The Way Home

by Glover, Nhys

  Survivor? When had she started seeing herself as s survivor? Up until Hawk came into her life, she was content to die. She’d been so sure she would. Now she felt like she was going to beat this disease. If she could escape assassins who wanted her dead, then she could escape this disease that wanted her dead.

  But could she do it without Hawk? Yes. Now she knew she could.

  But did she want to? No, that would be a very resounding NO. She wanted him at her side for the rest of her life. She was tired of the lifeless emptiness. All she wanted now was a chance to live again.

  While John showed her into a small office and brought her a cup of tea, she wrestled with her fears. It couldn’t have ended like that… He couldn’t just walk out of her life like that and be gone. It would be just too cruel!

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It was late in the afternoon before the agents finished debriefing her. By then she was on her fifth cup of tea and her umpteenth chocolate digestive biscuit and was so exhausted she could barely think straight anymore.

  ‘You’re something of a heroine, Miss Grant, taking the risk to bring us this information as you have,’ said the older of the two dark-suited agents. They looked like any civil service lackeys she’d see on the streets of London. That they were spies seemed too surreal to be believed.

  ‘It’s Fran who was the heroine. She’s the one who died to get this information out.’

  ‘Yes, of course. But don’t underestimate your part in this, nor the danger you’re still in until these men are picked up. We’d like to put you under protective custody until the threat is eliminated.’

  For a moment, she just stared at them, dumbfounded. Protective custody? Like in the movies? This was getting weirder by the moment.

  But she shook her head, aware that Hawk was waiting for her and was probably already out of his mind with worry. If he hadn’t disappeared. But then if he had, it would mean she was now safe and didn’t need protective custody.

  ‘No, thank you. I plan to find a little B & B nearby and hold up there until you tell me it’s safe. If you give me a contact number I’ll call in regularly for updates. When you tell me it’s safe to go home, I will. Until then I’ll just disappear again.’

  They weren’t happy about her decision or that the mysterious Hans hadn’t stayed to be interviewed, but there wasn’t anything they could do about it. And Cassie had remained adamant.

  ‘Do you want me to walk you to the station, Cassie?’ John asked her after the agents had left. ‘Just in case Hans didn’t wait. It’s been rather a long time.’

  She thought about that. It would have been so much easier to have John accompany her. Being alone when she discovered Hawk was gone would be very hard. A friend she could turn to in those circumstances was a temptation. But she could already see that John’s interest in her had been awakened, and she didn’t want to use him in that way. It was better for him that she went out of his life just as suddenly and completely as she’d come back into it.

  ‘No, John. Thanks. You’ve been wonderful for doing all this but you’ve done enough. We both have to get back to our lives now. I can handle finding a B & B on my own if he’s gone. I’m not completely helpless.’ With a little laugh, she reached up to drop a kiss on the familiar cheek.

  ‘I’ve missed you, Cassie. You were the light of my life for a while there…’ He blushed brightly and then cleared his throat.

  ‘You’re a good man. But we weren’t right for each other…’

  ‘And this Hans is?’

  She blinked quickly, surprised by the vehemence in his question.

  ‘Yes, actually, he is. More right than I ever thought possible. Good bye, John. Thank you again for helping me save the world.’ She gave a little self-depreciative laugh and turned to leave the laboratory.

  She had only walked a half a block from the labs when she heard running footsteps approaching her from behind. Adrenalin kicked in as she looked back over her shoulder fearfully. Was it the hunters coming to grab her off the streets? How could she defend herself? There were people all around her on this busy thoroughfare, but no one would do anything if she were suddenly taken. They’d all be in shock.

  Scanning the footpath behind her as her terror escalated, she suddenly saw the most wonderful sight in the world. Hawk was jogging toward her like an avenging angel, the late afternoon sun shining in his dark hair.

  When he reached her, he scooped her up into his arms and kissed her soundly. It didn’t matter that people saw them. It didn’t matter that they’d formed a little island in the flowing peak-hour pedestrian crowd. All that mattered was that he was still here, still corporeal.

  When he put her down and she could breathe again, she laughed in delight. ‘I was so scared you’d disappear… I thought I’d get to Costas and you wouldn’t be there… and I’d never see you again!’ When had she started crying? The tears were pouring down her face now, even as she laughed hysterically.

  ‘I was afraid, too. Afraid I’d disappear; afraid you wouldn’t be safe in there… just afraid. I haven’t felt that kind of fear in a long, long time. Oh, Cassie… I love you so much…’ The last words were said with so much passion he seemed to choke on them.

  She drew back from him in stunned surprise. Had he actually said he loved her? How could he say something like that when they’d only known each other a few days?

  But even while the practical part of her denied he could possibly know it was love this early, the romantic part of her gloried in it. And she knew that she loved him, too. If she hadn’t known it before, she certainly had the moment she thought he might disappear from her life for good. Yes, it might be too soon to know whether this was a lasting love, but it was certainly love.

  And it terrified her. Everyone she’d ever loved except Marnie had died or left her. How could she afford to give her heart to someone again if there was a risk they’d leave her alone again? But it wasn’t about how could she; it was how couldn’t she? They’d gone too far for doubts now. No matter if he disappeared today or tomorrow or three years hence, she was already committed heart and soul to this Polish pilot from World War II. She could no sooner stop loving him now than she could stop her heart from beating.

  ‘Cassie?’ Hawk was looking at her strangely, as if he expected her to slap his face or something. Why would he look at her that way? Then she realised what he was asking for.

  ‘Yes, Hawk… yes… I love you, too.’ She managed to get out, though her mouth felt like it was filled with cotton balls.

  The smile that lit his eyes was like sunshine after a storm. It turned her legs to putty. Hawk scooped her into his arms again, taking her weight as her legs gave way and kissed her mouth over and over again.

  When they finally came up for air, one passing suit said, ‘Get a room, you two!’, before hurrying off to catch his train.

  While Cassie laughed at the comment, Hawk frowned in confusion. ‘Why is he telling us to get a room? Does he know we have to find fresh accommodation? How would he know that? We only have these few plastic carry bags…’

  ‘Oh, Hawk, you’ve got so much to learn about twenty-first century living. The man was making a crack. He was suggesting we needed to find somewhere private to have sex. It’s a saying.’

  Hawk scowled. ‘Where is he? I will have words with the man. How dare he insult you in such a way.’

  She laughed again and hugged him close. ‘It’s a joking insult. No one takes such things seriously. Come on, I think it’s very good advice all jokes aside. I want to get a room with you so we can hook up!’

  ‘No… not hook up, Cassie. We only make love. How can it be otherwise if we love each other?’ He smiled at her radiantly.

  And what could she say to that? It was the truth.

  Hawk lay back on the comfortable bed in the little B & B they’d found in the heart of Victoria. It surprised him how cheap it was compared to the one they’d stayed in the night before. The only problem with this one was that they had to share
facilities. To Cassie that was a terrible thing, to him it was only to be expected. In his time, there were no en suites.

  He had taken a shower and was now clothed only in a towel, awaiting his lady who had taken over the bathroom after him. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he felt content and happy. Not in the same way as he’d been content to stand in the garden of Grange End for decades, unaware that time was passing. No, there was nothing oblivious about this sensation. He was fully engaged in his life – this strange new life than he shouldn’t be having.

  He was dead. They’d found his body in his aircraft in France at the end of the war. How could he have his body back just as he remembered it when it was nothing but dust after all these years? It defied rational explanation. It was one thing to accept that he was a ghost. The idea that the soul lived on past the body was an accepted belief to any religious person. But he was no longer a ghost. Somehow, he’d made the transition back into physical form.

  When had it happened? Not just when they arrived in London. That had simply been the final stage. It had been happening bit by bit before that. From the moment Cassie’s tear had touched his hand and he’d felt it… truly felt it. After that, in incremental stages, he seemed to become more and more solid.

  So he was in his body again and was as alive as anyone else. He breathed, he sweated, he used the toilet. If he hadn’t cleaned his teeth with the amazing toothpaste and brush Cassie had bought him, he would probably have bad breath, too. All of what it meant to be physical he now experienced. Could that be taken away from him again?

  He’d been afraid it could as he’d walked away from Cassie in the laboratory. Leaving her there had felt like the end of his mission. He’d taken her to safety. They’d solved the mystery that had taken Fran’s life and their enemies would be brought to justice. So there was no longer a reason for him to be here if safeguarding Cassie through this drama was all that his presence had been for.

  But he hadn’t disappeared. Instead, he’d hovered outside the building all afternoon, fighting the urge to smoke, while he waited for her to reappear.

  Even though she’d said to meet him at this Costas, which he knew was a coffee shop that could be found everywhere in England these days, he wasn’t prepared to let her walk from the lab to the station alone. Just because the crime had been brought to light, that didn’t mean their hunters had been called off. Until they were caught or there was evidence that they’d returned to Germany, Cassie wasn’t safe to walk the streets alone.

  Was that why he was still here? Was she still at risk? Might they still find her and end her life? If the past were any indication, it could take more than a week for the death to occur.

  What if she were going to have an accident and it had nothing to do with the assassins sent after her?

  Suddenly he was afraid again. She’d been in the shower a long time. What if she’d fallen over in there? People died all the time from silly accidents like that. What if she were bleeding out in there right now while he lay here congratulating himself on a job well done?

  Hastily, he exited their room still wrapped in his towel. The look he got from a middle-aged lady he passed in the hall would have been amusing if he hadn’t been so worried.

  ‘Cassie? Cassie, are you all right?’ he yelled into the locked bathroom. He heard the shower turn off and felt his heart calm immediately.

  ‘Hawk? What is it?’ Her voice was high with fear. Now he’d terrified her as much as he’d terrified himself. He couldn’t go on like this for another week, worrying about every little thing she did. It would send him insane.

  ‘It is all right, Pet, I just started worrying that you might have fallen over in there. I am still here, after all.’

  ‘Oh, do you think there’s still a chance… Oh!’ The devastation in her voice as the realisation hit her cut him as deep as any knife wound.

  ‘Are you finished?’ he asked more softly now.

  ‘Yes. Just a moment.’

  Within a few minutes, she’d unlocked the door and was standing wrapped in her own towel, her flat chest apparent, her bald head still covered with droplets of water. They clung to her eyelashes, too, and he had the strongest urge to kiss them away.

  ‘Come,’ he said, offering her his hand. If the retired couple coming up the stairs at that moment wondered about the semi-naked couple walking hand in hand to their room, they didn’t show it. Or he didn’t notice. All he cared about was getting her into the safety of their room, her skin against his. Her heartbeat a reassuring thud under his hand.

  ‘Do you really think there’s still a chance you’ll go once whatever was supposed to happen does… or was supposed to? Do you think my death had nothing to do with those men?’ She asked him in a little voice as she sprawled across his chest, her head pressed to his heart.

  ‘I do not know. But we have been so focused on the obvious danger of those men that we forgot that there are many ways a person can die that are less dramatic.’ He kissed the top of her head, enjoying the smooth feel of it against his lips. It would be good when she had hair again, but this baldness was not unappealing.

  ‘I’m not sure I can hide away in this room for the next… what is it now – four, or is it still five more days – waiting for my destiny and for you to disappear.’

  ‘I hate the idea, too. But what are the alternatives? We do not know what is happening here. We are making assumptions based on no real facts. And nothing about this conforms to physical reality as we know it. I should not have a body, Cassie. Being a ghost is one thing, but having manifested my old body back in some way? It just cannot happen. Yet it has. I do not know what to think anymore.

  ‘All I know is that I want to stay with you for the rest of your life. And I want to make sure that is a very long life. But I am helpless where fate is concerned. I cannot protect you from everything. A fire might break out while we sleep. A plane might drop from the sky and crash into this hotel. There is only so much I can do for you.’

  She kissed his lips tenderly. ‘We can’t live with this kind of fear, my love. It is more crippling than anything else. All we can do is take normal precautions and be satisfied that if it is my time to die you’ll be there beside me. Maybe we’re meant to pass over together. Maybe you’ve been waiting for me. I don’t know. But if that’s what will happen, I’m okay with that, I truly am. As long as you’re beside me, I’m okay with it.

  ‘What I won’t cope with is if you disappear when the danger is over. I thought that was finished with, but when you came to the shower I realised it might not be. Maybe you’re still here because it’s not time yet… I…’

  He took her face between his hands and kissed her lips with all the passion within him. It was all he could do to reaffirm what he wanted to believe: that he was there for her forever; that he’d never leave her now that he’d found her.

  While he took her body to the heights, he revelled in what they had. It didn’t matter if their time was still short and that at any moment it might end – one way or another. What mattered was living this moment and the one that followed… and the one after that, for as long as they were given breathe to share it.

  When they finally slept, their bodies replete, it was to find their way into each other’s dreams again. But this time there was no war-torn world. This time there was only the gentle dales of Yorkshire and the joy of sharing that place together.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Over the next few days Cassie didn’t go out of the B & B. Hawk brought everything she needed to her and made the regular phone calls to get updates on their enemies. There had been a swoop on Grange End and one man in the surveillance truck and been captured. From him, MI 5 had been able to get a pretty good idea of the operation; not that they shared any of the details of that with Hawk. But they assured him that they were confident more arrests would be forthcoming.

  The German government had been notified of the activities of their pharmaceutical company, and the investigation had
disrupted the shareholder’s meeting that had seemed so important to whoever had orchestrated Fran’s death. That felt satisfying at least.

  With the eyes on Grange End gone, Cassie had been able to use a prepaid phone to ring Marnie and let her know what had gone on. The old lady had been over the moon to hear from her and the results of their search.

  All in all, it felt as if things were winding down nicely. It would only be a few more days and she’d be able to come out of hiding and return to her life.

  With Hawk, if that were possible.

  That had become her mantra over the many hours she’d stared at the TV in her room or at the moulded ceiling above her head – a return to her life with Hawk at her side.

  When word came that the German government had raided a laboratory named in the files she’d discovered, and passenger manifests showing the names of their hunters leaving the country, it finally felt like the worst was over. With a great deal of care, Hawk arranged for their journey back to Grange End.

  Marnie met them at the station, and the look on her face when they came toward her in the car park reminded Cassie of a cartoon character’s exaggerated surprise. The old lady’s mouth dropped open and her eyes looked ready to fall out of their sockets.

  ‘You… your… I can see you. Oh god! Not now. Everything’s finally starting to go right. Not now!’ She wailed, clutching her fists together in front of her.

  For a moment, Cassie was unsure what had upset Marnie. Then she looked at Hawk and her own eyes opened wide with realisation. This was the first time Marnie had seen Hawk, and Cassie hadn’t mentioned his transformation when they’d talked on the phone. It just hadn’t felt like the sort of thing they could discuss with wire taps still a possibility.