Authors: Ginger Voight
Before she knew what was happening he grabbed her hand and brought it to his lips. Like running sensitive fingertips across velvet
, her skin blazed with the warm contact. In an instant, pictures flashed in her mind – of an open mouth against quivering flesh, hot breath and a tongue etching a blazing trail across bare, supple skin. Such thoughts were so foreign to her she couldn’t help but gasp.
Her shocked eyes met his and he looked as though he saw through to her very core.
“Till we meet again,” he murmured, with a tone in his voice that left little room for doubt that they would.
And the
n he was gone.
Adele
couldn’t speak as she followed Brian out of the room and toward the elevator. Once inside Brian couldn’t suppress his grin.
“
What?” she finally spat out.
“
I never thought I’d see the day when the unflappable Adele Lumas would literally swoon over some guy.”
“
I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she denied, unable to look him in the face. “My interest in Nicholas is purely professional.”
Brian
pounced. “It’s Nicholas now?”
She gave him a cold stare.
“It’s a story, that’s what it is.”
Brian
coughed “Bullshit,” into his hand and was rewarded with deafening silence the entire ride back to the studio.
Adele
couldn’t shake thoughts of Nicholas from her head as she opted to walk home the few blocks she lived from the studio. It was late, it was dark, but Adele was oblivious. All she could think of were those dark eyes and the feeling of his mouth on her skin.
She swore she could still feel
it. Like remnants from a movie’s cutting room floor she kept seeing sensual but disjointed flashes of two lovers locked together in passion. Never in her life had any thought been more vivid, especially any thought based on something she had no basis of knowledge.
Sex was just not some
thing Adele ever thought about, nor love or romance. Those things did not exist in her world. She’d made sure of that with a pretty hefty donut addiction. It was unintentional armor but it had always worked for her. She made up her mind she would never take that risk. She’d never marry. She’d never have children. Her lineage stopped with her. The blood that ran through her veins would never be imposed on another living thing as long as she lived. It was dirty. Tainted. Worthless.
And, so she felt, was she. Her birth had been a mistake
… her life a tragedy.
She ran her fingers through her hair and inhaled the crisp air deep into her lungs. The night was still. The streets were empty. Off in the neighboring woods a wolf howled at the moon, a lonesome
woeful sound.
Loneliness had
never bothered her much before, but this night it taunted her with each step that echoed into the night. Single footfalls were such solitary sounds, especially down an empty street. She was alone. She walked alone. She’d die alone. It was her curse.
It was just l
ike those children who lost their lives, those children who haunted her dreams. Maybe that was why she dreamed of them, she thought to herself. That despondent feeling of knowing there were no saviors left in the world spilled from her sad life to touch the lives of others. And she was witness to it all in her subconscious, where all the demons that tortured her lived.
As if the weather sensed her mood a wind began to
whisper around her, pushing everything out of her way as she made her sad trek home. It caught a can and tumbled it along the gutter, loud clangs and bangs shattering the quiet stillness. The wolf brayed again, only this time it seemed closer. Adele stopped and stared off toward the dark recesses where the city trailed off into the forest.
She waited a moment before resuming her walk. The wind whipped her hair across her face as it began to howl around her, and another wolf joined in the chorus. A familiar low mist hung over the tall tops of the darkened trees. Instinctively Adele picked up the pace, her heels clattered against the stones as she raced along the street. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. She could almost swear another set of footsteps followed her own, but she was
almost too petrified to look behind her and see for sure.
It
was her dream all over again, only this time it was real. She felt a hysterical scream gurgle up into her throat. Every sound of the night rose to a crescendo until Adele couldn’t take it anymore for fear she’d split completely in two. She whipped around to face her fear or die trying.
The street behind her was just as empty as the street before her. The wind picked up debris and swung it up in a spiral that almost seemed to chase her. Adele took off in a sprint last few steps between her
front door and whatever it was out in the night air that preyed upon the frightened.
She struggled with her purse to find her keys, then pushed the door open and shut out the world. As she leaned on the door, she listened for the wind to whistle through the cracks in the doo
r frame, but there was nothing.
With a quizzical frown Adele opened the door and peered outside.
All was still.
Even with her bedside lamp on she still tossed and turned fitfully through another sleepless night.
CHAPTER FOUR
The next morning Adele stifled a yawn as she watched her mother li
ght her candles, say her prayers and rise from her kneeling position before the altar at the Church of the Holy Sacrament. Brenda heaved a thoughtful sigh as she gazed up at the statue of Jesus impaled upon the cross.
As she turned she gave Adele a smile and then headed for the confessional. Adele
couldn’t help but wonder what her faithful, God-fearing, home-bound mother could have to repent for, especially since this was a weekly ritual from which Brenda would not be swayed.
Adele’s
eyes slid back toward the statue. Jesus looked down at her with sad eyes as he hung there forever at his most helpless. Adele tried to wrap her mind around the kind of love her mother said it took for him to die so violently and so ruthlessly for sins he did not even commit. Once more she came up empty and once more she discounted the entire string of events as nothing more than just folklore to keep people indebted and guilty so they would unquestioningly tow the line during their brief stint on earth.
“
That thing gives me the creeps,” a tiny voice came from behind, breaking into her reverie. Adele jumped and spun around to see Danielle Spaulding standing behind her, polishing the tops of the pews. Adele had an instant smile for the ten-year-old girl.
“
I’m glad I’m not the only one.”
Dani abandoned her chores and came around to sit with Adele.
“Father Mike says it’s an act of love. I don’t know if I would ever love anyone that much. Could you?”
Adele shrugged as she looked back up at the statue.
“Never have.” She glanced back at Dani. “Except you of course.”
The little girl smiled.
“Of course.” They laughed in unison. It was so easy to laugh when they were together. They understood each other on their most basic, fundamental level.
Adele met Dani three years before, when
Dani’s mother lost custody of her kids due to drug addiction. Her infant son Adam had been born addicted at that time, and the courts seized both children before their mother could even leave the hospital. It was a big story in their sleepy, small town, and Adele was hot in action to cover it.
Little did she know
she’d fall in love in the process.
Details unfolded that Dani was emotionally disturbed and needed much the same therapy that Adele herself had gone through. From the pills to the therapy to the behavioral problems, Adele felt like she was watching herself grow up all over again. Only Dani
didn’t have the loving support of a devoted mother like Adele had. When Dani’s mother lost custody permanently and Dani and Adam became wards of the state, Adele attempted to rescue that little girl and give her everything she felt saved her in the end – unconditional love from a supportive parent.
The problem was Adele herself had a long history of emotional instability. The insides of her wrists bore the evidence of a suicide attempt when she was
only fifteen, and records detailed the stint in the psyche ward that followed. She required heavy narcotic pills to quell voices in her head and visions that disturbed her sleep. Even though she had grown up into a model citizen who had a steady job and a place to live, the courts were not eager to release a child into her sole care, especially a child with the kinds of problems Dani had.
So Dani bounced between
foster care and the children’s home run by nuns. She hung around the church to do favors for her second favorite person in the world, Father Mike. Her most cherished fantasy was that Michael and Adele would raise her together, that they’d get Adam and finally be a family. But how could she ask that of either Father Michael or Adele? Father Mike was a priest and even Dani understood what that meant.
Instead she stayed as close as she could to both of them, even if that meant more trouble for breaking curfews and rules or even run
ning away from foster families who seemed to regard Adele as skeptically as the courts had.
One thing Dani knew above all else was that no one could ever love her the way Michael and Adele did. And she knew that she loved them back just the same.
She’d asked Adele many times about trying again, especially since she’d made it so plain she only wanted to be with her, but Adele would shake her head and hold her close saying that the courts had made their decision. She couldn’t put either of them through the cruel process that was doomed to disappoint them yet again.
Dani stole another glance up at the cross as she nestled into
Adele’s embrace, and wondered if humans were even capable of that kind of love. Surely if they were, Adele would be her mother and all would be right with the world.
Instead she knew she had to face that lonely bed in the
children’s home where she couldn’t even see her baby brother when she wanted. But at least they were somewhat together, and that was all Dani had to hold onto. If Father Mike was right and there was a God, Dani prayed that one day he’d give her the family of her dreams.
Adele, as always, lost track of time with Dani curled up beside her like a contented kitten. She never wanted it to end. Since she was determined never to have a child of her own, she poured everything she could
ever give another human being into this tiny creature – the only person in the world who had Adele’s heart in their possession.
It was well into the afternoon by the time she returned Brenda home and
managed to get back to the studio. She rushed by Sam Duncan's office, praying he was giving someone else the third degree for a change and wouldn’t notice. He wasn’t too keen on her erratic schedule but managed not to yell too much as long as she got the story. Thanks to Denise Carter that had become increasingly harder to do, and she didn’t need another lecture from him reminding her of it.
The smell hit her before she could round the corner. Something in her office was different, and she knew immediately it was flowers. Had she missed something? Was it her birthday already? That was the only time anyone sent her flowers and it was always from her mother. When she saw her desk she knew it
wasn’t her mother this time.
There were flowe
rs everywhere, red roses in particular. Several arrangements covered her desk, some sat on her file cabinets, and some even on her window sill. She glanced over at Brian, who was armed with nasal spray and a handful of antihistamines. He grinned at her with bloodshot eyes. “Can you tell Prince Charming that your office mate has severe allergies?”
“
What are you talking about? I don’t know who sent these.”
He stifled
a sneeze as he pointed to a card on her desk. She picked it up and noticed the ornate N-S embossed on the top. “You’ve got to be kidding,” she whispered. She opened the envelope.
I’ll be dining at Gerard’s this evening
, it read.
I’d love the pleasure of your company. Nicholas.
She sent a puzzled glance to
Brian who was grinning like a Cheshire cat. “Bon appetit.”
“
Like I’m going to go,” she said. She didn’t date. And she had no intention whatsoever starting with this man who had such an odd effect on her.
Brian
laughed and sneezed simultaneously. “Suit yourself. I’m sure Denise Carter won’t mind stepping in.”
Adele pursed her lips as she glared at him.
He was right, and she knew it.
She was uncertain that she was going to go right up until she was being led by t
he maître d to Nicholas’s table. It would have been so much easier, and so much smarter, to never lay eyes on the man again. She could pawn off her story on an underling, give the flowers away to charity, and once again resume the solitary, devoted life she had always enjoyed – or at the very least tolerated.