“You, a scientist in the field of parapsychology, think I’m just hallucinating? You think I dreamed up Jesse for company, or maybe a hot date on a lonely night?”
“I wouldn’t put it in those words, but—”
“I know what grief is, Dr. Lehmberg, and I know the difference between wishful thinking and fact Sure, I wish he hadn’t died. Sure, I wish we could have had a future together.” Her voice broke, but she kept on, her indignation painful. “That doesn’t mean I’ve flipped my lid and now go around making love to illusions.”
“Pity. That might have its advantages. Less worry about sexually transmitted diseases.”
It took a stunned moment for Elissa to realize that Lehmberg was joking. The muted humor helped her regain perspective in a way nothing else would have- The professor wouldn’t joke with a person she suspected might be crazy, would she? With a mollified sniff, Elissa mumbled, “Saves money on contraceptives, too.”
That provoked a brief laugh. Elissa felt relieved, as if their relationship had been somewhat restored. “The Elissa Sinclair I know,” said Lehmberg, the sobriety back in her voice, “would be the first to doubt any phenomena that couldn’t be fully explained.”
“That’s right.”
“Which is why you have to consider all possibilities. If this apparition truly is from the spiritual realm, the first thing you have to do is convince him that he’s dead.”
“I tried. He wouldn’t believe me.”
“That’s not unusual. Ask any psychic who’s worked with earthbound spirits, and they’ll tell you. The spirit usually doesn’t realize he’s dead. It’s up to you, Elissa, to convince him otherwise. Then you may have to guide him.”
“Guide him? Where?”
“To the other side. Think of him as a traveler who has lost his way. He needs to be directed toward the light.”
“What light?”
“Haven’t you read accounts of near-death experiences? Documented cases date way back into history, and almost all of them share a common element: the departing soul is beckoned toward a brilliant light, usually at the end of a tunnel. If you really want to help this spirit, Elissa, you’ll have to make him understand that he must leave this mortal plane and move on toward the light.”
Dismay curled through her. She didn’t want to imagine Jesse walking through that tunnel. “But maybe he’s not ready. Maybe he hasn’t achieved his final goal.”
“If that’s the case, he probably won’t go,” she replied with characteristic aplomb. “But he’ll find no peace, no happiness, until he does. Who knows what damage he’ll suffer, the longer he’s kept from his destiny?” Somberly she added, “Perhaps he’ll simply cease to exist.”
Elissa swallowed a sudden lump in her throat; a painful heaviness pushed against her chest “What if he doesn’t reappear to me?”
“That would probably mean he found his way on his own.”
Her vision slowly blurred, and she foolishly nodded above the receiver, not trusting her voice enough to reply.
“It’s odd,” murmured Lehmberg, “the degree of communication you seem to have established with the departed. Are you, by any chance, psychic?”
“Me? No. I mean, I never thought of myself as psychic.” After a reflective moment, she mused, “But my mother did often accuse me of reading her mind. And a few times, I knew when a friend was about to pay an unexpected visit. I just felt it, somehow.”
“So you’ve always had some psychic tendencies.”
Elissa shrugged. “I suppose.”
“That might account for the degree of communication you’ve established. You know, Elissa,” she said as if pondering a new idea, “I’ve read theories that a truly psychic individual could actually summon the dead.”
“Summon—? You mean, I might have held Jesse back from his final destiny?”
“It’s just a theory. Other parapsychologists dismiss it as a bunch of nonsense. I tend to agree with the latter. I feel that only the individual himself could make the choice of whether or not to follow that beckoning light.”
Elissa shut her eyes, more confused than ever. “But maybe my...my wanting him...is keeping him here longer than he would have otherwise stayed.”
“Maybe. Anyway, try what I’ve told you. Guide him toward the light.” Professor Lehmberg then wished her luck and murmured a pleasant goodbye.
But before she broke their connection, she imparted one last bit of advice. “It wouldn’t hurt for you to talk to a grief counselor. The entire problem may be an emotional one. Sometimes when it comes to love, it’s just too hard to let go. That unresolved business might actually be your own.”
Elissa hung up the phone with an even greater ache splitting her heart. She had to send Jesse away, toward his final destiny. And she couldn’t allow her own feelings to hold him back.
If only she didn’t love him so.
SHE SPENT THE REST of that Saturday morning pacing around the house and yard with Cody in her arms, on constant guard for sound and movement. Inside, she jumped at shadows and settling noises of the old house; outside, at every whisper of wind or crackle of leaves.
Could Jesse still be with her, but unable to appear, or to speak? The horror she’d felt that morning at finding him invisible returned with almost as much force. “Jesse,” she found herself saying out loud, “are you here? Can you hear me, can you see me?”
If so, he wasn’t saying.
It didn’t stop her from talking to him, though, all that day and night As she lit a cozy evening fire in the hearth, she asked if he was sharing it with her. As she climbed the staircase, she asked if he was following. And as she undressed for her bath and soaked in the jasmine-scented water, she gazed around and asked if he was watching.
She wished he were.
She dressed for bed with slow, deliberately seductive moves, in the soft, pearl-white gown she hadn’t yet worn for him. She sat at the mirror of an antique vanity and brushed her hair, watching for movement behind her. She even sprayed her wrists and breasts lightly with perfume, all in an attempt to lure him out into the open.
But Jesse failed to put in an appearance.
Proof, she thought He positively wasn’t here.
The following morning, a cloudy Sunday, she dressed Cody in the little yellow sweater and cap she had knitted for him and pushed him in his stroller down the driveway, across the narrow road, to the sharply sloping bluff above the Skidaway River. Tall grasses rippled in the autumn breeze down the slope to the hazel green water. Long, wooden planked walkways above the marsh grass led to boathouses along the river bluff. Seabirds from the nearby Atlantic Ocean swooped and cried from the gray-and-white patchwork sky, their calls echoing her oppressive loneliness.
“I can’t take much more of this, Jesse,” she said, more from habit now than hope of eliciting a response. She stared out at a shrimp boat gliding past, its mast pole and cables glinting in the morning sun. “I can’t stand not knowing where you are, or how you are, or if you’ll come back.”
“You think I like it?”
She jumped violently at the deep, quiet reply from beside her. He stood with his hands in the pockets of his gray trousers, a blue-green polo shirt emphasizing the incredible breadth of his chest. His jet hair rippled in the breeze like the marsh grass before them as he gazed solemnly across the river. “I don’t like it worth a damn, not knowing when or where I’ll black out, or come to.”
It took Elissa a long moment to regain her breath from the shock of his appearance. “Don’t do that!” she cried, a hand to her heart. “You scared me half to death!”
“We’d be there together, then, wouldn’t we?”
She stared at him, surprised that he’d say such a thing. “Well, yes, I suppose ‘half to death’ would pretty much describe where you are.” Her heart gradually stopped galloping and her voice returned to a civilized pitch. “So, you believe me now? That you’re...dead?”
“Of course not. I was humoring you.” He flashed her a misch
ievous grin, then bent down to gaze eye level at Cody in the stroller. The baby was totally occupied with stuffing all ten of his chubby little fingers into his mouth. “Come here to your pa,” Jesse mumbled. And he reached to take the bright-eyed baby from the stroller.
“No, don’t touch him.”
He stopped with his hands inches from Cody and plied Elissa with a dark, questioning frown.
“People might see and wonder how he’s hovering in midair. Besides, you shouldn’t touch anyone. I’m afraid you’ll disappear. Maybe this time for good.”
Jesse settled his hands on his hips and stared at her. As much as he wanted to argue, he knew she was at least partially right Something about physical contact with other people did put a drain on his energy. And he didn’t want to fade off into unconsciousness again. Yet neither could he abide the idea of not touching Cody or her. No, that wouldn’t do at all.
He made another move for Cody, and Elissa pulled the stroller back from him. “Aren’t you worried about yourself? You saw the reaction of the people in town. They couldn’t see you! And where did you go after that? It’s not exactly normal to be bothered by pesky disappearing spells.”
“Of course I’m concerned,” he replied. But not as much as he knew he should be. In fact, nothing seemed too terribly important—his health, his mysterious ailment, even the military screwup about his alleged death. The only thing that mattered, he realized, was making Elissa want him with the same urgency he wanted her.
He stared out at the river, stunned by the depth of his need for her. He’d always been the one to hightail it out of a relationship at the first sign of intimacy. Now he found himself craving it, like some addictive drug. He was hooked, irrevocably hooked, and he meant for her to be just as needful of him.
His pondering was interrupted by the soft, throaty voice that had haunted his dreams, both sleeping and waking, for a full dozen months. “Does it hurt you, Jesse? Disappearing?”
“Yes.” He turned his gaze fully on her. “It hurt like hell to leave your bed.”
Her sherry brown eyes warmed beneath his stare, reflecting the intimacy of their lovemaking. She broke their gaze, a delicate flush rising on her cheeks. “That’s not what I meant You’re deliberately avoiding the issue.”
“I’d say you’re avoiding it.” His eyes spoke with a seriousness that raised her temperature. “Let’s go inside and build a fire in the hearth. Then you can take a bath with that oil that glistens all over your skin.” His glance took in all of her, as if he was envisioning it “Then after we dry you off, I’ll help you brush your hair.”
She cast him a wondering glance. His plan sounded very much like her activities of last night.
“And maybe you can find some fancy gown.” His voice had grown husky. “You know, like the ones with those thin little straps and see-through lace, clear down past here.” He swept his finger from her shoulder to the tip of her breast, not actually touching her, but gliding above her thin sweater with an aura that sizzled right through it
“Jesse, stop!” Ridiculously aroused, she crossed her arms and glanced around. “Someone might be watching.”
“I thought you said they can’t see me.”
“Probably not, but—”
“So I can do anything I want...and no one would see.”
She recognized the teasing light in his eyes—and the sensuality that sizzled beneath it “Were you there,” she whispered, “in my bedroom last night?”
“I dreamed I was there. I dreamed you wore a sexy white gown, with your hair all shiny and loose around your shoulders. And you sprayed perfume between your breasts. It smelled sweet—like oranges and powdered sugar. I wanted to taste it on you.”
Her breath caught “I wore a gown like you described. And sprayed perfume that smells very much like...”
“Did you whisper to me?” he interrupted hoarsely.
She nodded. And they slipped into a gaze, deep and warm with mutual longing. As his lips neared her, she abruptly came to her sense. “Jesse, we can’t touch.”
“The hell we can’t” And he reached for her.
She had anticipated the move and drew away. “I’m afraid you’ll disappear!”
“that just something I’ll have to learn to control I can use the practice.”
“Practice!” Resolutely, she locked gazes with him, somber and earnest this time. “Listen to me, Jesse, and believe every word that I say. This might be a hard concept to grasp, but it’s important that you do. You are dead.”
He nodded, slipped his hands into his pockets and tried not to curse. Her confounded “dead” theory was definitely cramping his style. “I understand why you think that This invisibility thing...well, it is hard to explain.”
“What other explanation is there?”
“Could be the result of a military experiment.” But in his heart, he knew better. Whatever was happening to him went much deeper than his body, or even his mind. He knew that now with a clarity beyond reason. He also knew he couldn’t give in to it, whatever it was. He had to overcome it
“If some technology turned you invisible,” reasoned Elissa, “then why can I see you?”
He shrugged, at a loss for an answer. “If I am, as you say, dead...why can you see me?”
“Because you’re haunting me.”
“Haunting you!” He frowned at her, incensed. “What, like some paranormal stalker?”
“When we talked, you said you couldn’t remember anything from the times we’re apart. Your spells of consciousness all take place while you’re with me. Is that still true?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“That’s because you’re haunting me. If a ghost is haunting a house, he stays with it He doesn’t take a night off to paint the town. Face it, Jesse—you’re haunt ing me.”
“Now, why would I do a thing like that?”
“I’m not sure.” She averted her eyes, looking somewhat secretive, as if she knew full well why he’d do it, but preferred not to say. “My research says,” she began slowly, “that ghosts often remain earthbound because of their desire to fulfill some unachieved goal or obligation.”
“What goal have I left unachieved?”
She pressed her lips together, obviously reluctant to answer. Just when he thought she wouldn’t, she said, “At first, I thought you wanted to see Cody, and to hold him. But you’ve already done that and you’re still here.”
“Yes, I am. At least we agree on something.”
“Maybe your unresolved business has something to do with guilt.”
“Guilt?” he repeated in surprise. “About what?”
“Failing to contact me when I informed you of my pregnancy. And when Cody was born.” Though her voice remained level, he could hear her resentment “It wasn’t until your deathbed, Jesse, that you regretted your neglect.”
“Neglect! I didn’t neglect Cody or you.”
“Death endowed you with a conscience. Apparently you now feel the need to atone.”
A muscle in his jaw throbbed. “Damn it, Elissa, I told you I was on a highly sensitive, covert mission. My mail was held until I returned to the base—”
“I know. The colonel backed up your story. Your mission clearly accounts for the last few months of my pregnancy. But what about the first half dozen? He refused to say when your mission started, or how long it lasted.”
“Of course he refused to say. That’s classified information. But I swear, I didn’t receive your letters until I returned from my mission, two days before my flight home. The minute I knew of his existence, I legally acknowledged Cody as my son. Furthermore, I couldn’t have ‘regretted my neglect’ on my deathbed because I haven’t been on my deathbed yet!”
She would have believed him about the letters, about his immediate interest in Cody, except for what Dean had told her about the calls from brothels in Asia. Dean had begged him to at least talk to her about the pregnancy, but Jesse had refused. Just because I play a game of pool, he’d said, does
n’t mean I want to lug the pool table around with me.
Thinking about those conversations that Dean had reluctantly relayed to her brought back all the hurt and humiliation she had suffered. She wanted to fling those heartless comments in Jesse’s face, just to watch his new postmortem conscience kick him in the butt.
But wasn’t his conscience kicking him hard enough already? Hard enough to keep him from his ever-after!
Besides, she had promised Dean that she’d never use the things he told her to drive a wedge between his cousin and him.
“Just forget I said anything about guilt,” she grumbled, ashamed of herself for almost betraying Dean’s confidence.
“You don’t believe me, do you.” Jesse’s dark gaze bore into her with patent incredulity. “You really think I read those letters and chose to ignore them”
Goaded by his act of persecuted innocence, she retorted, “Mail isn’t the only method of modern communication.”
“What do you mean by that? Did you try to call me? If so, I never got the message, not even after I returned to the base. Tell me who you spoke with, and we’ll confront them together.”
My, but he was convincing! She rounded on him in barely leashed fury, “You can’t confront anyone. You’re dead!”
His jaw clenched, his stare simmered, but he answered with impressive restraint, “I am not dead. And whether you believe me or not, the only unresolved business I have is to be there for Cody, as his father, while he grows up.”
A bright flash of pain sliced through Elissa’s anger. She wished it could be so. She wished it with all her heart But a future of any kind was impossible for Jesse.
Her thwarted longing made the memory of his past betrayal hurt all the more. “Yes, I suppose that does make sense,” she reflected with quiet anguish. “That would be a way for you to atone for your initial neglect, whether you ever admit to your guilt or not.” To her horror, she felt her eyes blur with tears. “Sorry to tell you, though—you’re one lifetime too late!”
He muttered a curse and grabbed her, his hands hard and forceful on her upper arms. “I intended from the first moment I knew about him to be a father to Cody. Trust me on this, Elissa. Trust me.”
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