Masquerade

Chapter 11

  Numb, Leanne stared down at him, unable to believe he was dead. A distant part of her mind, a morbid part she hadn't even known existed, wondered why his body hadn't aged and dissolved into dust, the way bodies of the undead always did in movies.

  And then, with the force of a blow, reality struck home.

  Jason was dead. Truly dead.

  Slowly, she dropped to her knees beside him and cradled his head in her lap, the pain in her heart too deep for tears. Gently, she smoothed the long, dark hair from his brow. His skin felt warm and alive. Odd, she thought, when it had always felt cool before.

  The hours passed unnoticed as she relived every moment she had spent with Jason, remembering how she had found herself looking for him outside the theater long before he had introduced himself, remembering the instant attraction between them, the way she had known, that very first night, that she could trust him.

  A faint smile touched her lips as she caressed his cheek. She would have liked to walk along a sandy beach in Maui with Jason at her side, watched the sun rise over the ocean, borne his children, grown old beside him.

  She would have liked to make love to him one more time.

  With a sigh, she kissed him, and then, very gently, she lowered his head to the floor and stood up.

  Feeling empty and alone, she walked out of the house.

  She paused on the verandah, surprised to see that it was morning. She lingered there a moment, her gaze caught by the fiery splendor of the sun as it climbed over the tops of the hills, painting the vast sky canvas with broad slashes of orchid and crimson.

  "I love you, Jason Blackthorne," she murmured, her fingertips absently stroking the heart-shaped locket he had given her. "I love you and I'll never forget you. " Fresh tears welled in her eyes. "Never. "

  "Never is a very long time. "

  Leanne whirled around, her hand flying to her throat. "Jason! You're alive!"

  He held out his arms, turned his hands this way and that, studying them as if he had never seen them before. "So it would seem. "

  "But. . . but how is it possible?"

  "I have no idea. " A wry grin tugged at his lips. "The love of a good woman, perhaps?" With his finger, he captured a tear hovering in the corner of her eye and as he did so, Marguerite's words, spoken centuries ago, echoed in the back of his mind. Not in the blood, she had said.

  Jason stared at Leanne's tear. Not in the blood. "Perhaps it was the magic of a single tear shed for a monster who yearned to be a man. "

  They gazed at each other for stretched seconds, and then Leanne threw herself into his arms and hugged him tight.

  "You're alive. " She rained kisses over his cheeks, his brow, then pressed one hand over his chest, above his heart. "Alive," she whispered. "Thank God. "

  Jason looked deep into her eyes, and then he smiled, a beautiful smile that went straight to her heart.

  Lowering his head, he teased her lips with the tip of his tongue, and then he kissed her as gently as ever a man had kissed a woman, and it seemed he could taste the sunrise on her lips.

  "Leanne," he murmured. "Do you think you could love this mortal man as much as you once loved the monster?"

  "Oh, yes," she exclaimed softly, and the glow in her eyes was warmer and brighter than the sun he had thought never to see again.

  His smile grew wider. "If I carried you to bed, do you think you could make love to me in the light of day?"

  Happiness bubbled up inside of her. "I think so," she replied, her voice trembling with love and joy and excitement.

  "And will you spend the rest of your life with me? Bear my children if a merciful God permits?" He took her hands in his. "Grow old at my side?"

  "Yes," she promised fervently. "Oh yes. "

  Jason sighed as he wrapped his arm around Leanne's shoulders and drew her close to his side. Together, they watched the sun rise above the distant mountains, heralding the birth of a new day, a new beginning.

  It was a day of miracles, he thought, and Leanne's love was the greatest miracle of all.

  She had been the sun in his sky since the first night he had seen her emerge from the theater.

  Standing beside her now, with the sun shining on his face and the warmth of her love glowing in the depths of her eyes, he knew he would never dwell in darkness again.