 
We’ve
spent the past couple of days as hostages to the police station, filling out
reports and answering questions, then falling into our separate beds utterly
exhausted at the end of the day.
 

But now…
 
Now
all I want to do is close this distance between Alis and me.

Her chest rises and falls in an uneven rhythm as she
parts her lips, whispers, "I’m so glad you’re okay."
 
A single tear slips from her eye, and I lean
forward to kiss it away, tasting salt on my lips.
 
"If Catherine hadn’t—
 
She wouldn’t tell me what might have happened, but…"
 
Her eyes swallow me up in a wave of love
that weakens my knees and stills my heart.
 
We stand transfixed, dizzy from the perfume of roses, our bodies
arcing toward one other as if drawn by a supernatural force.

"Kiss me, Darcy."
 
Alis’ hands reach up to weave through my
hair, tilting my head down toward her lovely mouth.

"If I begin," I whisper warningly,
"I’ll never stop…"

"Never stop.
 
Please.
 
Never let me go."

I press her full length—legs, hips, stomach,
breasts—hard against my body as our mouths collide and we fuse together.
 
We kiss until we’re faint, until we’re
gasping, until we’re weak with pent-up passion, and then I draw her soft, dark
hair away from her neck.
 
With
excruciating slowness, I lick the pale skin there while she moans my name:
"Darcy, Darcy…"
 

I claim her throat with my mouth—hungrily,
deeply—and we stumble over to the bed, tumbling onto the mattress together,
causing the springs to squeak as we kick the bed coverings aside.
 

Alis pulls me on top of her and holds me tight
against her in a desperate embrace, her heard pounding hard against mine, her
kisses interspersed with breathy growls.
 
"Oh, I love you…"

"I love you," I sigh, mouth curving,
drawing back to bow my head down toward her hips, nudging her sweater up to
reveal her softly blushing skin.
 
My
mouth follows her curves while my hands slowly ease the sweater over her head
and then slide beneath her, releasing the catch of her yellow lace bra; she
gasps, arching under me, her nails digging into my sides.

I bend to claim her lips, lingering, teasing, my
fingers working over her shoulders, gently easing the bra straps off of her
arms.
 
I feel her warmth beneath me and
sigh with pleasure as my legs straddle either side of her hips, as I unbutton
her jeans with one hand.

"Oh…"

I tug my own t-shirt over my head and fall upon her,
skin against skin, mouth against mouth, our tongues seeking, our hands restless
and roving, scratching and tugging, pinching and caressing.
 
Alis rolls on top of me and expertly removes
my jeans and panties, her blue eyes afire as she crawls over my body, bowing
her head to tease at my nipples with her teeth.
 
I moan and smooth my hands over her shoulders, my head thrown
back against the pillow, eyes closed.

Then she kisses me hard, thirsty, and her hand moves
over my skin, down and down, lower, gliding…until her fingers curve inside of
me for long, glorious moments, and I call out against her lips, astonished,
euphoric.
 
I kiss her harder, wrapping
my arms around her tightly as my hips move against her hand and the room fades
away: waves of ecstasy remake me from the inside out.
 

"Oh, Alis," I breathe, a tear sliding over
my cheek.

Her lips follow the upward line of my arched neck,
pausing and parting to whisper into my ear, "You’re so beautiful."

We entwine until there’s no space between us, kiss
until our lips are sore and aching, touch and worship until we’re weary with
exhaustion.
 
And when we lie together
hours later, our limbs entangled, our lips still tasting, touching, Alis sighs
against me—a long, heavy sigh, and grips me around the waist so tightly that I
laugh, gently loosening her hold.

"Not quite so tight, my love.
 
I need to keep on breathing, so that I can
kiss you forever."

"Sorry," she smiles against my breast,
leaning forward to cover my nipple with her mouth.
 
When she draws back, gliding her leg seductively over mine, she’s
wearing a catlike grin, and her blue eyes gleam with mischief.
 
"So…"
 
Her fingers trace circles over my bare stomach and then begin to
trace the line of my inner thigh.
 
"Ready for another go?"

I laugh and roll on top of her, kissing her
thoroughly, her lashes fluttering against my cheeks.
 
"Always, Alis."

---

   
The cabin
is a shambles.
 
I’ve hired a contractor
to come out and cobble together an estimate for repairs, but for now, Portia
and the kittens are occupying the spare bedroom at the house—and they seem to
be adjusting to domestic life quite comfortably.
 
After we finished with the police the night that Jason fell from
The Rock—and to his death—Alis and I crept wearily through the forest to try
and find the cats, who had fled the cabin when Jason removed the door.
 

After hours of desperate searching, we discovered
them all at last, huddled together beneath my car—with its slashed tires and
broken windshield—safe and sound, though a little scared and pathetic-looking,
shaking from the cold.

Now, shivering in my coat as snow drifts around the
room, I glide my fingers over the keys of Catherine’s typewriter, my heart
bursting within me, too full.
 
I swallow
down the lump forming in my throat and sit down to gaze at the page scrolled
inside of the vintage machine.

Catherine is gone.
 
I know that she’s gone, know it as surely as I know that I love
Alis.
 
That night, when Catherine swept
out of my body, when she left me with the memory of her soul entwined with
mine, I felt as if I had lost her all over again, and I grieved for her in a
thousand secret, private moments.

But I haven’t let her go, not truly.
 
Not yet.

I tug the typewritten page free, tilting my head at
it curiously.
 
It looks unfamiliar; I
remember the last scene that my hands channeled for the play, and this isn’t
it.
 
This is…

It’s the final scene of
The Food of Love.
 
I don’t know how it’s possible, but
Catherine must have finished the play herself.
 
She must have imprinted the pages with her words at some point between
my last time sitting here and Jason’s mad rampage.

My eyes skim over the lines, watering as I read the
final stanza.
 

CLOWN: A great while ago the world begun,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain

But that’s all one,
our play is done
,

And she’ll
strive to please you every day.

And she’ll strive to please you every day.

Catherine kept the end of the play mostly intact,
though she substituted
we’ll
for
she’ll
and underlined
our
play is done…

Our play is done.

"No.
 
No…"
 
With a determined
sigh, I shake my head and shove the tears from my eyes.
 
"No," I say again, opening the
desk drawer to remove the large stack of papers
 
from it, Catherine’s entire manuscript.
 
I place the last page on the bottom of the pile, and as I do so,
my eyes notice that there’s a new cover page on the top.

A play in three acts

by Catherine Corde

Dedicated to Darcy Morrow,

my sunbeam, my darling.

(Someday we’ll meet again.)

"Someday," I whisper, tears dripping
silently from my chin to stain the page.

I have to do one last thing, Catherine.
 
For you.

One year later

Alis clasps my hand and bumps her shoulder against
mine, smiling broadly as the curtain rises to reveal the stage.
 
The set design is simple: there’s a pastel
backdrop denoting a palace interior, with a few plush chairs arranged to one
side.

Heart hammering, I squeeze Alis’ hand, gazing again
down at the glossy program in my lap:
The Food of Love
by Catherine
Corde.

It’s surreal to sit here, listening to my dear
Catherine’s words, remembering everything—the achingly beautiful moments and
the devastatingly painful ones—that brought me to here, now, sitting in an
off-Broadway theater with Alis beaming pure love at my side.

"Are you all right?" she whispers into my
ear, concern darkening her aquamarine gaze.
 
She reaches up to catch a tear that escaped from my eye.

Leaning toward her so that our foreheads touch, I
sigh and nod against her, smiling softly.
 
"Yeah," I breathe, realizing in that instant that it’s true: I
am
all right.
 
Shaking my head
and laughing a little in amused disbelief, I kiss Alis lingeringly, unmindful
of the theatergoers seated all around us.
 
They’re too rapt by the action onstage to notice two women in love.
 

"I’m better than all right, Alis.
 
I’m brand new, thanks to you."

"The feeling’s mutual."
 
Her eyes mist over as she presses again
against my side, mouthing
I love you.

I whisper warmly into her ear, "I love you,
too," and, grinning, kiss her neck.

Then, fingers entwined, we turn back to face the
stage, immersing ourselves in Catherine’s final theatrical vision—a world in
which all wrongs are made right, all confusion is replaced with enlightenment,
all wounds are tenderly healed, and all lovers are rewarded with a happily ever
after.
 

The End

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I live in the
northeast on a small farm with a few cats and dogs, my saintly wife, and more
weeds in the garden than anyone should ever have to tackle.
 
I have two great loves:
 
my wife and writing, and I’m so grateful to
be able to marry the two in the stories I write, about two women who have a
connection, who fall deeply in love with one another.
 

I’d love to hear
from you!
 
Send me an email at
[email protected]
 
You can also visit my site at
http://natalievivien.wordpress.com

I would appreciate,
so much, if you would take a minute or two to leave a review on
The Ghost of
a Chance
, and thank you so much for reading it!
 
Please look out for my other releases, coming soon!
 
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