Beyond Wild Imaginings (20 page)

He reached over and touched her on the shoulder. “You will protect her when I am gone? You will keep her safe?”

She looked up at him, and her blue eyes filled with tears. “Yes, Garren, I will.”

He pulled her into a comforting embrace and sighed. “Thank you.” He thought of her urging him to pursue his desire for Kelly. It baffled him to think that the woman who had, days before, been so belligerent was putting so much faith in what was unexplainable. Faith. That’s what it all came down to in the end. Rachel, the skeptic, who had really only known him for a few days, had faith that he could make her sister happy, even though he would hurt her. That made him think.

He never would have considered asking Kelly to marry him under such circumstances. Even if things were perfect, he would have taken a long time to make sure she was comfortable with such a commitment. Now, he found himself pondering whether he could propose during the worst possible conditions. It was insane, and yet, felt so right somehow. Would it be worth it to be able to taste divine love, even though he knew it would all be taken away in the end? Could he put Kelly through that?

Faith. It came down to that. He would have to trust that Kelly would have enough faith in him to know that, for whatever time they did have together, he would give her every single part of him, body and soul. He would love her a thousand years in only a few days.

“Garren?”

Garren pulled back and looked over his shoulder in concern at Kelly’s frantic voice.

“Garren!” she cried, flying to him and falling into his arms. She was crying and he held her, caressing her back and stroking her hair. “I thought…I couldn’t find you! You were gone!”

Chad came up behind her and Garren glanced up at him. “She told me,” he said.

“I just came up here to talk with your sister. I didn’t want to wake anyone up,” Garren explained, wiping gently at Kelly’s tears. “I’m fine, little one.” He forced a smile, though it was difficult to do. When he looked into her eyes, he wanted to die inside. When he thought about never being able to do such a simple thing ever again, his heart crumbled. Rachel’s words rang in his mind, and he heard the truth in them. They had so little time. “Kelly, I have to ask you something.” He smoothed her hair and feathered his thumb across her bottom lip. “How real am I to you? How real is your love for me?”

Her frown was fierce. “What kind of a question is that, Garren? You’re obviously real enough to me that I brought you back from oblivion with my subconscious, and why are you questioning my love for you? I’m sick to my stomach because I know that I have who knows how long until you vanish forever!”

Fat tears hovered on her lashes, and he couldn’t help but smile. She was emotional. He understood that. So was he, but her vehement response warmed him. It showed him more than her words ever could. “Spend your last days with me as mine,” he blurted out.

She blinked, and the anger in her eyes disappeared. “Garren,” she whispered. “I think I have always been yours. I just didn’t know it.”

He shook his head. “No, Kelly, what I mean is—” He took a deep breath and met her eyes. “I want you to be my wife. Marry me and let me know what it is like to be yours before I die. Let me show you how much I can love you and how happy you can be. I swear to you, I will fill these next days with so much love that it will last you your lifetime. You will never doubt my presence. My love will travel with you always.” He swallowed hard, his heart hammering. “Please, little one. I have never wanted to be with any other. I thought love was not something I would ever find once my race was gone. With you, I have—” She put her fingers to his lips, and he sucked his breath in. His heart shivered.

“I’ll book the flights,” Rachel volunteered. “Work will have to live without me for a couple days. I’ll tell them it’s a family emergency.” She pulled her cell phone out of her purse.

“Um, hello?” Chad held up his finger. “There’s still the little problem of Garren being
invisible.
How is he going to be able to get on the plane?”

“Give him a map,” Rachel said with a frown. “He has wings.”

Chad raised an eyebrow. “O…kay, then what do we do when we get to Vegas? Randomly go through all the wedding chapels and just pray someone in one of them can see him?”

“That’s the only choice we have,” Kelly said. She stood and held her hand out to Garren. “I want to be your wife,” she said to him as he came up to stand before her. “I want to know you. I want to love you and know you are mine completely. If now is all I have, I want to make the most of the time I am given.”

Rachel flipped her phone shut. “The flights are booked. We leave tonight. Don’t worry about the ID. I’m on my way to the DMV right now. Someone there owes me a favor, and I’m going to have him make Garren a fake ID.” She strode past them, then stopped and turned back. “Wait, we need to give him a last name.”

Garren raised his eyebrows and looked from Kelly to Rachel and back again. Things were happening very quickly…And Rachel was proving to be quiet efficient.

Rachel grinned. “Garren Luce it is. I’ll be back by one o’clock and no later. You’d all better be ready when I get here. You too, Chad.”

Garren looked down at Kelly and filled with joy at seeing her wide smile. She turned her eyes up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I’m going to be your wife, Garren,” she whispered.

He grinned and pulled her close. “Kelly Luce.”

She closed her eyes as if she cherished the sound of the words. “I love it.”

He cupped her face in his hands and let his fingers memorize the feel and texture of her skin. “I love
you
.” He lowered his lips to hers and fought off the overwhelming waves of grief and anguish that threatened to take over. It didn’t matter that their time together was limited. It didn’t matter that life was so completely unfair. It didn’t matter that, in the end, they would be brutally robbed of one another. All that mattered to him was being her husband, her soul mate, her other half. All the mattered to him was knowing that, at the end of all things, she would be the last thing he would see.

Chapter Seventeen

Kelly didn’t know if it was possible for someone’s heart to actually tremble, but that’s what hers felt like it was doing. It had felt like that ever since she’d set foot on the plane taking her from New York to Las Vegas. Her mind refused to completely comprehend that she was actually flying to Vegas to marry an invisible man. Her heart, however, knew it was all too real.

Her heart. It felt like a separate entity living within her body. She’d never had any idea that the human heart could feel so much at once. She was apprehensive because she had no clue how this entire wedding thing was even going to be pulled off. She was ecstatic because, for the first time in her life, she felt like she knew what real love was, what home was. She’d tried to find a home in Jersey, in David, but that had been all wrong. Her apartment in Manhattan had never felt like home. Garren was her home. No man she had ever been with had made her feel the way Garren did. She did not doubt for one second that she loved him.

But hard on the heels of the realization of her love was fear, dread, and impending doom. There was no way to know how long she had with Garren. Even he didn’t know. The only certainty was that he was going to leave her. And that killed her inside. He said that, once he was gone, she would regain the half of her heart she had put into creating him and that she would no longer feel the empty, gaping hole that had gnawed at her for so many years. She knew that would never really be true. Maybe if she had never fallen for him, but not now. She would be forever altered. Her life would never be what it had once been. She didn’t want it to be. She would rather have her whole existence changed because of Garren, because they had loved one another.

Still, the uncertainty of the unknown was terrifying.

Rachel and Chad had been trying to make her laugh with stupid small talk for the entire flight, but she felt like she was in a cloud. Everything seemed surreal, like some sort of insane dream. She kept replaying the last two weeks over and over as if to convince herself that they’d really happened. All recent events left any fantasy book she’d ever written in the dust.

Once the plane had landed and the three of them had retrieved their luggage in the baggage claim, Kelly stared around in a befuddled kind of stupor. “Guys,” she called out to Chad and Rachel, who were busy trying to figure out how to get to their hotel. “Do we even know where we’re meeting Garren? How do we even know when he’s going to get here? Somehow I doubt that a man with wings can fly faster than a Boeing seven-forty-seven.” Fear prickled up her spine. Why hadn’t she thought of that before she’d watched him fly away from her rooftop? “What if he doesn’t get here in time? What if he—”

“Kelly, calm down,” her sister jumped in. “We told him to meet us at the Criss Angel gift shop thingie inside the Luxor.”

Kelly blinked at Rachel for a minute and couldn’t help but crack a wry smile. She folded her arms and arched an eyebrow. “You told an imaginary creature to meet us by the famous magician guy?”

Rachel giggled. “I thought it was kind of fitting. Made sense to me. Anyway, I told him that it was a giant pyramid casino. He’s smart. I doubt he’ll be able to miss it. Let’s just go check into our hotel and get settled. I’m sure by the time everything is done he’ll have gotten here.”

“Where are we staying anyway?”

“I booked us two rooms at Mandalay Bay. I know it’s late by New York standards, but it’s three hours behind here so we have plenty of time to get settled, find Garren, and find a chapel. Everything went good with the ID. Do you have a dress, Kelly?”

Kelly smiled as she followed her sister and friend out of the airport. Rachel had surprised her numerous times over the past few weeks. It was nice to feel like she had a sister who could also be considered a friend. She hadn’t felt that way about Rachel since childhood. Garren had brought so much good and beauty back to her life. Her heart twisted painfully.

“Kel?”

Kelly looked back at Rachel. “Uh, yeah. I have a dress. I brought a nice one I had in my closet.”

Rachel nodded. “All right. Everything is in order then.” She clapped her hands together and looked around for a moment as if to get her bearings.

Soon, and in a whirl of activity that left Kelly’s head spinning, they had managed to get a cab, find their hotel, and check in. Rachel had all but shoved Kelly into the shower immediately and, since everything in Rachel’s world operated on a strict schedule, told her to be ready in exactly one hour. No pressure or anything…She was only getting married…To an invisible guy with wings…From another world. No big deal.

An hour later on the dot, Kelly found herself staring at a reflection she barely recognized. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had really dressed up. It had been before the accident, she knew. Some office party she had gone to with David. It seemed like that had been another lifetime, a different version of herself. She knew that it was considered bad luck and probably in bad taste to get married in a black dress, but it had been the nicest and classiest garment she owned. Besides, Garren had appeared to her looking like he’d stepped out of a metal magazine. She doubted he would care what color she was wearing.

She’d swept her hair up into a simple French twist and adorned her neck with a beautiful black necklace with garnet stones. It drew attention to the low, V-cut neckline of her dress. She had makeup on for the first time in who knew how long, and she thought she looked like a complete stranger. After contemplating it for a while, she realized that it was because she had come to see herself as the mousy, loner of a writer who everyone viewed as eccentric, if not a little looney. She had believed that of herself so much that she had even dressed the part, not really caring who she saw or what she looked like.

Now, she stared at the person she’d always wanted to be inside, but had never had the courage to be. The confident, classy woman who was successful and proud of who she was. Was she eccentric? Absolutely. Was she a little looney? She was marrying her imaginary friend, so probably. Did she care? Not anymore. She was tired of hiding who she was out of fear of being criticized. She was proud of who she was and what she had accomplished. Garren had given her that confidence. Garren had given her everything…

“Kelly, are you ready?”

Rachel, right on time. Kelly smiled and turned away from the mirror. “Yeah, Rach. I’m ready.”