He sunk into the chair, still soaking up the atmosphere of Sara-Kate’s secret garden. Anyone could be happy living here. He could be happy living here forever, if such a thing as forever was possible. It sounded so crazy to even think such a thing. No one lived forever. Yet, for some odd reason, after his accident and arrival at Sara-Kate’s home, anything felt possible.
He wondered when she would expect him to leave, and would she care to remain in contact with him? It had been so long since he cared about anyone like he did Sara-Kate, even though their time together thus far was short. Now that he was well into his thirties, he felt the need to hold on to this relationship, even though just a few days earlier he was more or less a confirmed bachelor, content to be on his own.
His thoughts broke up when she appeared with a breakfast tray.
“Cinnamon brioche French toast, butter, syrup, bacon,” she said placing the dish in front of him. “And coffee, of course.” She shook out a linen napkin, and laid in over his lap. “If you need anything else, I will be in the sun porch working.”
As she turned to go, he seized the opportunity to take her hand, and she turned back to him.
“Sara, this is just...too wonderful. Please don’t feel you have to go through so much trouble for me.”
“Well, the bread maker did most of the work. But actually, I enjoy cooking, I enjoy having you here.”
Then she did something that totally shocked him in the most amazing way. She bent down and kissed him. Her perfect pale, pink lips soft and moist on his own. Her ponytail caressed his cheek. Just as he reached for her waist to pull her closer, she backed away, leaving his senses reeling. How could a simple, closed mouth kiss affect him so?
Because it was her.
It was Sara-Kate, a woman who was totally unlike any other woman he ever met.
For the next half hour, his thoughts were consumed with Sara-Kate. Not just her kiss, but the totality of her. What she was. An angel. But if an angel is what she truly was, didn’t that mean he was dead?
The thought was troubling. This wasn’t death. This was life.
Having breakfast in a beautiful garden, and all around him, birds tweeting happily in trees. The sky above blue, with a few fat clouds passing by. If he died in the accident, where was the bright tunnel of light he read about? Where were his smiling, departed relatives welcoming him to the afterlife? No, he thought lifting the coffee cup to his lips. He wasn’t dead, that wasn’t possible. He was just...infatuated with Sara-Kate. No, that wasn’t accurate either. He was somehow full blown in love with her.
He lifted his pen, and tried to force his thoughts to his writing. To begin a new book was what he needed to distract him. Another half hour passed, and he stared at the blank page in front of him, the blue lines swimming before his eyes.
Then an idea came to him. Maybe, just maybe he knew how he could prolong his time with Sara-Kate.
CHAPTER THREE
As Sara-Kate printed off the day’s orders, she still felt the rush of her actions.
The kiss.
What made her so bold after all of these years to initiate her kiss with Reed? Just his presence was changing her. From his arrival after his death, to that first night she held him in her arms in bed and comforted him with her touch and kiss, to her taking the initiative to kiss him this morning.
Not that he resisted.
She knew he was more than willing to kiss her all morning, all day...perhaps even longer.
When she was alive all of those years ago and engaged to James, she never dared to be so bold. James always initiated their kisses, which when compared to Reed, were nothing more than a few limp pecks to her lips.
James.
He was someone she needed to keep far from her mind, to keep barriers erected around herself at all times.
For her own safely.
He was one of the reasons—but not the only one—her afterlife was never smooth. Someday she would forgive him for his betrayal after her death. Or maybe it was just her own anger and pain that continued to linger, and not really a betrayal after all. James was now in his own hell...literally. She would never let herself get close enough to him in this life to get pulled into that hell. James, she knew, was not the same man she was once engaged to, who she was once was in love with.
She exhaled a deep sigh. Reed’s appearance in her life was unleashing a flood of memories of her own past life and death. While he was more than welcome in her life, her past life was not.
It was time to get to work. Soap needed to be cut and wrapped. Orders needed to be filled. If there was time, candles needed poured. Every item she made was time consuming. She couldn’t make them fast enough to keep them in stock, and the holidays would soon be upon her, doubling, maybe even tripling her required stock.
She reached for a tray of rose scented soap. Closing her eyes, she held her hands a few inches above the tray, and imparted healing and happiness from her fingertips.
Her secret own ingredient in her creations.
The little reward to each of her customers they could never explain, yet came back for time and time again, and then referred their friends and families to her little business.
The sound of the door to the sun porch opened and she startled, her eyelids flying open.
Reed stood in the doorway.
Unconsciously, she laid a hand over her furiously beating heart, unbalanced by his catching her infusing the soap with her gifts.
“Reed, you scared me.” She said the first thing that came to mind.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you like
