Happily Evan After Read online

  Happily

  Evan

  After

  FALL FOR YOU BOOK 1

  FLEUR SMITH

  COPYright

  Copyright © 2014 by Michelle Irwin writing as Fleur Smith

  First Edition December 2014

  Second Edition January 2018

  Published in Australia

  Digital ISBN: 978-0-9941746-0-4

  Also available in paperback:

  Print ISBN: 978-0-9941746-1-1

  Cover Artist: Marissa at Cover me Darling

  Cover content used for illustrative purposes only, and any person depicted is a model.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to an actual person, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental. The following story is set in the USA and therefore has been written in US English. The spelling and usage reflect that.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and for all other inquiries, contact:

  Michelle Irwin P O Box 671 MORAYFIELD QLD 4506 AUSTRALIA

  www.fleursmith.com

  [email protected]

  CHAPTER ONE

  There was nothing quite as wonderful as watching requited love blossom.

  At least that was the primary thought that ran through Evan’s mind as he waited for the wedding to start.

  Over the course of his tour of duty, Evan had witnessed many different nuptials; each one as different as it was the same. Around the turn of the twenty-first century, the variance between celebrations had grown wider than ever before—ranging from bikinis on the beach to million-dollar affairs. This particular event was certainly one of the latter. It had set the bride’s parents back a pretty penny, plus a few million ugly ones.

  None of that pomp mattered to Evan though. For him the where and what didn’t matter as much as the why.

  He wasn’t there for the preening and perfection. The motives behind his attendance were much purer than that—to celebrate the love of the couple. After all, he was invested in it. Had been since the beginning of their relationship. In fact, he’d played a significant part in bringing them together. Of course, they’d never thank him for what he’d done. They’d never even know he’d been there because he’d performed his task so perfectly. The ways he’d interfered to unite them would only be known to him. It was easier that way.

  The music that had played as the bridesmaids—all seven of them—walked down the aisle, swelled into a crescendo. The doors opened once last time to reveal the bride to the waiting congregation.

  Unlike everyone else, Evan didn’t turn to look at her.

  Not yet.

  There was something much more important to witness in that moment: the sight of the groom's face. The perfect moment when he saw his picturesque bride in all her made-up and coiffed glory. That expression was all the payment Evan needed for his hard work in bringing the couple together.

  Almost all the payment he needed.

  In truth, there was one other form of compensation he needed. One that neither the bride nor groom would miss, or even know he’d taken. An energy that he would be able to draw on for the rest of their lives.

  Standing as the bride neared him, Evan touched his fingertips to her shoulder in a feather-light caress. He closed his eyes for a second and enjoyed the rush. Her already increased heartbeat sped faster still in response to his presence. Evan absorbed, doubled, and passed the surge of love back to her through his fingertips.

  Over time, he had come to appreciate how wonderful the union between his matches was, but the human aspect of the pairing could never compare to this element of the job. The main payoff. It was what he enjoyed most about weddings, but also the part of his new life he’d first learned to appreciate. Long before he was ever comfortable watching the happy couples speak their vows—something he’d never been able to do himself—he’d experienced the rush even from a distance.

  Those moments of overwhelming joy, like weddings and births, were the only reason he’d spent the last fifty years diligently monitoring the ever-changing list in his mind. Well, a combination of those moments and the fact that he wasn’t sure what the outcome would be if he didn’t follow the list to the letter. After an early taste of what that might be like, he’d decided that he didn’t want to risk it and had been a company man ever since. Over time, he’d become almost zealous in his efforts to match make and get his energy hit. Like a junkie jonesing for his next fix.

  In reality, he didn’t have to be present at the wedding to reap the benefits. He could enjoy the sensations from miles away if he’d wanted to. With proximity though, he amplified the emotions to make the payoff last that much longer.

  Leaving his hand resting on the bride’s shoulder, Evan walked down the aisle at her side. If anyone else in the chapel had been able to see him, they would probably have wondered who the chestnut-haired stranger walking alongside Karen was. Evan was safe from prying eyes though; he’d been sensible enough to remain cloaked while moving beside her.

  Besides, he and Karen were no longer strangers. At least, not from his side of things. He knew her. Probably better than anyone else in the church, even the grinning groom waiting at the other end of the aisle. In fact, he was quite intimately connected with her heart and soul, and knew her most intimate desires. After all, she’d unknowingly whispered them all to Evan twelve months ago when he’d received his assignment to find her perfect match. He had found her soul mate within a week, and brought them together within a month. Their first kiss had been just one of many wonderful experiences they’d unwittingly shared with him.

  Finally, the moment was upon him.

  Evan delighted in the wondrous emotions in the air when Karen’s father pressed the bride’s shaking fingers into her groom’s waiting hand. A pleasure shuddered down his spine and caused his limbs to tremble. He lifted his hand away from Karen so that his quivering fingers didn’t alert her of his presence.

  It was the tender moments like the one he currently shared with Karen and her groom that provided him with sustenance. Love might make the world go around, but it was also what kept cupids like Evan alive—for want of a better word.

  If he was pressed to explain what it was like to taste the emotions of others, Evan would have likened it to a favorite meal after weeks of starvation. At least, he might have, had he still understood the concept of food. That need had been stripped from him when he’d died, and the memory of a well-cooked steak dinner had all but faded completely in the intervening years.

  Although he’d never had any need to explain what the absence of love felt like for him, Evan knew it would have been impossible to explain it to any living soul. It was a little like hunger, but also completely different. In theory, he could survive without love and the associated happy emotions. His body didn’t need like the living did; he could survive without food and oxygen. Even sleep was little more than a way to pass the time if he was bored. He couldn’t die, exactly. Although emotions sustained him, he could go months, maybe even years, without them. So starvation might not have been the best analogy.

  He would survive, but a loveless life was not a fun existence for a cupid.

  No, he wouldn’t die, but he would go wanting.

  He’d be empty.

  He refused to let that happen. Again.

  Far better to enjoy the sensation than let himself suffer. The sweetness o
f the love that filled the room danced on Evan’s tongue and at the back of his throat. It encircled his body and echoed through his heart.

  Blended with that sensation was the bittersweet ache of the father losing a daughter but also gaining a son. The swirl of emotions in the room, from the couple and the family and friends supporting them was pure.

  Mostly.

  It was real and it was wonderful.

  Turning to leave the happy couple to say their vows, Evan closed his eyes and concentrated to allow the name of his next assignment to come.

  Rebecca Lewis.

  He smiled to himself, secretly loving the moment a new name appeared. He would never admit it to anyone, especially not the voiceless, bodiless entities he reported to—the ones that invaded his mind whenever they desired but wouldn’t come to him when he asked—but he was glad he’d been offered this chance at salvation. A darker, much hotter, path might have been his fate otherwise.

  Taking a moment to collect himself once he was outside the church, Evan focused on the new name and felt Rebecca’s lonely heart calling to him from across the distance.

  In that first instant of connection, he learned enough about her to ensure he’d be able to find her: name, age, occupation, and location. Nothing that allowed him to know her though. After all, discovering desires, hopes, and dreams always took more than a brief lock-on to her soul. That took physical contact and the ability to see beyond the lies people told themselves. It could take hours or weeks, depending on the person and how willing they were to open themselves up in order to find love.

  What Evan had learned was that Becca, as she called herself, was a few hundred miles away in Flint, Michigan. She was a medical receptionist who would shortly celebrate her twenty-fifth birthday. It wasn’t nearly enough to start his search for her soul mate, but it was enough to give him something to mull over as he wandered the streets still reveling in the dizzying effects of Karen’s wedding.

  Becca’s current location surprised Evan a little. It was much further than he’d had to travel before. The actual distance didn’t matter. After all, he had his own unique way of travelling. It was just odd that it was so far away. A first for sure.

  Regardless, he knew what he had to do next. He never questioned the names he was given. He couldn’t, even if he’d wanted to. There was no one to ask. All he knew was that if this name was next on his list, it wouldn’t leave until he’d found her a match.

  Until that time, he wouldn’t receive his next fix of energy and the emotions of his other matches would have to sustain him even as they slowly dissipated to the level of comfort found in long-term partnerships. Or worse, turned to heartache when one of the pairings died. A violent shudder raced along his spine at the thought. He knew better than most the agony of losing a loved one—even if he was just a cupid losing one by proxy.

  Spurred into action by the thought of the muted ache that would surge through his body during the absence of love, he refocused his thoughts on Becca. It was a well-practiced technique: fierce concentration on her name would call an image of her face into his mind. He could then use that image to cover the miles in just a few beats of her heart.

  The instant he saw her face though, his eyes shot open and he exhaled in shock.

  That can’t be right.

  Almost seven hundred miles to the west, Becca loaded her camera equipment into her white Mustang before taking a second to wipe the sweat from her brow. Summer was supposed to be ending and yet the day was hotter than any had been in recent weeks.

  Before snapping the trunk shut, she ensured the bag laden with all her camera equipment was secure. The last thing she wanted was for various lenses, a small digital camera, and her favorite camera, a ten-year old film-only Nikon FM3A, to rattle around and smash. As she rounded the car, her mind wandered to the impromptu photo session she’d just had, imagining how the photos she’d just taken might turn out when she was able to find the time to develop the rolls of film she’d finished.

  While the world around her seemed to have almost uniformly moved on, switching to digital cameras and the immediacy they offered, Becca preferred the image quality and intimacy of film photography.

  There was something about being able to use her skills with the camera that made her feel powerful. That perfect image that came from manipulating the settings as she saw fit—bending light, shade, and focus to her will. It was especially wonderful when she managed to combine all the elements together to reproduce the images she envisioned in her mind in the moments before pressing the shutter release and capturing the image forever.

  Although there were a few correcting steps she could take while processing the photos, the reality was that she had only a few precious chances to get each shot just right before it was lost forever. There was no auto-correcting, no multiple takes, no three-hundred photos to get that one perfect shot. After all, the subject could be gone tomorrow, and even with a static object, the lighting conditions, weather, and even the surrounding foliage would never exactly match what she’d encountered at that precise moment. That was why it was so exhilarating for her when all of those factors combined and it just worked.

  Aside from being out capturing nature in her lens, one of her favorite things in the world was that first instant when she opened the door to her dark room. Or basement to most normal people. The slightly acrid, but somehow immensely pleasing, chemical scent of the developing fluids would greet her and welcome her home. That scent never left the room regardless of the time between sessions. It was the smell that called her into the space beyond with the promise of the perfect image.

  There, she would be able to lock herself away and process her black and white prints under the soft red light. Watching the shapes form and images blossom under her loving attention.

  That delay between expectation and result was sometimes frustrating, but it was a vital element of her favored style of photography. It was what made her crazy when the shots failed, but it was also what made her love it. It was impossible to capture that same feeling with digital. Half of her time editing on the computer seemed to be spent deleting images rather than breathing life into them.

  By the time Becca slid onto the red leather seats behind the wheel of her Mustang, she was already daydreaming about tomorrow’s photo shoot. Imagining the compositions of the still-life shots she would take occupied her mind for the majority of the not quite ten-minute drive that would take her from the Sunset Hills Cemetery back to her house on Van Buren Avenue.

  Occasionally, she wished she had someone to talk to about these photo shoots, someone who would take an interest in why she found her particular choice in location fascinating. Instead, she mostly kept it to herself. The few people she’d shared it with thought taking photos in cemeteries was macabre and depressing. Becca could understand that, at least a little, but she found the memory and mystery that shrouded all cemeteries to be inspirational. She loved history, adored singers that were popular long before she’d been born. When she was younger, her mother used to joke that Becca had an old soul.

  While Becca didn’t quite agree with that sentiment herself, she did feel more at home at the cemetery than she ever had at any nightclub or party with people her own age. Besides, she often reasoned with herself, her trips, and her photos, weren’t about death. They were about celebrating those who remained. Even when the photos were of the graves themselves, she was capturing a slice of someone’s history through the lens. The short messages of love inscribed on memorials made her feel connected to all those people who’d come before.

  Sunset Hills was a particular favorite of hers, partly because a few of her family members were laid to rest in the grounds, four of them side by side, and she liked to visit them. Usually her trips ended with her at their side, talking to them like they were still around.

  Aside from her familial connection, it was the lush lawns, colorful blooms, and quiet serenity of that particular cemetery that made it one of her particular favorites to vi
sit. Although she didn’t know the names of most of the flowers in the gardens, she could point to the ones that were most striking in black and white and which could only be truly captured in color.

  She also knew the places to stand in order to get the best photos of the old man who came once a week to visit his wife. Becca realized she probably shouldn’t take his photo without permission, but her photography was a hobby, not a profession. Something about him compelled her to snap image after image, week after week. She wasn’t capturing his image to share with the world, but because there was an expression he wore while visiting the resting place of what must have been his great love, that captivated her. There was sorrow, but overwhelming it was another emotion which proved enigmatic to identify. She thought it was best named reminiscence, but maybe devotion or even undying love would have been better words.

  Pulling the car onto her driveway, Becca’s mind turned away from her photography and onto her next shift at McLaren Hospital, which was due to start in a little over an hour. Working out her schedule for the rest of the afternoon, she decided she would be able to process the results of yesterday’s shoot, but she’d have to watch her time in the dark room carefully or she’d end up late. Again.

  She wasn’t sure how many more late starts her bosses would accommodate. Her job as a medical receptionist paid the bills and offered her some purpose, but she’d lost her passion a while ago. Some days it was as wonderful as it was frustrating, most days it was just the latter. In theory, being part of a system that was designed to help people in their most desperate times should have given her almost as much satisfaction as looking at the world through the lens, but dealing with paperwork, families, and sometimes the patients themselves, tested her tolerance levels almost daily.

  She pulled up into the garage. When she saw the boxes that were still piled high on shelves along the back wall, she felt a stab of guilt. She really needed to deal with them, sort out what was important and needed to be kept versus what was just a result of her nana’s hoarding ability. With a sigh, she told herself the same thing she’d been saying for years. I’ll get onto that one day.