“Didn’t the people running the camp check your employment claim?” he asked, and she nodded.
“Yeah,” she said with a guilty grin. “But I was employed by the school they checked. I’d already accepted a teaching position there, beginning this fall, so they answered that I was employed by the school. Luckily, the fact that I hadn’t done anything but my intern duty there never came up.” She sighed. “If I hadn’t lied on that application, and if I hadn’t been on that bus, I’d be teaching now.” A tear pushed forward, and trickled down her cheek, and she brushed it away.
Dax dropped the knife, and it clanged on the plate as he crossed the room and kneeled beside her. “I’m going to get you back, somehow, and you will get to teach. Ryan came back to this side, and if he can do it, then you can too. We’ve just got to figure out why your situation is so different than his was, and what we have to do to make it happen. But I swear, I won’t give up until we do.” Then his brows furrowed, and he stared at her cheek. “Celeste?”
“What?” she whispered, then wiped another tear away.
“Ghosts don’t cry.”
She blinked, and another swell of tears spilled free. “Well, I do.” Then she sniffed, and managed a smile. “Want me to add that to the list?”
“Yes. Definitely.”
She wrote it at the end, then she peered past him to the sandwich he’d barely started making. “Go on and finish that. You need to eat.”
He exhaled thickly, then nodded and returned to the counter. “We will figure it out,” he said, more to himself than to her, but Celeste nodded, and returned her attention to the list.
“The next thing is another question,” she said. “And I don’t understand it.”
“What does it say?”
“‘Can she see me?’” Celeste read, then looked toward him. “What does that mean?”
“When you’re in the middle, can you see me, on this side? Because ghosts can typically see those they care about when they’re on the other side. I’ve never met a spirit that didn’t say something about watching the ones they love.”
She shook her head. “Well, you’ve met one now. I can’t see you, and I can’t see my family either. I can’t see anyone when I’m in the middle.”
“What about here? When you’re on this side with me, can you think about your family and see them? Because that’s the way it works, you’d see them, and go to them, if you wanted to visit them again.”
She’d thought of that earlier, and had tried to picture them. “No, I can’t. I can’t see them at all.” She fought another impulse to cry, and wrote that down as well, finishing the list. “That’s the last thing you had,” she said, watching him spread a layer of olive paste on top of the mustard, then stack pastrami, salami and provolone cheese on top of it. He topped that off with the other half of the French bread, then brought it to the table.
“Can you think of anything else to add?” he asked, leaving the plate to go grab a napkin.
“No, I can’t,” she said, eyeing the massive sandwich. There was something about it…
He sat down and noticed where her attention had fallen. “I feel awkward eating in front of you when you can’t, but if I don’t eat, I’m not going to be good for anything later.”
Celeste grinned, knowing what he meant by “good for anything.” He might as well have said “good for everything,” because that’s what she knew he’d give her when they were together intimately again. Everything.
“I’m not hungry,” she said. “I promise.” She was telling the truth; she wasn’t hungry, really, but she did miss the ability to eat.
“I can’t do this,” he said. “You are hungry. I can see it on your face.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I promise I’m not, but I think I’ve tried that kind of sandwich before, and if I remember right, I liked it very much.”
“It’s a muffuletta. Surely you’ve had one.”
She recognized the name at once, though she’d heard it only that one time, that one day. “I had one in New Orleans, before the group boarded the bus heading to the camp.” She paused, then smiled at the memory. They’d had a lot of fun that morning, Celeste and the other counselors with the young campers. A lot of fun, until the bus crashed.
She saw realization dawn on his gorgeous features, the brown depths of his eyes showing intense compassion.
“You’re talking about the day of the crash,” he said softly. “That day?”
She nodded. “That was the first time I tried a muffuletta, and I really liked it.” Then she forced a smile and decided she wanted to change the subject, not necessarily because it bothered her, but because it bothered him. “Did you know the brown in your eyes shows more when you’re worried? But when you’re excited, they’re practically all green.” She grinned, even though he was obviously still thinking about the day of that wreck. She lowered her voice. “And when you come, the gold takes over, those tiny flecks practically glow when you completely let go.”
Mission accomplished. That took his mind off the first time she’d eaten a muffuletta, the last time she’d breathed. In fact, his hazel eyes shifted from dominantly chocolate brown to deep emerald green, and those gold flecks were present on both irises. Celeste loved his eyes, loved everything about him, in fact-his dark brown waves that seemed to always tease his forehead, and his mouth-have mercy, he had such a sensual mouth.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, taking a bite of the sandwich. “As if I didn’t know.”
“I’ll show you…later. For now, why don’t we talk about this list and see if we can’t figure something out while you eat your sandwich.”
He took another bite, and Celeste stood and moved to the refrigerator, then withdrew a Coke. She brought the can to the table, popped the top, then placed it in front of him.
“Thanks.”
“My father never remembered to get something to drink when he ate, either.” She returned to her seat and smiled, remembering her father. “You’d have liked him, and he’d have really liked you. He always tried to act like the big, burly tough guy in a house dominated by females, but once you got to know him, you’d have seen that he was more of a teddy bear than a grizzly.” She laughed softly. “Yeah, you’d have liked him.”
“He’s passed on?” Dax asked.
“No,” she said, shaking her head and wondering why she’d referred to her father in the past tense. He wasn’t the one who was dead. “I guess I’m just assuming that you’ll never meet him, you know, since that’d be kind of difficult to explain.”
His brows dropped a notch, and he took another man-size bite of sandwich. Finally, he swallowed and frowned. “I would like to meet him. I think he’d like to know that his daughter is still hanging out here, and maybe he’d even have an idea why.”
She chewed her lip, shook her head. “That’d just upset him, and I really don’t want to hurt him anymore. He, Mama and Nelsa were so happy the last time I saw them. They saw me off when I left for the camp. My parents didn’t even realize that I wasn’t technically supposed to go. Nelsa knew, but even though she wasn’t keen on me bending the rules, she knew how much I wanted to be with those kids, so she kept my secret.” Suddenly, she remembered…
“You know, there’s something else that I should probably add to this list.”
“What’s that?”
She wrote it down first, then read aloud, “Had the ability to cross, at first, but chose not to.”
He chewed his bite of sandwich and swallowed thickly, then asked, “What do you mean? This summer?”
She nodded. “I saw the light and felt it pulling me toward it. It was as big and bright as I’ve ever seen, and the other people around me, people from the same crash, were going on through. I even heard them laughing and chatting after they entered. They had no fear whatsoever and really seemed happy to get to the other side.”