Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
I shook my head. “She’s not just my first love, Momma. She’s my…she owns my soul.”
The sadness in her eyes wasn’t what I wanted to see. It meant she was going to say more that I didn’t want to hear.
“You own your soul. It’s just taken with hers because she shines so bright. But if you don’t let her go, let her chase her dreams, use her gift, her light will dim until it’s extinguished. You don’t want to be the one to do that.”
My eyes stung with unshed tears. She was lying here, dying, leaving me to continue this life without her in it, and she was telling me that the one thing I lived for was something I couldn’t keep.
“The things you don’t know about her…life before, the things she lived through…she’s broken in ways that I’ve tried to help heal, but they marked her. She’ll always strive to make you happy. She’ll put you first. It’s the way she is wired. If she thinks you need her when I’m gone, she’ll come here. She will leave it all behind to be by your side.” Mom stopped and took in a wheezing breath as she struggled to continue.
“Momma,” I said, trying to stop her.
She didn’t need to be talking so much, and the shit she was saying was shattering me.
“No, let me finish,” she rasped. “Life isn’t fair, and it’s painful. And you, my beautiful boy, are the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. I don’t regret a moment of it. Now, go live your life, Rome Cayson Bower. Find your dream. And let Salem go after hers. Set her free.”
1
Salem
Present Day
The black wool coat that I had tightly wrapped around my chest was more for comfort than warmth. The late January arctic breeze in Massachusetts could normally slice through my Southern-born bones. I had been told numerous times that I would acclimate to the weather up here. That had been eighteen years ago, and I had not, in fact, acclimated. But it wasn’t the promise of snow in the air that had me gripping on to the coat that was an expensive gift my mother-in-law had given me for Christmas two years ago.
If only it were.
I wanted to shout at the top of my lungs that he hadn’t wanted this. He had wanted to be cremated. He’d said being buried in the ground was a waste of good soil. If I didn’t feel so lost, I’d smile at the memory.
“Take me to a pub, Salem. Get a pint of the black stuff and sláinte to my memory.”
The corner of my mouth tugged as his words replayed so clearly in my head. His husky Irish accent, thick blond hair, the bluest eyes I’d ever seen, and his smile were things I would only have in my memory now. The ache went deep gripping tightly at my throat as the priest spoke. I couldn’t focus on anything he was saying.
As the casket was lowered to the ground, all I could do was watch it with a mix of horror and loss.
It seemed like only yesterday when I’d bumped into Eamon while walking to a coffee shop just off campus between classes, yet it was also as if we’d lived a lifetime since then as well. He was beautiful. A talented artist. Someone I could relate to. We enjoyed the same things. He made me laugh. He’d always said that he had loved me at first sight.
Standing here as the finality of all we had been through sank in, I ached to do so many things differently. Be the woman he had deserved right from the start. He had put up with so much from me.
Years later, when I had told him how much I regretted our earlier years, he had held me and whispered against my temple, “You were always my one, stór.”
Eamon had been so charming, and I’d been so broken. All my trust and faith in men had been destroyed. First by my father and his abuse, then by the boy I’d thought I’d love forever. The one who…the one who had consumed my thoughts as I lay in bed many sleepless nights, feeling guilty because he still owned a piece of my soul.
I’d give anything to get that piece back.
A lone tear rolled down my face as the casket disappeared from my view. I’d have taken his ashes to every pub in Boston and drunk the awful beer he’d loved, like he’d wanted. However, Keira Murphy wasn’t one to be argued with. What she said was law, and I’d learned years ago that when she spoke, both her husband and son listened. Eamon would have understood that. Although I had been his wife for fourteen years, I had no control over the woman standing beside me.