Page 51 of A Ghost of a Chance

“We can never be together the way a man and a woman should be.”

“We learned how to kiss, and to dance, provided we don’t do it too long.” He quirked a smile.

“That’s not enough, is it?”

His mirth faded. “What choice do we have? Our other option comes with too great a risk.”

“Our other option?”

He pressed his lips together as if berating himself for speaking of something he had not meant to reveal. In halting tones, he said, “I have learned of a ceremony that could either bring you back to life, or send you on to the next realm forever.”

She stared at him incredulously. “You’re telling me I could come back to life?”

“Or move on.”

“On to nothingness?”

Gently, he said, “It might be nothingness. Or it might be Heaven, or whatever is in the next level of existence. But the odds are that you won’t be restored to life.”

“What if there really is no next level? What if I cease to exist?”

He leaned forward and rested his arms on his thighs. “That’s why I do not wish to chance it. Besides, I’m not even certain it’s possible or that he was real.”

He described a midnight encounter with the Angel of Death and the gypsy, but how he had woken up alone in the henge.

“I might have had a vivid dream and gone sleepwalking. None of it might be real. But even if it is, I can’t risk being responsible for your life or death or...nothingness. I had far too much responsibility for people’s fates in the war.”

Osanne considered his words. This might be her chance to be noble, to free him. “I cannot risk you wasting your life, year after year, to see me for a few hours.”

“I have to. I’ve tried not being here for you and I couldn’t stay away.”

“Knowing now how wondrous it is to touch, and to kiss, has shown me how much you’re missing. You need a living woman with whom to kiss, to dance, to love as only living people can and in a way that I will never be able to do with you. And you should have the ability to do so with her every day, and not merely one night a year.”

He gave a swift, stubborn shake of his head. “We can work through that. We’ll find a way.”

His optimism was endearing but foolish. She waved a hand and let it pass through him to prove her point. “I’m still the same. You’re getting older. Please don’t ask me to watch you age and die.”

He frowned. “I’m not so old as all that.”

“You said yourself that Peter and his wife have children. They’re growing up. You and I can never have a family.”

He swallowed, then pushed a hand through his hair. Stubbornly, “Being with you is worth it.”

“Rafe, you need to live. Find someone to love, with whom you can have a family.”

He let out a caustic laugh. “You’re telling me to go marry someone else?”

“What about Benjamin’s sister?”

“Kitty?” He shook his head.

“Court her, see her as a young lady and not as Ben’s sister. Marry her and have a family and a normal life.”

He went very still. Ah, a viable prospect, then. The thought of him loving another woman caused the closest thing to physical pain she had felt since she had fallen and lay wracked in pain until death released her. And captured her.

“Kitty and I don’t have any kind of understanding.” But his words lacked conviction.

“If she has remained unmarried all these years, it must be because she is waiting for you. Please. I know it’s painful for you to be together with me so briefly, and to miss out on a normal life.”