Raquel's Abel (8 page)

Feeling my heart beat so rapidly scared me.

“I came to apologize for my terrible behavior earlier today.” He leaned over, digging his elbows into his thighs.

I was relieved he’d come back. “I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did.” I liked sitting close to him. He had a little boy look about him that I found charming.

“When I was a child, my mother went in for surgery.” He took his helmet off and ran his fingers around the edges. “She never came back.” He looked down.

“Your mother?”

“I was a just a boy and she went to the hospital and…”

I remembered how I felt when they told me my mother had passed away. “How horrible. What happened to you then?”

“My uncle, he wasn’t really the type to take care of a child, so he took me to an orphanage.” His eyes darted up to me then back down.

“So, you thought I wouldn’t come back?”

He didn’t respond, just kept fingering the rim of his helmet.

“And your father?”

“Oh, my father, he was taken by consumption a few years before my mother.”

“I’m so very sorry.” It was sweet that he’d been worried about me. “I’m touched, I really am.”

“I shouldn’t have put you through what I did.” He reached his hand over and placed it on top of mine.

His skin was soft and warm and I felt excitement twitching inside me. He wasn’t a part of this world. He was an apparition. How could I feel this way about him?

“Please accept my apology.” His eyes opened wide and he looked into mine.

I thought I would melt. “I can forgive you, but why are you here?”

He took a deep breath. “The two weeks I stayed in this house were the best days of my life.”

“The best days of your life?”

“While I was here, I was happy because I had been assured my mother would be fine. After that I was at the orphanage.” He looked out at the line of trees dividing our estate from the other next door. “My days here were blissful.”

“When were you here?”

“During the summer of 1909.”

“The house was practically new then,” I said more to myself than Abel. “And Granddaddy was a little boy.”

“Yes, we were fast friends, your grandfather and I.” His eyes became misty. “And after that came the orphanage.”

I couldn’t have imagined what would have happened to me if my father had died also. “It must have been awful.”

He tried to turn his frown into a smile but was unsuccessful. “I enlisted as soon as I could and went to Europe.”

I scanned his uniform for a bullet hole. “Were you shot?”

“No, I wasn’t that lucky. I got hit with the mustard, didn’t hurt at first, but…” His face shriveled like a prune as if he’d eaten something horribly bitter.

I remembered reading once why the Geneva Convention outlawed mustard gas. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head, making some of his blond strands come loose, one lock falling over his forehead. “It was a long time ago, but then I came here.” He smiled at me.

“You’ve been in this house since World War I?” He would have witnessed my father’s birth, my parent’s wedding, and even Regina’s and my birth.

He put his helmet back on and stood up. “I must leave you.”

“We were just getting to know each other.”

He looked at me as if he hadn’t heard me. “Again, I apologize for my actions.” He reached down, took my hand, and brought it to his lips.

I felt the moisture of his mouth and knew he was no simple ghost or figment of my imagination. I wanted to kiss him and be held in his strong arms. I wanted to ask him a thousand questions. “Don’t go.”

He took a step toward the pool.

“Tell me about…”

He evaporated into the early evening.

Chapter Five

I clicked the phone off and slammed it down on the bed.

According to my agent, surgery wasn’t an option this week. She needed me in her New York office first thing Tuesday morning. I’d argued, but she’d insisted.

After promising the people at the doctor’s office I wasn’t chickening out, I finally got them to let me reschedule the surgery. There must be a lot of obese people, because this doctor’s dance card was very full stapling people’s stomachs.

At least it would soon be over, I thought as I plodded up the stairs. After the operation, I wouldn’t have to worry about being a borderline diabetic, nor would I have to go on heart medication. And, best of all, I’d be more comfortable. My legs wouldn’t chafe together and I’d be able to squeeze between tables at restaurants.

I grabbed my suitcase out of my closet, threw it on the bed, and began to throw in all of the things I’d need in New York. My jaw tensed as I thought about how I should be recuperating from surgery right now.

“You look as mad as a she-bear that’s lost one of her cubs.”

I recognized the voice and didn’t flinch, just kept on packing my bag.

“Where are you going?” His voice was deep and mocking. I didn’t like admitting it to myself, but even now he turned me on.

I hollered at the ceiling, “I’m going to New York. I’d be going in a better mood if you’d let me go through the surgery like I’d planned.” I slammed the suitcase closed and pulled it off the bed. I turned and my face was one inch from his.

“You shouldn’t be so angry at me.” He wore his uniform again and he smelled of gasoline and gunpowder.

“If I’d had that surgery, I might have lost some weight by now.” I backed up and felt my thighs hit the edge of the bed.

His lips tensed and I saw a little dimple form in his chin. “It’s just that the thought of you being in a hospital…”

I looked into his dark eyes, which contrasted with his blond hair. It was parted in the middle and combed back so that each piece was in its right place.

“I don’t like seeing you so frustrated.” His dimple got deeper.

I pointed my eyes at him hoping he’d feel guilty. “I’m only going to New York for a few days, and I’ll be back and I’ll have that surgery.”

He stepped toward me, pinning me between him and the bed. “For me, you are a vision of loveliness. I can’t see how being more slender will make you more beautiful, but if you insist.”

“I insist,” I said with a wry smile. I liked him being close to me. Masculinity emanated from his every pore.

“Before you go...” He came even closer. His breath was warm and musky. “Can I kiss you?”

“Abel,” I breathed. “You’re a ghost. You’re not real…”

His lips touched mine. They were sweet, firm. I wrapped my arms around him feeling the crispness of his wool uniform. His fingers walked across my ampleness attempting to encircle me.

Abel was warm and his mouth supple and tender. My eyes closed and I began to lose myself in his embrace, then there was nothing, just cold where he’d been.

My arms were empty.

“Where did you go?” I looked around the room. It was empty, too. My mouth longed for his. “How could you just disappear at a time like this?”

I decided to forget him and enjoy my trip to New York. As usual, the Big Apple was wonderful. My agent booked me in a posh hotel right across from Central Park. I took a carriage ride through it, vowing that when I came back a normal weight, I’d walk through the entire thing without resting once.

The following day I met with publishers and editors. My idea for writing on Teddy Roosevelt had been well received, so I caught the train back to Richmond in great spirits. The train ride was monotonous, but I was able to make a lot of notes about how I’d approach writing about the first President Roosevelt. As I pondered the time period I’d be writing about, I thought how ironic it was that the subject of my current novel lived during the same period of time that Abel did.

I was already missing him. He could be exasperating, but he was so handsome. The way he looked at me made me feel more beautiful than the most exotic runway model. I couldn’t wait to get back home. But there was that nagging fear in the back of my mind.

What if Abel was just a Freudian way of getting out of having major surgery? Could my subconscious be inventing a handsome man that preferred me rotund, just to convince me not to go through with it?

What an imagination I’d developed! Could my mind invent such an incredibly attractive apparition? The only way I’d know if Abel were real or not is to have the surgery and see if he reappeared.

The sun was just beginning to peak its head over the Virginia pines, giving the Richmond platform and everything around it an orangey-pink glow. As I made my way off the train, I had to turn sideways since the aisle was so narrow. I handed the porter my luggage and carefully maneuvered myself down the steps. Even the doorway was too small for me. I angled myself and stepped down. My shoe hit the sidewalk, my foot went one way, and my leg the other.

Within an instant, I was laying on the concrete platform in mind-boggling pain. My skirt had ended up around my waist and my arms were bloody from scraping the concrete. When I tried to move, my foot wouldn’t budge. I must have destroyed the ligaments, because it lay there like a limp piece of meat at the butcher.

It took three porters and another man, a passenger I think, to help me hop to a seat to wait for the ambulance.

A lady who had ridden behind me sat down next to me. “Don’t worry, they’ll get you all patched up in the hospital,” she said in a reassuring voice.

I tried to smile, but I was still in a lot of pain.

“You know...” Her mouth turned into a motherly smile.

“I know what you’re going to say. It’s my—”

“I had the gastric bypass two years ago.” She rolled her sleeve up.

I let my guard down and tried to smile at her in spite of the pain.

“My life has changed so much,” she went on, “And then I had my excess skin removed.” She showed me the scar on the back part of her upper arm. “Hurt like the dickens, but worth every bit of pain and expense.”

I enjoyed the smile that crept across her face. Momentarily, I forgot about the pain in my ankle.