by Cara Bristol
Destiny’s eyes filled with tears, and her sister’s face blurred, but she could see Laura stagger to her feet. But then their mother grabbed her wrist and hissed something, disapproval evident in the grimness of her profiled jaw.
Laura dropped into her seat but twisted to glance back at her before facing forward.
Destiny’s head swam with dizziness, her ears buzzing, blood ebbing out of her face with a crawling sensation.
“Destiny’s sister paled like she saw a ghost.” Chance’s voice floated in from far away. “Shit. You too. You’re as white a sheet. Are you okay?”
“I’m going to faint.” Were the words in her head, or had she said them?
He pushed on her shoulders. “Put your head between your knees.”
“I can’t. Not here.” Everybody would gawk. She’d become a spectacle at her funeral. Her mother would be pissed. “Sit up. What’s wrong with you?” Except her mother wouldn’t scold a near stranger. Dizziness swirled.
“Would you rather pass out in the aisle?” Chance hissed in her ear.
God no! She allowed him to press her face between her knees. The grayness and buzzing receded. “People are staring at me, aren’t they?” She wished she could hide under the row of folding chairs.
“No,” he answered, but she could hear the lie in his voice.
The music ended.
She had to talk to Laura. Destiny tried to spring up, but Chance prevented her. “Stay there for a moment.”
People were rising to their feet. Her parents and Laura would form a short receiving line. Then the caterers would bring out the food. Guests, music, food—a memorial service was like a wedding reception, only sad, not happy. She wouldn’t be able get Laura alone if she didn’t move fast.
“I need to…express my condolences to Destiny’s sister.”
“She’s coming to you.”
“What?” Shrugging off Chance’s hand, Destiny popped up. Laura wove through the throng of people, who did their best to detain her with words and gestures of comfort, but she said something to each of them, and they allowed her to pass.
She materialized in the aisle. “Are you all right?”
Destiny stared. Laura was one of those rare individuals whose eyes were different colors, her left one brown, her right one blue. It contributed to the sense of otherness about her.
“I got a little light-headed.”
Laura looked at Chance. “If you’d excuse us, I’d like to talk to…Zoe.”
Chance jerked, then locked his gaze on her sister. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. Her near faint had befuddled her, created the impression a secret conversation went on over her head, like she was a child in a roomful of spelling grown-ups. I want to talk to Z-O-E. Only no one had spoken.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Chance rested his hand on her shoulder.
“I’m fine.” She leaped to her feet, then struggled to conceal that the world tilted.
“I’ll take care of her,” Laura said. “We’ll be back in a flash.”
Laura grasped her elbow to steady her, and Destiny restrained herself from flinging her arms around her sister and hanging on for dear life. “This way.” Laura led her away from the milling people, across the wet grass.
“Where are we going?” Destiny asked.
Laura pointed toward a block enclosure walling in large metal Dumpsters.
“To the trash?”
“Behind it. Where people can’t see.”
“Why?”
“I want privacy when I cry.” They rounded the enclosure, and Laura made a beeline for a stand of trees, the low branches creating an illusion of privacy.
“People expect you to cry. You lost your sister,” she said.
Laura halted under the canopy.
She faced Destiny, and as she’d predicted, tears welled in her eyes. Her bottom lip quivered. “No, I didn’t. Almost. But I didn’t. Destiny.”
“You see me?” She hardly dared to believe it. Couldn’t survive the disappointment. Her vision blurred. Somebody who loved her recognized her. Hope trickled into the void.
Tears streaming down her face, Laura nodded.
Destiny grabbed her sister in a hug the way she’d been longing to do and let her tears fall. They clung to each other, laughing and crying. Laura shoved her away to search her face. “You nearly scared me to death.” Then hugged her again.
When they broke apart, Laura dug a packet of tissues from her purse and tore out a couple for each of them. Happiness required a two-tissue blow.
“How did you know?” Destiny asked at the same time Laura said, “Why didn’t you call me?”
Destiny waved her arms. “You were on vacation! In the middle of the Caribbean.”
Laura planted her hands on her hips. “And if I’d gotten the message that my sister had been killed, you thought I’d what? Roll over on the beach to tan my other side? You needed me, and then you didn’t even contact me.”
“I’m sorry. I called Mom and Dad from the hospital, and they thought I was some whack job making a prank phone call. Dad threatened to sic the police on me. Then I checked the mirror. I couldn’t believe what had happened. How could I expect someone else to? Have you heard of anyone switching bodies?”
“Only in the movies,” Laura conceded. “But maybe when it happens, the person keeps it a secret. Like you did.” She glared accusingly.
“If you sensed I was alive, why didn’t you call me?”
“I couldn’t find you! I camped out at your apartment, at the photo studio, hoping you’d show up.”
They’d always been close, been each other’s best friend, yet they argued. Even through death and mourning, they bickered. Destiny giggled.
“It’s not funny!” Laura snapped.
Her chuckle turned to gut-wrenching laughter. Her muscles tightened, and her body shook. “I-I come back…come back f-from the dead and—” Destiny doubled over. “The first thing…we do…is argue.”
The corner of Laura’s mouth twitched, and she pressed her lips together. Her scowl melted into a twinkle, and she tittered.
They laughed like they hadn’t done in years, staggered and fell on top of each other. Destiny would get control, but one glance from Laura and she’d fall apart again. “Stop…looking at me,” she cried.
“You-you started it.” Laura clutched her stomach.
Now they were arguing about laughter. Destiny convulsed again. Hoped she didn’t wet her pants.
At last they wound down. Her body felt drained but at peace. Still, a burning question demanded answers. She glanced at her sister, who mopped happy tears from her eyes.
“How did you know it was me?” Destiny asked.
Her sister’s mood shifted from relaxed to somber. So sudden, so sharp, it sent a shiver up Destiny’s spine. No more intuitive than any other person, she received a flash of understanding of how Laura’s power must work.
Laura tapped her own chest. “You live in here. Mom and Dad told me you’d been killed, and I saw your body at the morgue, but I still sensed your presence.
“I had a vision. I was on the beach when I got an image of a rainstorm and a wet highway.” Laura took a deep breath and exhaled. “Your fear hit me, rolling from the inside out.” She shuddered. “I ran back to the hotel, packed, and caught a plane. I got the call from Mom and Dad when I landed.”
“I’m sorry.” She should have taken the chance, contacted Laura. But fear and confusion had muddled her common sense.
“I’m happy you’re alive.”
“But you never doubted.”
“Oh no, I doubted. How could I refute the evidence of my own eyes? I saw your body at the mortuary. I worried maybe Mom and Dad had been right about me, and something had gone haywire in my brain.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t sense me when we first arrived at the park.”
“Are you kidding? I was zapped by a cattle prod. But I’d been getting jolts all week, and I no longer could distinguish reality
from what I wished to be real.” She plucked at the cardigan’s hem. “I wore your sweater.”
“I noticed,” Destiny said drily. “Didn’t we have a talk about you borrowing my clothes without asking?”
“I thought having an article of your clothing would help me make sense of my feelings. I had them play that silly music you like from that sappy movie.”
“That meant a lot to me.” She ignored the insult to her favorite song and film.
Laura fixed her gaze on Destiny. “So what happened? From your perspective. What do you remember?”
“This is going to sound crazy, but it might have had something to do with the radio. It kept shorting out. When the car went over the embankment, I grabbed Zoe, and I bumped the radio. We got an electrical shock.
“The closest I can compare it to is being pulled from my clothes. A force of some kind tugged me out of my body. Zoe and I passed through each other. ”
“Aura fusion.” Laura nodded.
“Then I slammed into a tight space, which I realize now was Zoe’s body.” She glanced down at herself and patted her hips. “The car flipped, and the door opened. My body got thrown out. I assume Zoe was in it.”
“Maybe.” Laura frowned. “Maybe not. You’re assuming a two-way trade occurred. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe Zoe returned to the energy instead of your body.” She made a sweeping gesture with her hands, then pursed her lips.
“Did you lose consciousness?” Laura asked.
“Yeah. How did you know?”
“The mental relaxation allows the body to accept the new mind, the new essence. Do you recall your thoughts before the radio shock?”
“That I wanted to live.” And that she’d never see Chance again; he’d be lost to her forever. She wanted to live for him, even if she never got more than a casual chat at a party.
“That explains it.” Laura nodded.
“It does?”
“The electromagnetic energy burst fused your auras, and in that moment, the universe granted your wish.”
“Zoe didn’t get her wish.”
“How do you know?”
“She didn’t wish to die!”
“But maybe she wished to move on. Perhaps she’d accomplished all she came to do here.”
“The traveling thing again.”
“That’s what I believe.” Laura nodded. “I’ve sensed Zoe was never quite of this world, that she was a nomad passing through.”
“I wish that was so.”
“Why do you think she had so few connections? No family. Few friends. You and Chance were the only people she had in her life, and you said yourself there was a distance there.”
Destiny shook her head, unconvinced. It all sounded so mystical. She believed in her sister’s empathic, clairvoyant abilities but also knew that a psychic hunch was still just that—a guess inspired by an intuitive nudge. Which sometimes proved to be off base.
“We should head back,” Destiny said. “Mom and Dad will be upset that you disappeared, and Chance will wonder what’s taking so long.”
Laura nodded. “You’re right.” She linked her arm through Destiny’s. “So you’re with Chance now. That’s good.” She bobbed her head approvingly. “You always had a thing for him.”
“Our being together is only temporary. We’re not meant to be.”
“Why not?” Laura looked at her.
“Because he and Zoe were a couple. Because she just died. Because he doesn’t love me.” That didn’t stop you from sleeping with him. Probably won’t stop you again. Her conscience and her libido had gone to war. The scene wasn’t pretty inside her head.
“Zoe wanted you two to be together.”
“I love the way you state preposterous conjecture as if it’s fact.”
“It is fact. How many times did she bring you two together at some party and then disappear so you would be alone? And you said yourself it was odd how many times your paths crossed socially.”
“Coincidence.”
“She pushed you toward one another, hoping you and he would connect. I think Zoe believed you two were soul mates.”
“She wasn’t pushing us together. She had things to do, and she trusted us,” Destiny insisted, feeling guilty as hell. She’d succumbed to temptation and slept with her friend’s boyfriend. Trust had been broken.
Laura is right. The voice came through so clearly, Zoe could have been standing beside her.
“Stop it!” Destiny said aloud and pressed her fingers to her temple.
“You don’t need to yell,” Laura said.
“I’m not. Not at you.”
“Then who?” Laura looked at her.
“Myself. I think I’m going crazy.” She looked at her sister. Dare she mention it? If anyone would understand, she would. She wet her lips. “Some…sometimes I think I hear Zoe’s voice.”
Laura nodded as if it were perfectly reasonable. “What does she say?”
“She tells me I should go after Chance.”
“You see!” Laura looked smug. “I told you so.”
“It’s far more likely I’m nuts,” Destiny said. “I think I want Zoe’s blessing, so my mind is making stuff up.”
Believe, Destiny.
Destiny groaned.
“What?” Laura squinted at her.
“Nothing,” Destiny said.
Chapter Nine
Laura’s disappearance had not escaped her parents’ notice. They exchanged whispers and annoyed glances. However, Chance used the absence, the space, to collect his thoughts.
An insane, impossible but insistent idea pecked at his brain.
What if Zoe was Destiny? Or Destiny was Zoe? Whatever. What if the essence of Destiny Grable had survived the accident and existed in the body of Zoe Richards? Was that what she’d been trying to tell him when she’d raised the subject of reincarnation?
Roman scoffed at his hunches, but Chance had sensed a difference the moment he’d entered the hospital room to visit the woman wearing the RICHARDS, ZOE wristband. Then more tangible disparities appeared: the changes in diet including the love of Mexican food, the cooking, the different way she dressed, that she didn’t seem to know her way around the condo she’d lived in for six months.
Then the song Laura had had the flautist play. “My Heart Will Go On.” “Zoe” had whistled it in bed that one night and raised the subject of the afterlife.
But mostly it was Destiny’s sister’s behavior that gave credence to what had only been a wild and crazy imagining. She had barreled down the aisle, her relief and joy palpable at seeing Zoe. Then she’d whisked her away. Laura, who he’d heard had serious psychic powers, believed Zoe was Destiny. That he was sure of.
He spotted the girls in the distance. Hands on his knees, he drummed a rhythm. To speak up or not to speak up?
His emotions knotted like a tangled mess of fishing lures, pricking at his conscience with every attempt to shake them loose. He had cared for Zoe. He wished he could bring her back, but if a reversal of events were possible, he would have ended the relationship long ago. He’d often wondered if he and Destiny could have had something together. But would she want him if she knew about his secret little kink? Could she handle having her ass warmed?
That assumed she was Destiny. Maybe he and Laura were both wrong, and the behavioral changes represented Zoe’s attempts to rekindle a dead relationship or at least to buy time until she could get settled. He’d been adamant she get her own place. Perhaps her feelings for him ran deeper than he’d thought. And if that were so, but she had changed, did he want her back?
He didn’t know anymore. Didn’t know what he wanted, who he wanted, or even who was who.
But he couldn’t shake the idea, the vision, of Destiny staring at him through Zoe’s eyes in bed the other night. He’d kept his distance since, hadn’t touched her other than accidentally. He desired her. God, he desired her. His need had grown with every passing day until it was all he could do to keep his hands to himself, but he had to figure
out who he would be touching first.
He would be wrong to mislead Zoe if she harbored feelings for him or to lead Destiny astray, to engage her without her knowing what she’d be getting into. Spanking was in his blood. He’d tried the vanilla way, but it had left him unfulfilled, antsy.
The two women reached the canopy, hugged tighter and longer than mere acquaintances would, and Laura hurried away in her—their—parents’ direction.
The Zoe who wasn’t approached. “You’re back finally.” Chance scrutinized her, his chest tightening with suppressed emotion.
“Sorry we were gone so long.” Her eyes were reddened, but her face relaxed into a contented smile.
“I didn’t realize you and Laura Grable were that close.”
The smile disappeared, and she shrugged. “She needed to talk to someone who knew Destiny well.”
Chance arched his eyebrows. “She couldn’t speak to her mother or father?”
“Laura and her parents don’t get along well.”
“She told you this just now?”
Destiny pursed her lips and blew out a huff of air. “She’s mentioned it before.”
“I thought you hardly knew her. We’ve only met her once or twice.”
She dropped her gaze. “She and I were a little closer than that.”
“You never said anything.”
“Do I tell you about all my friends?”
“So Laura is a friend.”
Destiny anchored her hand on her waist. “What is this? An interrogation? If you’re mad because I was gone so long, say so.”
He was goading her. But to what end? To push her into confession? And if she did admit the truth, wouldn’t that mark the beginning of the end? Destiny didn’t love him. She needed a place to regroup, a shoulder to lean on.
But you could be there for her. Relationships had been built on less. Instead of pushing her, he should allow her space. Show her how good they could be together. They’d been friends, had become lovers. They only needed to connect the two.
“I’m sorry.” He inclined his head toward the refreshment tent. “Do you want to grab a bite?”