The tension in her shoulders eased as a familiar warmth spread out over her back. She knew he was with her before his hands came to rest upon her shoulders. Several times in the night she had vowed that if Ben had the nerve to show his face in the apartment again she would send him packing, but it was always followed up with a prayer for his return. Besides, was it possible to banish a ghost from haunting what had been his own apartment, the place where he died? At his touch any anger fuelled promises of sending him from her were swallowed up by the far more potent desire for him to remain by her side until her dying breath.
Catlin reached for his hand, fighting the overwhelming fear that her fingers would contact nothing but empty air but they came to rest on flesh, his flesh. She fell backwards into him, crying as she had not done since her childhood, since that night in Scotland. She had not thought on those demons in months. Ben had driven them away but one by one they saw her vulnerability and were creeping back to claim her.
“I am so sorry,” he began, holding her into him as the sobs wracked her frame. “I’d hoped it would not come to this, but despite telling myself we’d get away with it, I think I knew from the start this day would inevitably come.” Catlin wanted to shout at him, scream and ask why if he had known their days together were to be short, he had allowed their relationship to develop, but she could not reprimand him for a crime she was equally guilty of. Had she not also sensed the approaching storm clouds? Picked up on the signs that the end was coming? Like Ben, she had not cared and had plunged headlong over the side of the precipice, not giving a damn about the consequences. The ride down might have been one of a lifetime but that did not mean its abrupt ending was without pain.
“It’s not your fault,” Catlin managed to cough as she tried to get her lungs to take in some air. “It’s mine. I should never have fooled myself into believing this could be real. Things like this don’t happen, not to girls like me.”
“Hey, don’t you dare talk like that,” Ben scolded, coming around to kneel in front of her. He took her by the arms and shook her slightly to gain her attention. “No girl deserves to be happy more than you do, and what we had, no have, is as real as anything I might have once shared with Maria. More so.”
Catlin calmed herself a little at Maria’s name as the jealous part of her womanhood was stung by the mention of her rival.
“There it is,” Ben said wiping the tears from her face, “that stubborn glare of determination. Yes, I knew it was her at your door tonight. It was as if an old wound had been ripped open with a blunt blade as she neared us and there was only one person who could have caused me to feel as angry as I did then. It was better for us all that I left. Had I not done so, I might have found the temptation to go poltergeist on her impossible to ignore.” It went against the grain of her emotions, but Catlin laughed. “That smile,” Ben murmured, “a man would die happy after being on the receiving end of a smile like that.”
“Does that include you?” Catlin had not intended the remark to sound as accusing as it did, but Ben was immune to the taunt.
“No, not me. It brought me back to life.” The tears began to gather in Catlin’s eyes again and there was a pain in her chest, as if someone was puncturing her heart with a red hot blade and having driven it in as far as they could was twisting it.
Ben wrapped her in his arms, holding her until the convulsion subsided, wishing he could do something to ease her suffering while knowing he could only make it worse. He did not trust himself to be that strong. His own heart was aching as much as hers. God! Why had he ignored that voice at the back of his mind which had repeatedly told him to stay away from her? It was only ever going to end badly. But he was not capable of such restraint. It was selfish, but after thirty five years of looking in on the lives of mortals and being unable to help, partake or be involved in them, how could he have kept away from the one person who was, by some incredible power, able to see, speak and touch him? With Catlin he had been given a chance of a life he had thought to be out of his reach. In many ways he had not saved her that night – she had been the one to rescue him.
The pills and the drink; the deed had been a mistake and he discovered that as soon as it was done. It had been an overreaction to an intolerable situation, but one that could have been altered, but it was too late to do anything about his choices by the time he realised that. The things that were wrong with his life could have all been changed. He could have given Maria the opportunity to see she was wrong, walked away from his job. None of it had been set in stone.
“That was why when I saw you were on the verge of making the same mistake I had and for the same trivial reasons, I wished more than I ever had before that I had not thrown away the ability to assist those around me. I was needed by someone but could not help. I’d watched you in the same way I watched the previous occupants of my old home, and was struck by the number of traits in you that I could recognise in myself. Then you began to tread the same path I had followed and I wanted to protect you from its pitfalls and that which lay at the end of it. And, somehow, this happened. You could see me, hear me and feel me. It was as if I was being given a shot at getting back the life I had discarded so carelessly. I don’t pretend to understand how it happened let alone why. Maybe I was being offered a chance of redemption or it was to show you that there were reasons to live. It might be a bit of both, but either way, whether for good or ill, it happened and I would not swap a single second of our days together for an entire lifetime with anyone else.”
Ben looked at Catlin intently, his eyes wide open in an effort to take in as much detail of her face as possible.
“But, I cannot come to you anymore.” Catlin’s heart was skewered anew by the knife and knowing the cut was coming did not deaden the hurt of the wound. “I hoped that we would be able to keep our secret from the world and in doing so secure our future, but if people are asking questions it won’t take long for someone other than Maria to put the pieces together and whatever conclusions they draw, they would bring nothing but additional trouble to your door, and I won’t be the cause of ruining your life.”
“But you are my life,” Catlin said. “It’s worth nothing without you.” There was a desperation in her words which frightened Ben and he remembered the night of their first encounter on the roof.
“You listen to me Catlin Manners, stop thinking like that. I don’t want you doing anything stupid and coming after me, do you hear me?” Catlin shook, unable and unwilling to consider a world in which Ben played no part. “Promise me,” he demanded fiercely. She nodded, wishing for once he had not been able to read her like a book and seen the plan which had entered her mind.
“I promise.”
He eased his grip on her having gained her vow to do as he wanted.
“Good. I do not want you on my side of things a second earlier than you’re meant to be. The greater pain will be mine if I thought that rather than giving you a reason to live I had taken it away from you. You’ve got a life to live, so do precisely that – live.”
“But it won’t be a life I want, not without you in it.”
“Of course I’ll be in it. Not being able to see me doesn’t mean I’m going to leave you. I will never leave you Cate. Think of me and I will be with you always.” A saying Catlin had heard years before came to mind. ‘Keep someone in your heart and they will live forever.’ Ben was in her heart, he owned it completely and she thought on his words, which he had uttered to her while believing her to be asleep, with a new determination. “‘Remember me.’” She would remember. She would never forget and through her Ben, wherever he was, would live on.
“When will you leave?” She forced the bitter tasting words out of her mouth.
“Tonight. I will go tonight, so we will have one last day together.”
That day was the one which carried Catlin through the heartache and anguish of those which followed in its wake. They went out into the hills, sat by under the sun by the banks of the river and spoke of the
ir time together, hoping to find a way to make the pain of their parting seem less cruel but as evening fell and the clock marked the passing of the hours as it moved towards the birth of a new day, Catlin and Ben found they could not deceive time any longer. Catlin did not want to sleep. She tricked her brain into thinking that if she kept Ben in sight he would not leave her side and she could steal one more day of bliss from the years of misery stacked up ahead of her. He had been there from the start, watching over her. She had not realised it then, but it was his presence she had sensed in the sanctuary of her apartment, him she had been speaking to not the four walls, a guardian angel, looking on unseen but always there beside her. It had been comforting before but now she had shared her life with Ben the thought of their having to go back to that way of existence left her cold. She didn’t want an invisible protector from another realm, she wanted Ben, the man she loved more than anything else in the whole world, there with her.
“You’re tired,” Ben said, running his fingers through her hair. “Time for bed I think.” Catlin felt the icy talons of death upon them and she instinctively held onto Ben.
“Will you stay with me until I am asleep?” She had to swallow a choking lump of grief hard in order to get the words out.
“Of course I will.”
They lay down on the bed facing each other, Catlin holding Ben’s hand as if her very life depended on it.
“It’s okay my love,” he soothed, everything will be all right. I promise. Just close your eyes and rest.” Catlin had no intention of closing her eyes. She did not want to so much as blink less Ben should disappear from her while doing so, but the lure of the soft pillow, cool and comforting under her head, which pulsed from the events of the past twenty four hours, was too strong and finally, with her mind full of the image of Ben’s dark eyes, mesmerising eyes and smile which went right through you, she fell asleep.
Chapter Twelve
That was the last time she saw Ben in the apartment. When Catlin woke the next day she briefly forgot all that had occurred the evening before and expected to find Ben sleeping at her side as usual. Then the cold truth hit and with great reluctance she forced her eyes to open and take in the sight which would shatter the dream-like illusion of their love. Ben was gone – there wasn’t so much as a dent in the pillow to show he’d been there despite his having lain beside her as she slept. It came back to her that it maybe none of it had been real, she had conjured up Ben, perfect in every way, out of loneliness, desperation or sheer madness. Then she saw the ring, the ring he had given her as a token of his love. His two most precious possessions in the world, together. No, she had not imagined it. Those weeks of love, passion and soul saving happiness were as real as the bed she lay on. The bed they had shared and which now seemed dreadfully empty without him.
Catlin began to cry quietly and she drew the hand bearing the ring in towards her heart as if it were somehow connected to or a part of him. She had hoped somehow her love would have been enough to rescue him, to keep him there with her, and she wished that rather than him having been able to come through to her, she had been able to go back in time to the night he lost all hope. She would have found a way to save him, to give him back the life he was deprived of. Why had there been no choice? Catlin would have exchanged places willingly to give him back his life. Sure, she would have had no part in it, but that didn’t matter. He would have been alive. He was the far better person in every sense, way, thought and deed. It was wrong that he should die while she lived on. As it was, such powers were beyond her as she played it over in her mind the desire to go after him and did not give a damn about the consequences of doing so, it would be worth it to feel his arms around her once again but she had to keep her promise to him. She was his hope, his lifeline and had to find a way to live, if not for herself then for him. That alone would be her excuse for going on with life. She was going to do it for both of them.
It was not easy getting used to coming home to an apartment without Ben being there to greet her, not that his presence fully left it or her. There was always something there to remind Catlin she was not as alone as she felt. After a hard day at work and things looked their bleakest, the moment she entered the apartment she was welcomed back by the sensation of a warm and comforting embrace. Once in a while as she worked at her desk and a recollection from their days together popped into her mind, bringing both happiness and sorrow to her, she’d catch the faint scent of his hair being carried towards her on an otherwise unnoticed breeze and sometimes, by the bookcase which held many of Ben’s favourite works, as she ran her fingers across their spines she swore, for the briefest of instances, his hand came to rest on hers.
It took months of distance for Catlin to be able to cope with being in the same room as Maria, forgiveness coming slowly where the woman who had destroyed her life and been the author of so much tragedy was concerned, but eventually Catlin found a way to bring herself to talk to her again, but never about Ben. Catlin had so little of him to hold onto that she greedily wanted to keep it for her own, not daring to share the tiniest memory of him with anyone in case it should somehow weaken the link between them, and noticed the older woman looking at the ring he had given her with some envy from time to time. Maria shared some of anecdotes of their youth as well as giving her the details of where Ben had been buried, but this was of no interest to Catlin. She did not want to go stand at a graveside, for she knew Ben was not to be found there, in a hole in the ground, covered by earth and grass. He was in the songs of the birds as they greeted the dawn, the bright glow of the stars, the voice of the wind as it rushed through the leaves of the trees, and he was with her, kept forever alive because she held him safe and secure in her heart.
Chapter Thirteen
“Did you enjoy your break back home?” Catlin, sat in the back of the car, gratefully took the chance to put the manuscript she had been working on down. She had spent three weeks back with her family, celebrating her sister’s marriage. Enjoy was not the word she’d have chosen to describe that particular jaunt. As bad as the people in the city were when it came to being two-faced they had nothing on the hypocrites in her home town. All the people who had made her life Hell, who thought her worthless and declared confidently that she would amount to nothing had suddenly crawled out from under their various stones and had been fawning over her. Strange that they didn’t have five minutes to spare for her when she had been plain cleaner Catlin Manners but now she was Catlin Manners, super-rich author and friend to the stars they’d sacrifice their right leg to get near her!
“It was – memorable,” she answered tactfully. They chatted a bit more about the latest news and what had been going on in her absence, but with Guy eagerly awaiting the newest alterations and having a meeting booked with him the following day, Catlin soon returned to her work.
They had driven a few miles further when, without warning, Catlin was hit by a powerful and swift realisation, which cut through all others.
“Ben,” she mumbled to herself. There hadn’t been a single day in the three since they’d parted that he had not been in her thoughts, but she had not been visited by so strong an impression of his being there for a long time. It was so vivid that had she turned to find him sat in the seat next to hers she would not have been surprised, he felt so close. Catlin lifted her head from the pile of paper she had on her lap and saw the car was passing through the hills and country where they used to walk. Could he be there? A mad urge to check, futile as it might be, swamped her senses.
“Hey, stop the car. Here, Right here!” The driver looked petrified, wondering what he had done or if an important part of the car had fallen off unbeknown to him, as he screeched the car to a standstill and his passenger sprang out of the rear door.
The car had stopped a short distance passed the entrance to the car park below the trail Catlin and Ben had wandered along too many times to recall and she peeked in truly believing she would find Ben there, waiting for her as he used to. There was no
-one, not even a car to be seen. She listened. The air was unnaturally still, oppressive, like the menacing peace which comes before a terrible storm, but there was nothing. The feeling which had so assuredly dragged her from the car was diminishing also, and Catlin, with her spirits crushed, began to make her way back to the car.
“Sorry about that,” she called to the driver, who was waiting by his vehicle, “I had an idea that an old friend of mine might have been here.”
There wasn’t time for Catlin to decide which registered first or if they all did so at once which was why she had no way of telling the order in which they happened. Was it the expression of horror on the driver’s face, or the roar of the engine of the approaching car as it hurtled closer? It might have been the sound of rubber skidding on tarmac or even the impact of something hard striking her legs, but whatever it happened to be, it was of no concern to Catlin for as soon as one or all of those struck her, the world went dark and she remembered no more.
“Cate! Cate, can you hear me?” Catlin opened her eyes and threw her arms around the man bending over her.
“Ben!” she cried, clutching him thankfully to her. “I thought you said you’d never come to me again.” Ben pulled away. He was crying. Was he really so sad to be with her again?
“I didn’t come to you. You came to me.” Catlin did not understand until she saw him looking, horrified, over her shoulder. She followed his stare, puzzled by the scene which awaited her. She saw her driver on the phone, shouting for someone to hurry up. There was another man, white as a sheet, throwing up at the roadside next to his car and there was a woman lying immobile on the ground between them, her body twisted unnaturally with blood matting the lengths of near black hair as it seeped through the tiny capillaries of the road surface, her green eyes open but seeing nothing. It took a few more glances for Catlin to realise she was looking at herself. The car had done its job most efficiently. She was dead and hadn’t known a thing about it.
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