CHAPTER FIFTEEN
James had refused to tell me how long he had left to live, and that only meant one thing: not long. But did that equate to days, weeks, or months? I couldn’t hope for years. Because after I’d gone back to my apartment to take a shower and dress, James and I met outside. It was almost noon, the sun high in the sky, and the streaks of silver on his temples had doubled in width. The lines around the edges of his serene eyes and gorgeous lips had deepened.
My heart fell through my feet, burrowing deep underground, seeking protection. It didn’t want to open its eyes or face this pain. It begged me to shield it from the torment. Still, I forced myself not to act selfishly. I couldn’t fall apart every time I saw evidence of this impossible situation.
“Hi.” I went to my tiptoes, placing a soft kiss on his stubbled cheek, and then ran my fingers through his soft, silver hair. “The look suits you.”
“Thank you.” He dipped his head. “Just wait until I am completely silver. You’ll never want a dark-haired man again.”
“It’s like they say, once you go gray, you never stray.”
He frowned. “That, Miss Fitzgerald, is the worst joke I have ever heard. And I have heard many.”
“I’m sure you have. By the way, you do realize you’re a giant pervert for sleeping with me, right? I mean you’re old. Like, dinosaur, petrified sap, oil reserve kind of old.”
“Ah, but with age comes wisdom.” He bent his head and kissed the soft spot at the base of my neck. “And I know many, many things.”
I knew he was an expert when it came to what women desired, and after last night’s sampling, my body hummed with anticipation.
“I dunno…” I sang teasingly. “You were kind of a letdown. Reminded me of amateur hour.”
His jaw dropped. “You are a cruel, cruel little beast.”
I smiled playfully. “I am. But thankfully, you’re too old to catch me.” I smacked his chest and turned to run, quickly remembering that I wasn’t so fast on my feet either. “Ouch!” I gripped my foot. “Motherfucker!” The stitches teared or something.
James chuckled halfheartedly, quickly scooping me into his strong arms. “Too old, my ass.” He laughed. “Let’s take you to see Rosy.”
I beamed up at him, feeling like I was being carried by an invincible giant. “You’re good at being the hero, James.”
He frowned for a moment, like he didn’t appreciate my compliment, but then smiled ahead. “It’s a monk thing. We enjoy martyring ourselves for the sake of others.”
I bobbed in his arms as he carried me along the gravel path, his feet crunching beneath us.
“Well, you’re good at it,” I said. “And most importantly, you look fucking hot while you do it.”
“It’s the robe. Women have a thing for devoutly religious men.”
Only when they look like hot underwear models. Honestly, Dave Gandy came in at distant second compared to James.
“But are you really that devout?” He didn’t live the most sanctimonious of lives.
“Yes, though I’m certain my faith would be shunned by ninety-nine percent of the people on this earth who subscribe to the usual religions.”
“Why?” I asked.
“If I were to list every reason, it might take the entire winter, spring, and summer.”
We didn’t have that much time, which crushed my soul.
“Then in a nutshell?” I urged, trying to keep my mood as light as possible. It wouldn’t serve either of us if I started blubbering.
“One might call us the original hippies.”
I laughed. “Oh boy, now you’ve turned me on. Please tell me you don’t bathe and own a year’s supply of patchouli.”
“Hardly.” He frowned. “But we do believe in your standard free will and that one’s purpose must always be driven by love and the greater good—and all that godly gracious mumbo jumbo.”
“Mumbo jumbo. Is that like hocus-pocus, and if yes, sign me up.”
James gave me a stern look.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to diminish your beliefs. I just never understood why so many people pray to a God who clearly isn’t there.”
“How do you know?”
Where did I start? Because if he or she existed, why would God permit so many children to suffer, James having been one of them? Why would men rape women? Why would God allow people to strap bombs on their bodies and blow up a school full of little girls just for wanting an education?
“Like you said,” I replied, “it would take an entire winter, spring, and summer to explain.”
“All right then,” James said. “You may believe in a godless world, and I may believe that there is more to life than what you see with your eyes and touch with your hands.”
“Such as?”
“Miracles,” he replied. “They happen every day. And for some, every day for over two centuries.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I see where you’re going with this, but there could be a scientific reason for why the lagoon made you young.” Some unique combination of chemicals in the soil and water. Or maybe there was a very particular magnetic anomaly. After all, we weren’t so far from the Bermuda Triangle.
“There very well could be; however, I choose to believe otherwise. Either way, I will die, and it will remain a mystery to me.” He looked at me with warm eyes. “But that is the beauty of the human condition. I have my own mind and I am free to believe whatever I choose, and so are you. Yet no matter where we come from, no matter our age, gender or race, we are still capable of love, and its existence is rarely argued by any sane person.”
Love. He believed that it tied us all together. It was strangely endearing and romantic. And how James managed to come across as a strong, intimidating man while he spoke about such a sensitive topic was yet one more mystery.
“You really are like the world’s oldest hippie,” I said jokingly.
“But better dressed.” He grinned, and I swear I could feel my heart peeking out its head from that dark, dreary cave just to smile at him and bask for a few precious moments in his light.
“I can’t argue with that.”
“Such a shame, because I love it when you do,” he joked.
“Ha. Funny.” I smacked his strong shoulder.
Still holding me in his arms, he took the path that headed north. “Humor is another of my many hidden traits.”
“Can’t wait to find out what the others are. In the meantime, what are we doing for the rest of the day?”
“A very good question.”
“Then answer it.” I couldn’t wait to hear what the master of fantasies had dreamed of doing all these years while watching thousands act out their deepest desires.
“You know that I want to spend the day making love to you,” he replied. “However, as you’re not entirely on board with the strings attached, then I can only think of one other thing I’d like to do.”
The mere thought of those strings made the space between my legs pulse. Physically, all I wanted was for him to bend me over and have his way with me. Mentally, I wanted to run from all this because my heart couldn’t handle the pain of losing him.
“All right. So what is second on your list, then?” I waited.
“I would like to murder the men on that ship who killed my family.”
The air left my lungs with a sharp exhale. “Huh?”
“Aside from wanting to find a woman I can love with all of my heart and have children with her, the only other thing I’ve ever desired was to make them suffer.”
“You aren’t joking,” I muttered.
“No. I am not.”
I tried to keep my expression even, but likely looked horrified, which was likely why he lowered me to my feet right beneath a giant cedar tree.
“Do not judge me, Stephanie. You of all people should understand the rage, the hate, the need for justice after losing your sister.”
“I do, but—”
“But what? Am I supposed to be above all that simply because I believe in God? Do you expect me to be a better man than you are a woman?”
“Nuh-no. It’s just…you’re a monk.”
“Was a monk. I am no longer bound to the vows I took to find forgiveness in my heart for all manners of sins. And given that I could never forget what I witnessed that day as a child, I’ve had to beat myself for over two hundred years. Do you have any idea what that is like?”
Shamefully, I looked down at my feet. “I don’t.” I knew what it was like to lose my mother and sister, but I never had to atone for my feelings.
“Well, imagine how I felt, remembering those men brutally beating and raping my aunt—a healer, a lovingly kind woman who only sought a life of peace.”
I couldn’t imagine. I wouldn’t.
He continued, “My days may be numbered, but I would like to offer these men the same kindness they showed my family. I would like, for once in my life, not to turn the other cheek.”
But James had told me that he’d watched those assholes die in the biggest storm ever to hit the island. He said he’d watched their ship sink to the bottom of the ocean only a mile north.
“They’re long gone, James. Can’t you just let it go?” I grabbed his arm.
The nostrils of his perfectly straight nose flared. “I lied in order to hide the effects of the lagoon.”
I whooshed out a slow breath that inflated my cheeks. “Please don’t tell me they’re alive.”
“Six made it to shore. My aunt and I were able to subdue them one by one.”
“And your aunt didn’t kill them?”
“She believed it would cost us both our souls.” James looked at me. “Stephanie, I am not a wicked, sadistic, or brutal man. I have never stabbed a woman while I raped her in front of a ten-year-old child. I would never kill a person in hopes that they might confess to owning a mound of gold that only exists in legends—”
“But you would make them swim in that water and keep them alive for centuries in hopes that someday you might be in a position to make them pay.”
He nodded. “You understand me completely.”
I didn’t know what to think exactly. “It’s not right.”
“Imagine Cici hadn’t drowned. Imagine Cici was my aunt and that a man stabbed her womb while she carried a child.”
Jesus. “Whose child?”
“Does it matter?” he asked.
I shook my head no. “But I’m still asking.”
“Father Rook’s. He renounced his vows only days before he died so he could marry her—a long-standing tradition to carry on the sect. But he never got that chance, and I was the one who had to watch my aunt deliver her stillborn child. I had to bury the baby that would’ve eventually taken Father Rook’s place.”
“I don’t think I want to hear anymore.” I felt sick. Literally sick.
“So now you see, Stephanie, to suffer in prison for such a heinous crime doesn’t suffice. Nor can I, in good conscience, free them. And since the island’s fate is unknown and my future is short, I cannot risk them getting out. It is incumbent upon me to do what is right.”
To my shock, I couldn’t argue. Perhaps these men eventually felt bad about their actions, but that wouldn’t be enough. Not to me. Because I wasn’t a person who believed that every sin could be redeemed. Some people were just bad, plain and simple. So given the chance to let them live, just hoping they might be cured or change, I wouldn’t do that for one simple reason: I wouldn’t be the person who paid the price if I was wrong.
When I was five, we had a dog—a mutt we’d adopted at the pound. She was medium sized with brindle markings on her legs and the softest black ears. When we played, she would wag her long black tail and lick my face until I nearly peed in my pants laughing. As far as dogs and kids go, we were best friends. But when Milly bit my sister, Cici, for getting too near me, and then bit the neighbor’s one-year-old in the hand after Milly escaped from the yard, my dad told us that Milly had to be put down. Even Cici cried. We begged for him to find another way and, to his credit, he tried. He hired a trainer. He bought drugs to calm her. We did everything, but a few months later, Cici went to pet Milly’s shiny black tail and ended up with six stitches in her arm.
“Please don’t kill her, Daddy,” I’d cried.
“It’s my fault! I scared her,” Cici screamed.
“Someday, when you have your own children, you’ll understand,” my father said.
“Just chain her up in the yard,” I begged.
“Baby,” my father said, “that is no life for Milly, and if she ever escapes, she will hurt someone. But not a grown-up. She’s smart. She only bites the ones she knows aren’t a threat to her. Small children.”
I didn’t understand. Until now. Sometimes, we had to do what was right for the greater good. Even if it meant killing. Because if we simply kicked the can down the road, eventually someone else would pay. And men like these were just like Milly in that they only prayed on the vulnerable. Unarmed monks, women, and children. James’s father. Easy targets.
Still, why would James want to die with this on his conscience? He believed in heaven and hell, I assumed. And monk or no monk, he still believed in his god.
“Just leave them with me,” I said.
James looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
“I’m serious,” I said. “I don’t want this on your conscience, and I’m sure I’m capable of making sure they stay imprisoned until they grow old and die.”
For the first time ever, James looked conflicted. “I will think on the matter.”
“Don’t think about it too long,” I said, mirroring his comment to me yesterday.
James didn’t reply, but took me to see Dr. Rosy, who checked out my foot, redid my stitches, and taped it up nice and tight. She said I needed to use crutches, and if I ripped them again, she would be forced to chain me to the gurney. The gleam in her eyes told me she meant it, too.
James waited outside as I hobbled from the building.
“This does not look promising,” he said.
I smiled at him, feeling a sense of immediate longing. I couldn’t see him and not want more.
“Nor does that look in your eyes,” he added.
“Sorry. It’s just—”
“Intense,” he guessed.
I nodded.
“Well, since you cannot walk, and we have had enough of emotional topics for one day, I think I have the perfect solution. Something to ease the burdens of the day.”
“Is this number three on your list?”
“No. This is something I enjoy doing at least twice a week.”
“Oh, an activity on the monk-approved list.” I hoped it wasn’t praying or meditating. I was in no mood for self-reflection or quiet time. “Is it making beer?”
He chuckled. “No. I am not a Trappist, and this is something even you cannot find fault with.”