by Brenda Storm
Rod held Brianna in his weak, glowing arms and whispered softly, “Wake up, love.”
Her eyelids fluttered open and she recognized the ghost of her long, lost love. “Rod!”
“Yes, it’s me. Can you hear me?”
“Barely.”
“It isn’t easy to speak aloud after one died on earth, but the soul still lives beyond your current world.”
Hurt returned to haunt her. “You left me…walked out on me years ago when I loved you madly,” she confronted him. “I would have married you, not Mark, if you’d stuck around.”
Surprised, Rod confided, “I was on my way to see you that last night before I took off, but I peeked through your folks’ back windows and discovered that Mark stayed overnight at your house. I watched the next night and he was there again, and also the following night. From out in your yard I saw him kiss you long ago. I saw the two of you making out on the sofa…having sex, I assumed. Why, Brianna? Why did you betray me?”
“I didn’t! Mark was the son of my father’s best buddy. His house burned to the ground, so my dad invited him as our guest. One night Mark kissed me and on the couch I responded at first, but I stopped him from making love to me because I wanted to be with you. This must be the unfortunate scene you witnessed. I had no idea that you saw us!”
“You appeared to enjoy Mark’s kisses. I left.”
“But I waited for you. Only after several months when you dropped out of sight did I start actually dating Mark, whom I later married, but he died.”
“Yes, I saw him cross over to the afterlife. That’s how I knew you were free again. That’s why I came back.”
Confused, she wanted to know everything she missed about Rod’s earth life. “You died? How? Where did you go? What did you do after I last saw you many years ago when I was nineteen?”
“Shh!” He placed a finger to her lips and she felt his touch on her mouth. Embarrassed, he didn’t want her to know that he’d lost everything, including his will to survive, and he’d even become homeless after being wealthy for a short time, working as a stock broker on Wall Street, a job he’d learned to hate. After dying, after he lived in a tent city on the streets, he never wanted to have to think about money again. Money destroyed people’s souls. His soul was all he had left, but now he wanted more. He wanted Brianna back. Years ago he wanted her as his wife; she said she wanted it too.
“It’s not too late for you to belong to me,” he rasped, urging her gently down farther onto the soft mattress as she felt her head rest against goose-feather pillows that lightly smelled of lavender. “Make love to me, Brianna. Then we’ll share a bond that will never let us be separated ever again.”
Where he went before, what he did, what kind of a man he’d become earlier mattered little. All she cared about was that Rod was with her now, in any form, as he showered warm, heavenly kisses down her neck and satiny bosom.
“Take me!” she surrendered, thrilled to have him back in her life in any way, shape or form. “Take me now as the moon is rising and the dark shadows of night hide us from the outside world.”
Rod obliged and she forgot that their magical night of love occurred in a “borrowed” gypsy wagon that wasn’t theirs…a wagon that, as she made love with a ghost, cast a strange light green glow that shone through the small round window near the bed.
“Oh, no! Here we go again,” Deacon groaned, spotting the weird, greenish glow outdoors. What now? A fire? A trespasser with a colored flashlight? Tired and annoyed, he grabbed his shotgun and headed toward the pond and wagon. What he stumbled upon amazed him. The door left ajar at the red wagon permitted him to see that Brianna, nude, writhed and moaned in apparent ecstasy as she reclined alone on the bed. Yet she talked, as if she weren’t alone and spoke to a lover, but Deacon saw only her naked, near perfect feminine body on the bed next to the transparent ivory crocheted curtains.
What the hell kind of a game is she playing this time? he wondered, barging into the bed chamber he’d designed himself when he restored the old gypsy wagon that he purchased at an auction. Whatever she’s up to, this time she’s gone too far. Way too far.
After all, he was only a man, one with primitive needs and desires. The sight of Brianna, sprawled out and wearing nothing, was too much to resist. Deacon decided in that moonlit moment that he had to have her. All of her. Now.
Completely sated from making love with her soul mate, her ghostly partner Rod, and delighted to be reunited with her old love, Brianna saw a bright flash out of the corner of her eye. She felt too enraptured, too lost in clouds of desire, to realize when Rod departed after his fury at seeing Deacon interrupt them triggered hatred—the one emotion that sent all specters of the night back home to the other side. Love brought them back; hate took them away from earth, where they were only allowed to dabble so far in the affairs of the living.
Unaware that Deacon had replaced Rod in bed, Brianna felt her lover take charge of her very soul again. In the misty moonlight she felt drunk with desire as she let her mind and heart run free until she and her lover climaxed together in sweet ecstasy.
He’d lost control. Damn! Rod cursed Deacon for making him err in feeling hate and resentment when he knew those emotions were taboo for a phantom visiting earth. Now, watching his enemy make love to Brianna, the only woman he’d ever truly loved, the angry spirit that could no longer reach her hurled expletives at Deacon, who couldn’t hear anything except Brianna’s contented sighs against his ear. Rod felt like a stalker, like a voyeur, watching the two humans make fast, passionate love. How he longed to be human and alive again! On earth he tired of life, of the cruel world’s ugly system, of Wall Street and power-brokers, of all the games people played. Except for these awkward moments, being dead was more fun after he learned that ghosts floated, still very much alive, between the two worlds anytime they wished. Loving Brianna led him to want to live as a human again, to feel her gentle touch, to soak up her kisses and savor her love for the rest of his life. There had to be a way to beat Deacon at his own game. Rod intended to find it.
Blinding sunlight streamed through the window when morning greeted the lovers in the gypsy wagon as fog rose from the pond. Brianna awakened, believing she lie in the arms of Rod, but when she spotted Deacon’s face and realized his nude hard form nestled against her, she gasped in horror.
“Well, that’s not exactly the salutation I’d hoped for after a night of fiery lovemaking under the stars,” he said, his fingers teasing the nipple of her breast.
Furiously she slapped his hand and sat up, reaching for her blouse and jeans to cover herself. “How did this happen?”
He laughed heartily. “My dear, this has been happening since the beginning of time. I believe it began with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.”
Zipping up her jeans, she asked, “What did you do? Get me drunk and entice me in here last night?”
“Me? Hell, no! I never have to get a woman intoxicated to have her welcome me in bed. And, for the record, you were the one that came in here first, writhing and scheming to seduce me.”
Her ghost lover! So much flooded back to her. Rod had started out in bed with her. How had he vanished and Deacon taken his place? She recalled how Deacon had been all too happy to take her true lover’s place. Or did he ever know he did?
“It was good between us last night, wasn’t it Brianna?”
She refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing she thought he was a fabulous lover. Such knowledge would only double his already plentiful male pride. For the first time in her life, she loved two men—or rather one guy and a ghost, at the same time.
“I’m going home,” she said, suddenly exhausted.
Deacon, still naked, sat up and leaned against the wolf headboard. “You’ll be back.”
The lovers didn’t speak again until three months later when Brianna walked over to the cabin to deliver her news. “Hello, Deacon. Guess what? I’m pregnant.”
Disinterested, he glanced up from fixin
g a flat tire on his gray Ford pickup truck. “Who’s the lucky father?”
“You.”
Focusing on her finally, he responded, “You’re shitting me? Surely the famous romance novelist didn’t do something stupid like have unprotected sex in the gypsy wagon with me, did she? I assumed you were on the pill.”
“I must have forgotten to take my birth control pills. Accidents happen.”
He used his tight fist to pound the side of his truck door. “I don’t want a bratty kid in my life. Don’t expect me to marry you and get saddled down with a baby or a wife. All I wanted was sex that night, not a bride or family. I’ve had enough bad marriage experiences already to last the rest of my life. I don’t want another wife.”
“You irresponsible bastard!” she spat, nearly hitting him, but she forced herself to act mature and restrained herself from getting physical.
“If it’s my kid…”
“It is,” she interrupted.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll financially support the child,” he offered, “but I don’t want another wife. I like living alone.”
She glared at him and wondered how she ever thought for a second that she might love someone so selfish and inconsiderate. “I wouldn’t want to live with you if you were the last man on earth, not since you don’t love me and you don’t seem to know the meaning of the word, ‘love.’”
“Don’t start getting emotional.”
“A little late for that, isn’t it?”
He kicked the side of his truck tire. “I promised I’d help support our child. I always keep my word. Isn’t that good enough for you?”
Starting to walk away, she called back, “My lawyer will contact you.”
He replied cynically, “Oh, joy. I can’t wait.
The freakin’ numbers don’t add up again, Deacon realized, tossing his calculator aside and reaching for a can of beer as he sat, paying bills at his oak roll top desk. His mortgage payment would have to be late again when he already had the bank breathing down his neck from when he missed the last two payments. The economy was stagnant, his business was sluggish this year, despite him working seven days a week, busting his ass and having little time for recreation or a normal social life. Now he’d be stuck paying child support payments that he’d never be able to afford. He’d bluffed when he pretended to be a gentleman and told Brianna that he’d do the decent thing and support their child. Hell, he couldn’t really do it even if he wanted to, which he didn’t.
When the choice is try to save the cabin or pay for a damn kid for the next eighteen years, the answer is a no brainer, he decided, sipping beer and licking the last drop from his lips. He intended to do everything in his power to catch up his mortgage payments and not have to sell his property. If Brianna wouldn’t try to get rid of their child, and instinct told him she wouldn’t since she hadn’t so far, then he’d try to dispose of the baby dilemma himself. Enraged that, once again, a woman and sex landed him in more financial stress, this time he wasn’t about to stand for it. Recalling all the hurt, heartaches, horrors of rejection and desertion, not to mention losing a huge sum of money, he reached for his shotgun before he started toward Brianna’s cottage. She was the one that he intended to make pay for all the woman trouble in his life, past and present…and future!
The Cottage
The dark of the moon provided enough privacy for Deacon to use a glass cutter and quietly remove the window in one of Brianna’s extra bedrooms at the rear of her home. Tiptoeing down the hall, he used the faint blue glow of the nightlight plugged into an electric socket to guide his way. Wearing a ski mask, he yanked it off and tossed it on the ivory hall carpet. Why conceal his identity? He wanted Brianna to recognize him and to realize that she must pay for tangling with his life.
A ceiling fan “whirred” over her head as she slept peacefully. Abruptly she awakened as she felt something on her chest. “Rod?” she hoped, wondering if her old sweetheart’s ghost may have returned.
Deacon’s insane laughter met her ears instead. “Rod?” he mocked her. “Expecting another man? That’s typical. You’re just like my last two wives—yet another whore flitting from one guy to the next. Never mind that you wreck one man’s life after another. It’s just an amusing game to you women, isn’t it?”
“Deacon! That’s not true!” Brianna tried to raise up, but felt his cold, hard shotgun stuck against her chest. “Oh, my God! Why are you doing this? The baby!” Fear for her unborn child and worry over her own life overwhelmed her.
“Bye, bye, baby,” Deacon chanted wickedly. “Bye, bye, Brianna.”
“No! Please don’t!”
Ignoring her pleas, feeling nothing but wrath and disgust, he pulled the trigger and a loud “boom” exploded in the night. Her last memory was of the evil blue eyes that made no secret they hated her. She didn’t understand where she was now, but she knew her neighbor, her ex-lover, father of her child, killed her. The baby was gone; she could feel the new emptiness. A tremendous loneliness swept over her and she sobbed uncontrollably. A blinding white light and being sucked into a long, dark, swirling tunnel made her feel like she kept spinning…spinning…spinning endlessly.
Then a baby cried. A dark figure of a man held an infant as the apparition took on new color and form.
“Rod!” she shouted, overjoyed to see the face of a familiar loved one in this strange place that looked white and blank all around her as multi-colors whirled about her as if they tried to form shapes and new designs.
“Welcome to my world, Brianna,” he greeted her and smiled, offering her the baby wrapped in a soft, cottony towel. Or was it a towel? It looked more like a puffy cloud that kept the child covered and warm. “Meet your daughter. Our daughter.”
“She’s not Deacon’s?”
“She’s mine. Yours and mine. Before Deacon ever barged in on us, our love was so great, so strong, so timeless, our bond so eternally unbroken, that we, not you and Deacon, conceived this beautiful little angel together.”
“Thank God she’s yours!” Everything felt okay now. Love and laughter returned to blot out the terror that Deacon bestowed upon her earlier. “I love you, Rod. Always have. Always will.”
The trio clung to each other as if all were of one spirit. “Hate sent you away from earth, away from Deacon, but the magic of our love brought you straight back to me. I lingered around outside and through a window I saw him pick up the gun at his cabin. I wanted to protect you, to unselfishly keep you on earth awhile longer so you could live out your life, despite the fact that I wanted you in the afterworld with me. His hate ran too deep. I was powerless to stop him. It was a bittersweet moment as I watched him kill you and then he got away with murder, which broke my heart, but it was also the only way that Fate could bring you back to me so we can stay together, love one another, forever.”
Forever. The word had a wonderful ring to it. He took the baby from her and announced, “Let’s call her Hope because the two of you are all I need to be happy—my hope, my inspiration, my two girls for always.”
Gently he placed their little girl in a red gypsy wagon that looked exactly like Deacon’s, but this duplicate that she saw appear suddenly boasted a wooden cradle with a lacy white baby blanket inside. “The wagon! Just like the one where you made love to me the night we created Hope.” Brianna looked down at the sweet, cherubic baby face and her wide, trusting blue eyes. “How did you bring the gypsy wagon over onto this side of the veil?”
“I didn’t. God did. Our true love—feelings of purity, not only passion—in the gypsy wagon reached beyond time and space. ‘Forever’ existed in those previous, golden moments. Forever was then; forever is now. Enjoy it!”
She would. Most definitely she planned to enjoy her new home, her new baby, her old love…forever.
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