"Oh dear." Dick whispered, now beginning to wring the fabric of his toga.
"What exactly are these conditions, Miss Hill?" Harry looked over the tops of his granny glasses at her.
"First," she said and picked up her wine for a quick sip. "I want to go back as the same age I was when I died."
"I don't know…" Harry looked at the others.
"This was your idea," Tom told him, effectively taking a step back from the entire affair.
"Twenty-seven was a good age for me," Tracy stated plainly. "Not too young and not too old. So how about it?"
Harry's lips tightened. "Agreed."
Tracy grinned. This might work out pretty well after all. Just remembering all of her previous incarnations had her ready to bargain for the best deal possible. After all, if she was going to live to be ninety-five, she wanted to be damned comfortable doing it.
"I also want to be a female again." She grimaced slightly as she admitted, "I always have been, and frankly, the idea of being a man doesn't appeal to me at all. No offense."
"None taken, I assure you," Tom said snidely and Tracy's brows lifted. She hadn't expected heavenly beings to indulge in sarcasm.
"A twenty-seven-year-old female," Harry repeated.
"Also," she said and began strolling slowly around the office, well aware that the three spirits were turning in place to keep wary eyes on her. "I want to be as healthy as I was and live my entire allotted ninety-five years."
"Certainly," Harry muttered. "That is the whole point of these negotiations."
"Good." She stopped, turned, and smiled at the three of them. "I also want to be wealthy."
"Well, really!" Tom scowled at her, then looked to Harry.
"This is completely outrageous."
Tracy's smile broadened. She took another sip of the rather excellent wine, then said, "It's you guys who need your records straightened out. I'm perfectly content to stay right where I am."
Another huddled conversation with three voices blending, arguing. Finally, Harry turned to her and nodded. "Done. Wealthy it is." He stepped forward, hand outstretched. "We have a deal, then?"
"Not yet. There's just two little things left," she said.
"What is left?" Tom demanded.
"I don't want to fall in love again," Tracy told him, swallowing back a quick flush of embarrassment. All right, so it sounded silly. But damn it, she had lived eight lifetimes and each of those lives had ended abruptly— usually because she was traipsing around after some man. Heck, she wouldn't even have been at the blasted bowling alley if not for that cute new lawyer at her firm. A brief pang of regret erupted in her chest at the thought of never seeing him again.
Utterly flustered, poor little Dick started quivering, sending the folds of his toga rippling around his reed-thin body.
"We can't promise you that," Tom snapped.
"Why not?" she demanded.
"Because it's simply not our department," Harry told her with a helpless lift of his shoulders.
"Well, I'm not going to risk it again." She shook her head firmly. "No sir. Men have been nothing but trouble for me since 1320 when my own Sir Galahad charged his horse right over me in the dark." Nope, if she was going to go through all the trouble to live again, then she was going to do it on her own terms. And love was not part of the bargain. Tracy sighed. "Sorry boys, guess it's not going to work after all."
Harry, adjusting his tiny rectangular glasses at the end of his nose, spared a quick glance at his fellow spirits before turning back to study Tracy. He nodded slowly and promised, "We will do all we can to keep you from finding love."
"That's the best you can do?" she asked.
He smiled gently. "Yes, I'm afraid so."
Healthy, wealthy, and nearly seventy years to enjoy it, she told herself. Surely she could avoid love this time. With a little extra insurance.
"In that case, the one last thing I want seems to be the most important."
Tom's eyebrows lowered dangerously.
Harry spoke up quickly. "What is that, my dear?"
"I want to be able to remember all of my past lives."
"Absolutely not!" Tom huffed indignantly.
"Oh, this is most improper," Dick whined.
"We have found," Harry said, loud enough to be heard over the others, "that having such memories only clouds the judgment."
She was ready for that argument. "But this isn't your usual type of case, is it?"
"No…"
Tracy's gaze shifted from one to the other of them and finally settled on Harry. "If you can't guarantee that I won't fall in love, the least you can do is let me remember why I shouldn't."
"I suppose…"
Tom gasped, clearly horrified that Harry was weakening. "Look, it's not like I'm going to tell anybody." She laughed and shook her head. "Heck, even if I did, who’d believe me?"
"There is that," Tom admitted.
"So it's a deal?" she prodded.
The three of them muttered amongst themselves for several long, worrisome moments, but finally, they quieted and Harry nodded. "Agreed," he said. "Although, I must tell you, we do have our reservations about this."
Tracy grinned at him. She refused to be worried because they insisted on it. With the information she'd gained through eight lifetimes, she knew she could handle just about anything. "Trust me. It'll be fine. I'll remember everything, right?"
"Everything."
"And the memories stay right up until the day I die again?"
Three short nods.
"Okay, guys," she said and shook the hand Harry extended toward her. "It's a deal. So," she asked. "When do I leave?"
Tom smoothed the lapels of his suit, then reached for his clipboard. He glanced at the top page, then looked back at her. "Immediately," he said. "There will be an appropriate body ready in approximately seven minutes."
"Wow, you guys work fast." She finished the last of her wine, set the glass down on Tom's pristine desk, and enjoyed it when he frowned in response. As she moved across the office to a suddenly wide-open doorway, she glanced over her shoulder at the three spirits. "I'll stay in contact with you guys, right?"
No answer.
Tracy stopped, cocked her head to one side and narrowed her gaze thoughtfully. "Hey, I want to be able to get in touch with you guys if everything isn't just the way we agreed."
Harry took a step forward and nodded at her. "Very well." He waved one hand in the air, then extended that hand toward her.
Tracy came closer and he dropped a gold ring into her open palm. Her gaze narrowing, she picked up the heavy band to examine it. Brushed gold with a delicate, etched vine running across the top of it, the ring was beautiful. And way too big for her. "What's this for?" she asked, glancing up to look into Harry's eyes.
"When you want to contact us, simply hold onto this ring and visualize us."
"Hmm." She nodded thoughtfully and ran the tip of one finger across the etched golden leaves. "Pretty."
"The vine," Harry said softly, "represents the Tree of Life. There are nine leaves, one for each of your incarnations."
She smiled, slid the ring onto her thumb, and let it fall off again into her palm. "Like I said, pretty. But couldn't you have found one that fit?"
Tom grumbled something unintelligible and one look at his face told Tracy it was just as well she hadn't understood him.
Harry took the ring from her and threaded a long gold chain through it before hanging the necklace around her neck. "Wear it like this, Tracy," he said, giving her a small smile.
"Okay," she told him, lifting the heavy band to tuck it beneath her shirt. "But I still think it would be easier to just give me one that fits."
"For the first month, you will be able to contact us," Harry said. "After that, you're on your own."
"All right, thanks." She turned and started for the door again. Shoulders back, she straightened her spine and set off through the open doorway. As a curtain of clouds rose up and swallowed her, the three members of
the Resettlement Committee looked at each other.
"Healthy and wealthy," Tom muttered, disgusted. "She should have asked for wisdom, too." Glancing at Harry, he asked, "And why did you tell her she could contact us during that first month?"
Harry shrugged. "I thought it might help her ease into the situation."
"She's going to be angry," Dick said with a quiet sigh.
"It won't be our fault," Tom reminded him. He snapped his fingers and smiled when Tracy's empty wine goblet disappeared. "She didn't specify when she wanted to live."
Dick, his toga hopelessly wrinkled, sank into the chair behind his untidy desk. "I don't believe 1875 is ready for Tracy Hill."
… Download This Time for Keeps today!
Other historical romances by Maureen Child:
The Soul Collector
Mountain Dawn
Nevada Heat
Small Treasures
Charms
Wishes
Paper Hearts (novella)
Frontier Bride
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