A Kink in Her Tails (30 page)

He’d left the door open on that one.

As if his body recognized the moment as an epiphany, a wave of weariness swept over Jason and he slumped in his chair, waiting for the weakness to pass. There was always a “down” moment at the end of a book, but this one was quite strong.

The world was quiet beneath his windows, and hushed within his study.

Jason sat forward again, and placed his hands on his keyboard. It was time to end his saga, too.

He typed her name in his search engine.

Damn. Thousands of hits. Apparently the Progressive China Company had issued a pattern called “ Francesca” some years ago. Collectors wanted it.

Hookay. Time to refine the search.

Jason’s years of familiarity with the Internet paid off, and within half an hour he was down to one hundred and twenty seven hits.

Finally, he tossed in the name of her college and hit Enter.

“Francesca Dalton, Arts ’68, Survived by…”

His mind blanked and the screen turned into a jumble of meaningless rubbish.

Survived by
?

The humming in his ears subsided, only to be replaced by a gentle buzzing. His chest felt tight, and numbness was spreading from his toes upwards. He took a deep breath and clicked the link.

Four pop-ups and two mis-clicks later, he had it. An entry from her old collegiate newspaper.

“Survived by her aunt and cousins. Succumbed to injuries received after being involved in a multi-car collision.”

The date was not too long after he’d last seen her. And not too long before he’d left for the West Coast.

She had never come back because she couldn’t.

She was dead
.

Jason’s mind shut down. He closed his eyes and leaned back, waiting for the pain he knew would come.

Trying to come to terms with the fact that his mate on this earth had been gone for all these years. He had buried her memory deep in his soul not knowing that her body had been buried so long ago.

Why had nobody told him? They may not have known and he was so busy getting ready for his trip, who could have caught him?

These things happened, he knew, but not to Francesca. Please God, not to Francesca? Did she think about him before…before…

The pain came.

Rolling in thunderous waves over Jason, he gasped at its onslaught. His breath cramped in his lungs and his arms screamed as the muscles quivered. His gut clenched against it and he bit his lip to stop himself from screaming.

She was gone. He couldn’t come to terms with it. He couldn’t accept it or live with it.

She was gone. Forever.

He sobbed out a cry, gasping in air to replace it and fill his starved lungs. His vision faded, the blackness creeping into his soul stealing the light from his eyes as well.

“Francesca…”
To his own mind he yelled her name into the dark, but it might have been a whisper for all he knew.

He struggled to breathe, suddenly realizing that his body was betraying him. This was not grief, or pain, or loss, this was something else.

Fear warred with pain and for a few moments Jason Burke fought against his destiny.

But then the pain vanished and the light returned to his eyes.

A warm light, pulling him from his chair.

“
You must come to me now, Jason
.”

Her words. From so long ago. Bringing him down from his flight. This time they were encouraging him to take a new one.

His heart swelled as he heard her clearly for the first time in too many years.

“I’m here, my love. Forgive me?”

“
There is nothing to forgive, Jason. We just had to reach the right time. I’ve been waiting for
you…
”

And the light-that-was-Jason slowly rose from the slumped figure sitting before the computer monitors, and joined the light-that-was-Francesca.

A new journey was beginning.

The somber group walked through the quiet cemetery to the place where a small tent had been erected.

Simon Austen had his arm around his wife’s shoulders, and Adam and Laura Burns held hands.

Adele Martin followed, chatting quietly to Maria Delgado Arrivas, who had been Jason Burke’s housekeeper for many years. She was still in a certain amount of shock after learning that Jason had left the apartment building to her.

“I cannot believe it, Ms. Martin,” she said, her slight accent making Adele smile. “That he should be so kind to me, when all I did was clean for him and nag him to put his socks in the hamper.”

“You cared for him, Mrs. Arrivas. That would have been enough for Jason.” Eve Austen caught Adele’s comment and turned, her eyes still slightly red from her tears. She had known and liked Jason Burke. She would miss him.

“Adele’s right, Maria. You know Jason was a quiet man, but he was very aware of the people around him and what they were thinking and feeling. I guess that’s what made him such a good writer.” There was silence for a moment as everyone struggled to come to terms with the fact that their reclusive landlord had been a best-selling author and multimillionaire.

“I have all his books, you know,” said Adam Burns.

“And I’m reading them now, too,” added Laura. “They’re really quite amazing.” She glanced at her husband and smiled. “On so many levels.”

They reached the tent and seated themselves. There were few other mourners present, Jason’s request for privacy having been rigidly honored by his attorney.

Only his agent, his lawyer and the few invited guests were present for this ceremony. The world would learn later that renowned author JB Sims had succumbed to a heart attack and passed away on the same night he’d finished his final book.

The appropriate words were said, and the appropriate thoughts expressed. Each of the mourners shared this acknowledgement of the fragility of life with one other, and honored the quiet man who had touched their lives in a variety of different ways.

A figure neared the group and Adele glanced over as the movement caught her eye.

She froze.

It was Brian.

Eve nudged her. “Jason told me once that he’d let a special person slide from his life long ago, and he’d regretted it ever since. I couldn’t let you make the same mistake.” She nodded her head toward Brian. “I called him.”

Adele’s throat closed and words failed her. The nature of this moment, standing near the casket of a person who had been alive such a short time before, hammered home to her the need for honesty, the need for companionship, and the need to take a risk.

Before it was too late.

She slipped away from the group and walked toward Brian.

He watched her, eyes somber and concerned.

The sun shone on him, bringing blue sparks from his eyes and making him so beautiful that Adele’s heart turned over in her chest. She swallowed it back down and stopped a short distance from him.

She saw his throat move as he swallowed. She opened her mouth, but the words wouldn’t come. The tears did instead.

Brian said nothing. He simply opened his arms.

With a sob, Adele ran to him, throwing herself into his embrace and almost knocking him over.

He caught her and locked his arms around her, nearly crushing her ribcage. She couldn’t have cared if he

’d dislocated three vertebrae while he was at it. She was where she belonged. With her man. At last.

“Well dammit, woman. Took you long enough. Why the hell did you have to wait until someone died to come to your senses?”

Adele snorted through her tears as she gazed up at his dear face. “Because I’m a fucking idiot?”

“Got that right.” Brian tried a wobbly smile of his own. “Oh damn.” He lowered his face to hers and kissed her gently, bringing more tears to her eyes and opening her heart to the sunshine that she felt was surrounding them.

It was a blissful moment. “I love you, Brian McMillan.”

“Yes you do. I always knew that. You had to find out for yourself though, just exactly what that meant.” Adele leaned against him. God bless men with big chests. “If you are going to spend the rest of our lives together being so damnably right, I may just have to shoot you.”

“I’ll work on it. I promise.” He hugged her close again and rubbed his chin through her hair. “But you have to make me a promise too.”

She nodded, too content to move. “Anything.”

Beneath her ear his chest rumbled with his laughter. “Dangerous words, my love. I might hold you to that.

But what I really want is your promise that you will never, ever, even for one tiny moment, think that I only care about what I see. I want you to promise me, right this minute, that you will always believe I love you, the person, the Adele who is inside, not the Adele that the world sees every day.”

“I promise, Brian. I promise.” Adele said the words with her heart and her soul, knowing that she meant them. Brian loved
her
, the real her, the thoughts, feelings, desires and emotions that were uniquely Adele Martin. She’d had enough time to know that he meant what he said.

And God knew she loved him right back.

“And in return, I promise to live the rest of my life loving you. You’re my other half. My soulmate.

Whatever the right word is…”

“Oh those’ll do very nicely,” sighed Adele.

“Good. Let’s say goodbye to Jason together and then go start living our new life, shall we? We’ve got things to do, places to go, beds to try out…”

Adele shushed him with her hand, as she led him back to the side of the grave.

The sunlight had become even brighter, reflecting the emotions on the faces of those gathered to say their final farewells.

Each took a flower from the arrangement and walked to the casket.

Eve and Simon went first, Eve with two roses, Simon with just one.

“Goodbye and Godspeed, Jason,” said Eve. “I consider myself honored to have known you. As one life ends, so another begins…”

She placed one rose on the casket and touched the other to her stomach, smiling as she did so. Then she added it to the two roses resting on the shiny wood.

The others looked questioningly at both Eve and Simon.

Simon smiled. “If it’s a boy, we’re thinking of calling him Jason.” Both Eve and Simon were ruthlessly hugged by everyone and chaos reigned for a few moments before Adam and Laura stepped up with their flowers.

“I wish I’d known you better, Jason,” said Adam. “But as it is, I have read your words and learned from them. I’m just one of many who will cherish your books. You’ve left a true legacy for generations to come, and in
my
book, that’s a sign of a life well-lived.” He reverently placed his rose on the pile and stepped back, letting Laura add hers. She said nothing, just lowered her head for a moment, then glanced at Adam, waiting for his hand.

Together they turned and left.

Finally, it was Adele’s turn, and Brian stood with his arms around her as she placed her rose with the tribute.

“Thank you Jason. For being wise enough to see your mistake and for indirectly stopping me for making the same one. I hope that wherever you are, you have found contentment.” She and Brian turned away, and within minutes the only sound was a soft birdsong trilling through the bright sunshine.

* * * * *

“Well, I think that was quite lovely,” sighed the light-that-was-Francesca.

The light-that-was-Jason chuckled. “Yeah. I guess. Sort of odd, though, watching one’s own funeral.” They withdrew from the quiet tableau, taking some of the brilliance of the sunlight with them as they faded from that dimensional existence.

“Well, where to this time, babe?” The light-that-was-Jason snuggled up to his mate, and tickled her with rays of brilliance in colors that defied description.

The light-that-was-Francesca giggled. “We could go to Arcturus again…”

“Oh no. I don’t think so. Too many tentacles and I couldn’t find your hot spots underneath that damned exoskeleton. Mind you the beaches were nice…”

“What about being human again?”

The light-that-was-Jason sighed. “I don’t know. That one was rough. Especially without you. I think we should pick someplace where we stand a better chance of sharing a long life. It was so…so uncomfortable without you. Mind you, the sex was great…”

The light-that-was-Francesca flashed a twinkle at him.

“Oh wait a minute…” The light-that-was-Jason sparkled excitedly. “How about Argosy 9? I hear tell that they’ve just about perfected an anti-gravity unit. That might be fun…” His tone indicated that if he’d possessed something as corporeal as eyebrows, he’d be waggling them suggestively.

He received a non-corporeal elbow to his metaphorical ribs. “Can’t you think of anything but fucking?”

“Like what?”

There was silence for a moment as the light-that-was-Francesca considered the question. “Good point.

Argosy 9 it is. But first…”

Other lights who ventured too close quickly turned away in embarrassment. The light-that-was-Jason and the light-that-was-Francesca were doing a little non-corporeal merging. And in public too.

The flash of incredible luminescence that lit up the sky puzzled astronomers on Earth for weeks.

They couldn’t have known it was two souls finding each other and two beings from another dimension loving each other.

They would never have considered that it might mark the beginning of a new journey, a new set of adventures and a new existence on a planet they hadn’t even heard of yet.

They would never have guessed, not in a million light years, that it was the ethereal essence of male and female enjoying that most universal of activities.

A damn good fuck.

The End

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Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.

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