by Ann Nichols
“It’s my business,” Luke said defensively and flicked an accusing glance over his left shoulder toward the crumbling fortress, as if it were somehow responsible for his problems.
“If it were just your business, I would honor your decision,” Gabriel persisted. “But it doesn’t concern only you. Anastasia’s well-being is at stake and I don’t think it’s wise for you to invite ‘trouble’ to come for a visit.”
“I would hardly describe Melissa as ‘trouble,’ ” Luke shot back.
Gabriel’s voice was even and low. “I look in your eyes, my friend, and I see trouble.”
Luke’s hard, green eyes met the steely, unflinching gaze of his friend.
“It’s still my business,” Luke reiterated, but the nervous coil in his stomach, which had never quite relaxed since the letter from Melissa arrived, tightened a few more notches.
Gabriel shook his head and spoke deliberately. “Anastasia—she’s both of our concern.”
A sarcastic smile twisted Luke’s mouth. “Tell me, friend. How can you love a woman who barely greets you, even after weeks of separation?”
Luke watched as Gabriel looked out across the water toward the blurry line where the sea gave way to the sky. He thought the fuzziness of the horizon somehow matched Gabriel’s love for Anastasia. Hazy. Unclear. A love Luke couldn’t fathom.
When at last Gabriel spoke, it was as if he were speaking to some far-off place that his eyes couldn’t see, but which he knew existed. “I remember her before the accident when she was. . .whole. . .” his voice trailed off for a moment. “And I remind myself that God can restore the woman inside, even if He chooses not to give her back her legs.”
Gabriel looked at Luke with eyes that were sad, yet caring. But what struck Luke the most was that Gabriel hadn’t returned anger for anger. Luke had intended to skewer his friend, but he came away knowing that he was a lesser man for attacking the love his sister was so fortunate to have. He flexed his shoulders as if to shrug off imaginary talons that were digging into him. He didn’t like people questioning his judgment, but Gabriel wasn’t just anybody.
“I’m sorry,” Luke said. “I don’t know what made me say that.”
Reaching out, Gabriel patted Luke’s upper arm. “I do, and even if you don’t want to hear it, I’m going to tell you.” Gabriel spoke without malice, and Luke turned his head to look at his friend. “You’re jealous of the love that I have for your sister, broken and depressed as she might be, because you wanted to love Melissa in the same way—unconditionally, with all her foibles—but you ran away when your love was tested.”
Luke looked away and shook his head. He knew that part of what Gabriel said was true. But only a small part. “I did love Melissa,” he declared. “But she wouldn’t have me.”
Gabriel exhaled loudly and Luke had to admit that, even to his own ears, his assertion sounded shallow and childish. “Are you sure that’s how it was?” Gabriel finally asked. Before Luke could answer, his friend stood up and said, “Well, I’ve already said good-bye to Anastasia and little Emilia. I’ve got to get back to Athens. I promised my pastor that I’d be on hand to help welcome in refugees from the east that are due to arrive tonight.”
Luke nodded. “I’ll see you in a few weeks.”
Gabriel smiled, a strong sure curve of his lips between his mustache and his goatee, and Luke knew that their friendship was intact. Maybe even a bit stronger. The coil in his gut loosened a turn.
“Right. I’ll see you then,” Gabriel said. He turned and walked to the stairs, but before he started down, he paused and turned back to look at Luke. “You know, Melissa’s probably changed. Give her—you—a chance.”
Luke returned Gabriel’s smile, but he knew, deep within himself, it was the change in her that he feared the most.
The church bell clanged from the little whitewashed chapel at the far end of the bay, and Luke tilted his head toward the sound. Despite his reservations about Gabriel’s religion, he admired Gabriel’s devotion. But what most impressed Luke about his friend was that, except for a worn Bible that he carried around with him, Gabriel didn’t wear his religion like a mantle of righteousness. He didn’t even make a big deal over missing the Sunday morning service to spend the time with Anastasia.
Luke remembered that his parents had never missed a service. But church had always been, and still was, nothing more than a big social event for them. He frowned. Everything was a social event for them. But for Gabriel Crown, religion was something more. Luke didn’t understand it—and didn’t want to—but he knew it was something more.
His frown deepened as he considered how it didn’t bother him that his best friend was religious, but when Melissa had started talking to him about God that day at the cabin, he had become livid. He remembered feeling as though his place in her heart had been usurped by some far-off God. The difference between Gabriel and Melissa was that Luke didn’t mind if Gabriel’s heart was filled by God. But with Melissa, he felt threatened.
He glanced at his watch. She wasn’t due to arrive for another two hours.
His head pounded. He wanted to blame it on the heat, but he knew the sultry afternoon was only part of his problem. Undoing a shirt button, he looked out over the bay. A bee—a melissa—buzzed in front of him. The amber and black insect brought his mind back to the amber and black beauty of Melissa Kincaid’s eyes. He didn’t want to think about that. He couldn’t. He willed himself to focus instead on the sound of children laughing and frolicking in the warm waters off the beach below the villa. He knew that his little niece, Emilia, was probably right in the middle of the action. He smiled at the thought of his olive-skinned niece, the joy of his life. He only wished that Anastasia was still able to care for her daughter.
For a long time now, Luke had felt that Anastasia just needed something, some sort of catalyst, to get her back into the act of living again. He could sense that his sister wanted to change her life. She just needed a reason to do so. All the old reasons, including Gabriel’s love, had become stale.
He expelled a deep breath and rubbed his hand against the side of his neck, where the chain he had worn for years would have been if he hadn’t given it to Melissa. He missed the cross. As it turned out, its absence had reminded him of Melissa much more than if he had worn it. As if he had needed a reminder.
For the first time since he fled from Ridgedale, Luke considered the possibility that he had acted too quickly in breaking up with Melissa. “Just a little more time,” she had pleaded. But he had refused her. Dumb.
Luke finally admitted that he was willing to give their relationship another chance. If only he hadn’t been so reactive, so headstrong, they might have been married by now. Maybe there was still hope. But no sooner had he felt his spirits begin to rise, than the memory of the issue that had divided them came crashing in and set his mind spinning again. The whole matter was exhausting, and Luke suddenly realized how tired he was. He needed to sleep before he would be able to face Melissa.
Glancing down at his watch, he decided to follow the custom of the country for once and to escape the oppressive heat of the afternoon by sleeping it away. Standing and stretching, he turned and walked into the welcome coolness of the house. Upstairs in his room, he shrugged out of his damp shirt and flopped onto the bed.
Just before he drifted off to sleep, he thought he heard the sound of a buzzing bee caught in the folds of his curtains. His last thought before he began to snore was that he wanted to set it free.
Nine
Melissa rubbed her hand across the outline of the cross that lay hidden beneath her dress. Except to bathe and swim, she hadn’t taken it off since the day Luke had angrily given it to her. She never would have agreed to keep it if she had known that he would disappear before she could give it back. She had intended to return it to him within a few days—weeks at the most. It had never occurred to her that eighteen months would pass and that she would have to travel halfway around the world to find Luke.
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nbsp; But at least now she had a pretty good idea of what she wanted to say—if she could get the words out while looking into Luke’s beautiful green eyes. With the help of her pastor and her friends at the church who had invited her to join their weekly Bible study, she now understood the meaning of the cross. But that was the easy part. The other half of her dilemma was to repair the breach in her relationship with Luke, which had resulted from their argument at Lake Breeze. She wasn’t quite so confident about that. She’d thought and prayed many times during the past year and a half about what had happened to them. After much soul-searching she had decided that even though she had made a mess of trying to explain why she couldn’t marry him as planned, Luke needed to be held accountable for running away without so much as a word to anyone. If he hadn’t finally written to Uncle Bob to settle his contractual obligations to the clinic, she might never have known for sure where he had gone.
As she maneuvered the small sedan along the highway out from Athens, she let her mind drift back to that eventful day at the cabin. She hadn’t wanted to break up with Luke; she had simply needed more time. And after the blowup, she had at least hoped for an opportunity to return the cross and explain to him what she had learned.
She rounded a bend in the road and Chlemoutsi Castle suddenly loomed on the horizon. She looked at the grand Frankish castle and was reminded of the steps that had led her on this journey.
She had never been especially interested in ancient history before Luke left Ridgedale, but his disappearance had started her on an interesting path that eventually culminated in an in-depth study of famous fortresses.
By studying her father’s Bible, she had learned that God was the only real source of security in the world. But when she was honest with herself, she knew that she still looked to Luke to fill that role. She had expressed her conflicting emotions to her new pastor and he had responded by giving her a study Bible with a concordance and telling her to look up all the verses in the Bible that had the words “security,” “refuge,” “fortress,” “rock,” and “stronghold” in them.
At first, she had thought it was a strange combination of words, but it didn’t take her long to see how beautifully those words were intertwined in Scripture and to learn that they all pointed to the Lord as the only source of true security.
Tightening her grip on the steering wheel, she marveled at Chlemoutsi’s gigantic walls as she recited some of the wonderful verses she had found in Psalm 18: “ ‘I love you, O Lord, my strength,’ ” she said with renewed understanding. “ ‘The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.’ ”
She paused thoughtfully as the castle receded in the rear-view mirror. “My rock. Mine,” she repeated with feeling. “ ‘He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.’ ” She touched her hand to her heart and patted it. “Mine.” And it was as personal a prayer to her as it had been to David, the shepherd, the king, who had first penned it three thousand years ago.
A few minutes later, as she turned off the main highway onto the country road leading to the little seaside village of St. Andreas, where Luke now lived, she prayed Psalm 18 again as a reminder that God was with her on this most important journey.
She repeated the psalm until she rounded a curve and she saw the ruins of the little fortress of Beauvoir, which she knew sat above Luke’s home. She saw the sign, Villa Beauvoir, Luke’s home, and drew in her breath. She felt her pulse quicken as she turned onto the long, cypress-lined drive.
❧
Luke stood on the veranda, a glass of iced coffee in his hand, and looked out over the driveway. He felt refreshed by his deep afternoon sleep and decided he was as ready as he could be for Melissa to arrive.
He hooked his shoe around the banister as his eyes scanned the long ribbon of asphalt leading up to the house. When an angry cloud of dust billowed above the tall cypresses, he knew that Melissa had turned in from the road. When a small orange sedan came bursting through the trees—like a ray of sunshine on a dreary day—Luke’s heart pounded with an emotion he hadn’t felt in a long time. Was it happiness, uncertainty, or fear? He couldn’t tell. The only thing he knew for sure was that the one woman he had ever loved was coming toward him.
“Melissa.” He whispered her name. Behind his dark glasses, his eyes softened into a smile.
Ten
A golden arm reached out the open window of the car and waved.
That was it. A simple wave, natural and sure—and hauntingly familiar.
A few seconds later, the car came to a rolling stop and Melissa turned her face toward him with a look of bright openness and a huge smile. Something inside of Luke—something good that wouldn’t allow past anger and bitterness to ruin the magic of the present moment—sent all his negative emotions shuffling off to a far closet of his soul.
The pounding of his pulse drove him forward. Removing his sunglasses, he bounded down the stairs and walked briskly across the driveway. When he reached the small sedan, he was surprised to see that he still had his iced coffee in his hand. Setting the glass gingerly on top of the car, he braced his hands against the metal rim of the driver’s side window and leaned down to eye level with Melissa. She looked up from gathering her purse and folding the map and looked at him with her sparkling amber eyes.
Luke felt suddenly alive. It was a familiar yet long forgotten sensation. A small smile creased the corners of his mouth. “Welcome to St. Andreas, Melissa.”
Her smile widened. When Luke swung the car door open, she didn’t hesitate. Stretching out her legs, she stood up, and for the first time in more than eighteen months, they stood face-to-face, with less than a hand’s length between them.
They looked deeply into each other’s eyes.
She wanted to touch him, hold him.
He wanted to touch her, hold her.
Neither one moved, but the air around them seemed to vibrate with electricity. Then, as naturally as a wave rolling to the shore, their arms went around each other and they eagerly embraced. Melissa’s nose found its favorite place just under Luke’s right ear and his chin rested against the top of her head, just as it always had.
Heart to heart, they beat to the same rhythm.
Luke felt it.
Melissa felt it.
They clung to each other and savored the moment as the heat of the day wrapped itself around them like a blanket of warmth, of comfort, of protection.
Luke breathed in the soft scent of her hair. She smelled like springtime on the Ionian Sea. Every time he’d opened a window or stepped outside and caught a fragrant breeze from the bluff below the house, he had dreamed that she was about to appear.
He squeezed her gently closer. He could hardly believe she was there and he was holding her. The anger and bitterness of their last conversation was as far from his mind as it could be. It was almost as if that day at the lake had never occurred.
Easing her back to arm’s length, he took in the full measure of her beauty. “You look great. Just the same as ever,” he said with a hint of wonder in his voice.
She looked at him with a twinkle in her eye and said, “Yep, the packaging is the same, but the insides are brand-new!”
His face immediately clouded and he took a step back. Things were not the same as ever—or maybe they were. He was remembering the days of their courtship, when even the thought of her made his pulse quicken, but maybe the gulf that had sprung up between them eighteen months before was too wide to bridge, and the water too deep to cross.
Cross. The cross. With a nervous shake of his head he glanced down at the front of her dress. At the neckline, he could see where the heavy gold chain disappeared beneath the light cotton fabric.
Following the path of his eyes, Melissa knew immediately what he was thinking. Unconsciously, her hand moved up to her chest and she felt the gold cross. It was a gesture she had repeated countless times in the past year and a half.
“I still have it,” she said shyly.
But when she saw the ambiguous haze in his eyes, she moved quickly to lighten the mood. Her eyes darted quickly around the area and she spied the iced coffee on the roof of the car. “Hey, you’re still drinking iced coffees, I see. Mind if I have a sip?” She reached for the half-empty glass.
“I’d be happy to make you a fresh one,” Luke offered, shifting smoothly into his role as host.
Melissa shook her head. “Just a sip of yours will be fine.” She suddenly longed to drink from his cup. Wrapping her fingers around the frosted glass she brought it to her lips. The cool liquid filled her mouth, refreshing and sweet. It was so totally Luke. He had introduced her to iced coffee their first summer together, and there was something familiar, something intimate about drinking it from his glass again. It was a link with their past—a happy link.
She brought the glass to her lips again and took a long, slow swallow. With an embarrassed giggle, she handed the nearly empty glass back to him. “Oops. I didn’t realize I was so thirsty.”
“Neither did I,” he said, and his voice was deep and husky. Melissa had been a woman long enough to know that he was referring to a different kind of thirst. And from the way his lips drew together, she knew that he was about to kiss her.
With timing so perfect that it couldn’t be coy or teasing, she stepped away from him and waved her hand at the surrounding beauty. “What a gorgeous home,” she said with genuine appreciation. “And just look at Beauvoir.” She turned to gaze up at the crumbling tower. “It’s enchanting.”
“Pondicokastro.” Luke automatically breathed out the name that the locals called the fortress, and Melissa was buoyed by the hope that the difficult moment had passed.
“Mouse castle,” she quickly offered the translation. “But the question is, was it called that because it was overrun by mice or because this peninsula looks like a scurrying mouse when viewed from the sea?” She tilted her head back to look at him.
Luke chuckled. It was as if they were back in time, discussing the hills and forests around Lake Breeze, with Melissa speculating in her soft southern accent about the early history of the colonial United States. Luke suddenly realized that her voice was a soothing balm—something else that hadn’t changed. “Probably a combination of the two,” he offered, bringing his thoughts back to the present question.