by Sahara Kelly
"I cannot believe it, Ms. Martin," she said, her slight accent making Adele smile. "That he should be so kind to me, when all I did was clean for him and nag him to put his socks in the hamper."
"You cared for him, Mrs. Arrivas. That would have been enough for Jason."
Eve Austen caught Adele's comment and turned, her eyes still slightly red from her tears. She had known and liked Jason Burke. She would miss him.
"Adele's right, Maria. You know Jason was a quiet man, but he was very aware of the people around him and what they were thinking and feeling. I guess that's what made him such a good writer."
There was silence for a moment as everyone struggled to come to terms with the fact that their reclusive landlord had been a best-selling author and multimillionaire.
"I have all his books, you know," said Adam Burns.
"And I'm reading them now, too," added Laura. "They're really quite amazing." She glanced at her husband and smiled. "On so many levels."
They reached the tent and seated themselves. There were few other mourners present, Jason's request for privacy having been rigidly honored by his attorney.
Only his agent, his lawyer and the few invited guests were present for this ceremony. The world would learn later that renowned author JB Sims had succumbed to a heart attack and passed away on the same night he'd finished his final book.
The appropriate words were said, and the appropriate thoughts expressed. Each of the mourners shared this acknowledgement of the fragility of life with one other, and honored the quiet man who had touched their lives in a variety of different ways.
A figure neared the group and Adele glanced over as the movement caught her eye.
She froze.
It was Brian.
Eve nudged her. "Jason told me once that he'd let a special person slide from his life long ago, and he'd regretted it ever since. I couldn't let you make the same mistake." She nodded her head toward Brian. "I called him."
Adele's throat closed and words failed her. The nature of this moment, standing near the casket of a person who had been alive such a short time before, hammered home to her the need for honesty, the need for companionship, and the need to take a risk.
Before it was too late.
She slipped away from the group and walked toward Brian.
He watched her, eyes somber and concerned.
The sun shone on him, bringing blue sparks from his eyes and making him so beautiful that Adele's heart turned over in her chest. She swallowed it back down and stopped a short distance from him.
She saw his throat move as he swallowed. She opened her mouth, but the words wouldn't come. The tears did instead.
Brian said nothing. He simply opened his arms.
With a sob, Adele ran to him, throwing herself into his embrace and almost knocking him over.
He caught her and locked his arms around her, nearly crushing her ribcage. She couldn't have cared if he'd dislocated three vertebrae while he was at it. She was where she belonged. With her man. At last.
"Well dammit, woman. Took you long enough. Why the hell did you have to wait until someone died to come to your senses?"
Adele snorted through her tears as she gazed up at his dear face. "Because I'm a fucking idiot?"
"Got that right." Brian tried a wobbly smile of his own. "Oh damn." He lowered his face to hers and kissed her gently, bringing more tears to her eyes and opening her heart to the sunshine that she felt was surrounding them.
It was a blissful moment. "I love you, Brian McMillan."
"Yes you do. I always knew that. You had to find out for yourself though, just exactly what that meant."
Adele leaned against him. God bless men with big chests. "If you are going to spend the rest of our lives together being so damnably right, I may just have to shoot you."
"I'll work on it. I promise." He hugged her close again and rubbed his chin through her hair. "But you have to make me a promise too."
She nodded, too content to move. "Anything."
Beneath her ear his chest rumbled with his laughter. "Dangerous words, my love. I might hold you to that. But what I really want is your promise that you will never, ever, even for one tiny moment, think that I only care about what I see. I want you to promise me, right this minute, that you will always believe I love you, the person, the Adele who is inside, not the Adele that the world sees every day."
"I promise, Brian. I promise." Adele said the words with her heart and her soul, knowing that she meant them. Brian loved her, the real her, the thoughts, feelings, desires and emotions that were uniquely Adele Martin. She'd had enough time to know that he meant what he said.
And God knew she loved him right back.
"And in return, I promise to live the rest of my life loving you. You're my other half. My soulmate. Whatever the right word is..."
"Oh those'll do very nicely," sighed Adele.
"Good. Let's say goodbye to Jason together and then go start living our new life, shall we? We've got things to do, places to go, beds to try out..."
Adele shushed him with her hand, as she led him back to the side of the grave.
The sunlight had become even brighter, reflecting the emotions on the faces of those gathered to say their final farewells.
Each took a flower from the arrangement and walked to the casket.
Eve and Simon went first, Eve with two roses, Simon with just one.
"Goodbye and Godspeed, Jason," said Eve. "I consider myself honored to have known you. As one life ends, so another begins..."
She placed one rose on the casket and touched the other to her stomach, smiling as she did so. Then she added it to the two roses resting on the shiny wood.
The others looked questioningly at both Eve and Simon.
Simon smiled. "If it's a boy, we're thinking of calling him Jason."
Both Eve and Simon were ruthlessly hugged by everyone and chaos reigned for a few moments before Adam and Laura stepped up with their flowers.
"I wish I'd known you better, Jason," said Adam. "But as it is, I have read your words and learned from them. I'm just one of many who will cherish your books. You've left a true legacy for generations to come, and in my book, that's a sign of a life well-lived."
He reverently placed his rose on the pile and stepped back, letting Laura add hers. She said nothing, just lowered her head for a moment, then glanced at Adam, waiting for his hand.
Together they turned and left.
Finally, it was Adele's turn, and Brian stood with his arms around her as she placed her rose with the tribute.
"Thank you Jason. For being wise enough to see your mistake and for indirectly stopping me for making the same one. I hope that wherever you are, you have found contentment."
She and Brian turned away, and within minutes the only sound was a soft birdsong trilling through the bright sunshine.
*~~*~~*
Elsewhere and elsewhen...
"Well, I think that was quite lovely," sighed the light-that-was-Francesca.
The light-that-was-Jason chuckled. "Yeah. I guess. Sort of odd, though, watching one's own funeral."
They withdrew from the quiet tableau, taking some of the brilliance of the sunlight with them as they faded from that dimensional existence.
"Well, where to this time, babe?" The light-that-was-Jason snuggled up to his mate, and tickled her with rays of brilliance in colors that defied description.
The light-that-was-Francesca giggled. "We could go to Arcturus again..."
"Oh no. I don't think so. Too many tentacles and I couldn't find your hot spots underneath that damned exoskeleton. Mind you the beaches were nice..."
"What about being human again?"
The light-that-was-Jason sighed. "I don't know. That one was rough. Especially without you. I think we should pick someplace where we stand a better chance of sharing a long life. It was so...so uncomfortable without you. Mind you, the sex was great..."
The light-that-was-Francesca flas
hed a twinkle at him.
"Oh wait a minute..." The light-that-was-Jason sparkled excitedly. "How about Argosy 9? I hear tell that they've just about perfected an anti-gravity unit. That might be fun..." His tone indicated that if he'd possessed something as corporeal as eyebrows, he'd be waggling them suggestively.
He received a non-corporeal elbow to his metaphorical ribs. "Can't you think of anything but fucking?"
"Like what?"
There was silence for a moment as the light-that-was-Francesca considered the question. "Good point. Argosy 9 it is. But first-"
Other lights who ventured too close quickly turned away in embarrassment. The light-that-was-Jason and the light-that-was-Francesca were doing a little non-corporeal merging. And in public too.
The flash of incredible luminescence that lit up the sky puzzled astronomers on Earth for weeks. They couldn't have known it was two souls finding each other and two beings from another dimension loving each other.
They would never have considered that it might mark the beginning of a new journey, a new set of adventures and a new existence on a planet they hadn't even heard of yet.
They would never have guessed, not in a million light years, that it was the ethereal essence of male and female enjoying that most universal of activities—sex.
Nope. Astronomers liked to look for the science. It wouldn't have occurred to them to look for passion amongst the strangely fascinating nebulae. Their mistake.
Here's hoping you never forget to look for—and find—the love in your life, whatever form it takes.
The End
(And this time, it really is the end!)
About the Author
British born and bred, Sahara Kelly has enjoyed writing and reading Regency romances for many decades, beginning in her childhood with Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer and Barbara Cartland.
Arriving in America with her almost-complete collection of Leslie Charteris’ Saint novels and a passion for Monty Python, Sahara’s new life eventually expanded to include a husband, offspring, citizenship, and a certain amount of acclimation to her new surroundings. She never quite managed to attain a level of comfort with the American way of spelling, however, and creating a Regency novel offers challenges in that regard. So you’ll see words that UK readers will recognize, but USA readers might perhaps find unusual. It’s a choice…should one write an English romance using English spelling? Sahara has come around to that belief. She can now enjoy the extra “u” which has always seemed so colourful…
After more than two decades of writing, Sahara is now enjoying the greater freedom offered to authors by the rapidly expanding self-publishing scene, and looking forward to many more such experiences. Being freed of restraints has opened doors—for Sahara and many other writers. There are now no impediments; no obstructions barring the path from writer to reader. Which is, in many ways, exactly as originally intended when that first storyteller sat on a rock outside her cave, tugged her bearskin around her shoulders and smiled at her kids across the open fire with the words “Once upon a time...” (or however it sounded several million years ago.)
To find out more about Sahara Kelly and her writing, please drop by her website and visit her at:
Sahara Kelly (Website – http://www.saharakelly.com)
This is where Sahara shares none of the intimate details of her life, but will present you with a list of books she'd like you to buy so that she can go do research on a beach in Aruba and be pampered with massages accompanied by drinks with umbrellas in them. She’ll send you a postcard. Thank you.
When not dreaming of lazing on tropical beaches, Sahara has a relatively active social presence on the Internet. Take a look:
Follow Sahara on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SaharaKelly
Friend her on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sahara.kelly
See what she’s blogging about: http://writersaharakelly.blogspot.com
Follow her on BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/sahara-kelly
Get her latest release info from Amazon: http://amzn.to/2w78KbM
You can stay on top of what’s on the way from Sahara’s fertile imagination by subscribing to her newsletter and keeping up to date with everything going on by clicking this link. (http://eepurl.com/bxpvp) She doesn’t send them out too often, so you won’t be swamped with unwanted mail. Sahara loathes that and refuses to inflict it on anyone else, so you can go ahead and subscribe without worrying about it.
Also By Sahara Kelly
(*- co-written with S.L. Carpenter)
The Landlocked Baron
Book 1 in the Six Pearls of Baron Ridlington series
St. Simon’s Sin
Book 2 in the Six Pearls of Baron Ridlington series
Word of a Lady
Book 3 in the Six Pearls of Baron Ridlington series
~
The Mistletoe Marquess
Outrageous Ladies
~
The Gypsy Gentlemen Series
Honor and Secrets
Control and Compassion
Endings and Beginnings
~
Sword Play
Oh My Laird!
Deverell’s Obsession
The Fifth Wife
Julia and the Devil
Discreet Madness
The Viscount and the Witch
Feels So Right*
~
Whole Lotta Love Series
Love in the Cards*
Love on the Road*
Love Under the Lights*
A Whole Lotta Love* (the boxed set)
~
Happy Endings*
With a Little Help from my Friends (with Ciana Stone)
Letting Off Steam
Winding Her Up
Stripping Her Gears
My Renaissance Romance
Hired Help*
Open House
So Into You*
Faerieland needs YOU
My Wish
My Prize
My Hero
Showing Off*
And many more…
*~~*~~*
Several of the above titles were co-written with friend and writing partner S.L. Carpenter. Together, they have a dozen or so books available, each featuring their trademark touches of humour and heat. Their most recent releases are a contemporary romance - a bundle of their very first three books now available together - Feels So Right, a collection of strange fairy tales - Happy Endings - and the Whole Lotta Love series.
These, and a whole bunch of Sahara Kelly’s other books, can be found online for your eReader or your reader app. Quite a few are also in print. No excuses, people. You can add her stories to your bookshelves physically or digitally. Go get ‘em.
*~~*~~*
Sahara would like to mention that she and S.L. Carpenter co-own a small business, and have been up and running for over five years. They have blended another of their shared passions — art — and formed an online graphics business focusing on the complicated world of writers. If you’re interested in seeing what they get up to when they’re not writing something twistedly hot and sexy, they’d like to invite you to come visit their company at the link below and check out some of the amazing cover art currently being created by S.L. Carpenter. They’re certainly never bored…
P and N Graphics, LLC
www.pandngraphics.com
Happy Reading.