Treasure Me (One Night with Sole Regret #10)
Olivia Cunning
Prologue
Kellen watched the heart monitor, his own heart skipping a beat when Sara’s pulse rate unexpectedly jumped dozens of points at once.
He turned his head to look at her and found her brilliant blue eyes open and fixed on him for the first time in days. Her eyes were the only part of her recognizable. Her face had hollowed, lips gone as pale as the sallow skin surrounding them. Her long blond hair had fallen out months ago. But her eyes, her eyes were always the same, even though the morphine keeping her comfortable made them glassy.
“Sara.” Her name erupted as a broken whisper.
“How long have you been sitting there?” she asked. Even her voice was foreign—tired and weak and hoarse—when it had once been so vibrant and passionate, especially when she shared her ardent opinions.
Kellen had been sitting at her bedside for days. Maybe a full week by now—he couldn’t be sure. “It doesn’t matter. How are you feeling?”
“Tired,” she whispered, and her eyelids fluttered. Her wince of pain had his gaze darting to her IV bags to make sure her morphine drip hadn’t gone empty. “It’s almost time for me to go.”
He chuckled and squeezed her frail hand. “You still have a lot more healing to do before they let you out of this place.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Her eyes opened once more and fixed on his. “I’m not getting better.”
He knew that. The doctors knew that. All their friends and family knew she would never leave the sterile hospital alive, but no one ever said it aloud because reality was too fucking depressing to comprehend, much less put into words.
Kellen leaned in to kiss her cheek, the salt of her tears teasing his tongue. It took him a moment to realize that he was the one crying, not her. She’d always been stronger than him.
Her hand moved as if she wanted to touch him, but she gave up the effort after a few seconds. “After I’m gone—”
“No.” If they admitted she was going to die, if they said the words, he’d lose his grip on the thin threads of hope he so desperately clung to. Hope was the only thing he had left. He couldn’t lose that as well.
“Kelly, please listen. I don’t have the strength to argue. I barely have enough to speak.”
“Then stop,” he said. “Save your strength for living.”
“After I’m gone . . .”
He tried to cut her off again, but his throat had closed with anguish, and he couldn’t get another word out.
“. . . I want you to find someone to love you as much as I do.”
He shook his head. “I promised you I’d love you forever, Sara.” He gathered her hand between his, mindful of the IVs pumping fluids and pain relievers and who the hell knew what else into her wasted body. He kissed her knuckles and pressed them to his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’ll never break my promises to you. Never.”
He’d made many promises to her, and each was deeply carved into his aching heart. Her life might lack permanence, but those promises could be eternal.
“You have to.” He shook his head, but she continued. “I’ll haunt you if you don’t.”
Her soft laugh fluttered through his chest and stole his breath. Oh, how she used to laugh. He should have cherished every one of them when he’d had the opportunity.
“Then you’ll just have to haunt me,” he said, lifting his head to stare into her eyes. “When I said forever, I meant forever. I’ll love you forever, Sara, whether you’re here with me or not.”
“You’re too young to not love again. Too passionate not to share that with another. Promise me you’ll find someone.”
He swallowed and shook his head again. He’d made a lot of promises to Sara in the few short years they’d had together, but replacing her was one he couldn’t make.
“Stubborn,” she said, closing her eyes with a shallow sigh.
It was the last word she ever said to him.
Chapter One
Kellen rubbed at the borrowed watch around his wrist, watching the motion so he’d keep his eyes off the pretty blonde near the back of the bus.
Sara had been haunting Kellen for five years now. Apparently she was better at keeping her promises than he was at keeping his. Even now, when he’d found a woman who might be worth the torment of his soul, Sara watched him. Well, Lindsey—not Sara, he reminded himself for the umpteenth time—was actually watching Owen at the moment, but Kellen could feel Sara’s disdain chewing at his insides.
You broke your promise to me, Kellen. You did it with another woman.
It. Oh, he’d done it all right, and he’d like to do it again, but he wasn’t sure he was capable. Not with her voice flitting through his conscience.
His conscience wasn’t giving him grief about Lindsey. The down-on-her-luck groupie wasn’t carrying Kellen’s child. That was one benefit of being abstinent all those years; no surprise babies showing up on his tour-bus step. His conscience was talking about someone else. Someone spectacular and exciting and . . . well, perfect. He’d done it with a woman he’d just met. A woman who was sitting right beside him. A woman who should have heeded his warning and run far, far away from his messed-up emotional ties. A woman, unlike Sara, who wouldn’t be embarrassed to call it sex or making love or maybe even fucking.
And he was convinced that his broken promise to Sara was why Lindsey was there. He knew in his soul that Sara was there to torment him through Lindsey. Lindsey, so obviously pregnant and resembling Sara so closely . . . He couldn’t even look at her without guilt tearing into his gut.
Any rational man would know that the beautiful young woman couldn’t be a reincarnation of his lost love. Lindsey couldn’t have been born more than a few years after Sara. So even if he had believed in reincarnation, Lindsey couldn’t possibly be his Sara reborn. But Kellen wasn’t feeling rational at the moment. What man could be rational when trapped on a tour bus with the ghost he’d slighted?
Lindsey coughed, and his eyes automatically sought her. A mistake.