A Love Soul Deep (2 page)

Then the secret got away from me. I kept putting it off. Then Crew died.

She’d never begrudged my secret. Of course, confessing at a funeral did wonders for forcing forgiveness. Moira had simply wrapped me in her arms and held on tight.

I once swore if I ever met someone who looked at me the way Crew did, I’d drag his ass to Vegas. Moira had laughed. It had been a joke, though. It’d take more than a certain stare to compare to Crew. The man I would marry would have to not only look at me in that soul-wrenching, toe-shivering way, but I’d have to feel more than wanted. I’d have to return that look.

Crew and I had been magnets, flipped so we stuck. Where I ended, he seemed to begin. Even eight years later, lying in bed, my body remembered what he did to me. The fluttering in my throat as he leaned closer. The urge to bury my head in his neck and breathe in his woodsy scent. Could anyone ever make me tremble just being next to me, face to face, limb to limb, listening to the sounds of our hearts and breaths?

I sighed heavily in the dark and rolled to my side. I didn’t want to cry. I’d cried enough. I’d had umpteen pity parties. I should feel lucky. How many people in the world ever get to experience something so magical, so strong? My Romeo was gone, and this Juliet would go on and live a life.

I
was
living, wasn’t I? I worked at a job I loved, teaching middle school. I had close friends, a rich social life. So what if I didn’t have Crew? I’d had him once. Some treasures weren’t meant for keeps.

Inevitably, though, no matter how much I told myself not to regret a moment of our time together, the same unforgiving mistake I’d made crept to my mind’s surface.

Why had I been so hard to get, so skittish with my feelings? With his?

He gave me body and soul, and what did I do? I froze up, held back, terrified he’d change his mind. What was I thinking? I knew what. I didn’t want to scare him off. I worried so much about keeping him interested that I never opened up. If we didn’t string it out a little longer, a little more tautly, wouldn’t the magic evaporate?

I swiped at my leaky eyes, shut them, and counted backward from one hundred. I held the gold locket in my hand and fisted it to my chest. Saying a little prayer, I wished that wherever he was now, he knew how much he meant to me. It must have been around number thirty-one or so when I finally fell asleep.

I dreamed.

A weight settled behind me on the bed. Body heat permeated my blankets. I snuggled closer, the outline behind me safe and familiar, but also just out of reach. I mumbled the words, “You came back to me.”

“Shh,” he whispered, a shift of air making me think he would nuzzle into my neck. But only the warm air touched my skin.

I sighed. The ache in my heart eased away. I breathed his smell deep into my lungs. Oh, how I loved that earthy, crisp aroma of him. So clean, but so spicy. He moved away a little. I untangled one arm from the covers and reached out, hitting air and blanket. “No,” I said, my eyes opening and adjusting to the darkness of my dream world. I was in Savannah, in the same bed I’d been lamenting in hours before. “Stay,” I said and rolled over.

“Stay.” I searched his shadowy features so close to mine. “I miss you so much sometimes. Just a little longer?”

I didn’t dream of him more than a couple of times a month. The dream was always the same. Crew returning to me, and me unable to hold onto sleep long enough to resolve anything or capture any meaning. As always, somewhere inside of me, I knew I’d wake feeling shattered, the loss raw again. For now, I craved memorizing him once more. I wanted to keep the dream.

“Okay,” he said.

I sighed inside. “I wish you could come to me every night.”

“Me, too, Sara, but I can’t. All the right doors have to open for you to let me in.” His arm shifted at his hip and I hoped for it to move around me. But it didn’t. “You know I still love you, don’t you?” he asked me.

Was that true? “How come you never said so?”

“I didn’t say it. But I tried to show you. I always loved you.”

His words filled up the emptiness in me. I smiled in the dark. “I wish I’d shown you, too.”

“Be careful, Sara. You know what they say about wishes.”

The warning in his voice made me think he’d leave, or I’d wake. I scooted closer. The stiff hotel covers tangled between us. The stubble on his throat in the shadows drew my eye. My body felt heavy with sleep, but buoyant from the dream. I longed to bury my nose against his stubbly skin. “I know what they say,” I mumbled. “I don’t care. I can’t help wishing it. I feel like if I’d been honest with you, with myself, I’d be able to ….”

He pulled back and stared into my eyes. The light from the window lit his face enough to reveal the contours and hint at the color I once knew by heart. My breath caught. Jesus, he was more beautiful than I’d remembered. His thick eyebrows, the strong nose and jawline. His eyelids perceptibly fluttered. “You’d be able to move on?”

I saw the pain in his gaze and my chest squeezed. “Yes,” I whispered, emotion clogging my throat. “I’m sorry.”

He pressed his forehead toward mine and chuckled. “You’re sorry? I think I’m the one who should be apologizing here, Sara.”

The tightness in my chest changed. The pain drowned in a fresh wave of happiness from the lightness in his voice. “For what?” I teased. “Dying?”

“Nah. Everybody dies. I’m sorry I didn’t kiss you more.”

Somewhere in the back of my head, under the rush of blood in my veins over his words, behind the thrum in my belly, I felt that niggle of reality threatening to invade my dream world. I didn’t want to wake up. I wanted to stay here. I wanted to feel his hands, feel his warm breath near my face a little longer.

“Why didn’t you?” I asked, suddenly aware of how close his face was to mine. The awareness spread down my throat, along my arms and chest, settling in my belly.

“You’re more of an enigma than you realize,” he said. “The labyrinth back to you winds me away again and again.”

I frowned. The fog of dreams seemed to be slipping away. The moment felt more real and yet more bizarre all at once. That niggle of reality loomed closer. This moment was fleeting. How could I make it last? My heart skipped a beat at the thought of waking.

“Try harder,” I said, peering up at him.

Mischief danced in his eyes. “Careful, Sara. What you wish for just might come true,” Crew said, his lips so close to mine.

I meant to say “Good” or maybe “God”. Even
goodie gumdrops
would have sounded sexier than the muffled, wet “guh” that erupted from my lips as his almost touched mine. I exhaled a gasp and inhaled a gulp of wondrous breath. His breath. Milky and sweet like a baby’s. His lips would feel full and firm, but he didn’t press them to mine with the slow care that used to make me swear, this must be heaven.

To just feel him one more time, to show him my heart. My oldest wish about to come true. Just one more time to feel him and smell him and tell him what I should have back then.

He licked his lips. A little jolt of surprise ran through me. He was nervous. The first time we ever kissed, he’d done just that same thing. He’d fidgeted and talked too fast and only when I thought he must not feel a thing, he had admitted how crazy I made him.

But now I was the one going nuts. This little pit of worry gnawed into my stomach. What if ...?

I shoved and tugged at the blankets. Crew helped, kicking them down. I searched for the hemline of his T-shirt, thinking about how much I liked that he’d come into my dream wearing one. So much better than a suit or a sweater or—I pulled a fistful of fabric up. No. Not his shirt. Sheets. My hands clutched sheets.

“Crew,” I said.

I wanted him. How could I make him just touch me? Just once?

His mouth came twisted into a pain-filled smile. Oh, God, I wanted him. I wanted to feel the naked press of our bodies. I wanted the thrust of his hips. Flesh meeting flesh. The hurt and the bliss. And—

Crew moved away. “Sara,” he said, his voice raspy. “Sara, listen.”

“I can’t. Please. Don’t make me.” My eyes stung at the corners. “Crew.”

I tried to pull him to kiss me, but my hands seemed to pull through mud. Heavy. Murky. My heart hammered.

“Wish me aga. …”

Crying out must have woken me. I sat up, my hands to my chest. My pulse slammed in my veins. A tear slid from my left eye, hot and raw. Dawn slipped into my room through the gap in the burgundy drapes. I bit back the tears and the ache. Not just the ache of loss, the keen need my body didn’t yet realize had only been a dream.

I punched the pillow next to me. “Damn it!”

So close. I’d been so close to having what I always wanted. I’d even take Crew in a dream. Now months would pass before I’d dream of him again. For weeks I’d think and analyze, and who knew how much time would pass before the thought of a living man’s touch didn’t repulse me?

Just perfect. I lay back down in a slump, swiping away the other sneaky tear and exhaled, trying to blow the riot in my chest out on a gust of breath. No sense pouting. Dwelling and getting depressed would only make my sorrow worse. I rolled to my side.

The locket flopped with a thud onto the pillow next to me. The sunlight caught the filigree etching. I opened it, certain I wouldn’t see
his
face staring back at me, but rather some guy from a hundred years ago. Definitive proof that I did, in fact, need professional help. I popped the locket open.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

I startled. My nerves sparked.

“Sara?” Moira called.

I snapped the locket closed, shoved it under my tee and climbed out of bed. Three more bangs set my scalp at attention. “Okay! I’m coming,” I called. “Jesus, Mary and freaking Joseph.” I had to wonder if I’d feel a whole lot better muttering such things if I had a religious bone in my body.

I swung the door open, ready to throttle my oldest, dearest friend for the mere joy of seeing her perky smile turn blue. “What?!”

“Yoga. Remember?” She spring-stepped in a circle, her ponytail swinging like a tongue sticking out and saying neener-neener.

“Yeah. Right.” I shut the door, dove under the covers, and almost screamed when she bounded in after me.

“Huh-uh-uh. You promised.”

Yes. I had promised. Vowed, in fact, with a hand over my heart and reciting a silly best friend mantra. And while I wanted to flip her the bird and sleep the day away, I knew I couldn’t. I’d only cry and fret and analyze—and not sleep for a minute. “Fine. Okay.” I sat up, holding onto my pout tight. “Yoga.”

~~~

Chapter Three

I put my body into “downward dog” position. The blood rushing to my head began edging a headache into my temples. I focused on breathing through the pain and listening to the birds chirping in the trees along the edge of the garden-like courtyard. Why did yoga have to be outside today? Why did Moira have to be so frickin’ chipper in the morning?

Because it was gorgeous out, like a fairy tale, and Moira was born under planet Happy.

“Why do you look like shit, and why don’t I remember you getting that locket yesterday?” Moira demanded.

I jerked my head to the right to see her scowl. Her stare at my chest had me looking down. My shoulder muscles protested as I craned to see the locket. It lay precariously at my T-shirt hem.

I exhaled. “How could you miss it? You were standing right there.” Had she been? I didn’t remember much past the adrenaline from buying the thing and wanting to keep it totally secret.

Moira eased up to a standing position and walked over to me. I shut my eyes and went for looking totally committed to my pose. I got the feeling she’d ask to see the locket.

She ran her hand along my spine, pushing a little on my lower back. “Don’t lock up. Remember to let your body relax into the pose.”

“Mmm. Hmm,” I grunted. “Sure.” This was not what I called relaxing. But Moira and I had a bet going. Give it six weeks, and see if I didn’t love it. Week three, and yoga still sucked my will to stand up straight, let alone contort into “camel” pose.

She jostled my hips then patted the sides of my arms. By now, I saw this as encouragement to move my arms in line with my shoulders. I did as nudged, and felt her fingers at my neck, tickling.

I jerked upright, clutching the locket. “What are you doing?”

She sidestepped banging heads with me. “Just checking out your little treasure. Why? Don’t want me to see it?”

Moira had always been too perceptive. Normally, I counted this as one of her many endearing qualities. Her ability to hone in on details brought us together in the first place. Way back in ninth grade, she’d insisted we pack combined lunches, since I rarely came to school with food or money. She never made me feel awkward about being poor. But, right now, I wanted her radar pointing elsewhere. At least until I figured out how I felt about my dream and the picture inside the locket. “Why wouldn’t I want you to see it?” I fidgeted with the clasp, pretending that it was giving me trouble. “Hey, where’s Kim this morning? No yoga for her?”

“Kimmie-kins is hungover.” Moira said, standing with her palm out, patiently waiting. “And I’m not sure she’ll ever give yoga the chance it deserves.”

“That’s weird,” I said, careful to keep sarcasm out of my tone. My heart rate resumed a normal pace. Memories of the dream hovered in my mind. I tried to push them back.

“I know, right? She’s so New Age in so many other ways. She’s even learning tarot. But, yoga?” She rolled her eyes. “At least she woke up this morning—right before flipping me the bird and hiding under the covers.”

I had to admire Kimmie-kins (hated that name) for her ability to withstand Moira’s huge helping of cajoling with a side of guilt. I never could resist. Seeing Moira flip her palm about as she spoke, losing that gimme quality to her gestures, I dropped my hands to my side. She might be like a bloodhound with details, but she was also easily distracted if you knew which bone to throw. I did.