第 2 页

Calm down, Tess. Get a grip.

Cautiously she eased back and found that she was sitting in one of those Art Linkletter chairs. She drew a deep, shaking breath and let it out slowly. Her white-knuckled fingers eased their clawlike grip off the cushy armrests. An easy chair. What was so weird about that?

Nothing, she told herself. Nothing at all.

Then she noticed that her feet were dangling in the air.

She gasped. There was no floor beneath her, no walls around her. She was sitting in a black chair in the middle JO of a black void with a thousand stars twinkling all around her. Alone.

She was dreaming, she realized suddenly. Dreaming she was sitting in a chair in the middle of space, dreaming she could hear, dreaming? "Tess?"There it was again, that scratchy boilermaker-and-tobacco-fed voice, coming at Tess from the nothingness around her. Surely if she were going to dream a voice, it wouldn't sound like that. "Y-Yes?" she said, for lack of something better. "I'm Carol. Your guide. Do you have any questions before we begin?"Tess started to say, "Begin what?" then changed her mind to the more obvious question. "Where am I?"There was a long pause before the voice said cautiously, "You don't remember?" "Remember what?" "The ... bus."Tess stopped breathing. Memory hurled her back onto that rain-slicked Seattle street. She remembered the acrid, stinking smell of burning rubber, the driver's horrified expression through the dirty windshield. Sounds she couldn't possibly have heard battered her with hurricane force: squealing brakes, a honking horn, her own strangled sound of terror.

She'd been hit by the bus. She glanced around. Maybe this wasn't a dream after all. Maybe it was ... the other side. "Am I dead?" There was a sigh of relief. "Yep." Tess shivered and hugged herself. "Oh." "Now that that's settled, let's get on with it," Carol said matter-of-factly. "This here's the theater of second chances. Your life on earth?the first one?it was sort of ..." Carol's scratchy voice trailed off.

"Fine."

"Yes, precisely. But 'fine' isn't good enough. God, in His infinite wisdom, makes sure everyone gets one happy life before they move on. So, hon, you get another chance." "I don't understand.""It's simple. Your first life was so-so. Now you get to choose another. I studied your history very closely, and I think I know the problem. Your childhood in the foster care system left something to be desired. What you need is someone special and a family of your own. I've chosen a dozen suitable candidates. Each one needs you as much as you need him. All you have to do is push the button when one of them strikes your fancy."Tess smiled wryly. "Sort of a 'Dating Game' for the dead? What's next?'Bowling for Celestial Dollars'?""Hey, that's good! But?oh, shh. The show is starting. Just push the button when it feels right. I'll do the rest."A single red button appeared on the chair's stark black arm. Pale red light throbbed against the dark fabric. "It's a dream, right?" Tess said to the voice. "I'm sedated now and in surgery. Am I right?" "Shh. Watch."The stars sprayed out in front of Tess slowly melded together, becoming a huge white rectangle wreathed in jet black nothingness. A screen.

She leaned forward. Even though she knew it was a dream, she couldn't help feeling a quick rush of suspense. Her fingers curled nervously around the tufted armrest.

A dot of color appeared in the exact center of the white screen. It started small, no larger than a nickel. For a heartbeat it quivered, silent and alone. Then whaml it exploded into a full-color picture of a man in a gray flannel suit waving for a cab.

He was an attractive man. Young. Obviously affluent.

Tess settled deeper in her chair. Her finger moved toward the button, but she didn't push. Instead, she studied him with the critical, detail-sensitive eyes of a woman used to relying on sight for her impressions of the world. The man was clutching an Italian leather briefcase as if it contained the plans for a nuclear bomb. Or, more likely, a summer house in the Hamptons. His hair was precisely combed, maybe even moussed. There were no laugh lines around his eyes. No earring marred his conservative image. His tie was a regimental blue stripe, his shirt plain white.

Her finger eased off the button.

The scene switched to a snowy hillside. A man in faded blue jeans and knee-length duster was shoving hay into a long wooden feeding bin. Breath billowed in white clouds from his mouth. Behind him was a whitewashed, porched farmhouse that looked a hundred years old.

Tess let the cowboy pass. Someone else could ride the range.

Next came a man playing volleyball on the beach. His body was well muscled, browned to tanning bed perfection. Pale blond hair clung to his sweaty face as he spiked the winning shot. Several women on the sidelines cheered loudly, and he gave each of them a playboy wink. Tess winced. Yuck.

The stud was replaced by a knight in shining armor. Literally. He moved woodenly, clanging with every step across the stone floor, muttering words in a language Tess couldn't understand. The scene looked exactly like a production of Macbeth she'd once seen at a theater for the deaf in Boston.

Tess's finger didn't go anywhere near the button. Egotistical actors weren't for her. She had no desire to be the wind beneath his wings. Men and lives merged into one another, became a hyp notic blur of color and questions and possibilities. Still Tess sat there, her finger hovering over the red button that would supposedly grant her another life. She didn't believe a word of it, of course, but somehow she couldn't hit the button?even to play along. Especially not with the kind of men who kept showing up. (Currently there was a man in a space suit hovering in front of her.)The spaceman melted away. Slowly the color onscreen softened. A man appeared, standing alone and in the shadows. He was standing beside an old wooden crib, staring down at a baby wrapped in a bundle of woolen blankets. His big shoulders were hunched, his fingers were curled tightly around the crib's top rail. The quiet strains of his breathing reached her ears, filling her senses like long-sought-after music.

Tess felt his quiet desperation like a noose around her neck.

He moved forward, and the shadows fell away, revealing a once handsome and now haggard face framed by jet black hair badly in need of a trim. He stared down at the child. One finger at a time, as if each motion were fraught with danger, he lifted his hand and reached toward the baby's cheek. Halfway there, he froze. His fingers trembled. Tears glistened in the corners of his eyes, and he yanked his hand back.

God, how he loves that child.

Then he was gone.

Tess slammed her palm down on the button.

"He's the one?" Carol's voice sounded soft and deceptively close.

Tess nodded slowly, shaken and confused by the intensity of the emotions she'd felt. As someone who'd spent a lifetime isolated and alone, watching, she knew little of stormy passions and wrenching heartache. And yet, when she'd looked into his eyes, she'd seen pain, real pain, and something more. Some dark, aching emotion that ripped past her natural optimism and frightened her.

There had been something about him, something in his defeated gaze that cut like a knife blade through her heart. She'd learned long ago to read people's eyes and see beyond their words, yet never had she glimpsed a soul in such agony.

"I don't know," she murmured. "I felt such ... pain.""I understand, hon. You've always been a healer at heart. Good luck. You'll need it with that one."There was a wisp of rose-colored light, a scent of smoke, and then nothing. Tess knew without question that she was alone again.

"What now?" she asked of no one in particular, and flopped back in her chair.

Except there was no chair. No chair, no floor, no walls. There was only an immense sky of midnight black spack-led with stars so bright, they hurt the eyes.

Tess whizzed by the moon and kept falling.

Chapter Two

Pain. Immense, incalculable pain.

Tess lay perfectly still. She tried to breathe and found that even that simple action hurt. Every square inch of her body felt battered and broken. Even her breasts ached.

Why? Why did she feel like this?

She'd been hit by a bus.

The memory came at her like a hard right punch, catching her square in the gut. Her breath expelled in a sharp rush. Her lungs burned at the effort. No wonder she hurt. She was lucky to be alive.

Or was she?

Am I dead?

She remembered uttering that small, quiet question, remembered the endless star-spangled night sky and Carol's barroom voice. Yep.

Just as she'd thought. It had all been a dream. Or a painkiller-induced hallucination. Or one of those near-death experiences inquiring minds loved so much.

She moved a fraction of an inch and immediately regretted it. Red-hot pain twisted her midsection, brought a surge of nausea so strong, she thought she'd vomit. All thoughts of life after death vanished.

She felt as if she'd been hit by a bus.

It had all been a dream. There was no second chance for Tess; no family to join or ability to hear. No man standing by a crib, reaching out.

She was surprised by the sharp regret that flashed through her. She'd really wanted that second chance at life. At love. No one in this life would have missed her.

Disappointed, she closed her eyes and sank back into the darkness of oblivion.

She was dreaming she could hear. "... blood loss ... don't know ... not good ..." Tess clawed her way to consciousness. The pain was still there, gnawing with dull teeth at her midsection, but it was more manageable now. She said a quick prayer to the God of anesthesia and coaxed her eyes open.

She was in a huge bed, looking up at the floor. She frowned in concentration, willing her tired eyes to do their job, and her equally tired brain to function. Blinking, she tried again.

It wasn't a floor. It was a ceiling built of oak boards. "Dead? Don't know . . . possible."Tess gasped. She'd heard that! She struggled up to her elbows. The effort left her shaking and winded and in inconceivable pain. Her head pounded. She found a stationary lump of black and focused on it.

The lump became a shadow, the shadow became an old man. Sparse gray hair studded his pointed, balding head. Thin wire-rimmed glasses perched precariously on his beaklike nose. Rheumy eyes stared into her own.

"Mrs. Rafferty? Axe you okay?"Tess glanced around for Mrs. Rafferty.

He scooted his stool closer. The wooden legs made a squeaking, scraping sound. He laid a skeletal, blue-veined hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. "Welcome back."This was no dream. She could really hear.

"Whaas?" Tess tried to speak, but her throat felt as if she'd been screaming for hours. She signed her question instead: What's wrong with me?

The man glanced over his shoulder at the shadows in the room's corner. "It's like she's trying to say something. ..." He leaned closer and peered into her eyes. "I'm Doc Hayes. Do you recollect me?" She shook her head no.

He frowned and pushed to his feet.

Even in the midst of her pain, she marveled at the slow, tired shuffling of the doctor's footsteps. After so many years of silent nothingness, the common, everyday sound of his bootheels scuffing across the floor was indescribably wonderful.

He melted into the shadows by the door. "I don't know, Jack. It's the damnedest thing I've ever seen. I was pretty sure she was dead. This ain't the sort o' thing one sees ever' day. She might be sort o' ... different for a while. Who knows? Appears her memory's shot to hell.""What can we do for her?" It was another male voice, softer and richer. The warm, brandy-soft sound of it sent a tingle slithering down Tess's spine.

"I don't know," the doc answered. "But if she gets a fever or takes a turn for the worse, send someone for me."The shadows moved. The door creaked open, then clicked shut. She was alone.

Confusion swirled about her like a thick, gray fog, drawing her into the mists. Tiredly she glanced around her hospital room, but the shadows were so thick, she couldn't make out much beyond her own bed. Yet something about the darkened room felt weird. Apprehension tingled along the back of her neck. She'd been in enough hospitals to recognize one, even in the dark. Where was the familiar antiseptic smell and muted buzz of fluorescent lighting? And docs hadn't made house calls since Welby.

Minutes ticked by, quietly, without the marching tick of a clock to herald their passing. She stared up at the strange ceiling, feeling the warmth and light from the lamp beside her bed. The acrid scent of a burning wick teased her nostrils.

So strange, she thought. Everything was so damned strange.

Before she could figure out why, she was asleep again.

Tess tried to force her eyes open, but the painful throbbing behind them made it impossible. She tossed uncomfortably.

Something cool touched her forehead. It felt unbelievably good. A soft sigh of relief slipped past her parched lips.

After a few moments she was able to open her eyes. The first thing she saw was that weird floor ceiling again.

"Oh, crap," she mumbled. She thought for sure she'd waken to the comfortingly familiar sight of white acoustical tile and long tubes of fluorescent lighting.

The cool, damp rag on her forehead vanished. A flesh-tone smear wobbled in front of her eyes. She blinked, tried to focus. Gradually the blur coalesced into a man's face that seemed both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

He shoved a too long lock of black hair out of his eyes and bent closer. Tired, bloodshot eyes peered questioningly into her own. Stubbly, dark hair accentuated the hollowness in his cheeks and the hard, masculine line of his jaw. Tess frowned. A wisp of memory winged through her head, and she tried desperately to chase it down. Somewhere she'd seen this face before.

It came to her in a flash. He looked sort of like a young Sam Elliot ... on a very bad day.

But why did the man look so utterly exhausted, as if he'd sat vigil by her bed for endless hours? There was no one who cared about her so much.