“Ready?” Mark said, hanging up, coming around to the head of the conference table. “Let’s get to it.” “I’m meeting my wife at ten to look at a house.”
“R–ready.” But she wasn’t ready. For anything. She couldn’t collect her thoughts into anything cohesive. They were buckshot with the events of the weekend. And the shadow of the cross that had just fallen over her.
At that moment, a grandfather clock in the corner chimed the hour, it’s tone rich and resonate, coursing through Corina. She pressed her fingers to her temples, her heart palpitating with each bong.
For a wrinkle in time, she was atop the Braithwaite, in Stephen’s arms, dancing to the glorious symphony of Cathedral City’s nine o’clock bells.
“Stupid clock. Can’t keep time.” Mark shoved away from the table with an angry huff and opened the clock’s glass door, stopping the pendulum on the third chime.
“Wait, it wasn’t finished,” Corina said.
“Who cares. The time is wrong. My wife insisted I bring this thing in here. Give the office some charm, she said.”
Mark returned to the table, but Corina felt robbed, cheated, of the music that flowed from the clock’s time.
“Cheap old thing . . . my grandfather made it when he was a kid. In shop or something. I think I’ll tell maintenance they can have it.” Mark scooted up to the table with a glance at Corina. “Listen, I know you love working with that albatross of an assignment board, but come on, it was designed for Windows 3.1.1. I want to develop a new online board. I have a friend who is a developer and—”
“Give it to maintenance? You are willing to discard your grandfather’s clock because ‘it’s not working’?” Corina didn’t mask her emotions. Mark’s furrowed brow warned her she danced around crazy.
“It’s a clock, Corina. I don’t even think my grandfather liked it.”
“But it’s worth fighting for. You can’t just d–dismiss it—”
“Corina, what are you talking about?”
Love well.
Then she knew. She couldn’t justdismissit. The door had been opened. Not just her heart, but his. A peace filled the cracks and holes of her soul. For the first time in over five years, she recognized a piece of herself. Until now she’d only been going through the motions.
“Mark, I’m going to do it. Cover the premier.” She left the conference table, her thoughts forward. She’d need to book a flight and the hotel. Do some research. Beef up her knowledge of King Stephen I history. And what had Clive Boston been up to lately? She’d need a premier gown. But she hadjust the oneat home in Marietta. At the door she turned back to Mark. “I think a new assignment board is a fantastic idea. The staff will love it.”
She strode into Gigi’s office with her head high, shoulders square. “I’ll do it.”
“Of course you will.” The boss dragged her eyes away from her computer. “But what brings you in here to tell me?”
“The chimes of an old grandfather clock.”
NINE
Four days after his return from Florida, Stephen woke up panting, a fire blazing over his skin.
Corina had paraded through his nightmare, a death scene, weeping and wailing, wearing a white wedding gown stained with her brother’s blood, her golden-brown eyes wild with pain.
“Did I love him well?”
Stephen rolled out of bed and dropped to his knees, pressing his forehead into the thick carpet.
Rocking from side to side, he pleaded with his soul to end the night memories. He’d petition the Almighty, if he could muster enough faith to believe in the God who allowed bad things to happen.
He’d locked away every memory, his thoughts and feelings with the key of “Why?” If God “so loved the world,” then why did he stomach atrocities such as war?
Above all, why did a good man like Carlos Del Rey have to die while Stephen lived?
Either way, answers or not, thishadto end. And it wouldn’t until he was back on the pitch with the rugby ball tucked under his arm, an intense defender the only thing chasing him.
After a moment, he gathered himself and showered. He had a full day ahead with no time to deal with black emotions and haunting, weeping brides.
But his soul was disturbed, tainted, and he felt helpless to do anything about it.
