by Ann Nichols
“Sand castles! Hooray! Me too!”
“Maybe we can make one together,” Melissa suggested.
“A big one?” Emilia asked.
“A very big one,” Melissa agreed.
“When?”
“Is tomorrow soon enough?”
“I can’t wait!” she exclaimed, and she snuggled closer to her mother. Anastasia’s smile deepened before she leaned down and whispered something into her daughter’s ear, something that made Emilia’s head nod up and down in a quick, excited motion before she squeezed her arms even tighter around her mother’s neck.
Pushing back from her mother, but with one little arm still around her neck, Emilia explained her excitement. “Mamma’s going to put me to bed tonight! She said that I can ride on her chair with her!” But then, as if she suddenly realized that her uncle might feel bad, she said, “But you come too, Theo Luke. You can bring my doll.”
“You bet,” he agreed, emotion making his voice deeper than normal. “I’ll be up later.”
Amid happy giggles from Emilia, Anastasia started rolling the chair away. “I’ll probably be awhile,” she said over her shoulder. “You two start dinner without me.”
A look of concern darkened Luke’s face. “But you will come back down?” he asked, and there was no disguising how important her answer would be.
Anastasia looked at him over the top of her child’s head. “Definitely.” With a quick wink at Melissa she added, “After all, I don’t want to miss the drama.”
Melissa shook her head in amusement, but Luke looked confused. “That’s an inside joke,” Melissa said. “Girl talk.”
“I see,” he said, but it was obvious he didn’t see at all. Luke and Melissa watched together as Anastasia and Emilia disappeared into the elevator.
The door closed and Melissa and Luke were alone.
As if in slow motion, Melissa saw Luke’s hand leave his side and reach out toward her. When his fingers made contact with the back of her neck and he pulled her close to him, her knees went weak. “Luke,” she breathed his name and rested her head on his shoulder.
“Melissa,” he whispered as his cheek fell against the top of her head. “Thank you.”
She tilted her head back and looked at him. “For what?”
“For giving my sister back to me.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You did something very great,” he corrected gently. “But how did you get her to dress and come downstairs? I’ve been trying to do that for such a long time,” he sighed.
She shrugged her shoulders and answered as casually as she could, “We met on the veranda outside our rooms. I was playing my guitar. She said that if I promised to play for her after dinner, she would come down.”
Luke was overcome by a rush of emotions that he couldn’t even begin to identify. The only thing he knew for sure was that he felt happy for the first time in months—and he was willing to let the moment linger. He was almost sorry when Melissa tilted her head back and broke the silence.
“Luke, I had no idea about her accident. I’m so sorry.” She noticed a momentary twitch in his jaw, the same little quirk she had noticed earlier in the day.
“Anastasia talked to you about it?” Anastasia hadn’t talked to anyone about the accident. Not him, not Gabriel—no one. He was amazed that she had talked to Melissa, apparently within minutes of meeting her.
Melissa chose her next words carefully. “As you must remember, I suffered a similar loss as a child when I lost my parents.”
Her parents. He berated himself for not recognizing a textbook example of recovery.
Melissa continued, “Well, Anastasia acted differently toward me the moment I told her about it. It was as if I was an example of a healed person to her. Plus, I think the timing is right. She’s ready to try and live again.”
He was amazed by her insight, but decided not to comment any further. Nodding his agreement, he pressed his hand lightly against the small of her back and directed her onto the veranda, where the table was set for dinner.
Melissa stood in wonder of the scene. It was elegant and regal in an old world way. Candles were lit and several palm trees in the garden were spotlighted. Even the tower on the hill was lit up. The sea was calm, but its steady breakers whispered an age-old song into the soft and silvery summer night. “How beautiful. We’re eating outside?”
“As long as it’s not windy, I enjoy taking my meals on the veranda during the summer months and even on into early fall.”
“Now I know I’m in Greece,” Melissa sighed, as Luke pulled out the wrought-iron chair and seated her at the marble-topped table. He slid into the chair kitty-corner from her.
“Ah, here’s Soula.” He motioned to the older woman waddling through the French doors carrying a bread basket and water on a silver tray. The woman rocked back and forth on her legs so much that Melissa couldn’t help but wonder how she kept from spilling the water. Standing, Luke took the tray from her. “Soula, I want you to meet Melissa.”
Soula had had her eyes on Melissa from the moment she walked through the door. With a broad smile she asked, “You are awake now? Did you sleep well?”
Soula had a heavy, but sweet, accent and Melissa liked her immediately. Returning her bright-toothed smile, Melissa replied, “Yes, thank you, the bed was wonderful after such a long journey.”
“What? No,” Soula very nearly clucked. “I saw you sleeping on the veranda.”
Melissa laughed, and Luke remembered the familiar “chimes touched by the breeze” sound that he had always loved. “Oh, yes, that was nice too.”
“Soula is my sister’s housekeeper,” Luke was quick to explain their relationship. “But more than that, she’s our friend,” he said, and he gave the large, but short woman, a kiss on her wrinkled face, which pleased her immensely.
“If you need anything else, you tell me,” Soula instructed. She started to turn away, but Luke restrained her with his hand.
“Actually, Soula, we do need something. If it’s not too much trouble for you, would you mind setting another place at the table?” Luke winked at Melissa. “Anastasia is going to join us after she finishes putting Emilia to bed.”
The housekeeper gasped. “What?”
“I said—”
“Our Anastasia is putting Emilia to bed and she’s coming to eat here?” Tears washed Soula’s blue eyes and she crossed herself. “Thank God, thank God. But. . .how. . .?” She questioned Luke.
Luke motioned to Melissa. “It’s all her doing.”
Soula swiveled to face Melissa. “Bless you, child.” She grabbed Melissa’s hand and she kissed it before Melissa realized what was happening. “I knew while I watched you sleeping that I loved you.”
“No, wait. . .” Feeling uncomfortable, Melissa gently pulled her hand away and said, “It wasn’t me. It’s all the love that both of you have given to Anastasia on a daily basis.”
“Yes,” Soula agreed without argument. “But it is you, too.” She turned and scuttled as quickly as her legs would allow her to go back into the house.
“What a dear lady,” Melissa murmured.
“She is,” Luke agreed thoughtfully. “I don’t know what I would have done without her after Anastasia’s accident.”
“How about your parents?” Melissa asked.
Luke made a bitter sound in his throat. “My parents. . .are. . . my parents. They haven’t changed.”
“Didn’t they help at all?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “They were around for the first few weeks after the accident.” He picked up the bread knife and slashed the loaf into slices. “But that was about it. End of discussion.”
Melissa nodded. The topic of his parents had always been low on his list of favorites. They were rock bottom now. Leaning over, she picked up the rag doll that Emilia had planted strategically on the table. “Emilia is a wonderful little girl,” she said, thinking that talking about his niece would be a safe subject. But it turned
out to be an even more volatile topic than his parents.
Luke put down the knife and reached over to rub his hand across the rag doll’s yarn hair. In the same motion he wrapped Melissa’s hand in his and the two sat for a moment, clutching the doll together. “I had hoped that we would have had children by now, Melissa.” He spoke with total honesty and the yearning in his tone brought tears to the back of Melissa’s eyes.
“Luke,” she looked down at their hands still intertwined around the doll. “I wasn’t ready for marriage then,” she whispered, “much less children.”
“And now?”
She looked up at him and searched his eyes for a clue to his real question. But he was veiling his emotions and his eyes were deep green pools of mystery.
“I could be,” she softly admitted, but the anger that suddenly flashed in his eyes took her off guard.
With his lips barely moving, he ground out the question he most dreaded, and steeled himself for the answer he didn’t want to hear. “Are you seeing someone else?”
Her eyes widened and Luke wasn’t certain whether he saw guilt or merely surprise. But her reply was swift and emphatic. “Luke, since the night we met, there hasn’t been anyone but you.”
He clicked his tongue against his cheek. “That’s not true, Melissa.”
Her eyes closed and then widened again in disbelief. “Luke, it is true,” she insisted and squeezed his fingers. “The man you saw me hugging. . .that day. . .was the pastor at my church—a friend only. I told you that.” She couldn’t believe that he might still harbor doubts, but she had seen a tiny quiver in the corner of his eye when she said that day, and she knew that he understood exactly which day she meant—the day they were supposed to have been married.
“There is no one but you,” she insisted.
His mouth settled into a thin, dry line and, letting go of her hand, he reached to the back of her neck. With the soft touch of a surgeon, he pulled on the chain that held the object hidden beneath the folds of her silk dress. When the cross was free, he reached out and cradled it in his hand. “And your God,” he said pointedly.
Melissa chewed on her lower lip. “Luke,” she hesitantly began, but he silenced her with an upward jut of his chin, the Greek “no.” Sighing, she lifted her hands to the chain to remove the cross from around her neck.
But letting go of the cross, he placed his hands above hers, once again stopping her. “No, Melissa. I don’t want it back. I didn’t want it a year and a half ago. I don’t want it now.”
“But, Luke, it’s yours and—”
“As far as I’m concerned,” he cut her off, his voice deep and biting, “it’s your love for that cross that took you away from me.”
She stiffened. “You’re wrong, Luke. It’s this cross and what it stands for that has brought me back to you.”
The old, familiar rawness worked on his nerves and formed a knot in his stomach. He felt edgy. Shaking his head, he simply said, “I don’t see it that way.”
She bent her head and looked at the shiny metal. Twice she had tried to give it back to him; twice he had refused it. She wouldn’t force it on him. “I told you on the day that you. . . gave. . .” she stumbled over the word, “the cross to me, that I would return it to you when I could tell you the meaning behind it.” She moved her eyes away from the historic symbol of Christianity and looked straight at him. “I’m ready to tell you, but I can appreciate that you’re not necessarily ready to hear. I’ll wait. When you’re ready to hear—when you’re willing to understand, let me know.” There was no rancor in her voice, but the message was clear. The ball was in his court.
He nodded and wondered bleakly how wanting her and blaming her at the same time could ever be worked out. “You might have a very long wait,” he conceded.
“I’m willing to give you time.” Again, her voice was soft and sweet and genuine, but the words pierced his heart. She was offering him the time that he had been unwilling to extend to her. Looking directly into his eyes, she lifted the cross and dropped it back inside her dress.
Luke’s mind was a tangle of conflicting emotions. As much as he resented her fixation on the cross, he loved her and knew he didn’t want to lose her. Not again. Grimly, he sat back and crossed his arms. The gauntlet had been thrown down, but he doubted there would ever be enough time to reach a genuine reconciliation. She might intend to stay for awhile, but eventually she would complete her study of the castles and then she would be gone.
She touched his hand and spoke soothingly, as if she were reading his mind, “Luke, this time around,” she paused, “we do have time.”
“Do we?”
Her eyes shifted up toward the Byzantine fortress, silhouetted in the silkiness of the night, and she smiled. “Greece has a lot of castles. They could keep ‘the Castle Lady’ here for a very long time.”
“And me?”
She reached out and rubbed her fingertips across his cheek. “And you, dear Luke, could keep me here for the rest of my earthly life.”
His jaw tightened.
She closed her eyes and leaned toward him.
Luke didn’t hesitate. His lips met hers in a sweet kiss of hope, desire, and promise. The hope of reconciliation, the desire for each other, and the promise to try to work it out.
Fourteen
In the morning, the meltemia—the strong summer winds that usually fanned Greece around the end of July or early August— started to blow. Luke paused on the veranda, medical bag in hand, ready to leave for his rounds at the hospital. He glanced out over the dancing land and undulating sea. The long-awaited winds dusted a layer of dirt from the trees and swept the horizon clear of its hazy lines. The air was no longer oppressive, and Luke realized as he jogged down the steps to his car that his mind felt refreshed as well. Anastasia seemed to be coming out of her depression, and Melissa would still be here—waiting for him—when he got home.
Luke liked the idea. He liked it a lot, and as he fired up the powerful engine of his sports car, he decided that—at least for the moment—nothing else mattered.
❧
The days settled into a happy routine for Melissa and her newfound friends. Anastasia, Emilia, and Soula all took to Melissa like butter does to bread and Melissa grew to love them all.
In the evenings, she and Luke enjoyed long walks on the beach at sunset and candlelight dinners on the veranda— peaceful times of getting to know each other again. Anastasia always joined them for dinner and the happiness that Luke felt with his sister at the table was like a ribbon of joy that wound around them all.
Even though Luke had declared a truce, Melissa recognized it as temporary. She knew that his anger and bitterness were still percolating just below the surface of his smile and that one wrong word, one wrong movement, could elicit a new eruption. But she was glad for the reprieve. She needed the time to get her bearings and to pray.
And pray she did. Early each morning, to the sounds of sea-gulls playing tag above the shore and fishermen chugging home in their brightly colored boats after fishing all night, Melissa sat on her bedroom veranda, read her Bible, and prayed. And when the sound of Luke’s high-powered car filtered up to her as he left for work, she would lift her head and offer up a special prayer for the man she loved.
With all of her being she wanted to go downstairs and see him off. But she didn’t feel right about greeting him in the morning. Somehow, to wave good-bye to a man going off to work seemed more intimate than a candlelight dinner. She hoped that someday she would have that privilege, but for now, she would wait, and pray.
A few weeks after her arrival, she was at her usual place on the veranda listening to the last sounds of Luke’s car fading away when Anastasia, more asleep than awake, appeared at her doorway. “I thought I heard you,” she called to Melissa.
The sight of Luke’s sister in a pretty pink nighty with her hair falling in silky, sleep-rumpled waves around her face, brought a smile to Melissa’s face. Already, Anastasia looked so different
from the woman she had met on the same veranda the afternoon of her first day at St. Andreas. “Kali Mera,” Melissa greeted her with the Greek words for “good morning.”
“Kali Mera,” Anastasia replied. Squinting against the brightness of the sky, she asked, “What are you doing out here so early?”
Melissa glanced down at the well-worn Bible in her lap. Remembering from their first conversation the negative way Anastasia had reacted to the mention of God, Melissa silently prayed that what she said would be well received. Training her eyes on Anastasia, she answered honestly, “I’m reading the Bible.”
Anastasia dipped her head, shook it slightly, and when she lifted it again Melissa was relieved to see a slow smile gently lift the corners of her lips. “You and Gabriel. . .you’re so much alike.” There was wonder in her voice. “It’s amazing, but. . .he reads his Bible every morning too.”
Melissa didn’t think it was amazing. The way she saw it, God in His wisdom was making sure that Luke and Anastasia were surrounded—and loved—by people who knew Him. From all she had heard about Gabriel Crown—especially from Emilia, who counted the hours until his next visit—he was definitely a believer. “I’m looking forward to meeting him.”
“He should be coming this Friday afternoon,” Anastasia volunteered, and in the timbre of her voice, Melissa was certain she detected the sound of a woman who was interested in a man.
“He’s going to be very happy to see the change in you,” she ventured to comment.
Anastasia nodded and a soft, attractive blush touched her cheeks. “He’s been a very good friend to me.”
Friend. Melissa remembered how she and Luke had started off. But Gabriel was a believer, and Melissa now knew that made all the difference to what might follow in a relationship. “Do I detect something more here than just friendship?” she asked coyly. Anastasia’s blush deepened to the same soft color as her nightgown, confirming the budding romance Melissa had only suspected before.
“Like I said, Gabriel has been a very good friend to me. Tell me,” she continued quickly in the same breath, obviously wanting to change the subject, “do you ever play your guitar in the morning?”