Page 30 of Impenitent Claim

“These five stations are our most popular displays. Everything is available to rent and there is a catalog with more on the pedestal against the back wall,” the florist explained as she waved at the designated areas around the room.

Half walls partitioned the spaces to set boundaries for each display. One was a country picnic with a meadow backdrop. The wooden picnic table was set with a harvest feast. The food might be plastic, but the place settings and flowers were real enough. Another was a front porch decorated for Halloween. While the monsters and ghouls might be cartoonish, the strands of lights and ivy on the porch rails were tastefully done.

But it was the display set up clearly for a wedding ceremony and reception that made me pause. It stole my breath. This was how I envisioned my big day. Bright colors on the fall palate—blazing oranges, dark yellows, rusty reds, and deeper tones accenting the whole. I reached out to trail the tips of my fingers along the blooms of a chrysanthemum. I could see it. My hair would be down, loosely curled, with a ring of burnt, rich blooms crowning my head. The dress would be boho chic and off-white. There would be some fall vegetation on the tables, but mostly flowers out on a rustic chic setting. I wasn’t a country girl, but I loved this look. I swore I could smell the mini doughnuts freshly cooked for the guests and taste the mulled cider steaming in my mug.

“I’ll leave you to browse,” the woman said from far away.

Slowly, I came back from the daydream, carefully folding the ideas and tucking them into the recesses of my mind. That wedding wasn’t for me.

Neither was the groom. Tall, dark, and monstrous—ready to burn the world for me should I command it but hold me close to shield me from the flames. I swore I could feel the heat of his ravenous stare grazing the back of my neck. I reached up to touch the sensitive skin.

“That’s only a dream,” I laughed softly.I read too many books.

I slid the card from the envelope. I needed to discover who was behind this mess and clear it up. Quickly. It would be my finaladventure before I was shackled to the will of a scheming man via his son.

There was a sheet of plain cream paper with a large, stiff font scratched across the face. I recognized the scrawl immediately by the abruptness and tightness of the letters. Anticipation pulsed through me. When my brain clicked from analytical to comprehensive mode, and I read the words, my heart stopped beating.

Let us live, my Lesbia, and love,

and the rumors of rather stern old men

let us value all at just one penny!

Suns may set and rise again;

for us, when once the brief light has set,

an eternal night must be slept.

Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,

then another thousand, then a second hundred,

then yet another thousand, then a hundred;

then, when we have performed many thousands,

we shall shake them into confusion, in order that we might not know,

and in order not to let any evil person envy us,

when he knows that there are so many of our kisses.

One of my favorite poems stared back at me. The beautiful longing in the verses was only enhanced by the knowledge that the poet was doomed not to have his love requited. I loved the soul of those beautiful words so much as a teen that I engraved it in a pendant and wore it every day until—

I reached for the chain around my throat. The horned cornicello hung from it, not the circular pendant that I lost in Chicago.

It can’t be.

“I’ve come to admire Catullus,” a voice growled from behind me. The familiar tone, one I recognized from the shadows, madeheat blaze through me with enough strength that my nipples instantly tightened. “His Lesbia was unfaithful to him as well.”

The past and present, the lust and fear—thelongingand absence—collided in a dizzying explosion, sending a strange reaction over me. It started low on my back, creeping up my spine, only to grip me around the throat in a chokehold. I tried and failed to draw air into my lungs.

It was him. The spectre was the man from last November, come from Chicago to haunt me.

My body responded with a rush of heat between my legs.

He found me.

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