Remembrance by Meg Cabot (35)

I never in a million years thought I’d be so happy to see my nearly twenty-year-old Land Rover.

Of course, it was more the sight of the figure leaning against the utility vehicle that made my heart beat a little quicker. His fingers were tucked loosely into the front pockets of his formfitting jeans, his dark hair tossed a little by the strong wind from the beach. He was perfectly unconscious of my approach (the soles of my second-best butt-kicking boots were rubber). He seemed transfixed by the sight of the sea.

Or maybe he was napping behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses. He’d had a long night, after all.

“How on earth did you know I was here?” I asked after I’d pulled up beside him and was getting out of the BMW.

Jesse turned his head, then gave me one of those slow, drowsy smiles I’d come to love so much.

“An app,” he said. “Jake installed tracking systems in all his cars in case they were ever stolen.”

“Oh.” I was slightly disappointed. “I thought you were following me via our fiercely strong mind-body-spiritual connection.”

“Well, that, too.”

I joined him against the side of the car. The view was impressive. The sea was a deep, azure blue, the sky as cloudless as the forecasters had promised it would be. Seagulls wheeled in circles overhead, their cries lost in the pound of the surf. An occasional car went by, sightseers ogling both the surf and the expensive homes along 17-Mile Drive.

“So that was you a little while ago, and not Lucia, stopping in to say good-bye to Becca?” I asked.

“I may have helped Lucia give Becca a proper good-bye.” He hadn’t removed his fingers from his pockets, but we were standing close enough, our backs pressed against the car, that it felt as if we were touching.

“Bullshit,” I said. “That was all you. I’d recognize your romantic touch anywhere. Besides, the cigarette smoke gave you away.”

“I don’t smoke.”

“Not anymore, you don’t.”

His grin caused something to shift inside me. “You’re right, I don’t.”

For a long time I’d suspected there was an electric current passing between us. It had always been there, even when he’d been an NCDP, and hadn’t wanted to admit he loved me, a living girl whose job it was to rid the world of people like him.

In the years since his heart had begun to beat again, that current had only grown stronger. When we were apart, it stretched. I wondered if there was anything that could truly break it. Even death, it seemed, hadn’t been able to.

“So Paul wasn’t completely wrong,” I went on. “There is something left over from the grave inside you. But I don’t think it’s darkness. In fact, I think it’s light.”

Jesse swore in a very unangelic manner and strode away from the side of the car to lift a rock and hurl it at the waves. “Why, even on a beautiful day like this, do we still have to talk about him?”

“Because if we don’t talk about it I’ll never understand it, Jesse. And I want to. I really, really want to.”

“Why? Why is it important? Why can’t it simply be?”

“Well, for one thing because you nearly killed him last night.”

“I wish I had.”

“If you had, you wouldn’t be standing here on the beach with me right now, throwing rocks at the waves. You’d still be locked up somewhere.”

“But I’m not, querida.”

“Right. You’re not. Instead, you can give—and apparently receive—messages from the spirit world. Don’t get me wrong, I get them, too, but not the way you do. I talk to ghosts, but not all the ghosts, all the time. And I can’t do magic tricks like the one you performed back there. It’s a little spooky that my boyfriend—the mild-mannered physician—can do light shows with his mind. But then again, you used to be a spook, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Well, if it doesn’t bother me, it shouldn’t bother you,” he said, coming back to lean beside me against the car. “It would be nice, however, if you’d trust me enough to let me in on your little secrets once in a while. And also check your cell phone.”

“Me? What about you? You’re the one who didn’t want to see me after getting out of jail.”

“Because there was something I wanted to surprise you with, something I didn’t know until I got out and the police returned my phone. But I wanted to tell you properly, in person, after I’d showered off the not very romantic odor of prison from my body. So please check your phone.”

“If you want to see my reaction, then why didn’t you just—”

“Susannah, I love you, but you are the most frustrating woman in the world. For once in your life, don’t argue. Just do it.”

I opened my bag and pulled out my phone. I’d received several new texts, mostly from classmates wondering at my absence from happy hour the past few nights. There was one that particularly piqued my interest, however.

“I have no clue what that means,” I said.

He looked thoughtful. “Perhaps you have that mental block that prevents otherwise intelligent people from learning new languages,” he suggested.

“No, because I can speak French. If this were in French—”

“It’s all right, querida. You’re good at many other things. And at least you have your looks.”

“I’m seriously going to kill you. Just tell me what it says. What’s the surprise?”

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise.” He was enjoying himself. I could tell, since he was smiling as he walked around to the passenger side of the Land Rover. This was his way of getting me back for not telling him about Paul. “I will admit, in addition to picking up your sad excuse for a vehicle, I made a stop at your place. These were waiting outside the door for you. Saturday delivery? They must be important.” He pulled a couple of packages from the front seat.

“Seriously,” I said, staring at the text. “Is beca bacon? If you’re offering to take me out for breakfast, the answer is yes, even though it’s already lunchtime, because I had a really disappointing breakfast today.”

“Bacon is beicon,” he said. “Here, open your packages.”

“We should get out of here,” I said. “Kelly wasn’t exactly thrilled to see me, and neither was Debbie at first, though I think I won her over.”

I glanced at the packages—both addressed to Ms. Susannah Simon. One of them was a large next-day air priority box, the other a legal-sized padded envelope, stamped “Deliver by Hand”; return address, “Slater Properties.” It felt lumpy, as if there might be something small and jagged—such as keys—inside.

I looked up at Jesse in wonder. “No,” I said, hardly daring to believe it. “So soon?”

He shrugged again. “One of us must be very persuasive.”

“Or intimidating,” I said, tearing open the envelope.

Sure enough, there was a set of keys inside, attached to a plastic key fob marked “99 Pine Crest Road.” There were also a number of documents requesting my notarized signature. But one of them was a deed, with my name typed in as the owner.

Finally, there was an astonishingly brief note from Paul, scrawled in his execrable handwriting on Carmel Inn stationery.

Suze,

Here are the items you requested.

No matter how much you might hate me—or who you marry—I will always be here for you. You know how to reach me if you need to.

You’re a worthy adversary, Simon.

I suppose that’s why I always have, and always will, love you.

Paul

Jesse stood reading the note along with me over my shoulder. I’d seen no reason not to let him, since I’d had no idea it would contain anything like the sentiments it did.

As soon as I got to the last lines, I began to blush.

I reached out to crumple the note into a little ball, but Jesse stopped me, tugging it from my hand.

“No, why?” I asked, attempting to snatch it back. “He’s such a—” The words I used to describe Paul were ones I doubted Miss Boyd had ever uttered, much less heard of, even during her undoubtedly rough and memorable ride from Boston out west.

Jesse, shaking his head, tucked the note into the back pocket of his jeans.

“It’s good to hang on to things like this,” he said matter-of-factly. “You never know when they might come in handy later.”

“Oh, and you accused me of being possessed by the dark side?” I said. “And if this is the surprise, it wasn’t a very good one. I already knew he was sending this stuff over.”

“That wasn’t the surprise. You still aren’t thinking very hard. Shall we go?”

“Go where? Breakfast?”

“No. To inspect our new home.”

My heart leapt. I put my arms around his neck. “Our new home? Are you serious, Jesse? You really don’t mind living there?”

“I seem to be destined to do so. But one thing I will not do, Susannah, is sleep in the room in which I died.”

My room. The best room in the house, with a huge bay window (complete with a window seat that my stepfather, Andy, had lovingly built for me) that on clear days had a view stretching straight down to Carmel Bay, with an attached full bath in which Jesse had once bandaged my feet. It was the first time he’d ever admitted he’d hoped to become a doctor, but his father needed him too much on the ranch ever to have allowed it.

Now all of Jesse’s dreams were coming true.

Maybe mine were, too.

That’s what I came to tell you, I couldn’t help remembering Lucia had said when I’d assured her everything was going to be okay.

“Maybe we should wait until we see what the realty company did to the room while they were staging it to sell,” I said noncommittally. “I highly doubt they kept the forget-me-not wallpaper, or those frilly curtains my mom picked out. Maybe they turned it into a craft center, like Debbie’s.”

Jesse dangled the keys to my car in front of me. “Let’s go find out. Don’t forget your other package.”

I glanced at the next-day-air package. “Is that my surprise?”

He rolled his eyes behind the sunglasses. “No.”

We swapped cars. It was good to be back in the Land Rover, though it turned out the drive to the Carmel Hills from Casa di Walters was not short, especially on the last sunny Saturday before Thanksgiving. Traffic was terrible, and though there were no stoplights, I had plenty of stops of other kinds—mainly tourist related—to examine the next-day-air package Jesse had left on my passenger seat.

I didn’t recognize the name of the sender—a woman in Arizona—but I tore it open anyway.

I was shocked when I saw what was inside:

My boots. The black leather platform boots I’d lost in the online auction the other day. My perfect non-compliant deceased person butt-kicking boots.

How was that even possible? I’d been timed out of the auction when Lucia had ransacked my office. I hadn’t been able to submit my final bid, let alone type in my name or payment information. Maximillian28 had slipped in and stolen them out from under me.

There was a note tucked into the box, but I wasn’t able to grab and read it (since I was trying to be a good driver) until I pulled up in front of my house—our house.

As soon as I did, I snatched up the note. It was computer generated, like a gift card from a store. The seller had sent the boots to me on behalf of the buyer. The buyer was Maximillian28, of Carmel Valley, California, which made no sense to me at all until I read the note.

Susannah,

Saw these and thought of you. They look just like the ones you lost. I hope they are.

Te amo.

Jesse

Jesse? Jesse was Maximillian28?

It was only then that I remembered the day I’d dragged him around the mall in Monterey, fruitlessly searching for these exact boots after my original pair had been destroyed, and how they’d been sold out everywhere in my size. He’d gamely tagged along, only occasionally pointing out that there were dozens of other black leather platform boots on the shelves. He’d never once rolled his eyes as I’d described how poorly designed and not right those other boots were. He’d paid attention, and turned out to be Maximillian28 (named for the Ackerman dog and Jesse’s age—if one counted only the years during which his physical body had been alive).

Of course. He’d do anything to make me happy . . . anything within his power, which, not having inherited millions from his family—because they’d all died out over a century ago—was buy me the impossible-to-get boots I wanted.

And save my life, over and over.

I was still laughing—or something—when Jesse pulled up behind me in front of 99 Pine Crest Road.

“Oh,” he said when he leaned in to see why I was still in the car. “You opened it. Are they the right ones?”

“Exactly right,” I said.

“Are you crying?” He looked astonished.

“No. Allergies. God, I love you.”

“You have a strange way of showing it sometimes.” He opened my car door for me. “Come on, let’s go see this place. I can’t say it looks very promising from the outside. They’ve ruined your mother’s landscaping.”

It was true. The steep, sloping yard that led up to the rambling Victorian house was still dotted with the flowers my mom had planted there, but they’d been crushed beneath the careless boots of the construction workers I’d seen outside the house the day before.

That wasn’t the only change to the place. The trunk of the pine tree I remembered so well—because it grew beside the porch roof I used to leap from when escaping my room, or various murderous spooks—was now growing dangerously close to the foundation.

“Slater wasted no time putting the other houses on the block back on the market, I see.” Jesse pointed. There were two men in coveralls hammering signs into the front yards of our former neighbors. Now, instead of warning that the houses were slated for demolition, the signs said:

FOR SALE

SLATER PROPERTIES

CARMEL HILLS EXCLUSIVE

PRICED TO SELL

The only house on the street without a sign in front of it was mine.

“Oh, how nice,” I said. “We’ll have new neighbors.” I didn’t mention out loud my next thought, which was that I hoped I wouldn’t have to mediate any of the non-compliant deceased relatives those new neighbors might bring along. This was always a problem. “Hang on, let me try these.”

I pulled off my second-best pair of boots and tugged on the new ones. They fit perfectly, and of course looked great. The heel was sexily stacked and gave me a lot of height, while at the same time being easy to walk on. When I got out of the car and stood up, my eyes were almost level with Jesse’s.

“Ah,” he said with the lopsided grin. “Now I remember why you liked them so much.”

“Right?” I didn’t have to stand on tiptoe to kiss him on the lips, only tilt my head. His mouth tasted of fresh mint. Whatever he’d been doing since he’d been released from jail, he’d cleaned up nicely. I took him by the hand. “Thank you. Now let’s go see where we’re going to raise our own demon spawn.”