Unforgettable (5 page)

“Not at all, dear. It’s quite all right. I understand,” Mrs. Princeton said.

“Would you like to come in and sit down for a while?”

“No thank you, dear. I’m afraid if I sit down, I won’t be getting up again for quite a while,” she said.

The old woman simply amazed Breezy. She was ninety-two but acted like a twenty-two year old girl, and she had a heart of pure gold. Mrs. Princeton used a cane to hold herself upright and walk, but the way she wobbled, trembled and shook, Breezy often wondered what kept her on her feet. She looked so frail and fragile, as if she’d shatter into a million pieces if you brushed her with a feather. And yet the doctors all said that, aside from the trembling that often accompanied old age, she was healthier than anyone could hope to be at her age.

“Okay, but what brings you here today? Is there something you need?” Breezy asked again.

“Oh, I don’t need anything, dear. I heard what happened to you yesterday and I just wanted to bring you this,” she said, handing Breezy a canning jar full of soup with a trembling hand. “It’s homemade chicken soup. All you have to do is heat it up and make sure you eat it all, dear. Plenty of rest and good food is the best thing for you right now.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Princeton. I appreciate it a lot. It’s awfully sweet of you.”

“You’re welcome, dear. Just make sure you take good care of yourself. Wouldn’t want to lose my best girl now, would I?”

“No, of course not. You be careful going home, okay?” Breezy said, knowing full well that Mrs. Princeton wouldn’t allow anyone to walk her home unless it was raining or snowing.

“Don’t you worry about me. I’m a tough old bird, I am. I do have to be getting back, though,” she said. Breezy helped her down the steps and watched as she disappeared down the street.

Placing the jar of soup on the kitchen counter, Breezy went back to the living room. Her head was still throbbing and the pain was almost more than she could bear.
Thank God for modern medicine
, she thought, as she finally took the pain pills. As she lay back down on the couch, she couldn’t help thinking about Mrs. Princeton. Before long, the medicine took effect and she fell asleep.

The dream began in a room she’d never seen before. The first thing she noticed was a fireplace burning brightly. A huge mirror hung above the mantel reflecting only bare hardwood floors, an old rocking chair and nothing else. The room displayed neither knick knacks nor figurines, not even a single lamp. Breezy found herself sitting in the rocking chair and began to rock, the wooden floors creaking loudly in protest at the movement. Surprised at how much effort it took, she stood up and walked shakily over to the mirror using a cane for support. Horror clutched her at heart with icy fingers. She was old…incredibly old! Her once dark auburn hair was snowy white, tied up in a wispy bun on top of her head. The shoes she was wearing were old lady’s shoes, as outdated as the dress and crocheted shawl draped around her shoulders. The eyes reflecting back at her looked old and weary, the skin of her face pale and wrinkled. Her expression was fixed in a permanent prune faced frown.

The darkened room was damp and dingy, the glowing fireplace doing little to brighten or warm it, or her growing feeling of loneliness. Her gaze settled on the window to the left of the fireplace. With trembling arms and legs, she walked over to it and pulled back the dusty yellow curtains, using the corner of her shawl to wipe away decades of dust from one of the panes.

The sun was shining brightly and the trees were alive with vibrant, fiery color. It was a beautiful autumn day. Across the street, she could see Susan and Tom walking together with their arms wrapped lovingly around each other. They were laughing and talking happily, both still young and beautiful. Breezy banged on the window and called to them, but they didn’t even notice her. She watched them as they disappeared down the street.

A group of children soon appeared playing in the yard below. She tapped on the window and waved to them. She loved watching children play. They looked up and pointed their fingers at her before running away in fear. She tried to call them back to tell them it was okay, but they quickly disappeared from sight.

All the brightly colored leaves began to dry up and turn brown. They curled in on themselves and fell from the trees one-by-one as the trees died. Thick black clouds rolled across the beautiful sky, turning the bright day dark, gray and cold. The wind picked up and began howling mournfully.

As Breezy sighed and let the dirty curtain fall from her trembling, aged hand, the window disappeared. She walked back to her rocking chair and sat down. When she looked up again, a small white dog was sitting just out of reach. She bent over slowly, stretched out her hand, and chirped coaxingly to him. The little dog pricked up his ears, tilted his head from side to side, whimpered and ran away, disappearing into the darkness.

As Breezy sat back down and began to rock, the mirror above the fireplace slowly vanished. Little by little, the fire began to fail and eventually died out completely. The wind outside moaned eerily. The air blowing down the chimney grew colder and colder while the ashes from the fireplace blew onto her feet, covering them slowly. Darkness enveloped her like a shroud. The only sounds in the room were her wretched sobs, the howling of the wind and the creak, creak, creak of the old rocking chair.

Strangling on a scream lodged deep in her throat, Breezy shot bolt upright in abject terror.
What a horrible nightmare!
She was also freezing cold.
That must’ve been what woke me up
, she thought, trembling as much from the cold as from the memory of the dream.

Susan’s words came back to haunt her,
“If you keep being hateful to every man who walks into your life, you’re going to be one lonely, bitter old lady with no one to share your twilight years with. Now, that would be a real shame, Breezy…a real damn shame.”
Breezy shuddered at the thought, knowing those feelings all too well…being lonely, being all alone in the world. These were feelings she never wanted to experience again, let alone for the rest of her life.

She went around turning on every light in the living room and kitchen to chase away the darkness and memory of that dream. Turning on the heat to take away the chill, she retreated to the kitchen to warm up some of Mrs. Princeton’s soup.

While she ate, she listened to her favorite radio program, “Late Night Love Songs.” People would call in to the station and dedicate songs to their loved ones. Sometimes they were funny, or even stupid, and sometimes they were downright mean, even if they were deserved, and sometimes they touched her heart.

By the time Breezy was ready for bed, only a few more minutes were left to the program. It had helped keep her mind off things and she decided to listen to the rest of the show. The DJ’s familiar voice returned after the commercial break.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve saved the best dedication for last. I mean, if you want mystery, intrigue and romance, this guy is the best. If you’re the lucky lady this goes out to, someone out there cares about you and, in today’s world, that’s all that matters.

“Anyway, this man called in earlier today and gave me a message to send out tonight, along with two song dedications to his special lady. Not one song, but two. He was adamant that I get this right and made me repeat it back to him just to make sure. So, here goes…

“To the lady in the parking lot…you know who you are, I had hoped we would get to meet properly but, by the time you hear this, I will be on a plane halfway home. Our paths may never cross again but fate was kind enough to let us meet once. Perhaps it will smile on us again someday. At least, that is my dearest hope. Until then, I suppose we will remain strangers.

“This may be the only chance I will ever have of speaking directly to you. At home, I am known to be cold hearted, some would even say unfeeling and, to a point, they were right. I had no one, nor did I care for anyone. I had no friends, nor did I want any, until that fateful day when I held you in my arms. When you looked at me and smiled, something inside me broke, or perhaps it just came to life again. I do not know. I only know that when I held you, you looked like an angel. An angel right here on Earth in my arms and, for the first time in a long time, I began to live again.

“Today, I noticed the leaves beginning to change. Today, I drove by the park and stopped to watch the children play. I never noticed things like that before, never took the time and certainly never cared, and then I met you. When I saved your life, you somehow managed to save my life in return and I cannot begin to thank you enough for that. Yes, Dear Angel, YOU saved MY life. Let me show you my gratitude once more by dedicating these two simple songs to you. Thank you again and I hope you are feeling better soon. Farewell, Earth Angel, until we meet again.

S.D.”

“Well, there it is,” the DJ continued in a soft voice, “romance, mystery and intrigue in its finest form. Somewhere out there is a beautiful lady, an Earth Angel, and somewhere out there, perhaps flying in the heavens at this moment, is the man who loves her. For whatever reason, these two people, these two souls, are not together tonight and I wish them well, I truly do. I hope, for their sakes, that the fates do smile on them once more. So, for the Earth Angel, whoever you are, wherever you are, these two songs are for you and you alone.”

Breezy couldn’t stop the tears as she listened to the DJ’s soft voice and the song, “Earth Angel.” She wasn’t even sure why she was crying. She didn’t try to think about it, she just sat on her bed, listened to the song, and cried.

As the song ended, the DJ switched tapes silently. Breezy knew he did it on purpose to lend a little more intrigue and romance to the dedication.

Breezy wiped her eyes and walked over to the window. The night sky was clear, stars twinkled brightly overhead, and the Harvest Moon was full. Somehow, just by looking out the window, she knew what the second one would be and, as the music to “Some Enchanted Evening” began to play, Breezy smiled, bowed her head and cried yet again. Sadness overwhelmed her and she hugged herself against the cold. Even though it was no longer cold in the house, she felt cold on the inside.

Listening to the beautiful lyrics, she realized why she was crying. Yes, there was more than one way to be lonely. When her whole family had died, she’d missed them terribly. She missed them even now. She’d been lonely for a long time, but this was a different kind of loneliness. For years, she’d struggled to gain all that she now had. She’d even thought she was happy. After all, she had lots of friends, owned her own business, her own car and her house. Basically, she had no worries. She wasn’t wealthy by any means, but she didn’t have to worry about paying the bills or buying food and clothing. She guessed she could say she was comfortable. She wasn’t in debt and wouldn’t allow herself to be indebted to anyone for anything. She had everything she’d ever wanted, or so she’d thought. The truth was, she’d been lying to herself all these years. As the song played on, the tears continued to fall. For the past nine years, she’d lived her life not realizing until this moment just how completely and totally alone she’d been.

Somewhere out there was a man who wanted to be her friend. By the sound of it, he might just need a friend, himself. Out there was a man who’d saved her life, unknowingly giving her a second chance to take all that was wrong with her life and make it right. She intended to do just that.

Even though he’d saved her life, he was thanking her, for what she didn’t know. She should be thanking him. She should be sending him flowers and gifts but, as it turned out, she hadn’t even spoken to him or gotten the chance to say thank you. Instead, she’d criticized him and accused him of things she had no proof of. He’d been kind and she’d been hateful.

She vowed that moment to do everything in her power to find him and thank him for everything he’d done for her.
But, what if I can’t find him…what then?
she thought. Somehow, that didn’t matter because she just knew that someday they would meet again. After all, a person’s own guardian angel could never be too far away.

***

The man was on his private plane heading for home. He’d have to stay there for a couple of weeks to get everything ready for the new project. Then he could finally go back and get to know a certain Miss Brittany Spring.

Patrick laid his head back on the seat, closed his eyes and smiled. He was thinking of Liam, his secretary, Marie, and of all the people who’d dubbed him, “The Heartless Lion.” If they could only see him now! If they could have seen the way he’d been acting for the past two days, they would have sworn he’d been abducted and replaced by an alien. Or perhaps they would have thought he’d tripped into “The Twilight Zone.” Either way, they wouldn’t have believed it.

He wondered what Breezy had thought when she received the gifts he’d sent to her this afternoon. Had she been pleased, flattered, embarrassed? Had it been too presumptuous of him to have her car repaired for her? Would she appreciate it or would she be angry? How would she react when she heard the songs he’d dedicated to her on the radio? Had he gone too far? It was killing him not to know. He’d never felt more confused and uncertain in his life.
They’d be on the air soon
, he thought.

Patrick opened his eyes and looked out the window, noticing the moon and stars for the first time in years. He hadn’t noticed them since… Oh, well. That didn’t matter anymore. He noticed them now, and a million other tiny things he’d been taking for granted. Was Brittany looking out on this same moon tonight, the Harvest Moon? He just couldn’t seem to get her off his mind. There was just something so special about her. Even though the only word she’d ever said to him was ‘hi,’ she was still unforgettable.

As he gazed at the moon and stars, Brittany’s lovely face floating in his mind, an idea came to him. First thing in the morning, he was going to set it in motion before he did anything else.

Chapter 4 “Bad Dreams”