The Last Adventure of Constance Verity Read Free Page A

virginity in the Amazon jungle to Korak the Savage, and it was glorious. But it isn’t supposed to be like that.”
    â€œIt’s easy to see what you don’t have.”
    â€œDon’t feed me that grass is always greener line. I keep thinking of all the things I didn’t have that most people do, and it’s starting to piss me off. I know a million people would trade places with me in a heartbeat, but it’s not everything it looks like from the outside.”
    â€œYes.” He cleaned his glasses. “As clichéd as this might seem, we all have our crosses to bear.”
    She was hoping he’d understand where she was coming from. His own extraordinary passion had been his undoing, and now he was trapped between life and death. It probably helped he kept forgetting that.
    â€œI missed your funeral, Arthur.”
    â€œI’m sure you had a good reason.”
    â€œThere are always reasons. And they’re always good. But,goddamn it, I loved you. I could have at least been there to pay my respects.”
    â€œIf there’s one thing I’ve learned from this experience, it is that ghosts don’t generally care about such things.”
    â€œYes, but the living do. I do. Even if I ignore all the things I can’t get back because it’s too late, I think about all the things that are destined to come up. My mom had a bunion removed the other day. She didn’t call me. It wasn’t a big deal, but one of these times, it will be a big deal. And I won’t be there for her or Dad when it happens. I’m sure there will be a good reason for it, but it won’t change that I’ll end up letting down the people I care about.”
    â€œBut what about all the people you’ve helped?”
    â€œStrangers. Mom keeps a scrapbook of all the commendations, thankful letters, and awards I’ve gotten. It looks nice, but what does it add up to in the end?”
    â€œHaven’t you saved the world on multiple occasions?”
    â€œThat’s what people tell me, but I’m beginning to think that the world isn’t as fragile as all that. The universe got along just fine for billions of years without me. I don’t think it needs me to save it. I think it all works out about the same in the end. Sometimes, I like to think of myself with a dead-end job that I dislike, a husband who is letting himself go, and some ungrateful kids I take to soccer practice. It sounds dreary, but at least it would be my life. I know it sounds selfish.”
    â€œIt’s not selfish,” he said. “Or maybe it is. But it’s not unreasonable.”
    He smiled at her, and he was so handsome in a bookish way that she wished she could kiss him. Touch his face. Caress his hand. Anything.
    â€œMy question does then become Can you? ” he asked.
    â€œI can try,” she said.
    â€œI’d wish you luck, but you don’t need it.”
    â€œThanks.” She paused on the way out of the study. “Sorry again about missing your funeral.”
    â€œFuneral? Wait? Am I dead?”
    Sighing, she closed the door on him.

3
    C onnie, as a woman of two worlds, had always had some trouble making friends. The extraordinary people she met on her adventures were usually so busy on their own adventures that unless they needed help foiling an alien invasion or exploring the booby-trapped ruins of a long-lost civilization, they didn’t keep in touch.
    Ordinary friends came with their own unique set of problems. It wasn’t easy to balance the normal and the extraordinary. Those two sides of her life didn’t get always get along, and the consequences could be bothersome.
    She’d had three boyfriends meet tragic ends. Once would have been bad luck. Twice would have been forgivable. Three times was a sign from the universe. The healthiest relationship she’d ever had had been with a warlord who lived in the mythic past, and that was