“Sar,” Theo said suddenly. “I know you want me to sign off on Danial, despite you’re planning on doing it anyway. But I can’t tell you my answer until I’ve thought it over.”
There was pain in his voice, and I felt like shit knowing I’d put it there. “I understand. And I understand if you can’t say it’s okay, too.”
Theo hugged me tighter. “Give me a week. I’ll tell you at the end of this week.”
“Okay,” I replied, squeezing his hand. “Okay.”
* * * *
The bees were buzzing wildly on the wild asters the next morning. Even with the unusual warm temperatures, I couldn’t manage their level of enthusiasm. But I couldn’t lie awake next to Theo, wondering what he might be deciding in his dreams. There was a job to be done, and I had to do it alone.
The problem was that the cut branches from trimming my shrubbery and dead branches that had come down in the last storm wouldn’t light. I had spent the morning gathering them up. The wood was damp, the little flames I created with paper fizzling out each time.
I tried again. The flickering orange with an edge of red and yellow danced along a curling blackening scrap, flaring up and threatening to engulf the wood. Yet again, the flame winked out, leaving only a little smoke wafting up from the wood.
“Son of a bitch,” I swore, then threw down the matches and went into the barn to get some gasoline. Returning, I carefully poured a few cups of gasoline on the wood. If there had been a fire, there would have been substantial danger. Instead, there was a sizzling sound and then dripping of the gas. Gasoline fumes clogged my nose, and I moved away, holding my breath.
Setting down the gas can a minimum safe distance of ten feet, I grabbed the book of matches and stepped upwind of the fire. What I was doing was dangerous. There was more danger in every minute that passed with no fire. Yet worse would be no fire to destroy what lay in the simple box at my feet.
I carefully lit the match and tossed it on the pile. My nervousness made my aim off. The match hit rain-wet ashes instead of gasoline-wet wood. I took a breath and waited a few seconds, just in case it was going to catch suddenly, but nothing happened.
“Son of a bitch.” Time for try number two. I struck a match and tossed it in. With a loud “WHOOMP!” the gas ignited, and the pile of wood became a burning pyre. A wall of heat struck me and I moved back.
Now we were getting somewhere. I cast a glance at the house, praying Theo was still asleep. Then I dug out the book from the box. Erotic Poetry was the title. That was what was inside, cover to cover.
Yesterday, after showering, I’d taken off the boots and returned them to the box. When I’d put them back in the box, I’d discovered that the boots were not the only gift Dev had sent me. Nestled in a corner had been this book, a velvet box and inside that box a letter addressed to me in flowing script.
I sighed and looked at the book in my hands again. I had read through it this morning, noting that Dev had marked the page that had the poem I’d quoted to him, Nothing is more beautiful than your eyes (except my love for your eyes,) with the book ribbon. He hadn’t inscribed it at all. What stimulated me most was that it smelled like he had when we’d been in bed. Just how he’d accomplished that, I wasn’t sure. In any case, it was too dangerous to stay in my keeping.
I tossed the book in and watched it burn, the cover smoking and then catching, the pages curling. Then I took out Dev’s last gift. It lay in my palm, the gold shining in the sun.
It was a choker, almost identical to the one I wore now. But the one in my hand had a bear’s form dangling from it, a grizzly stalking something, its head turned and its teeth bared. The emeralds that were its eyes winked at me in the sunlight. Devlin’s symbol.
I should toss it in, melt it down in the fire. Yet it was so beautiful I couldn’t make myself do it. More evocative, he had put emeralds in the eyes to be symbolic of my eyes. I’d seen his crest once or twice through the years, enough to know that his bear usually had red eyes, not green.
Taking out Devlin’s note, I read it again.
Sar,
Come live with me and be my love
And we will all the pleasures prove
Of peace and plenty, bed and board
That chance employment may afford.
This part of the poem, called only “Song,” had been written by a man named C. Day Lewis. I had googled the first line on the Internet. Yet the rest written here was not in any poetry book, according to the Internet. Devlin had written it himself. For me.
Your silken kiss, your whispered sigh
Is what I long for as I lie
In bed alone these miles away
Alas, I wish you would come to stay.
Sar, come into my arms again
Say you’ll love me even when
I tell you that the words I said
That fateful day we lay in bed.
Were not pretend, were not a lie.
They were instead a truthful cry
From my heart to yours so you would know
That I have loved you ever so.
Beneath was written:
Should you decide to come to me, call me at the number at the bottom of this note. I’ll arrange a flight for you. Wear this for me, and I will welcome you with open arms.
Love,
Dev
I held his note in my hand, tears blurring my eyes. Part of me longed to go to him and was dying to hear him sing to me again and feel his caress. It was that part that made me put the choker and note back in my pocket and trudge slowly back to the house, the dogs following me.
Theo was still sleeping when I returned. Relieved, I sealed the choker and the note in a manila envelope and put it in my safe, writing “Brennan” on it in large bold letters. Locked in there and labeled with my first husband’s name, Theo would not bother with it. Better still, I wouldn’t be tempted to look at it, put it on, call Dev, or to read the poem for the seventeenth time.
I started some bacon and sausage for Theo as the phone rang. Without looking, I knew it was Danial.
“Good morning,” I said warmly. “Did Theoron say anything else?”
“He did not, but we can get to that later. I want to know if Theo accepted your plan.”
I sighed. “He said he wanted a week to think it over before he gave me his answer.”
Danial was silent, almost surely frustrated.
“It’s fair,” I said, prompted by loyalty to defend Theo’s decision. “I’d want that if I were him. And it won’t impact what you and I discussed anyway. It’ll be a week from today.”
“Very well. Call me the moment he tells you his decision,” Danial said commandingly. “I will be traveling this entire week, first with Terian and then with Brian. But I want to know immediately, Sar. Day, night, whatever I’m doing, wherever I am, call me on my cell. If he says no, I want you to agree—”
“I will,” I said reassuringly. “Now go catch up on work. I’m sure you didn’t get any sleep last night.”
“Between worrying about you and being excited over Theoron’s first words, it was possibly about an hour,” Danial conceded. “You rest yourself, please. I love you.”
“And I, you,” I said. “Hug him for me. Bye.”
As I was finishing preparing breakfast, Theo walked into the kitchen and came over to stand behind me. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m okay. Go sit,” I said. “I’ll bring it into you.”
“I’ll stay,” he said, kissing my cheek. “Besides, I want to know if you still want to go do the pumpkin thing tonight.”
Shit, I’d forgotten. “Can you be around Danial?”
“Yes, of course,” Theo said confidently. “This isn’t his fault. He didn’t seduce you.” He hugged me gently. “I want to go,” he continued. “I want us to go together.”
“Good,” I said, kissing him tenderly, “because I want to go with you.”
He was a good man, and I loved him. So why wasn’t this easier?
&
nbsp; Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be easy.
“Do you want to go?” he asked.
“Very much. I can’t wait to see Theoron’s face when he sees his first pumpkin. Elle is really looking forward to it, too.”
“So am I,” Theo said. “We’re going to have a good time.”
Sudden worry settled on me. What would happen in a week when Theo had to make his decision? Would Danial be able to keep his control if I lost mine? Would The Lust go away, ever, now that it had returned? And what of Devlin? Would he be content to remain where he was, loving from afar? Or would he return to try and claim me again?
“I love you,” Theo whispered.
Moved, I pushed my disturbing thoughts away. I could think about all of this later. For now, it was enough that I had this moment to share with Theo, that he loved me and that despite everything that had happened to us, we were still together.
Coming Soon
Promise Me, Book 5
"Immortal Confessions"
About the Author
Tara Fox Hall’s writing credits include nonfiction, horror, suspense, action-adventure, erotica, and contemporary and historical paranormal romance. She is the author of the paranormal action-adventure Lash series and the vampire romantic suspense Promise Me series. Tara divides her free time unequally between writing novels and short stories, chainsawing firewood, caring for stray animals, sewing cat and dog beds for donation to animal shelters, and target practice.
Website:
www.tarafoxhall.com
Other works by Author
Make Me Behave
Bedtime Shadows
Promise Me Series
Book 1: Promise Me
Book 2: Broken Promise
Book 3: Taken in the Night
Book 4: Taken For His Own
Return to Me
Surrender to Me
Night Music and Partners in Midnight Thirsts II
The Origin of Fear in Spellbound 2011
Kink and The Oath in Wicked Christmas Wishes
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