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"Hurry," she whispered as the plane wobbled to a touchdown. "Hurry," she demanded as the surprised gentleman who was on duty in the tin hangar handed over the keys to his Jeep after she'd shoved a one-hundred-dollar bill under his nose. "Hurry," she pleaded, as she jammed her foot to the floor and urged the Jeep to speeds undreamed of by its maker.
But it had all been for nothing.
She knew it as soon as she barreled through the gates and whipped the Jeep up the drive towards the house. She had arrived too late. She knew it with a sense of dread as cold and heavy as the fog that was rolling in from the sea.
A pair of huge bulldozers stood where there had once been a garden. And all that remained of Charon's Crossing was a heap of dusty stone.
Kathryn stopped the Jeep and lifted her hand to her mouth. Her eyes filled with tears as she climbed from the Jeep and walked slowly towards the chalky rubble. There were men working nearby. They looked up as she approached, their faces curious.
"Lady?" one called. "Lady, hey, watch your step, okay?"
Kathryn didn't hear him. She couldn't see anything but the terrible ruin of what had once been a proud house where love had flourished.
"Matthew," she whispered, "my love, how could I have doubted? How could I have abandoned..."
Her breath caught in her throat.
A man emerged from the fog. He was tall and broad-shouldered, and the sea breeze blew his shoulder-length fair hair back from his sculpted face. He was wearing... "Oh God!"...he was wearing a T-shirt with a sailboat emblazoned across the chest, faded Levi's and, incongruously enough, a pair of knee-high black leather boots.
"Matthew?" Kathryn's sobs turned to laughter. "Matthew?"
He smiled and opened his arms, and she cried out his name again and flew to him.
He held her for long, long moments, his heart thudding against hers, his tears mingling with her tears, and then he kissed her.
"Kathryn," he whispered, "Kathryn, my beloved."
She drew back in his embrace, clasped his face in her hands and searched his eyes with hers.
"Are you really here?"
He laughed. "Aye, sweetheart. I am really here, and so are you."
"But I thought... the house burned..."
He nodded. "It did, yes."
"Then, how did you escape?"
"It is beyond me to explain. I know only that I awakened in a cold, dark place, more alone than I had ever been, and longing for your arms. And then, one day or perhaps one night, for there was no meaning to time, I heard your sweet voice calling to me."
He drew her close and kissed her again. When the kiss ended, he cupped her face in his hands.
"You must know that I caused the explosion, Kathryn."
"I know." She shuddered. "You should never have done it. We might have lost each other forever."
"Aye." He put his arm around her waist and they began walking away from the ruins of the mansion. "But it was the only way I knew to set you free."
Kathryn leaned her head against his shoulder. "You stubborn man," she said gently, "didn't I tell you that men couldn't make decisions for women anymore?"
He smiled and kissed the top of her head. "I suspect it will take you years to change me, sweetheart."
Suddenly, she stopped and turned towards him.
"I just realized... if Charon's Crossing is gone and you're here, what does it—?"
The blast of a horn drowned out her words. A pickup truck filled with construction workers was trying to edge past the Jeep Kathryn had abandoned in the driveway. The driver leaned out his window and pointed at Matthew.
