Remember the Stars Read online

  Suddenly, she inhaled sharply, and her torso shot upward, sending Remy reeling backwards and onto his back with a thud. His vision spun, and the breath left his lungs with a whoosh. After a moment of confusion, he breathed again, and rolled over onto his knees.

  When he got back to Leah, she was blinking hard, and still staring upward.

  “Leah, you’re back,” he said as he smoothed her dark hair from her face.

  “Asleep. I was just…sleeping,” she said.

  She hadn’t been sleeping. Death was his business. A business he had known. He knew what it looked like. Still, he said nothing to contradict her words. He was just happy she was back, and that emotion in itself was strange. He hadn’t felt any sense of joy or happiness since arriving in this lonely, dark world. The new feeling was uplifting, almost liberating.

  But just as he felt an appreciation for this new joy, a loud, almost deafening roar filled his ears. From the distance, something huge and metal was barreling down the tracks toward them. Immediately, he flung himself on top of Leah and wrapped himself around her, tucking his head down as an earthquake of nothing but sound and fury rumbled past them at lightning speed.

  And then nothing.

  All was quiet, gone as quickly as it had come. For the moment, Remy remained very still, aware of his own breathing, and Leah clutching him tightly.

  “What was that?” Her voice was panic-stricken.

  “A phantom train. It’s gone now. Leah, we have to get back now.” His words were muffled against her hair. “It’s so dangerous out here.”

  “I can’t. Just leave me here.”

  “No, that’s not an option. He lifted her into his arms and carefully got to his feet. She was so light, almost like carrying nothing. That was a definite plus. Right now, he needed to get them both back to the safety of the funeral home.”

  “He…he took my bangle. My parents gave it to me at my birthday party, and he just took it!”

  “Who? The magician in the playground?” He continued down the slope.

  “He was mesmerizing. And, he had sharp, black teeth.”

  So she had met the playground magician. At least she seemed no worse for it. “He’s nothing, Leah. Besides, you have your bangle.”

  She lifted her arm. “I could have sworn…”

  “It’s not important, Leah. You’ll be able to process this all better after you’ve slept.”

  She didn’t reply. He guessed she didn’t know how to reply. But she had him to help her cope. When he’d first arrived he had no one.

  “Remy?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Aren’t the stars beautiful?”

  He glanced upward into the sky. The stars were still there. “The stars…” He was about to tell her that just a short time ago—before she arrived—there were no stars. But he stopped himself. Leah didn’t need any more confusion. “Yes, the stars are beautiful.” He looked down at her. Even covered in dirt, scratches, and bruises, she was beautiful. Her eyes were closed.

  An immense sense of relief filled him as they arrived safely at the doors of the funeral home. He shifted Leah’s weight in his arms and felt around for the keys. He managed to get the door open, and relocked once they were inside.

  Walking slowly up the stairs, he let himself into the flat, deposited Leah on the couch, and debated his next move.

  A bath. He would get Leah out of her now nearly shredded dress and into a warm bath, tend to her wounds, and then pop her into bed. Whatever happened after that, he would have to deal with.

  In the bathroom, he turned on the bathtub tap and was pleasantly surprised to find warm water. Since arriving at this place, he’d learned to expect nothing.

  As the tub filled, he went to the kitchen and opened a cupboard. A lone bottle of whiskey still sat on the dusty shelf. One of the things about his condition was he never hungry, never thirsty. His hair had stopped growing, he never needed a shave.

  He merely existed.

  He hadn’t much in the way of glassware, but there was an old coffee mug that he wiped clean with a cloth before half filling it with whiskey.

  On impulse, he took a sip of the amber liquid and allowed it to glide along his tongue and down the back of his throat savoring the liquid heat .

  He went back to the bathroom and set the mug of whiskey on the sink and tested the water with his hand. Back in the living room, he lifted Leah into his arms, hoping the jostling would stir her, but she remained limp.

  With a sigh, he walked into the bathroom and gently immersed her, fully dressed, into the warm bath. He lifted her long hair from the water and let it flow outside the tub. Afterward, he went about scrubbing her exposed skin.

  Suddenly, her eyes flew open and she sat up with such a force, the water splashed outside the tub and doused him. As shocked as Remy was, the look on her face was much worse.

  She looked at him as though he was a pervert.

  “Don’t look at me like that, Leah,” he warned. “If I had wanted, I could have violated you a dozen different ways by now.”

  Her expression softened a bit.

  “I’m trying to help you. You’re a mess you know. You remind me of someone who has been mauled by a bear.”

  “Lovely,” she said.

  He smiled. “Don’t be sarcastic. Only one of us can have that job, and that’s me. Besides, this settles some primal need inside me to take care of you.”

  He reached for the mug of whiskey on the sink and held it to her lips. “Drink,” he commanded.

  She obeyed, but immediately recoiled after swallowing a sip. “What is that?”

  “Whiskey. Good stuff, too. It will calm your nerves for now.”

  She replied with a grumble and took another sip.

  He resumed soaping her arm.

  “For God’s sake, Remy, get me out of this dress.”

  “Fine, hold up your hair,” he said trying to remain nonplussed. Still, the thought of seeing her naked…

  “Remy, any day now,” she said impatiently. “Help me up?”

  He reached under her arms and pulled her forward and unzipped her dress. The feel of her warm, wet body brought back another feeling he hadn’t experienced in a very long time—desire.

  She wiggled out of the dress and her underwear. “Put your tongue back in your mouth,” she said drolly. “It’s just a naked body. One that apparently looks as if it’s been mauled by a bear.”

  He snapped back to reality. He hadn’t meant to stare, but he hadn’t seen a naked woman in years. What did she expect?

  “Let’s just get on with it and get you dried and into bed.”

  “Okay,” she agreed. “I’m anticipating waking up in my own bed, you know. This is going to end soon, I can feel it. But thank you for taking care of me—even though this is just a dream.”

  How could he tell her she was just fooling herself? It was best to say nothing. She would adjust to this life over time just as he had. He grabbed a towel and held it up.

  “Remy, I can’t get out of this bath. My entire body feels like…like dead weight.”

  “It’s okay.” He held the towel under his chin, and lifted her naked body out of the bath and set her on her feet. As she leaned heavily on him, he wrapped her in the towel and lifted her into his arms.

  By the time he’d laid her on the bed, she was unconscious. He went about drying her with a clinical attitude. He was a funeral director after all. He had washed, dried and dressed bodies on countless occasions.

  But Leah wasn’t dead—not really. She was warm, and breathing…and beautiful.

  He noticed the deep bruising that covered her entire body. It looked as though it was caused by a car accident. He had woken up to similar bruising all over hi
s body as well. He just hoped that someone hadn’t murdered her. When she finally remembered what happened to her that would be the worst.

  Rifling through a dresser drawer, he found an old, stretched out T-shirt and went about slipping it onto her body. But as he tucked her into bed, she suddenly jerked awake and covered her eyes.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “That light. It’s burning my eyes.”

  He had become comfortable over time with not turning off the lights in the flat. Part was safety; part was because he was afraid the lights might not come back on.

  “I’m sorry, Leah. The electricity here—it’s not like normal electricity.” He glanced at the bulb burning above them. He couldn’t leave her to suffer. “I have candles in the funeral home. I’ll be right back.”

  She seized his hand and clutched it tight. “Don’t leave me alone! Please!”

  He stroked her arm. “It’s fine, Leah. This is a safe place. “I’m not leaving you. I’m just going down the stairs. It won’t take a minute. I promise you that.”

  Her body began to tremble and his heart ached. She was absolutely terrified, and yet she still didn’t comprehend what was really happening to her—that this was real, and it was unpredictable. He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand. “I’ll be right back, I promise. Close your eyes and try to sleep. You’ll be able to think more clearly when you’ve slept.”

  He hurried from the flat and down the stairs. He grabbed a handful of candles, holders, and a box of matches from one of the viewing rooms and ran back up the stairs three at a time.

  As he placed the candles around the bedroom, and lit each one, he sighed heavily with the realization that the candles and the matches were from his emergency supplies. If the electricity decided to go out permanently, they would be left to fend for themselves in the darkness.

  Still, he couldn’t allow her to suffer unnecessarily. If the candles brought her a small amount of comfort, then it was worth it. He grabbed a wing chair and moved it close to the bed. As he sank wearily into it, he took notice of the way the candles lit Leah’s face. She looked like an angel.

  He blinked heavily. He was so tired, he had to sleep now. As he drifted off he thought of how nice it was to have Leah with him, and how selfish he was for wanting to keep her there forever.

  With his eyes closed, Remy rocked back and forth in the rocker. The feeling of peace and contentment was so strong. Everything was perfect. The way it should be. His son was in his arms. A tiny bundle of life that belonged to him. Slowly, Remy opened his eyes and looked down. His son was staring curiously at him with a pacifier in his mouth…

  Remy jerked awake so hard he was nearly thrown from the wing chair . An audible gasp escaped his mouth and he sat absolutely still while his heart pounded furiously.

  The dream.

  He often had the same dream. He would be contently rocking his sleeping son in his arms. The baby was always asleep, as if he was locked safely away in some dream state and would never awake because his father had screwed up royally and messed with destiny.

  It wasn’t the only recurring dream that Remy had.

  There was also the dream where he would hear the merry laughter of his wife. When he looked for her, he would catch a brief glimpse of long, dark hair before she vanished and he awoke, usually drenched in sweat, trying to catch his breath.

  To Remy, the meaning of the dreams was obvious. The Fates were tormenting him with visions of what would have been if he hadn’t been so stupid with his life.

  “What’s wrong? You look scared to death.”

  The sound of Leah’s voice brought him back to reality. He ran a rough hand over his face. “Nothing. Just dreaming, that’s all. Go back to sleep.”

  “Dreaming about what?” she asked.

  Did he dare to tell her, or would it make him look weak? The two of them shared a very complex situation with an unknown outcome. Even with the vulnerability in her brown eyes, he still didn’t quite trust she was something of a demon.

  “My son. I was dreaming of holding my son,” he admitted.

  “You have a child?”

  “No, I think the dream is just something the Fates torture me with.” Heat crept up into his face, and he reached back and yanked his red ponytail in response. “You know, showing me what I missed out on, what could have been. It’s stupid, I guess.

  “I don’t think it’s stupid. What’s your son’s name? I mean, your whole family had a nane that starts with R.”

  He absentmindedly tried to twist his grandfather’s wedding band that used to be on his finger, but hollowly remembered it was gone. “Reid, after my grandfather.”

  “That’s really nice.”

  After a period of silence, she spoke. “You know, you were right about something you said to me earlier.”

  “And what could that possibly be? I remember calling you a bitch.” He stared down at his hands, folded on his lap. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Well, maybe it was appropriate at the time,” she admitted. “I called you a monster and a malevolent freak, so let’s just call it a wash. But seriously, when you said I probably had a soft touch job while I waited for my soul mate slash millionaire…”

  An unconscious grin crossed his features. “That was true, huh?”

  She rolled onto her back and her eyes focused on the ceiling. “Not a millionaire—just a soul mate, that’s all. The guy I’ve been with the last few years…I realize now he wasn’t my soul mate.

  Somehow the mention of a man in her life bothered him, and he wasn’t sure why. After all, Leah had just dropped—literally—into his life such a short time ago. But there was something about her.

  “This guy must be missing you something fierce.” He said the first thing that came to mind.

  “I don’t know. I did a stupid thing, I guess. But it more or less proved what I was thinking.”

  “You remember what happened to you?”

  “What I did to get here? No. I remember that I gave Logan an ultimatum—propose marriage before my birthday or we were through.”

  He tutted under his breath. “Ultimatums are a really bad idea.”

  Turning back on her side, she propped herself up on her elbow. “You think so?” Sarcasm etched her words.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Nah, you’re right,” she interrupted him. Logan and I…we were on different paths in life. He’s an immigration lawyer. His clients always seemed to be more important than me, and he always listened to everything his mother said. As a matter of fact, at my birthday party, his cousin confided in me that she and Logan went shopping for an engagement ring for me, and his mother made him return it.”

  A mama’s boy, Remy thought with a snicker. But on the other hand, he really, really wanted to see his own mother one more time. Their last meeting had been unpleasant, to say the least. The last thing she told him was to grow up.

  “So what did you want?”

  “I wanted to get married and start a family right away. I wanted to stay home and raise my children and take care of my husband. Was that so bad? I mean, I know it’s not every woman’s choice these days, but it’s what I really wanted.”

  A sharp pain hit him in the stomach as her admission stunned him into silence. So here it was, he thought silently. The right woman who would have put his life back together. The life he didn’t even know he wanted until tonight.

  Finally, he found his voice. “No, Leah, I don’t think that’s bad at all. As a matter of fact, I think it’s very, very good. As for your boyfriend, I think he’s a real jerk for not marrying you when he had the chance.”

  “Remy?” she asked.

  “Hmm?”

  “Do you know how you...you wound up here?”

>   That much was burned into his memory. But could he admit the truth to Leah? Maybe if he told her, it would release some of the constant pain he felt. Still, admitting the truth was opening himself up to be judged—and he didn’t want to be judged anymore. The Fates had already been his judge, jury, and punisher.

  Begin at the beginning.

  He actually heard the words in his head.

  Inhaling deeply, he proceeded with caution.

  “I need to start at the beginning, an explanation of things—not an excuse though.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “I tried so hard not to be like my brothers. Not to be the zombie robots who were born to follow in the footsteps of my grandfather and father. They grew up knowing their future was already pre-decided. They would go to mortuary school, graduate, get married to their high school sweethearts, and step into the family business. Job, marriage, buy a home, have babies…”

  He paused and shook his head. It sounded so ludicrous coming out of his mouth. Yet, he had to continue.

  “I slid through school. I showed no interest in the family business. I was constantly late to work. I angered my brothers and my parents. I was entitled, spoiled, selfish, and lazy. I argued and provoked. I lied, cheated, used people for my own gain—I didn’t deserve all the things that had been given to me.”

  He stopped again. He was making a god damned confession to a woman he barely knew, but now felt was his last chance at redemption.

  “Go on, Remy,” she encouraged.

  He closed his eyes. That voice. There was so much more to Leah.

  “I had back surgery after a falling down drunken incident. The pain went away, but the Vicodin didn’t. Before I knew it, I was up to thirty a day just to function. I couldn’t—wouldn’t— admit I had a problem.”

  He opened his eyes. He had to see Leah’s reaction. To his surprise, there was no judgment or disgust in her brown eyes; more a gentle contemplativeness. It gave him the courage to continue.