Page 14 of The Witching Hour
Or perhaps she’d simply drawn her final breath at last, to find the man she’d fallen in love with waiting for her in the time and place where that love had blossomed, the scent of cornflowers drifting on the breeze, his hand outstretched, waiting for her to take it.
But it didn’t feel like a final breath. It felt like her first one.
Not an ending, then, but a new beginning.
* * *
Somehow,in the months that had elapsed between this moment and the last time he’d seen her, he’d forgotten how beautiful his wife was.
She walked beside him, her head just reaching his shoulder, a blue cornflower tucked behind her ear, her golden hair bright in the sunlight, a pale pink flush chasing the pallor from her cheeks.
His hand tightened around the thin, delicate fingers tucked against his palm. So fragile, so breakable, those fingers. His first sight of her since he’d returned to find her lying so still and pale in her bed hadn’t brought tears to his eyes, but the moment he’d touched those skeletal fingers, everything inside him had pulled tight until the grief he’d been struggling to suppress burst free, like rushing water overflowing its banks, and he’d laid his head on her bed and wept.
“The pathway, and the willow tree over the creek—it all looks just as I remember it.” She glanced up at him, her brow furrowed. “It’s been years since I last saw this place. How is it possible it hasn’t changed at all in the intervening years?”
It wasn’t possible, unless they weren’t actually here at all, but were somehow…sharing a dream? A dream based on their mutual memories of a time and place where they’d been together, and happy? Was that how they’d ended up here in the field where they’d fallen in love four years ago?
There was no reasonable explanation for it, nothing logical that made sense, but perhaps, just perhaps, there was a magical one?
But even if it was a magical spell, it still felt utterly real, the rustle of the willow branches in the breeze, the gurgling of the brook. “Come, shall we see if our place under the willow is just as we remember it?” He gave her hand a gentle tug, and led her down the pathway to the willow.
“It’s just the same.” Sylvie gazed down at the stretch of grass under the willow where they’d sat together so many times before, a wondering expression on her lovely face. “Look, James! The rug you brought is still here.”
It was, by God—the little braided rug he’d brought for her to sit on, so her dress wouldn’t get soiled in the grass. They’d sat on it together, of course, so close he’d felt the press of her leg against his. How innocent they’d both been! That chaste touch had been the first taste he’d ever had of desire.
“And here’s the daisy chain we made together, right where we left it, and as fresh still as the day we made it!” She unwound the long chain of white flowers with their cheerful yellow centers from a nearby branch. “Do you remember that day?” She glanced shyly at him from under her lashes, biting her lip.
Remember it? Did she really imagine he could ever forget that day? “Of course, I do, Sylvie.” He touched his fingers to her chin and raised her face to his. “I will never forget that day. That was the day I knew I’d fallen in love with you.”
They’d come to the willow tree early that morning and spent most of the afternoon lazing under the branches and listening to the burbling of the brook, his head cradled in her lap, until at last she’d laughingly scolded him for his laziness and assigned him a task.
She’d commanded him to make her a daisy chain.
There was no shortage of daisies, and he’d set to his job at once, his big fingers clumsy as he tied the tender green stems together, the chain growing longer and longer as the insects buzzed in lethargic circles over the meadow. Sylvie wandered about as he worked, picking daisies for his chain and looking like a woodland nymph in her flowing white dress, with daisies tucked into her hair.
She’d meandered along, laughing and chattering to him, and it had dawned on him as he watched her that he belonged to her now, heart and soul, and had for some time.
Perhaps from the first moment he saw her.
But it had been that day, with the sun shining down on his head and his fingertips stained green from the daisies’ stems that the realization had crashed over him, no less certain for all that it hit him like a tidal wave, and he’d done…well, what any young man so violently in love tended to do in such circumstances.
He’d risen to his feet, the daisy chain dangling from his fingers, only to fall before her, the damp ground seeping through the knees of his trousers, and with a breathlessness born of love and hope, begged her to be his forever.
“Do you regret it now?” She slipped her fingers into his, and gazed up at him with serious blue eyes. “Now, after everything that’s happened, do you regret asking me, James?”
So many things had passed between them since then—moments and memories, some happy, and others painful—more than he ever thought could pass in a single lifetime. He’d been angry with her, resentful, desperate, wildly and passionately in love, and grief-stricken, sometimes all in the same day, the same moment, the same breath.
But regret? Regrether? No. He could never regret it. They’d gone wrong since that day, yes—dreadfully wrong, somehow, but she was the only woman he’d ever loved.
The only woman he ever could love.
He wrapped his hands around her waist and let his forehead rest against hers. “No, Sylvie. I’ve never regretted it. Even in our worst times, I’ve never regretted it for a single day.”
“Neither have I. Not once, James.” She rested her hands on his cheeks, pressed a sweet, gentle kiss to his forehead, then brushed her lips over his fluttering eyelids, the tip of his nose, and a lingering one to his sun-warmed mouth. “What do you suppose happens now?”
He smiled against her lips. “You close your eyes, love, and when you wake in your bed, I’ll be here, waiting for you.”
EPILOGUE
