When I called her baby.
I was really telling her I loved her.
So, so much.
She was the mother of my child. The keeper of my heart and guardian of my soul, and if that didn’t make her my baby, my wife...then I would die never knowing the meaning of what did.
Estelle threw herself onto my chest, her tears tickling my naked skin. I swore my flesh incinerated those salty droplets like a hot tin roof in a summer’s rain.
“I can’t. I can’t leave you.”
“You have to.”
“No!”
I wanted so much to hug her but every inch of me screamed with pain. The most I could do was lay my hand on her head. “Baby, you must. She needs you. She has Coco. What if they’re dying? Would you let them go over me?”
She stilled.
Don’t answer that.
I didn’t want the curse of making her verbally admit that somehow, through all my sins and failures, I’d done enough good to deserve her love over any other thing...including our own daughter.
It wasn’t right.
It wasn’t going to happen.
My voice tinged with anger. “Estelle, go to our children.”
Her shoulders wracked with sobs.
Her hands clutched me harder.
“Go.”
“No! I won’t leave you.”
Tangling my hands in her hair, I pulled her eyes to mine. “You don’t understand.” Tears filled my own gaze, wavering her beautiful face. “I’m leaving you. And you can’t abandon them when I’ve already abandoned you.”
“Don’t say that! Take it back. God, please...take it back.”
For a moment, I swore my heart stopped, as if testing to see how ready I was to die.
I wasn’t ready.
I would never be ready.
But Conner would be there. We’d find each other again. I’d see my mother. And who knew...maybe even my father if he’d died of heartbreak after almost four years of me missing.
Will she die of heartbreak?
Fear electrocuted my nervous system, giving me a few more minutes. “Estelle.” Her name became my rosary beads for my final prayer. “Promise me, you’ll look after them. No matter what happens. Promise me, you won’t give up.”
Her sobs quietened as she slowly, terribly, scooped up her grief and tucked it back into her soul. “You’re truly leaving me.”
I wished I could say any other word than “Yes...”
I tensed against another refusal, but this time...she accepted. Curtains swished across her eyes, blocking out life-light. The steely acknowledgement and power she’d always had blanketed her sorrow and weakness.
I’d fallen in love with this woman because of her many facets and capabilities. I’d loved her every way a man could love his girl. And now, I had to commit the most cardinal sin of all...leave her behind.
Death was a divorce. The most bitter, awful divorce.
Pippa screamed again. Louder. Stronger.
And that was the end.
Estelle bent over me, her eyes locking onto mine, giving me an anchor to return to time and time again as a ghost once my immortal soul was free.
Her lips sought mine, neither moving nor kissing. Just breathing and loving and reliving everything we’d been through, every year we’d loved, every night we’d slept, every day we’d lived.
And then, she was gone.
She flew to her feet.
She vanished into the forest.
And I closed my eyes for the final time.
Chapter Sixty-One
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E S T E L L E
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“PIPPA!”
Don’t think.
Don’t think.
Don’t remember.
My fists couldn’t stop clenching, shaking, shuddering. My heart couldn’t find its normal rhythm as I left it with Galloway as he lay dying alone on our beach.
Alone.
He’s all alone.
He’s left me.
The shards of my soul clinked like shattered porcelain, rattling in my hollow, hollow chest.
“Stel! Help!”
Pippa’s voice helped me focus. I’d made a promise. Galloway had left me. But Pippa and Coconut would not.
I forbid it.
A man’s baritone echoed through the trees as I charged toward my daughters.
A man?
That wasn’t possible.
Unless Galloway had died and his ghost now haunted me.
Haunt me forever.
Never leave me.
If I could only have him in plasma form, I would take it. I was greedy enough to stay in love with a hallucination.
Coco’s cries turned to screams as another man’s voice rose.
My feet switched from running to tearing and I burst through the palms and flaxes right onto a scene I never thought would come true.
My daughters.
In the arms of two men.
Strange men.
On our island of only five.
Conner.
Galloway.
Three.
On our island of only three.
The man fighting with Pippa looked up. His startled green eyes bugged and everyone froze.
The man holding Coco mimicked our standoff, looking at his colleague, dressed in the same grey slacks and shirt with a royal blue wave on the breast pocket.
My attention to detail went into overdrive.
I noticed e..ve..ry..thing.
I observed the sweat on their temples.
I saw the crinkles around their eyes.
I counted every strand on their dirty blond heads.
I catalogued their similar jawlines and aquiline noses.