Grimm Tidings: Grimm's Circle, Book 6 (9 page)

“My cause?” Jacob turned away. “I have no cause. I was to help her move on. She’s doing that. She’ll be able to settle into the life she has before her. Whatever
cause
you might think I have doesn’t exist.”

“Stubborn bastard, aren’t you?” Will smiled. “But then, you always were. Maybe I’m wrong. I just look at you and see something…new. I haven’t seen it before. At least not with you. If you’ve got a chance to reach out and grab something, Jacob, you should take it. Don’t let it slip away.”

Chapter Seven

When Jacob suddenly appeared, Celine wasn’t surprised.

She was sitting crossed legged in an older section of the cemetery this time, no longer keeping vigil at her normal spot. She’d always loved older cemeteries. Some people found them creepy. She thought they were soothing. There weren’t any ghosts here that could haunt her.

The only ghosts that could do that were actually still alive…and she suspected he’d lost the ability to haunt her in any way.

Her particular ghost, Gavin, still had kept his favorite vigil. Standing over her empty grave. Hands jammed into his pockets, head bowed, eyes locked on the stone.

Staring at him still brought an ache to her chest. It was a dull ache, almost bittersweet, and now, as she stared at him, she found herself thinking about things besides that last night.

For so many months, so many years, that night had tormented her. Now she was able to think past it. Perhaps they had drifted apart.

But there had been good times before that. She needed to remember those times, and stop letting that night hurt so much.

She needed to let go.

“You’d be proud of me,” she said as Jacob sank down to sit beside her.

“Would I?” His tone was careful and measured, almost too careful.

Slipping him a look, she smiled a little. “Yeah. This is the first time I’ve seen him that I wasn’t tempted to let him see me. Even if just for a second.”

“That’s progress, then. Maybe if you can stop coming out here, it would be easier in time.”

Plucking up a dry, brittle blade of winter grass, she shrugged. “I don’t think that’s going to be so hard. I just…I had to come back this time. It’s not finished. Not yet.”

“Not finished?”

“Things. Between me. Him. He’s…” She blew out a breath, looked back to see Gavin still doing the exact same thing. He hadn’t moved, didn’t even seem to breathe. He’d been there, in that exact same position for nearly an hour. “How long until he lets me go?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t looked at his path beyond what might have happened if you’d chosen differently that night. His life isn’t my concern. Yours is.” Jacob continued to stare at Gavin, his cool gaze emotionless. “He has a long time to convince himself that you might still be alive. They found the car. Blood. But without a body…? You aren’t quite ready to give that body up, are you?”

She swallowed. “I don’t think I am.” Sighing, she shifted around, drawing her knees to her chest. “You can see it, right? How things are unfinished? Part of this is because of me. Because I kept coming back. If he can feel me, then I kept giving him a reason to hope. Whether I realized it or not, I gave him a reason. He needs to let me go, so he can move on.” Closing her eyes, she whispered, “I won’t have him spending his life waiting, hoping for something that will never happen. Can you understand that?”

“Better than you would imagine, sweet.” He rested his hand high on her back, close to the nape of her neck. For some inexplicable reason, that touch felt far too intimate. He’d touched her before and it hadn’t affected her quite like that. Even after that kiss.

No. She couldn’t think about that kiss. Especially not after the dream.

It was too comforting to pull away from, though. And she needed it, that steadying touch that told her she wasn’t alone.

“And are you ready to let
him
go?” Jacob asked gently.

Something sad and wistful twisted inside her. “Ready? I don’t think it matters if I’m
ready
or not. It has to happen. But yeah. I’m ready. Guilt isn’t tying me to him the way it’s tying him to me. And I won’t have guilt choking him. I can’t do that to him. No matter how awful things were that last night, no matter how bumpy things were the last few weeks between us, we
were
happy together for a very long time. And he did love me. Whether he was
in
love with me or not, he did love me. I loved him. I want him happy. Part of that means letting him go…and saying good-bye. I need to do that. For both of us.”

Tears burned her eyes but she blinked them back. She’d clung to her grief too much over the years. It was time to let it go.

“How do I make him let me go, Jacob?” Turning her head, she stared at the man at her side, at that aristocratic face, into those powerful, unsettling eyes. He was so close, so close…close enough she could see the darker slashes of near black in that dark gray gaze. Close enough that she could feel the warmth of his body. There was a knot in her throat—she had to clear it twice just to speak. “Is there any way to tell him good-bye? Would he let go then?”

“If he sees you, he’ll never move on.”

“I don’t mean as in me walk up to him.” She made a face. “I don’t know, maybe…shoot. Forget it.”

She went to rise, but the expression on Jacob’s face made her pause. “What?”

“You cannot let him see you. Not awake. But perhaps there is another way.”

“How…” But the second the word escaped her, Celine clapped a hand over her mouth, terrified Gavin had heard her.

Jacob brushed his fingers across her back. “He cannot hear you yet. You have to pull him into your dream, or merge your dreams with his.”

“What do you mean?”

“This is a dream state.” A mockery of a smile twisted his lips. “An extension of my so-called gift. You can use the dreams to bid your good-byes.”

“Dreams?” She looked over her shoulder at him. “What good will that do?”

He stared at her in the shadows of the room she’d shared with her husband. “Don’t underestimate the power of dreams, Celine. Our dreams are where all our hidden fears, our hidden desires, the things we never dare speak of come to light. If you speak to him of those things you were not able to say in life while he dreams, it will set him on the path to healing. That is how he will begin to move on.”

She swallowed and looked back at Gavin’s sleeping form. “You’re certain?”

“As certain as I can be. Dreams have power. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have them.” He slid back into the deeper shadows until she could no longer even make out the glitter of his eyes. “I cannot leave you completely—otherwise you’ll waken. But I can manipulate the dream state without diving into his dreams. Once you make the connection, I’ll simply keep a surface connection with you. That’s the most privacy I can give you.”

Celine nodded.
Dreams have power
… Something niggled in the back of her mind. Something important. But she couldn’t worry about that right now. “My hands are sweating,” she whispered. “If I’m dreaming, how can my hands be sweating?”

“Your dream self is an extension of who you are. You feel in your dream as you feel when you wake. Nerves, fear, anger.”

Lust…
She frowned as that thought drifted through her mind. Then she brushed it off. “What do I do?”

“Think on him. Focus. I’ll handle the rest.” He paused and then in a strangely gruff voice, he added, “It would help if you think on the happier times you had with him. Not the way it ended—don’t let the misery hurt your final moments with him. Think on the way you were before things started to change.”

“The way we were.” She reached up and shoved her hair back behind her ears. “I can do that.”

Blowing out a breath, she moved closer and looked around, finally deciding on the armchair tucked close to the window. He’d bought it for her birthday, a few years after they’d married. She’d wanted to be able to sit by the window and read, someplace where she could see her gardens. She paused there, staring outside. The gardens were still there, still cared for. The sight of it made her sad. “He hates to garden. He shouldn’t do it for me.”

Then she turned back to the bed and settled on the edge of the chair. Closing her eyes, she said, “Okay, Jacob. Do your thing.”

She didn’t know what she was expecting.

But she didn’t
feel
anything…at least not anything different than what she’d felt when Jacob had guided her here in her dreams earlier. But then she realized somebody was staring at her.

And a heartbeat spiked—

Not Jacob. Jacob’s emotions rarely swayed enough for such a mundane,
physical
reaction to take place.

Opening her eyes, she saw Gavin.

He was staring at her as though he’d seen a ghost.

And that was exactly what they wanted him to think.

“Hello, sweetheart.”

Her voice came out oddly disembodied and she supposed that was Jacob’s doing. Just as the way her body didn’t entirely look like hers—or at least not the body she now possessed. She’d slimmed down and muscled up over the past few years. That was what happened when one rarely ate and did nothing but train, fight, train, fight…and sleep on occasion.

A furtive glance in the mirror showed a mostly solid reflection that looked much as she’d looked in the days before her death. As Gavin would likely expect to see her. Jacob’s doing, again.

“Celine?”

She smiled. “Were you expecting the ghost of another wife?” she teased, forcing a light tone, forcing herself to hold his gaze. He had to accept this, had to believe it.

For a long, long moment, he only stared at her. Then he shook his head. “This is just another fucked-up, insane dream.”

“Do you have them a lot?” She studied him, cocking her head. Damn, he looked tired. Tired and worn away by grief and pain.
Oh, baby. You need to let me go.

Swearing, he sat up, kicking his legs over the edge of the bed. “I need a fucking drink.”

As he started to go past her, she reached out and caught his arm. “Drinking isn’t going to help. It’s time to move on.”

Under her touch, he froze.

She stared at his face, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at her hand. And she realized he felt terribly warm under her fingers. Which meant she probably felt very, very cold.

He blinked and swayed a little. “Celine?”

“Yeah. It’s me, baby.” Rising, she tugged on his arm and led him back to the bed, nudged him until he sat down. “Come on. Just sit down. I want to talk.”

“You…are you really here?”

“Yeah.” She tried to smile again, but it fell flat and pain knotted in her throat. This wasn’t supposed to be easy, she supposed. “It’s really me. And I’m really here. About as much I can be here, considering I’m not part of this world anymore.”

And
that
wasn’t a lie.

“What—” He stopped, cleared his throat. “What do you mean, you’re not part of this world anymore?”

“I think you know,” she said gently. “Gavin…I died that night. You know it. Deep inside, you know it. I can tell. It’s time to let go. Move on with your life, okay?”

“Shit.” He spat it out, shoving to his feet. This time, she didn’t stop him, watching as he started to pace. “Move on. Just move on. You say it like we’re moving to Clarksville or something—you’re talking about saying…”

“I’m talking about accepting the truth. About letting me go. And yes…moving on. Hell,
move
out of the house, damn it.” She looked around, staring at the bedroom they’d shared—exactly as it had been. Had he changed anything? She somehow knew the answer was no. “You can’t spend your life like this, baby.”

To her surprise, he sank to the floor, hands braced on it as his shoulders started to shake. “My fault…it’s
my
fault.”

“No.” She came to her feet and knelt beside him. “It’s not. It’s not yours, it’s not mine. It just
is
.”

Leaning in, she wrapped her arms around him and rested her head against his shoulder, staring into the distance. It just was. Nobody was to blame, except those who’d ended her life…and they had already paid the price. The Grimm who’d come upon her that night had seen to that.

That debt was paid—Will and Mandy hadn’t left anybody alive.

“You aren’t to blame for what happened,” she said quietly. “If I’d lived, we would have fought it out and whatever would have happened after that, it would have happened. You would have gone on with your life, and so would I. Now it’s time for you to do the same. Let me go…don’t stop living your life because mine ended.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” he rasped, reaching up and curling one calloused hand over her forearm. “Why should I have a life when you don’t?”

But I do
. She couldn’t point that out to him. He had to accept that the life she’d had was over. “How about because I’m asking you to?” She slid one arm down and pushed his overlong hair back from his face, laid a palm on his cheek. “Things weren’t that great between us in the end, but we had some good years. And I loved you, I still do. I want you happy. I want you to
live
. Find whatever it takes to make you happy and
live
. But you can’t do that while you’re clinging to this guilt.”