Chapter 7

• It was a good thing he didn’t need sleep Bryce thought as he paced by the window once more. If he’d had a body at this moment he would have been knee deep in the tracks from his own steps at this point. What was she doing in there and how could she be this calm? This morning when she’d first opened her eyes he more than understood her lack of enthusiasm for anything other than more sleep. It may have been over thirty years, but he could still recall the hell of waking up after a few too many.
• When she had come out and found the flower he had left for her, he thought for sure she’d camp out on the dock and wait for his return—not that he’d actually left. The moment the sun had even thought of rising in the sky Bryce had once again become his least favorite form of nothingness.
• First he is unseen for thirty-eight, unbelievably thirty-eight years, then Emma arrives and sees him—and then he can touch! And as suddenly as he was solid he goes back to an apparition. All that left him with was one conclusion—it was her, Emma, she was the link.
• The details and pieces he hadn’t fit together just yet but he would. He had to; this was the closest he had come in all the years since what’s-her-name had done this to him.
• He’d spent a good portion of the day trying once again to remember her name—the one that had done this to him, but that had brought him nothing. For a short while he had really hoped Emma was a relative of the chick that had burned him, until he realized she couldn’t have been or the girl from thirty-eight years ago had been older than he thought.
• What was Emma’s connection in this? It had to be something about her or involving her or he’d still be unseen!
• Bryce didn’t want to think about what would happen at dusk if he didn’t become corporeal again. That would be too much to cope with, to be given one day and then have it taken away again.
• Back to the ranting of Glory, for not having any other name to call her, there was something about an injured woman. Well, he didn’t know about injured but Emma was definitely pissed about what her old man had done to her. Pausing he thought about her loose tongued rambles the night before, okay she was hurt and rightly so. The guy had been a cad for doing something like that to another person.
• When he had been flesh, he was a player and readily admitted it, but he certainly didn’t roll around with more than one female body at the same time. When it was time to move on he did so with honesty and would never have done it any other way.
• A few more seconds reflection—yeah, now that the whole picture was before him—Emma must be really hurting inside. He stopped pacing and looked in at her again. Her head was down as she typed up a storm about something on the incredibly small computer. He’d watched the changes over the years, but in the last few the different contraptions people had brought with them still fried a few of his brain cells.
• When Emma stopped and turned, she looked right at the window he’d been peeping in all day. He held his breath or if he could really breathe he would have. It felt like she was looking right at him, but through him at the same time. She looked tired, despite having spent most of the day in bed.
• It wasn’t right for her to be stressed and yes, he knew stress when he saw it. Having his mother and father had taught him that. He wondered briefly if they were still living.
• Not the time to get all melancholy about lost relatives, Bryce reminded himself. Right now you have a mystery or at the very least a puzzle to solve.
• Moving around quickly to the other window, he peered in at the clock. He still had an hour until the blasted sun would set—another hour of driving himself mad thinking about everything. He just wanted to touch something again—anything, the trees, the grass, pick up a leaf and set it sailing into the breeze. Have the sand run between his fingers. He just wanted to feel. Have the breeze blow over his skin. Feel warm or ever too cold. Anything, absolutely anything was better than the nothing he had right now.
• Emma went past the window and then paused and looked out it. When she leaned her forehead against the glass, he mimicked her movement so if he was really here his forehead would have rested opposite hers on this side of the glass. She closed her eyes and stood there like that for a long time. What was she feeling right now? Could she sense him there?
• Jerking away from the window, she turned away and went into the bedroom. He felt a void inside him again. Not even sure why he would he moved away and turned towards the shore. The only peace he’d found in all the years of being like this were the few moments the lake was at peace. Between waves and the breeze sending ripples rolling across it, the moments when it was truly silent were few and far between.
• Shaking off the hopeless feeling, he went back to trying to figure out why Emma had brought him back and how to go about staying that way. Which took him back to trying to remember what reason Glory had for freaking on him. They’d been partying—for three days, which explained why he couldn’t remember the small things very clearly. Okay or most of the big stuff either. She’d taken his ring off, he remembered—why hadn’t he remembered his ring before now? Glancing down at his hand even though he knew the ring was long gone he tried to recall what had happened to it. If he’d been wearing it when he’d faded away to nothing it would still be there, he knew this because he had been wearing the same damn clothes all these years. So where did the ring go?
• Moving down towards the dock, he kept glancing back towards the cottage trying to place where exactly they’d been when his life had stopped. She had the ring, slipped it right off his finger and put it on her own. He jerked to a halt, did she take it? He didn’t think so. If he was picturing the scene right, she’d asked him if he was royalty with such a chunk of gold and stone. The spiel about his family had kicked in automatically, even in the altered state he was in.
• What next? What had happened from that point to barely existing? There had been some kissing and gropes for sure too as wasted as they were—or at least he was. She’d said something about letting her wear the ring, or love . . . Growling he paced trying to pull the picture from his head.
• For several minutes he attempted to see what had happened next, but he couldn’t find it. The thing he could see was him lounging in the sand laughing and her stomping away, but then what? Nothing. He didn’t know.
• Giving up on that for the time being he went back to his attempts to find out why Emma? What was so different about her that she could see him? Many single people had stayed in the cottage over the years, from all walks of life in all states of harmony—or in some cases lack of. So that couldn’t be a part of it, then what was it? She was distressed; actually heartbroken might cover it nicely.
• He looked up at the sky and threw his hands up. That was it! Injured, hurt or in Emma’s case heartbroken. The woman to free him had to be heartbroken, or was it to see him? Either one he’d take as this was the only piece that had fit in all these years. And then came? He rubbed his hand over his shaggy hair while thinking. This woman was to find something. Was it him? Because hey, here he was all found. No, what did she have to find? Peace? Happiness? He had no idea.
• Lowering his head, he looked at the ground without actually seeing it. Emma was hurt, injured, not happy . . . he kept rhyming through words in hopes he’d stumble on the right one. She was—no she had to do something maybe? Possibly what she had to find was inside and lost because of her traumatic circumstance? Oh, wow he was reaching for the unknown now.
• What didn’t Emma have that she needed? Realizing he’d already trampled through that section of what-ifs he stopped and tried again. What didn’t he have that she could find? Other than his body of course.
• As he thought he wandered over the water, something that was so normal for him now he didn’t question it anymore. Emma had said something about what she was good at, maybe the thing she needed to find was a job. Bryce grinned and almost laughed. Because a job would most certainly have nothing to do with him or becoming fleshy again.
• There was the possibility he had been alone for too long and simply had gone loonie at this point. Would it really be a good thing to have a crazy man back in the world?
• Standing over the water he looked back at the small building he’d once called home and decided no matter the state of his sanity he wanted a shot at being a real man again. To whatever gods had spurned him, he would vow to not screw it up this time around.