Goodness and Light (8 page)

But it had to be.

Unless he could convince her to stay.

W
hen they finally separated, the pure joy she saw on his face sent her into a full-scale panic.

When was the last time she’d brought legitimate
joy
to somebody? When she arrived at Kara’s door, it was relief, not joy on her sister’s face. And being with Bree and Aunt Vincenza—there’d been exasperation covering the happiness at finally having her at their table after all these years. Damn it, when was the last time? She couldn’t remember. Had there ever been a time when she hadn’t sucked the joy out of souls wherever she went? Hadn’t she done that just this morning, made her pregnant sister cry? Hadn’t she made her own mother cry the day—

“Hey, hey, hey, what’s wrong?” Lucas frowned, brushed her hair from her face.

“Don’t do that. No. No, please don’t do that! Please, don’t.” Elena clutched him tighter but he firmly held her away.

“You didn’t say no—”

“No!” She took his face in her hands. “You’re sad. Please, please don’t let me make you sad. I make everyone sad and I don’t want to do that to you.”

Luke’s forehead smoothed and his hands came up, cupping her face. “Then don’t,” he said with a shrug and a grin, like it was easy as walking.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, tucked her face into the curve of his shoulder and whispered, “I don’t know how.”

He murmured into her hair. “Want lessons?”

She knew he was kidding, but clutched at his words. “Yes! Yes, I need lessons. I want to be like you, Lucas. I want people to be happy around me. I want people to say things like Al said about you—‘
Elena’s the best woman I know!
’”

“Stop, Elena.” His hands cruised up and down her back in a gesture that soothed and stirred her. “I was teasing. I’m no expert, believe me.”

She straightened her spine, pulled away, trying not to shiver from the lack of contact with him. She backed away, curled herself into the corner of the sofa, pulling up her knees and avoided those intense eyes. “Of course. I—I’m sorry.” Her face burned. She searched for a quick escape. “Oh, I didn’t realize it had gotten so late. I’m sure you have things to do so, um, thank you. For today.” She stood up, waited for him to grasp the hint.

He stretched out on the sofa. “Sit down, Elena.”

Sit down? She couldn’t possibly stay in the same room with him and not die of embarrassment. She jerked around, grabbed the cookie plate, fled to the kitchen to scrub off its pattern. Seconds later, his hands clamped down on her shoulders, tried to tug her back against his chest, but she stood stiffly at the sink.

“I’d apologize, but I don’t fully understand what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

He thrust out a hand to kill the water. “Look at me, Elena.”

Oh, no. No, she couldn’t possibly do that.

He cursed, spun her around and hunched down so they were eye to eye. “I. Wasn’t. Sad.”

She wished she could believe that.

“Elena, I kissed you. You kissed me back. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that—or maybe I should have asked first—but I’m not sorry I did it. I’m only sorry that you are.”

Her jaw dropped. “What? No! No, I’m not sorry we kissed. I promise you, I liked it.” What did a body look like after it died of embarrassment? Did the skin keep the fiery red flush she knew covered her from toe to hair follicles?

His hands loosened on her shoulders and he pulled her closer. “Glad to hear it. I have one more theory.” He kissed her, right under her ear, where her pulse beat so fast and so hard, she was certain he could taste it. “I think you’re out of practice.” He dipped lower, this time, kissing along her jaw, and her bones melted. “Need to try again.” His lips were there, right there, just a whisper away from hers and she swore her tongue tingled in anticipation. “This time, don’t think. Just feel.”

His lips landed, devouring hers like she was his first meal after a fast. Everything about him charged her senses. His scent—evergreen, the clever fingers roving over her body, heating her through her clothes. His hair, all that thick dark hair, was soft and silky under her fingertips. He shifted, moved his hips between her thighs, his hands on her bottom keeping her there—right there, where all that power surged.

He was, she concluded, the penance for her sins. Life, karma, fate—whatever you called it—it obviously had a sick sense of humor. It dropped the perfect man right into her hands—a guy whose smile was almost radioactive, a guy who bought dessert for teenagers and volunteered hours of his time to charities like SFG—and she could never keep him. Didn’t deserve to keep him. And even as he pulled things from her she didn’t know she could give, she knew she’d have to say goodbye to him and add that pain to the list she’d begun the day her mother died.

L
ucas strode through the frigid night air, hands in his pockets, mind still swirling with thoughts of Elena.

The look on her face after he’d kissed her—damn, he’d never get it out of his head. Her eyes—those enormous milk chocolate eyes of hers spilled all her secrets. There’d been fear. Desire. Those he knew. But there was more... something he couldn’t pinpoint—words spoken in a language he hadn’t yet mastered. It was there, right at the front of his brain, but just out of reach. Whatever it was, it was something familiar. Something he
knew
. More like resignation. And when she started babbling about not being sad, it was all he could do to not jump on top of Kara’s kitchen counter and shout it was the best kiss of his life.

His steps faltered. The best kiss of his life... yes. Yes, he decided. It definitely was. Until the second one. A laugh tumbled out of his mouth. Al was always lecturing him about his sexual habits. Thought it was terrible that his encounters were nothing more substantial than casual hookups or friends-with-benefits, blah, blah. Al said when a woman finally came along who Lucas could fall for, it would be like getting kicked between the eyes by a Rockette in tap shoes.

He found a seat on the PATH train and rubbed his forehead. When the significance of that gesture dawned on him, he muttered a curse and slouched low in his seat, thinking about his mother’s snowflake. Part of him wasn’t entirely sure if the reason he kept volunteering at SFG wasn’t to find that girl—some pathetic attempt to use crystal snowflakes as a pair of glass slippers. God knew he was no prince, especially after what he’d done—

He snapped upright.

The look in Elena’s eyes... he finally recognized it. It was the same look he used to wear until Al helped him deal.

Guilt.

E
arly Sunday morning, Elena headed off to do the rest of the grocery shopping she’d planned to do the day before. The weather was bright but cold so she burrowed deeper into her coat, tugged her hat low over her ears and started walking, excited to finish her errand so she could see Lucas later. The sun caught the spire on the new One World Trade Center, a spear through the clouds, and for one very long minute, she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t move.

“Elena?”

She whipped around, found Luke’s friend standing behind her.

“Oh, hi, Al.”

A smile and a nod. “You remembered.” He stepped closer, cupped his hands and blew on them. “You okay? You’re not lost or anything, are you?”

She’d been lost for many years now. “No, no. I’m right where I am supposed to be.” On the edge of Hell.

“Me, too!” Al said, his face bright.

She smiled tightly. “Well, great. I should get going. See you at SFG.”

He pulled an old, beat up baseball card out of his pocket. “Look what I just found.” He smiled at it like a proud new father at a baby.

Elena stared at the card. “A baseball card.”

“My dad loved his baseball cards. Kids today don’t care about collecting baseball cards—I sure didn’t. So what are the odds of finding one of these on a street nowadays?”

Elena glanced at the trash that lined the street, awaiting pick up, and figured those odds were pretty damn good. “So you’re saying this is a sign from your dad?”

Al shrugged. “I like to think so. What about you? What kind of signs remind you of your mom?”

The look on her face when I told her I hated her guts
. Elena shook her head. “The usual.”

“No, I mean what were the things that made your mom happiest?”

Playing along, Elena thought for a moment. “Well, she loved to play cards. And she had an addiction to Nestle Crunch Bars.”

“There you go. Look for those signs. You’ll be surprised how often you’ll see those signs when you actually look for them. What else?”

“Jeez, I don’t know. Oh! She loved to bake. I used to help her bake Christmas cookies. And architecture. For some reason, she was always reading books on architecture, even though that wasn’t her field.” Elena turned slightly, looked up at One World Trade Center.

He turned, faced the same direction and stared out at the new building, the one designed to honor the country and its victims. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Her eyes snapped to his. “Beautiful?” How could a structure that was essentially a grave marker be beautiful?

“Well, yes. It’s full of symbolism.”

Impatient, Elena nodded. “It’s 1776 feet tall, yes.” She’d heard all about the tower’s design.

Undaunted, Al continued. “With the spire. Without the spire, it’s 1368 feet tall, the same height as Tower 1 before it collapsed.” He waited, but she said nothing. “And look there, at the top? That’s called a square anti-prism.”

She blinked, waited for him to make his point. “So?”

“You know what a prism does, right? Splits up light into its colors? So maybe, an anti-prism does the opposite.”

Elena thought about that. “It...sucks in color?”

“Exactly.” Al’s grin widened and then he turned back to face the building. “Our new tower is a nexus of color and light. I think that’s a fitting tribute to all those we lost—and maybe to someone who loved architecture?”

“Come on. It’s just the by-product of all those politicians debating,” she argued.

“Probably,” Al admitted. “But so what? It doesn’t matter
how
you explain it. It only matters because it matters to you.”

She blinked, thought about that for a moment and gave up. She’d already spent a ton of money on therapy and she really didn’t need more even if it was free. “Thanks, Al, but I think I’ll just stick to not thinking about it.”

Al laughed. “Jeez, you sound just like Lucas. No faith. You two are hand-picked for each other. Where is he anyway? Are you meeting him?”

She shook her head. “Not until later. He had to do a breakfast thing this morning.”

Al’s eyebrows shot up. “He told you about the soup kitchen? Whoa, he really does like you.”

Elena’s heart fell. All Lucas had told her was he had a breakfast thing. Soup kitchen? Of course. He was probably up at dawn, serving breakfast to dozens of homeless people while she—oh! She shut her eyes and let go of the dream she was hardly aware she’d been nurturing. She was a fool. She’d known all along that Lucas was simply too good for her. What the hell was she doing?

“Uh oh. He
didn’t
tell you about the soup kitchen, did he?” Al turned.