Nights of Her Life: Dawn

"Wait, you're saying you made us fall in love?"

"No, no. Just helped it along a bit. All we did was play a small part. We merely shifted the odds in your favor."

Veronica was more confused than ever, but everything inside her told her the old man was not lying. How could all this be? More importantly the proper question tumbled out of her mouth.

"Why?"

"Ah, a very good question," said the old man sagely.

He paused to brush some lint off his uniform sleeve.

"I was a United States Marine with the first Marine Division during World War II in the Pacific. I saw combat on Guadalcanal and Peleliu islands. On Peleliu, I got wounded. Shrapnel in the chest. As a result of that wound, I was sent home and, eventually discharged from the Marine Corps. I was twenty-seven years old."

"I saw and did things during those battles. It was combat. Savage fights. I saw men die. Some of them were men I killed. When I got back to the United States, I just couldn't get those things out of my head. They were scars on my soul. I spent a lot of time alone and drifted around as I tried to find some kind of peace. Some part of me wasn't sure I could go on living with the memories. I was lost; you see?"

"Then one day I met a woman. She was twenty-five and had a two-year-old toddler in tow. She was from England and her husband had been a paratrooper who got killed fighting in Europe during World War II. Operation Market Garden, I think. She didn't talk much about him except to say that she regretted that she had only married him before he shipped out because she was pregnant. She didn't want to be a single mother. Back then it was a major scandal, you see."

"Anyway, she came to the United States to live with an aunt and try and get a fresh start. I met her at a USO dance."

The old man's eyes sparkled.

"I fell in love with her the first time I laid eyes on her, and in her arms I found that little bit of peace I was looking for. With her love I was able to leave the war behind me and start a new life. Her love healed the scars on my soul."

"A year later we were married and I adopted her daughter as my own. She had the cutest accent, my oldest daughter. When she first called me "daddy" it was the sweetest thing my ears ever heard. I was her daddy and she was my grand little girl. We bought a home and had two more children, two boys. My daughter grew up and married an engineer from Detroit, Michigan and had four children of her own."

The old man looked deeply at Veronica.

"My daughter's name was, well, you already know. Don't you?"

"Oh, my ..."

"Yes. You were named for her. You're so much like her. Your heart is so full of love to give, just like hers."

Veronica felt tears on her cheeks and put her hands over your mouth.

"That would make you my ..."

The old man's eyes glittered mirthfully.

"I knew you'd be a clever one."

"But you're ...."

"Dead? Ah, yes. Yes, in one sense of that word, yes very much so. But there is another force at work in the world, my dear. A force much bigger than anything you can possibly imagine. And by the grace of that force, we were sent to help you and Jacob find each other, and, just maybe, well we'll see; won't we?"

The old man winked at her again.

"And because this was a very special, errrm, mission, I was allowed this time with you. Normally that isn't done, you see, but in this case an exception was made. My only regret is that when I leave, you won't remember this meeting. But that's OK. Your memories of meeting Jacob will be restored in its place and it will all make more sense to you."

"Why?"

"For the only reason that matters, my dear."

The old man let that statement hang in the air while Veronica tried to process everything. But he did not wait for her to wrap her head around it. With that said the old man dug into his pocket with a gloved hand and pulled out a pocket watch. He snapped open the lid and glanced at the time then snapped it closed again and restored it to his pocket.

"I'm afraid our time is up, my dear. I have to go."

As the old man struggled to get to his feet, Veronica rose too. Questions swirled in her mind.

"Wait, where are you going?"

The old man looked up at her as he replaced his hat on his head. He gave her a brilliant smile and a gentle shake of the head.

"You wouldn't really understand. Besides, you've got a lot of things to do here before you find out. You've got a great, grand life ahead of you and all you have to do now is go get it."

"Where is Jacob? He texted he would meet me at six o'clock."

"Ah that. Well, he did text you, but he texted 6:30 AM, not 6:00 AM."

"He texted six."

The old man smirked at her mischievously.

"You might want to check that."

Veronica opened her text messages and found the one from Jacob. Sure enough it read 6:30 AM. The old man peeked down at it and then smirked again. Veronica looked up in disbelief.

"I swear it said six," she gasped incredulously.

"Imagine that."

He fixed his sea green eyes on Veronica and smiled broadly and then he put out his hand to her. Veronica started to reach and then balked.

"It's OK, my dear. I have my gloves on."

Veronica took his offered hand and the old man cautiously bent at the waist and kissed her gently on the knuckles. Veronica felt a warm glow enter her hand where he had kissed her that spread up through her heart. She felt like she had been in a dark room and then someone let up the shade and let the sun in and she gasped in surprise.

"Dazzling, isn't it? It's the only magic there is in the world, my dear. Because it found me and saved me, you are here in this very moment. You have found it with Jacob. Never ever let it go. Now go with him, fill your lives with it and then pass it on."

And when he straightened up the old man was gone. In his place stood a young man, twenty-seven years old in the bloom of his youth, with a ramrod straight bearing and dashing blonde hair and gleaming sea green eyes. Neatly he tucked the cane under one arm and tilted his hat at a jaunty angle. What had been the wilted white rose in his hand was a fresh as the day it was clipped.

"Oh, my ...."

The young man winked.

"I have to go. Jacob will be along soon."

"Where?"

"He's just up that way. If you stand here for a bit, he'll run down here to you. However, if you want to ...."

The young man gestured up the path in the direction he had come from.

"Goodbye, my dear."

Veronica watched the young man turn smartly and start off down the path. Then something snapped into place in her head.

"Wait!"

The young man turned back.

"Yes?"

"You kept saying "we". Who is "we"?"

The young man smiled beautifully.

"I knew you'd be a clever one. That's who I'm going to meet, my dear."

The young man raised the rose in his hand and winked.

"The voice!"

"Yes, indeed. That was her."

"So that was my ...?"

The young man raised a gloved hand and waved a finger back and forth.

"No, no. No more questions. Our time is up, but she and I have a final message for you."

The young man paused and looked into Veronica's eyes. The young man's eyes sparkled moist for a moment and shone like starlight on the sea.

"We love you very much."

With that the young man did a pivot turn and marched smartly off down the walking path in time with the Marine Corps Hymn which he whistled. In a few steps the mist swallowed him up, but the sound of his feet and his whistle trailed behind and Veronica listened until they faded from hearing. A whirl of questions flooded her mind, but the only one that mattered kept coming to the surface.

Was it real?

What just happened?

Suddenly she couldn't remember what just happened. It was like a shadow out of the corner of her eye that she glimpsed, but disappeared when she turned to look at it. What was it?

As she struggled to remember, she realized that dawn had just broken over the trees. The early tendrils of sunlight reached down through the mist to her, warming her skin like the feeling in her heart and then one thought fixed firmly in her mind.

"I love Jacob and Jacob loves me."

With that she turned and sprinted as fast as she could up the path towards where she hoped Jacob was. She ran as fast as she could, but to her it felt like her feet were fixed in cement. She could not get to him fast enough. All the while she yelled ahead of her into the faded mist.

"Jacob!"

Veronica ran uphill and shortly her lungs began to burn with the effort, but she didn't dare slow down. She had to find Jacob as fast as she could! Suddenly she heard someone's footsteps jogging towards her on the path and intuitively she knew it was him. The mist was burning off, but stubbornly holding on to the ground in spots. She had thought she was running as fast as she could, but at the sound of heard Jacob's footsteps on the gravel path and his heavy breathing somehow she managed to run even faster.

"Jacob!"

"Veronica?"

Just then the mist was gone and she saw him standing there just up the path looking confused. Her heart throbbed.

"Jacob!"

Without hesitating she ran to him, threw her arms around his neck and wrapped her legs around his waist. He staggered a bit as he adjusted to support both of their body weight, but then he regained his balance and his arms wrapped around her. Veronica began to kiss his face repeatedly, as if he had been gone and returned and she thought she'd never see him again. Between deep breaths and kisses she found her voice.

"I love you, Jacob!"

Veronica thought she felt Jacob seem to lose his balance again, but he quickly reset himself and squeezed her tight.

"I love you! I love you; I love you; I love you and I'm never going to let you go! Never! I want to spend the rest my life telling you that I love you over and over and over again!"

Jacob's mouth opened but before he could say anything Veronica kissed him. After a moment she pulled back.

"I love you," she said to him through a broad grin. "I love you."

Jacob's face worked and he teared up a bit. Then he nodded and a peaceful and joyful look came on his face.

"I love you, Veronica."

Veronica felt her heart go "boom" and she kissed Jacob again, boldly and fiercely. When their lips touched, she felt the warm glow that she had felt when the young marine had kissed her hand pass from her to Jacob and then return to her from Jacob. She felt elation like she had never know, but the thing that excited her most was that she knew Jacob shared and returned those feelings to her and with her. She pulled back from their kiss and smiled at him as happily as she could convey.

"I told you to meet me at the park bench at 6:30," Jacob teased lightly with a smile.

"Some things are too important to wait."

Jacob nodded and Veronica put her feet on the ground again. She stood there smiling up at him like the sun and she didn't notice that the world was coming awake and that other people were beginning to walk past them on the path. It didn't matter though. This was her magic romantic moment with Jacob and the whole world was outside the bubble their love created. Jacob smiled back at her.

"How would you like to meet Enkidu?"

"I thought you'd never ask."

Jacob offered Veronica his hand and they started up the path towards Jacob's home. Behind them, unseen by anyone, a young couple watched them go; a young marine and a buxom woman in a white dress and sun hat. After Veronica and Jacob passed from sight, the young marine turned to the woman.

"Shall we, my dear?"

The woman smiled and accepted a fresh, crisp white rose from him, carefully so as not to stick herself with the thorns.

"They make a lovely couple."

"Yes, our great-great-grandchildren will be beautiful."

They watched another moment and then the woman sighed.

"I love you, dearest."

"And I love you, my dear."

Then they turned to each other and smiled and then the young marine removed his hat and planted a gentle kiss on the lips of the woman. Then, like the mist, they melted away and were gone.

Jacob's apartment was pretty much like everything else Veronica knew of Jacob; orderly and elegantly understated. It was a studio with hardwood floors and furnished in stylish earth-tones and Persian rugs. It was neat, comfortable and private with a large library on one wall. It smelled of the sandalwood cologne he favored and Pledge. The East wall was almost entirely made of glass and it looked out from the 10th floor over the city as it woke to greet the new day. While Jacob hung up her jacket, Veronica wandered over to the window to look out. When she passed the sofa, she saw a streak of black fur zip underneath an easy chair. Two emerald green eyes peered at her from under the chair.

"That's Enkidu," said Jacob walking up behind her. "He's really skittish. I found him at a shelter. He was still a kitten, but pretty feral. They think he might have been abused before they caught him. He was living under a dumpster behind a super market."

The unblinking feline green gaze stayed locked on Veronica. Jacob shrugged.

"I don't have a lot of visitors, so he's not used to strangers. It takes him a while to warm up to new people. I had him for two months before he would let me hold him."

Jacob's arms encircled Veronica from behind and she leaned back against him with a sigh. He kissed her ear and she smiled and flinched a bit. As she turned to face him, Jacob reached out to pull the shades closed over the window. Veronica put out a hand to stop him while she unbuttoned her blouse with the other hand.

"Don't. I don't care if anyone sees. I love you. And I want to feel the sun on my skin."

Jacob nodded his assent and removed his own shirt. Message received. One romantic breakfast coming up.

They began with a shower. Jacob insisted as he had been sweating. Secretly, Veronica found the sight and scent of his sweaty body very erotic, but he was intent on cleaning himself and she got to wash his strong back, so she did not mind going along with it. During the shower Jacob began to play with her body and she giggled and squirmed as he rubbed her with the soap and then rinsed it off with his own hands. At some point they started kissing and the mood went from playful exploration to a more urgent contact. Veronica loved the feeling of his warm wet skin against hers as he pressed her against the wet tiles.

After the steamy slow foreplay of the shower, soon they were in his bed. This time their love making had a more relaxed flow to it. Veronica no longer felt any pressure to get started and race for the finish. Instead, they explored each other's bodies with patience and tenderness. It was Veronica that finally brought them around to making love. With the warmth of the morning sun on her shoulders, she sat astride Jacob with her brown hair spilled down her back. Together they moved, slowly and carefully, and their eyes stayed locked on each other.

For a moment Veronica felt nervous and exposed and a little scared. But then a deep look into Jacob's eyes told her that she was safe and she opened herself to the experience. There wasn't any need to be afraid anymore. This was meant to be and she was safe in Jacob's arms. She felt the warm feeling flow between them at every point their bodies touched and it made her smile. She belonged with Jacob and he belonged with her and that made everything easy.

As their bodies merged, Veronica felt a connection with Jacob that she had never felt before and to her it seemed their bodies flowed and interacted on an intuitive level without the need of words. Veronica began to lose herself in the moment and had trouble concentrating on their rhythm. Jacob seemed to sense her struggles and between strokes he deftly rolled them both over, still connected, so that he was on top of her. In response she wrapped her legs around his waist and threw her arms over his shoulders. He gave her a small kiss and then their bodies reset their rhythm and moved together again.

Jacob seemed to know exactly when and where to touch her and how to hold her and which pace to set with her. Before long she felt her orgasm begin to rise between her hips and her muscles all tightened in anticipation. Her moans became more frantic and this time, although still soft and caressing, Jacob increased the pace, pushing Veronica to the brink even faster than she had expected.

"Jacob," She breathed and then pulled his head down to kiss him deeply.

"Jacob. Jacob. Jacob."

Finally, she could no longer contain herself and she gave herself over to the release of the pressure and tension built up in her body. Her back arched and her body surged up against his and forcing him to stop for a brief moment. Then Veronica stared deeply into Jacob's eyes and let out a long guttural howl and her passion flowed out like a thunderclap.

"OH, YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!"

As her body exploded, she felt Jacob strain against her and then his whole body buckled with the force of his own release. Instead of a scream, Jacob's voice came to her as a gentle whisper.

"Veronica. My love, Veronica."

For a few moments they were locked in place as their bodies spent themselves. And then slowly Veronica lowered her hips to the bed, pulling Jacob's spent form down to rest on her. Both of them glistened with sex and sweat and they spent a few moments just kissing and enjoying the tingle sensations they both felt as their lips touched. After a few moments of tangled limbs, they both looked at each other and began to giggle.

"I love you, Veronica."

Veronica beamed at Jacob.

"I love you too, Jacob."

Later that morning they both sat at the kitchen table eating toast with blackberry jelly. Jacob loaned Veronica his pajama tops and wore the bottoms himself. Veronica was surprised by how hungry she was and, without a hint of self-consciousness, wolfed down two pieces of toast with jelly and two glasses of orange juice. Jacob watched her eat and, as she finished her second piece of toast, he quietly slipped another piece of toast from his plate onto her plate. Veronica's breath caught when he did that, and she ate the third piece gratefully with only a few tears. Jacob wiped them from her cheeks with a wink.

After breakfast they made love again. This time Veronica noticed her orgasm, while not as intense physically, was a more emotionally fulfilling experience. For the first time in her life not only her body, but her emotions and mind felt satisfied when it was over. With their bodies spent they lay together on their backs. Jacob's arm was around Veronica while Veronica idly tugged at the hair on Jacob's arm and rested her head securely on his shoulder.

"I, um, I guess you know what happened."

Veronica turned to look at Jacob. Not knowing what to say, she kept quiet.

"Cassidy told me she told you."

Veronica rolled in his arms and rested her chin on his chest so she could look in his eyes. In his eyes she saw a little of the pain and embarrassment she had seen the other day in her apartment. This time, Veronica was ready for it and knew how to handle it.

"Yes, she did."

Jacob started to say something else, but Veronica put her finger on his lips.

"It's OK. I love you."

Jacob tilted his head away from her and his eyes darted.

"I've never told anyone. I don't know how to start."

Veronica reached up and put a slim finger on his chin and gently turned his head to her.

"You have all the time in the world. Whenever you're ready, I'm here."

Jacob seemed to consider for a moment and then nodded once. His eyes were a little damp. Veronica got a vision of Jacob as an eleven-year-old boy with the weight of the world on his shoulders and felt her own heart surge with sympathy. She gave him a gentle kiss on the chest.

"I want to know all about your scars, and I can make them better," she whispered to him. "Remember what I told you. I'm magical like that."