Raquel's Abel by Leigh Barbour Read Free Book Online Page A

liked sitting close to him. He had a little boy look about him that I found charming.
    “When I was a child, my mother went in for surgery.” He took his helmet off and ran his fingers around the edges. “She never came back.” He looked down.
    “Your mother?”
    “I was a just a boy and she went to the hospital and…”
    I remembered how I felt when they told me my mother had passed away. “How horrible. What happened to you then?”
    “My uncle, he wasn’t really the type to take care of a child, so he took me to an orphanage.” His eyes darted up to me then back down.
    “So, you thought I wouldn’t come back?”
    He didn’t respond, just kept fingering the rim of his helmet.
    “And your father?”
    “Oh, my father, he was taken by consumption a few years before my mother.”
    “I’m so very sorry.” It was sweet that he’d been worried about me. “I’m touched, I really am.”
    “I shouldn’t have put you through what I did.” He reached his hand over and placed it on top of mine.
    His skin was soft and warm and I felt excitement twitching inside me. He wasn’t a part of this world. He was an apparition. How could I feel this way about him?
    “Please accept my apology.” His eyes opened wide and he looked into mine.
    I thought I would melt. “I can forgive you, but why are you here?”
    He took a deep breath. “The two weeks I stayed in this house were the best days of my life.”
    “The best days of your life?”
    “While I was here, I was happy because I had been assured my mother would be fine. After that I was at the orphanage.” He looked out at the line of trees dividing our estate from the other next door. “My days here were blissful.”
    “When were you here?”
    “During the summer of 1909.”
    “The house was practically new then,” I said more to myself than Abel. “And Granddaddy was a little boy.”
    “Yes, we were fast friends, your grandfather and I.” His eyes became misty. “And after that came the orphanage.”
    I couldn’t have imagined what would have happened to me if my father had died also. “It must have been awful.”
    He tried to turn his frown into a smile but was unsuccessful. “I enlisted as soon as I could and went to Europe.”
    I scanned his uniform for a bullet hole. “Were you shot?”
    “No, I wasn’t that lucky. I got hit with the mustard, didn’t hurt at first, but…” His face shriveled like a prune as if he’d eaten something horribly bitter.
    I remembered reading once why the Geneva Convention outlawed mustard gas. “I’m sorry.”
    He shook his head, making some of his blond strands come loose, one lock falling over his forehead. “It was a long time ago, but then I came here.” He smiled at me.
    “You’ve been in this house since World War I?” He would have witnessed my father’s birth, my parent’s wedding, and even Regina’s and my birth.
    He put his helmet back on and stood up. “I must leave you.”
    “We were just getting to know each other.”
    He looked at me as if he hadn’t heard me. “Again, I apologize for my actions.” He reached down, took my hand, and brought it to his lips.
    I felt the moisture of his mouth and knew he was no simple ghost or figment of my imagination. I wanted to kiss him and be held in his strong arms. I wanted to ask him a thousand questions. “Don’t go.”
    He took a step toward the pool.
    “Tell me about…”
    He evaporated into the early evening.
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Five
     
    I clicked the phone off and slammed it down on the bed.
    According to my agent, surgery wasn’t an option this week. She needed me in her New York office first thing Tuesday morning. I’d argued, but she’d insisted.
    After promising the people at the doctor’s office I wasn’t chickening out, I finally got them to let me reschedule the surgery. There must be a lot of obese people, because this doctor’s dance card was very full stapling people’s stomachs.
    At least it would soon