After a warm shower, Therese lay in her nightshirt in bed with Clifford curled up beside her near her waist. Than said to give herself time to process what he had told her outside the Wildhorse Saloon, but how does one process such information? He’s the god of death? His sisters are the Furies? They’ve come to Earth to avenge her parents’ murder?
She couldn’t sleep, so she took the remote from her nightstand and turned on the television tucked in a small armoire beside her desk. Puffy stopped in his wheel to see what the bright lights were all about. “Sorry,” she said to him. “I know it’s late.” Puffy liked to work in silence and darkness.
Puffy continued on his wheel as she flipped through the channels and finally settled on an old George Lopez episode she had already seen. She tried to distract herself with the humor before her, but her eyes left the television to stare at the light reflecting on the ceiling. This whole business with Than as the god of death couldn’t be real, could it? Had she lost her mind? The death of her parents had taken a toll on her sanity, right? She’d become a deranged lunatic.
The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Clifford’s ears pricked up. Therese was vaguely aware that Puffy had frozen, like a chipmunk in the middle of the road. She and Clifford jumped to their feet at the same instant. Standing across the room in the same pale blue polo and jeans he had worn earlier was Than, the supposed god of death.
Clifford sat back down on his haunches and wagged his stub of a tail.
She didn’t move. “How did you get in?”
Than gave her a wry smile. “I’m a god.”
“Why are you here? Did you decide to take me after all?” She was suddenly not so certain she was ready to go.
“I came to check on you. I was worried.” He moved toward the bed. The smell of cigarette smoke and alcohol lingered in his clothes from the dance hall. “Mind if I sit down for a while?”
Laughter roared on the television, but Therese wasn’t laughing. “I guess not. Go ahead.”
He sat at the foot of her bed, and she returned to the headboard against her pillows by Clifford. She tucked her feet closer to her body to avoid touching him.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to sleep and that you’d have questions, so I decided to come to see if I could help put your mind at ease. I know this is hard for you.”
“You have no idea. How could you?”
His mouth tightened into a frown. “I suppose you’re right. I can’t know how you feel.”
“How can you be here, anyway? Don’t you have a job to do? Is nobody dying while you’re here handling horses?” Her voice had a touch of hostility in it. Then she remembered Dumbo. “Why couldn’t you do anything to save Dumbo?”
He gave her a weak smile. “So I was right. You do have questions.”
“And you haven’t answered any of them,” she said sharply.
“There was nothing I could do about the horse. I’m sorry. I don’t kill living things; I merely guide their souls after they die. I have nothing to do with the timing.”
“Couldn’t you pull some strings?”
“No.” He cleared his throat. “As to your other question, I made a deal with my dad. I told him if he’d make my brother, Hip, take my place as the guide for the dead, I would come to Earth and help my sisters find your parents’ murderer and avenge their deaths. He gave me a time limit because while Hip is doing my job, humans have restless nights without dreams, and Zeus won’t tolerate that for long.”
That explained why she hadn’t been able to reenter the dream lately. “But why would your father care about avenging my parents’ death?”
Than shifted by lifting one bent leg partly on the bed and turning to face her, his back to the television. “My father is a just god and his priority is justice for the souls in his care. When humans fail to find justice for the dead, he and my sisters step in. The lieutenant needs help finding the person who orchestrated your parents’ death. My sisters, Tizzie and Meg, are working on the case. I plan to help as well, but first I wanted to get to know you.”
“Why?”
He moved closer to her on the bed, sending her heart into arrhythmia. “Don’t laugh, okay?”
Laugh at a god? she thought. Yeah, right. “I won’t.”
“My mother may have given me some affection when I was young, but I don’t remember it. The other gods on Mount Olympus rarely visit the Underworld. They only come if they want a favor. They know my job is necessary, and I suppose they’re glad it’s me doing it and not them, especially Hermes who did it before me, but that doesn’t stop them from looking down at me with contempt. And the humans I encounter have already died. They have no love for me.
“But that night I took your parents and you came close to dying yourself, that night you swept down from the sky from out of nowhere and took me into your arms, that night you kissed me, well, that night changed me.”
Therese pulled her knees into her chest with her covers around her. Than moved closer, his face inches from hers. She couldn’t tell if she was frightened or aroused. Maybe she was both.
His mouth seemed to twitch with anxiety. “Before that night, I didn’t know what I was missing, but once you showed me what affection was like, I needed more. So, to be honest, my true motive in coming to Earth was to seek you out.”
Therese couldn’t speak. She didn’t know what to say. She sat there, stunned.
“I knew I wouldn’t kill you—at least, I didn’t think I would. As I’ve said before, you wouldn’t be the same. I don’t think I’d like having a wife with little personality and no freedom.”
“Wife?” Therese whispered.
“Just listen,” he said. “After that day your parents died, I went to my father to see what it would take to make you a god. As a god, you would retain your personality and free will and could live with me in the Underworld unchanged. I reminded my father how he got my mother, Persephone. Are you familiar with that story?”
Therese shook her head. “Vaguely. I don’t recall.” She still hadn’t gotten past the word “wife.”
Than pulled off one of his boots. “Do you mind?”
Like she would deny a god. “Make yourself comfortable,” she murmured.
He pulled off his other boot and then brought both legs straight in front of him on the bed, crossed, stretched over the tan and white comforter nearly to her headboard. Therese shifted over to give him more room, still unable to believe. He didn’t sound like a god. Shouldn’t a god speak differently? In her mind she said, “You sound so human.”
“We’ve been around humans for centuries. Why wouldn’t gods sound like humans?”
Her eyes shot up to his. He could hear her?
He crossed his arms at his chest. “My mom, Persephone, is the daughter of the goddess of the harvest known as Demeter. Technically, she’s Zeus’s sister. The genealogy of the gods is…complicated. Anyway, one day Persephone was walking along with some friends when she was drawn by a cluster of white daffodils. Persephone was picking the daffodils near a cliff edge separated from her friends when my father came riding by in his chariot and swept her up without stopping. He plunged the chariot over the cliff edge into this giant chasm in the earth and took her down with him to the Underworld where he made her marry him and become his wife.”
“That’s so cruel.” She pulled her legs closer to her chest, hugging them with her arms. “Your dad sounds like a jerk.” Did she just say that out loud? To a god? She sucked on her lips. Keep your mouth shut, she said to herself.
“Hades thought if she could just get to know him, she would fall in love with him. See, like me, he had little contact with the other gods, and all the humans he knew were already dead. He was lonely.”
“I don’t think that justifies…”
“I know,” he snapped.
Therese’s eyes widened. Shut up, she said to herself again.
“My grandmother, Demeter, looked all over for Persephone, but no one would tell her the truth because they feared my father. She even disguised herself and came to Earth and lived for a while with a human family, but her misery made the Earth barren, and people and animals were beginning to die along with the vegetation. So my father’s brother, Zeus, decided to take the matter into his own hands and force my father to let Persephone go. By that time, Persephone had grown fond of Hades, but she missed her mother and was anxious to see her. Before Persephone left, my father offered her a pomegranate seed, which is one of the most powerful foods you can eat, as a farewell blessing. She graciously took his offering without knowing it was another trap. By taking his food, Persephone was obligated to return.”
Therese shuddered, still convinced Hades was a jerk.
“Zeus, trying to please everyone, commanded Persephone to live with Hades in the Underworld as his queen for six months out of every year, and the rest of time she could spend on Mount Olympus with her mother, Demeter. That’s why humans have to deal with fall and winter every year: For six months, Demeter sinks into depression and mourns the loss of her daughter. Most of the vegetation dies. Demeter never gets over losing my mom.”
Therese thought of her own parents down in the Underworld, permanently. At least Demeter had the six months each year. Therese would take that deal. She had nothing. She released her knees and sat up crisscrossing her legs. Clifford crawled over into her lap. “What does your mother’s story have to do with me? My parents are already down there. My aunt wasn’t expecting to have to finish raising me. It would be better for everyone if I died, too.”
Than moved along the foot of the bed so that he was lying on his side propped on an elbow, his head resting in his hand. “You know that’s not true.” He gave her a gentle smile. “Your aunt, your friends, and your pets would all miss you.”
“They’d get over it.” She pet Clifford as tears came into her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.
Than reached across the bed and wiped the tears from her face and then lay back on his side. “My brother told me I should come to Earth and have my way with as many girls as I wanted, to sow my wild oats, he said; but that’s not my style. There’s only one girl I’m interested in.”
Therese’s heart sped up. “You can’t really mean me?”
He smiled, apparently amused. “Why not?”
“I’m the first girl you’ve met. How can you be so sure there isn’t someone better? And you hardly know me. And I’m, I’m nothing compared to many girls I know.” She couldn’t believe she had blurted all that out. She felt her face flush red.
“Earlier I said the humans I come into contact with are dead, but I have still seen the living from afar. I have travelled all over the earth and have seen all kinds of people. You are the sweetest, most natural, most vibrant person I have ever observed.” He reached across the bed and touched her hand.
“That’s impossible,” she whispered.
He laughed out loud. “Jen’s right. You’re way too hard on yourself.”
Her eyebrows flew up. Had he listened in on their conversations?
“And you seem to have no clue about your natural abilities.”
“Abilities?”
He laughed again. “The way you communicate with animals, the way you read people’s thoughts, the way you naturally know what to say to make others at ease. You are so full of life and aware of the nature around you. Ironically, you are the exact opposite of the dead I ferry. And that makes you utterly attractive to me in every way.” He leaned in and touched his lips to her cheek. She felt her heart beat erratically and her lungs fill with air which she couldn’t release.
He sat back and smiled shyly at her, and then he frowned with doubt, but she didn’t know what to say. “So, anyway, I reminded my father of his own loneliness before finding my mother and asked him to consider making you a god. He said there is a way.”
“What is it?” Therese asked with enthusiasm. “Please tell me. I want to know.”
His face turned bitter. “It’s not worth doing just to see your parents. I’m telling you, they aren’t the same. They probably won’t remember you.”
She slid on her knees and then lay down on the bed across from him, mimicking his position propped on her elbow. Clifford moved between them. Therese and Than both pet Clifford as she struggled to put into words what she was feeling. “That’s not my only reason,” she finally said in a soft voice. “I want to be with you, too.”
He looked up at her with surprise, but he didn’t seem convinced. “I know you liked me before, but now that you know who I am, you still want to be around me?”
Therese gave him a shy nod.
“I was under the impression you despised me, like everyone else.” His face was full of anguish.
“No. I don’t. I was just frightened.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said.
She stopped petting Clifford to take his hand. It felt big and moist and warm in hers.
He gently squeezed her hand and closed his eyes. “That feels so nice.” Then he jumped from the bed. “Your aunt is coming. I better go. Come early tomorrow.”
He vanished into thin air just as Carol knocked on the bedroom door.
“Can I come in?” Carol asked.
Therese was momentarily jarred. “Um, yes. Come in,” she finally said.
Carol poked her head in the room. “Richard and I are going to bed. I just wanted to say goodnight. I had a good time tonight, and I hope you did, too.”
Therese managed a smile for her aunt’s sake. “I did. I really did.”
“Good. I’ll see you in the morning.” Carol closed the door behind her.
Therese sat up on her bed hoping Than would reappear. When a half hour passed and he still hadn’t come, she turned off the television and tried her best to go to sleep.
Early Thursday morning after toast and eggs, Carol and Richard dropped Therese off in front of the Holts’ place.
“Have fun in Durango,” Therese said as she climbed from the car. A feeling of guilt for leaving Clifford alone in the house made Therese frown, but she knew he’d find ways to entertain himself.
The sun peeked over the forest behind Jen’s. The road was mostly in shade and the morning air was cool, maybe too cool for swimming, she thought. Instead of heading up the drive to the Holts’, she walked across the dirt road and through the grassy field in search of Than. She wore her bathing suit beneath her shorts and tank top in case she felt brave enough to swim with him.
When she reached the lake, she looked for him. She even called his name. A mother duck and her ducklings scurried away from the bank, but there was no sign of Than. Disappointed, she turned away from the water and headed across the tall grass to Jen’s.
She wondered what Than had meant when he had said there was a way to make her a god. She still couldn’t believe he had come to Earth to seek her out. Maybe he had been changed by her affection, but affection could be found from many sources. She still felt like he was settling when he could have someone better.
When Therese approached the pen, she found it empty of people. Ace came to the fence and stretched his yellow-brown neck out to her. “Where is everybody, Ace?”
“You’re early,” Pete called from the barn. “Than and I are just finishing up in here.” He appeared at the barn door, shirtless. Therese stole a cursory glance over his well-formed chest. “Jen, Bobby, and my mom went inside for a short break.” He gave her a big smile as she moved closer.
“You were awesome last night,” she said. “I’m so excited for you.”
He gave her a sweaty hug that smelled of earth and hay. “You’re a sweetheart for saying that.”
Than appeared at the door, tense, as though Pete’s embrace upset him. He also wore no shirt, and she could immediately see there was no comparison. How could you compare a mere man to a god? “Hey, Therese,” he said with reserve in his voice.
“Hi, Than.” She felt shy. “I looked for you at the lake.”
“I was just about to head over there,” he said, brightening. “I need to cool off after all that barn work.”
“That’s a great idea,” Pete said to Than. “Mind if I join you?”
“Not at all, Pete.”
Therese could see the disappointment in Than’s face, and she herself felt let down. She was anxious to find out how she could become a god. “I’ll just come along and watch you guys from the bank. I’m not hot enough to get in that cold water yet.”
“Believe me, you’re hot enough,” Pete teased.
Therese felt her face flush red and could make no reply.
Pete mussed her hair.
She walked between the two tall boys across the dirt road and the field of grass. As they walked, Pete talked about his hopes for his band. It was difficult for her to hear what he said. She wasn’t used to being pinned between two gorgeous guys—one a god, no less. She tried to keep her breath steady as they approached the water and the two boys stripped off their boots and jeans. Pete’s boxers were gray, and Than wore white again.
She laughed when the two boys decided to make a race of it as they jumped out into the deeper part and swam freestyle till they were out in the middle. She smiled with delight as they dunked each other, playing like bear cubs vying for fish.
“Come in!” Than shouted during a reprieve from their game. “It feels great.”
“Maybe later!” she shouted back. “After I work up a sweat!”
They swam back to the shallows and stood up, water dripping down their glistening bodies—the one thick and glowing, the other almost as tall, tan, and well-formed by human standards. Therese looked away. It was just too much to take in.
The boys climbed into their jeans and boots and the three of them headed back to the pen to begin their work on the horses. Thoughts of Dumbo sobered Therese as she took a brush to Sugar.
“Hey pretty girl,” she said to Sugar.
Jen, Bobby, and Mrs. Holt soon joined them from the house.
“Hi Therese!” Jen noticed Than and Pete were both soaked and shirtless. “Go for a swim, guys?” She took a brush to Sassy.
Pete laughed from behind the General. “Yeah. Than here nearly drowned me.” He must have recalled the fact that Therese’s parents’ drowned, because she caught a glimpse of his face behind the horse as he turned red and said no more.
Therese shuddered, but Than was soon there to distract her. “I sure had fun at the Wildhorse Saloon last night. I wouldn’t mind going again sometime.”
Bobby piped up. “Me, too. That was a blast. Hey, Mom. Can we go again tomorrow night?” Bobby held the brush midair, above Chestnut’s back, waiting for his mother’s answer.
“I don’t know, Bobby,” Mrs. Holt replied as she dug something from Rusty’s hoof. “It gets pretty crowded on Friday nights.”
“Oh, come on, Mom,” Jen joined in. “Pete could take us if you don’t want to go. Couldn’t you Pete?”
“Sure. I don’t mind.”
“Maybe so,” Mrs. Holt said without committing to anything. But both Jen and Bobby exchanged smiles. They knew “maybe so” meant “yes.”
When Jen finished with Sassy, she came over to Therese and said in a confidential voice, “Matthew called late last night and invited me to lunch today. I’m a little nervous.”
Therese stood up. “Are you excited? I mean, are you glad he called?”
“Yeah. It was like we hadn’t stopped talking all this time. He said he had pictures to show me. He just got back from Alaska. I’m pissed that he didn’t call before he left, though.” She picked Sassy’s hair from the brush.
“Language,” Mrs. Holt warned.
“Sorry, Mom,” Jen said.
Therese continued their conversation in a whisper. “Maybe he’ll explain why. He wouldn’t have called last night if he weren’t still interested.” Therese patted on Sugar’s leg for the hoof. Therese inspected the shoe while she waited for Jen’s reply.
Jen shrugged. “You really think so?”
“Yes, I do.”
“I’m meeting him at Hondo’s for chicken fried steak. I’m dropping Bobby at Gamestop to get him off my back. He’s been bugging me to take him all week. Matthew offered to come pick me up, but since Bobby wanted to go to town...anyway, that’s why I’m meeting him.” Jen went over to Annie, the red mare, and started brushing her back. “What did you get into, girl?”
Jen and Bobby went inside to wash up after the last horse was saddled and ready for the first trail ride. Pete and Mrs. Holt started helping the riders mount their horses, one at a time. Than and Therese waved their goodbyes and headed home. Than stopped her on the dirt road in front of Jen’s house.
“Are we going swimming?” he asked with a smile.
Therese grinned back. “I’m up for it if you are. But only if you promise to answer a few more questions.”
“I was planning on it anyway. Let’s go.” He took her hand in his and walked with her across the field.
Therese felt giddy with excitement. His big warm hand surrounding hers made her shiver with delight. Their arms brushed every so often, sending tingles of pleasure down her skin. She became even more excited when they reached the bank of the reservoir and Than kicked off his boots and jeans. She pulled off her tank top with shaky arms and stepped out of her shorts. She left her sneakers on so her feet wouldn’t get hurt on the rocks on the bottom of the lake.
She stood there, embarrassed, in her two-piece bathing suit while he looked over her body. She felt good about her flat stomach and curvy hips, but, even though Jen said she was crazy, she didn’t like her blossoming thighs and the lemon halves she had for boobs.
Than walked up to her in his white boxers and, with one finger, pulled up the strap that had fallen from her shoulder. “You’re so beautiful,” he said in a soft voice. Then, without any warning, he took her waist in his hands and carried her into the water.
She screamed with pleasure. “It’s like ice!”
“Nice, isn’t it?” He took her out where she couldn’t stand and then released her waist to tread water.
She treaded beside him. “You said you’d answer my questions first, you cheater!” She splashed water against his face.
“Cheater? You didn’t specify the order!”
He splashed her back, and it felt like a tidal wave had washed over her. She sputtered and gagged on the water that had unexpectedly entered her mouth. Her hair flattened in her face.
“Sorry about that,” he laughed.
She had the feeling he wasn’t sorry at all. She shivered with the cold of the water but managed to stick out her tongue at him in mock anger.
He put his hands on her waist again and towed her to shallower water, where she could stand, the gentle waves clearing her chin. The water came up to his nipples, and she could see from the look of them that he was cold, too.
“I don’t need your help,” she teased. “I’m an awesome swimmer.”
“Is that right?”
“Wanna race?”
He laughed. “Let me get this straight. You are challenging a god to a race?”
“You raced with Pete.”
“That wasn’t a real race. I wouldn’t dare show my true speed and give myself away.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Show me. I want to see.”
“Others might be watching.”
“Please?”
He laughed. “Who could resist you anything?” He dove under and swam freestyle in a flash of white to the other side of the reservoir and back before she had counted to ten.
She opened her mouth with surprise. “Oh my God!”
“You can call me Than,” he said slyly.
She splashed him again. “Time to pay up. What did your father tell you when you asked him