Eternally Yours 1 Read Online Free Page B

nothing. “What have I done?”
    “You didn’t believe in yourself,” Serenity told her. “Did not believe yourself worthy of love. And now you are seeing the repercus sions of your impulsive actions.”
    Despite her agony, she forced herself to watch Gabe cradle her naked, dripping body. He brushed the sodden hair from her face. “I love you, Jodie. I love you so much. Please come back to me, my lovely…”
    Even now, Jodie cringed at the puckered pink skin of her arms and legs, so glaring under the bright string of bathroom lights. So far from perfect. But Gabe had never cared about her scars. He’d always told her she was beautiful, inside and out. Why hadn’t she remembered that when she needed to believe those words the most?
    E mergency sirens screamed in the background while Gabe continued to vainly apply CPR. Then, the world went black.
    Jodie opened her eyes, found Serenity’s sympathetic face. Drained, devastated, and hollowed, she managed to eke from her clogged throat, “I screwed up big time, didn’t I?”
    Before Serenity might reassure her, J odie covered her face with her hands and wept her tear ducts dry.
     
    ~~~~
     
    Inside the crowded Welcome Level, Luc grabbed the captain’s sleeve before the old ghost wandered off and disappeared in the throng. “Come this way.”
    Elbowing through the milling crowds of befuddled new arrivals, he weaved in and out of lost souls, past the harried staff who struggled to keep the lines moving and maintain order amid chaos. At last, he stopped outside the double-doors that led to Sherman’s office and turned to the silver-haired receptionist seated at the massive white marble desk to his right.
    “Wow, Luc.” Eyes fixed on him, Samantha ran a finger over her glowing clipboard, capturing data the way a blind woman might read Braille. “That was fast!”
    He pulled the captain forward. “What can I say? I’m good at my job.”
    “No, silly,” she replied. “I mean the Board just had me contact you. I thought you were here to answer the summons.”
    That familiar spider of suspicion crawled up to his nape, and he palmed the fine hairs dancing there. “What summons? What does Sherman want from me now?”
    She shrugged. “Beats me. He doesn’t tell me why; he only tells me who. And this time, he wants you. So…let’s see the shirt. What have you got today?”
    “Ah, of course.” With an air of expectancy, he pulled the t-shirt taut over his chest, making the blood-red letters clearly legible on the black cotton. Lucky for him, Samantha always got the joke.
    “‘I See Dead People,’” she read, and then smirked. “Cute.” Swiveling her chair, she turned her attention to the silent eighteenth-century seaman. “You must be the captain.”
    The old ghost doffed his hat and bowed. “Aye, milady. Captain Edmund Fitzhume at your service.”
    “I’m honored.” She extended her hand.
    Booted heels clicking, Captain Fitzhume grasped her hand and pressed her fingers to his lips. “No, madam. It is my honor entirely.”
    Samantha’s cheeks glowed, and she used the same hand to fan her flushed face. “I’m sorry you won’t be with us longer. The good ones always come and go too fast.” Her calculating gaze scanned Luc from head to toe with icy attitude. “The bad boys stay around here forever.”
    While Luc flashed a grin intended to knock her knees out from under her, he grabbed her hand and repeated the old coot’s kiss to her fingers, but with far more lingering over her knuckles. “We bad boys are the ones who make this place interesting.”
    With a loud tsk, she yanked her hand away. “Interesting, my foot.”
    He hooded his eyes and leaned close enough to taste peppermint on her breath. “If that’s what it takes to pique your interest, Samantha, sweetheart, remove your shoe.”
    “Only if I can shove it up your ass!” She brushed him away with a brisk wave, but not before he caught a mischievous smile flash across her features. In