“But you didn’t go.”
She shook her head. “There was that beautiful little girl standing over to the side and scared. She was trembling all over. The other kids weren’t scared at all, they were actually fine with heading on into the light, and I heard grandparents, and other family members, I suppose, calling them on in. But she was fighting it, and didn’t want to go. And I didn’t want to leave her. She kept saying that her folks were going to take her to the beach, and she really wanted to see it before she left them, and she wanted to see them again, too.”
“Chloe,” Dax said, obviously remembering the little girl’s request before she crossed over, to visit with her parents again, and to see the beach before she crossed. Her request had been granted, and Dax had consequently spent a week with her and her parents at the beach so they could communicate with Chloe before she crossed. Celeste had stayed with them that week too, to keep Chloe company, and she’d also fallen in love with Dax.
“Before I decided to stay with Chloe, I know I could have gone into the light, but I chose not to. I chose to stay with her. And then I met you, and I’ve been fighting the light’s pull ever since.” She smiled. “Now I don’t go through because I don’t want to leave you.”
Dax leaned forward, apparently putting these new pieces into the puzzle he was trying so desperately to figure out. “But when Chloe went back to the light, you left, too. That’s when I thought you must have crossed over. Where did you go?”
“I saw the light, and I watched her cross, but again, I wasn’t ready to go. I knew if I crossed, I’d lose all chance of seeing you again.”
“But you went somewhere, right? Where?”
“I don’t know. There’s another path that branches off from the middle. It’s dark, and a little scary to go down, but that’s where I have to go to rest. That’s all I know. And during those two months when I was away from you, I didn’t rest enough, or I’d be stronger now. I only went down that path a few times, and I never stayed very long. I guess I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find you again if I did. I don’t know, since I can’t remember what happens when I’m there. But during most of those two months, I stayed in the middle and tried to get back to you. Do you think-” She wasn’t sure how to finish the question.
“What?” he asked.
“Do you think if I wouldn’t have been going to that camp, wouldn’t have been in that wreck, that I’d have never met you? I mean, in real life? What if the only way for us to be together was for me to die?”
Dax shook his head as he spoke. “No, I can’t believe that. I think-I believe-that if two people are meant to be together, if they are truly soul mates, then they’ll find each other, someway, somehow. And I can’t believe that this is the way we were meant to find each other.”
“Gotta admit, it’d be a unique story to tell people about the day we met,” she said, then laughed, and was glad to see his gorgeous smile at that comment.
“Yeah, I think we’d beat all other first-date stories, hands down, though I’m not so certain many people outside of my family would believe it.”
“I think you’re right, though. I’d have found you, met you, somehow. Our paths would have crossed. I was so excited about where my life was headed, I’d gotten the job I wanted, and then I was going to follow through with the rest of my plan.”
“The rest of your plan?”
She nodded. “Fall in love and settle down. That was all that was missing, and if I’d have met you, I could have taken care of that as well.”
He’d only eaten half of his sandwich, but he stood, took the plate to the counter and wrapped the remainder in aluminum foil, then put it in the fridge. “Come on. Let’s go for a walk and chat. I want to hear more about your family, and anything else that might give me a clue about how to help you stay longer.”
“I thought you were starving. Don’t you normally eat all of your sandwich?”
“I normally eat two that size,” he said, smiling. “But I’ve had enough right now. I don’t want to waste any of our day together. In all honesty, we really don’t know how long we’ve got. I mean, we can try to stretch this out as long as possible, make certain not to exhaust you and cause you to have to leave before you absolutely have to go, but until I can figure out how to keep you here, I’d rather spend my time getting to know you better.” He held out a hand toward her, then frowned and stuffed it in the pocket of his jeans. “Damn rule.”
“It’s okay,” Celeste said, standing and placing her fingertips against his cheek. “I can touch you, and as we learned last night, you’re pretty good at touching me without your hands, aren’t you?”
He leaned toward her, nuzzled her neck with his mouth, then slid those hot lips against her ear. “Hell, yeah.”
She laughed and held out her arm. “Look what you did.” A waterfall of gooseflesh trickled down her arm.
“Okay, that definitely belongs on the list. I know I’ve never seen a spirit with goose bumps.”
“Maybe you just haven’t touched them the right way.”
“I haven’t touched any of my ghosts in any way,” he said.
His comment reminded Celeste that he still had a ghost that he was helping, unless Angelle had already crossed. “Before I forget, has Angelle’s school play happened yet? I told her I’d attend if I could, and since I’m here, if it hasn’t happened, I’d love to go. I’d always thought that it’d be fun to help my students put on something like that, and she was such a cute little girl, and so excited about her classmates singing her song.”
Dax glanced at the kitchen clock. “Actually, her play is tonight, and thankfully, it doesn’t start until eight.”
She turned to see the time. “It’s four-thirty now.”
“Exactly, which gives us time to visit a little longer, and to do-other things-before the show.”
“Other things?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, his suggestive tone holding a promise that she couldn’t wait for him to deliver. “Come on,” he continued. “I want to show you the levee, and the outside of the house, and I want to find out as much about you as I can before you have to leave again. There’s got to be something I can do to keep you here, or at least get you back.”
Her throat tightened at the reality of her limited time here. Maybe Dax was right; maybe by learning more about her, he could figure out what went wrong when she died, and whether there was any way she could get another chance at living, or at least another chance at staying with him.
He led her through a small mudroom that branched off the kitchen. Several wall hooks held rain gear, as well as a few gardening tools, and two deep, oversize sinks occupied one wall. A faded snapshot of a woman pruning a large shrub had been matted and framed and hung on the wall directly above the sink. Celeste recognized the striking woman immediately, even though she was much younger in the photo than when Celeste saw her yesterday. “Adeline.”
He paused, looked at the picture and smiled. “Yeah, she always loved tending to her flowers, particularly her poinsettias.” He pointed to the shrub. “I haven’t seen any around quite as large as the ones we have here. I’ll show you.”
Celeste leaned toward the photo again to examine the shrub. A poinsettia? Since the picture was black and white, she couldn’t tell whether the flowers were red, but they didn’t appear to be darker than the others. “Are you sure?”
He stopped at the door. “About what?”
“That that’s a poinsettia. I’ve never seen one that big, and I don’t see any flowers on it.”
“That’s because poinsettias don’t have flowers,” he answered with a grin. “The modified leaves at the end that most people think are flowers are actually called bracts.” He shrugged modestly. “They were my grandmother’s favorite flower, and she wanted the grandchildren to keep them a part of this plantation almost as much as she wanted us to keep the ghosts around. She liked the smell of magnolias, but you couldn’t keep her away from her poinsettias when she was gardening. Come on and see, then you’ll understand.”