WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN?

by

PiperMerlyn

Chapter 1

The Chapters

INTRO

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

30 April 2006

Brighton, England

8:45 p.m.

She stared up at the night sky. After all this time, their hazy  pinpricks of light still looked wrong. Memories crashed in on her, nearly rocking her to her toes. Memories of her past entwined with her soul, flashes of what could have been shading her present. She hugged herself against the chill wind coming off the ocean, hugged herself against the tears that threatened to come – as they always did on this night. This was the night when her whole life changed.

Hugging herself tighter, she shifted her gaze from the night sky to the ocean before her. She’d been out here so long she could feel the light crusting from the salt spray tighten the skin of her face. And for some reason the powerful incoming tide reminded her so strongly of just how lonely she was in this place, regardless of what she’d made of her life here.

The rustle of grass and fabric told her someone was coming up behind her moments before he rested his hands on her damp shoulders. “Come inside. You’ll catch cold out here.”

She shook her head, felt the wind whip her auburn hair across her face. Gently, he reached up a hand and tugged the hair out of her eyes, then carefully turned her around. “Cassandra, come inside. There’s nothing more for you out here.”

She resisted at first, not wanting to admit just how cold she’d gotten as the chill wind swept in from the channel. Cassandra swallowed hard, wondering, her mind stubbornly refusing to let go of what might have been. Slowly, she let him steer her to the house.

It was a large estate, sprawled across a cultivated landscape. It had been his wedding present to her, nearly two years ago now. It wasn’t like her grandparents’ castle in Ireland, nor anything like her childhood home in Boston. For one fierce moment, she hated it. She wished for that house she’d nearly called a home, back in Provincetown. Sometimes it seemed she’d left more than a house there.

Gently, Chad Whitfield nudged her inside and closed the French doors that faced the patio. Casi gravitated to the fireplace where warmth and flickers of flame illuminated the dim great room.

“Cassandra.”

Casi stared into the flames, remembering old legends of power and magic. It was the first magic to learn, the last to lose. She wished she had the power to see, to change everything. It was on this day, this night that her world seemed to shatter into fragments all over again. She swallowed hard and shook her head. “I’m fine, Chad.”

Chad stood there in the archway between the dining room and great room, almost hesitant. “I know it’s hard for you,” he said quietly.

Casi spun around as tears filled her eyes. “Don’t. Damn it, just don’t. I have to work through this, Chad, in my own time, in my own way. Just don’t.” She turned back to the flames and shuddered.

Chad swallowed hard. A spurt of anger worked its way into his heart but he shoved it away. He refused to let bitterness fill his soul. He’d accepted that he had never been her first choice, hadn’t he? What good did it do to hate a dead man? He moved from the dining room to the kitchen and stared at the dark gray countertop, trying to calm himself down.

Although it was nearly May, it was still cold in the south of England, especially at night. He lifted his head to glance at the ornate clock on the wall. In a few hours this night would be over and for another year, things would be quiet. Chad took a deep breath, not wanting to gloat about his own change in fortunes. This would have been their wedding night and for the last two years, Cassandra had mourned MacKensey as if his passing had just occurred.

He heard her sobbing softly in the next room and clenched his hands on the edges of the counter. That first year, he’d tried to comfort her, tried to be a shoulder for her to lean on, even cry on, but she’d held herself back. And now, this year, it felt as if there was a chasm as big as the English Channel between them. Had it been wrong to offer her marriage after MacKensey’s death?

Chad focused on his death grip on the counter and slowly, deliberately uncurled each finger. He sighed and moved to the stainless steel refrigerator for a beer. It had seemed the right thing to do then. She’d seemed lost, drifting. She’d quit her job at Stargazers in Provincetown. And he wondered if she knew that he knew she hadn’t written a single word for her books since MacKensey’s death.

Chad pulled the top off the bottle and took a long drink. He set the bottle down and it dawned on him. There had been no official announcement of MacKensey’s death. Only that there had been some sort of disaster, a disaster he hadn’t been able to survive. Chad frowned and looked in the direction of the great room. Was that it? Did she still hold out for hope after nearly two years?

*****

30 April 2006

Rockport, Maine

7:50 p.m.

He wasn’t born here. And yet, there was a haunting quality to the wind, a soft moan like a lost soul. It seemed the perfect place. He stared out across the clifftop and swallowed hard. It was crazy, his wife said, to keep coming here, now after so long. Ethan didn’t care. It was his way, and it would always bring him back.

Ethan sat down on the cold ground, knowing he’d regret the move later. His hand brushed the simple metal rectangle imbedded in the ground. This wasn’t a cemetery and there was no ostentatious gravestone, just two metal markers. “Thought I’d come to visit a moment. You’re probably thinking I’m nuts after all this time, to keep coming.” He shook his head. “It’s not right. It was never right. I still don’t understand what happened. I’ve racked my brain for two damn years...”

The wind was cold this high up and Ethan knew if he looked over his shoulder, he could see the top floor of Saxon Inn. His wife always agreed to come with him, even though she wondered why he was so insistent about coming each year.

Ethan stared out across the cold, gray water. “What the hell happened, partner? You were all set. So close to getting your heart’s desire. Did you turn tail at the last moment?” Ethan shook his head once again and shuddered. “Did you decide this was the best way to end it? Just disappear, let her marry that damn Brit and your conscience would be clean?”

Ethan’s vision blurred but he didn’t wipe the tears away. “You idiot, I always thought you were stronger. I guess I was wrong. Cathy thinks this is nuts, coming here every year around your birthday. I’m beginning to think it is too.  Did you really think you’d protect her?”

He felt a movement behind him and he looked back but saw no one. Ethan did not believe in ghosts and spirits. But on a night like tonight, he could very easily assume it had been something and not just the wind. “You know she’s curled up into a nice little domestic ball nowadays. Writing, being the perfect wife. I tell you this every time, but she lives in England now. Cathy says her sister has shut herself off...”

“Ethan?”

He jumped and twisted around. “God, Cathy, you scared the shit out of me.”

Cathy shrugged and sat down beside him, absently tracing the metal marker. “I still remember it clear as day.”

Ethan knew full well she was referring to the double funeral. “Yeah. Now all that’s left is Justin.”

Cathy nodded. “Last time I talked with Aunt Lyra, she said Justin and his wife still don’t have any children. I guess they never will.” She shivered suddenly and glanced over her shoulder. “That wind is cold.”

“And Malcolm and Laura grieved themselves to death. Losing two sons in an instant was a shock.” He took a deep breath. “But neither of them cared,” he added, making a rude gesture to the metal markers. “Or they wouldn’t have been kamikaze idiots with death wishes.”

Cathy jumped to her feet. “Ethan, don’t.” She spun around. “I felt something.”   

“It’s just the wind.”

“No.” Cathy wrapped her arms around herself. “No, it was icy. The wind off the ocean isn’t that cold.”

Ethan got up more slowly. “What? You really think it’s a ghost?”

“Maybe.”

“Then maybe it can explain what really happened.”

Cathy shook her head. “Ethan, let it go.”

“Have you?”

His auburn-haired wife gave a start, then sighed. “Ethan, my sister made a choice. Joe made a choice. And it’s led here, to a lonely clifftop as his resting place. It’s over. It can’t be changed.”

Ethan stared out across the dark ocean for a long moment. “I remember a show I saw years ago. It was about angels giving good people second chances. God knows I wish it were real.”

Cathy moved close to him and rested her head on his shoulder. His right arm automatically went around her shoulders. He could feel the quiet sobs vibrate through her body. “So do I, Ethan, so do I.”

*****

1 May 2006

Brighton, England

9:25 a.m.

Daylight flooded the  kitchen, bouncing off the polished floors and glinting off the wooden cabinets. Seated at the island savoring her morning cappuccino, Cassandra stared out to sea and fiddled with the diamond ring on her left hand. They’d slept apart last night, she in the master bedroom, he in his study.

She shifted on the bar stool and shivered. Even when they shared the king-sized bed, it felt as if they were worlds apart. Had it been a mistake, accepting his proposal? wondered Casi as she thought back to that horrible moment when her world shattered.

Not for the first time, did she wonder if she’d made a royal mistake on so many levels. Had she been too hasty, too sure that he was gone for good? Wilder had been damn tight-lipped about what had happened and it had always left her wondering what was truth and what was fiction.

Casi tore her  gaze from the restless ocean and stared at the caramel-colored beverage in her cup. Sometimes she dreamed of another life, another house – her house in Provincetown – and that she shared it with the man she’d dreamed of marrying for nearly ten years, ever since she’d met Joe in Kenya at her uncle’s game reserve.

She still remembered the rough texture of the vine rope, of the shock of seeing it wasn’t a wild animal in the noose but a human – a young man only a few years older than she and her sister. If she closed her eyes, she could remember the warm drops of water on her heated skin, the weight of him dragging at her arm as she got him to safety.

The ringing of the telephone made her jump and nearly knock the coffee mug over. Casi took a deep breath and picked up the cordless phone. “Hello?...I’m fine...Like it usually is...” Her throat tightened with unshed tears. “Really?...We have plenty of room. You’re more than welcome...”

Something snapped deep inside and Casi realized she hated this, hated the cautious tone of the phone calls, the hesitant suggestions that always ended up as canceled plans. Something always came up, either a major project at the Institute to distract her sister or something for Ethan to have to deal with. “Catherine.” She waited until her sister stopped rambling on about the weather, the local news. “Cat...don’t cancel on me this year.”

There was a moment of stunned silence on the other end of the phone and then finally her sister spoke. A single tear slipped down Casi’s cheek. “No...I want you here, I need you here. I missed you at Christmas last year and the year before that. I need you.”

After a few more words, the sisters said goodbye and hung up. Casi dashed the tears away and put the phone down. Two years ago, Christmas had been their honeymoon and she’d missed the family time. Last year, Chad’s family had attempted a cozy get-together that had crashed and burned and had left Casi feeling out of sorts and very lonely.

The day seemed a bit brighter, knowing her sister was coming. She slid off the stool and moved to take the coffee mug to the sink. Suddenly it hit her. Her sister was coming...and so was Ethan. Memories slammed into her so forcefully, her hand jerked and the coffee mug hit the tiled floor, shattering in so many  pieces, splashing still warm liquid all over the bottom cabinets and her bare legs. Ethan...could she bear to see him? He was all that was left to remind her of Joe...

*****

1 May 2006

Rockport, Maine

7:58 a.m.

Ethan found himself back on the clifftop in the bright morning sun. No longer did it look and feel haunted, not with a carpet of verdant green grass, not with the sun shining so strong, illuminating the entire clifftop. The ocean was still now, barely moving. “I don’t think I’ll come back again. It’s a fool’s errand.”

Wrong, whispered the wind by his ear. Ethan glanced around, saw he was alone. For a brief, painful moment, he flashed to the cathedral in Paris....Seek and ye shall find....Ethan shook his head. “There’s nothing to seek here.”

Seek, chirped a bird as it flew by. Ethan shuddered. “This is ridiculous. There’s no such things as ghosts. I know that.” Suddenly, he stopped speaking, feeling as if someone was behind him, he felt the weight of a hand on his shoulder. Without looking, he knew the hand was of the man who had been his partner. And just for a heartbeat, he heard children laughing, saw a Christmas tree, a lavishly decorated house – his partner and his wife’s sister. The image brought tears to his eyes. The way it should be....

“Ethan, everything’s loaded up. Jareth said he just has to file a flight plan and he can get us over to England.”

The way it should be. It hit Ethan square in the face. All this was wrong. It shouldn’t have happened the way it did.

“Ethan?”

He jumped as his wife touched his shoulder. “What?”

“We’re ready to go.”

“Right.” Ethan spared one last glance around, then turned to his wife.

Cathy frowned. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

Cathy nodded, let him pass her by, then looked around at the clifftop and took a deep breath. Talking to Casi had broken her heart. She hadn’t realized just how much distance had come between them, with work and both being married and an entire ocean separating them. She shivered as if a hand had touched her shoulder and she looked back to see Ethan making his way to the rented car.

“Oh God,” she said softly. “Ethan.” She’d spoken too quietly for him to hear her, she knew. A shudder swept over her. Casi didn’t realize that he’d come too. What was her sister going to do when she saw Ethan, Joe’s partner, his friend, after all this time?

Catherine felt her eyes tear up. Joe had gone alone on that last fatal assignment. Even Ethan didn’t know what the situation was about, only that his boss still said it was classified, need-to-know, and that Ethan didn’t need to know.

It was on the tip of her tongue to call out, suggest canceling the trip when she remembered her sister’s tear-filled voice. “Cat...don’t cancel on me...” Catherine squared her shoulders. Her sister needed her. She just hoped Ethan wouldn’t bring back too many memories. Casi had enough to deal with.

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