Back to Life

by Linda O. Johnston

  All he could do was let her know how he felt. And if she threw it back in his face?

  He’d live with it. He had to.

  “I’m sorry for what happened, Skye. For what had to happen. I know you didn’t want me to do what I did to Ron. I didn’t want it, either. But what I did want was for you to live, and if that meant you hated me, then that was how it would be. He said he’d shoot you and aimed at your head, damn it!” He realized he’d started yelling and stopped, taking a deep breath and looking searchingly into her lovely blue eyes. Did he see a hint of thawing, or was it only his wishful imagination? “And then after, when I thought you died…” This time, his voice cracked. Hell, he wasn’t a wimp. He wasn’t going to get all teary. He wouldn’t let himself—especially now, when he knew she was, in fact, all right.

  “Would you like to know what happened?” she asked softly.

  “Yeah, I would.”

  Looking at Bella, and not at him, she related a story—of being on the rainbow bridge, of running ahead when Hayley and Kara came to help her, and of what the kind woman who may have been her ancestor told her.

  Not long ago, he’d have assumed this was a story she’d made up or that had come to her while unconscious.

  Now he accepted it as he accepted her and the power she had so unintentionally given to him. That power allowed him to preserve her awesome, wonderful life.

  “Then, well, whatever happened to Ron, it isn’t necessarily for eternity?” He allowed himself a small, relieved grin. He hadn’t hated the guy. In fact, he even felt a little sorry for him, the way he’d gone over the edge of sanity.

  “It isn’t necessarily for eternity,” Skye confirmed softly. “But I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure.”

  “I was afraid for you,” he admitted. “I didn’t know what was happening, but when you were still unconscious in the hospital…” He stopped and took a breath. “I knew by then that what you’d told me was real. I wanted to tell you so, even tried to—but your friends were there. You didn’t need me. So I just left.”

  “I heard you,” she said.

  “You did?” He stared at her.

  She nodded. “You called me back.”

  “And that’s why you woke up?”

  “Could be,” she admitted.

  “Hey, this connection stuff—could be a good thing.” He smiled. And then he reached over Bella and drew Skye into his arms. She didn’t resist.

  When she kissed him back as fiercely, as heatedly, as he kissed her, Trevor wanted to cheer…until the heat of his desire for her obliterated everything else from his mind.

  He picked her up and carried her down the hallway to her bedroom. “See you in a while, Bella,” he said as he kicked the door shut before the dog, wagging her tail, could follow them in.

  Was she crazy? Yes, Skye thought, but as she writhed in her bed while Trevor touched her intimately, she observed his lusciously male body and stroked him back. Skye appreciated how gentle yet erotic Trevor’s touches were, obviously taking into account her remaining soreness from the shot against her protective vest. She, in turn, was very much aware of his wound, and was careful not to hurt him.

  She gasped as he entered her. He made her feel alive. And wanton. And she wanted him as she had never thought she could want a man.

  She gave in to sensation, heat and need and the most ferocious and delicious sexiness she had ever experienced.

  When it was over, they lay curled up in each other’s arms. Skye reveled in Trevor’s heavy breathing and the feeling of his rough, moist skin still touching hers all over. She smiled, savoring the moment.

  This was why she had felt compelled to save him.

  And why he must have felt compelled to save her.

  They were connected. By sex? Yes. But Skye knew it was much more than that. They touched each other in so many ways….

  She opened her eyes to find him looking at her, his dark mahogany eyes conveying emotions she had only dreamed about. “I love you, Skye,” he said softly. “Could be you bewitched me with those Valkyrie powers of yours. Maybe that’s how you gave me my new ability. But I don’t care. And I promise I’ll never—”

  She reached up and put her fingers on his mouth to shush him. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep. But I love you, too. And we’ll be a team from now on.”

  Epilogue

  T he next few weeks could not have been more blissful. On the nights Trevor and she both were off duty, he spent them with her, or they went to his place.

  When they were on duty, they also tried to work together, as much as possible. Skye was aware of Trevor’s growing interest in the case of a violent serial killer who was loose in nearby L.A. The person at the top of the LAPD’s suspect list was a guy who’d allegedly committed similar killings in San Bernardino. He’d been apprehended, but was set free after alleged prosecutorial misconduct resulted in a mistrial.

  And now the guy had apparently come to Angeles Beach, since killings using the same M.O. had started to occur. He’d park at the side of a road and pretend his car was broken down. When someone stopped to help, he’d rob them and then kill them with their own vehicles. He was too smart to leave prints, but one victim in San Bernardino had survived. So had one, just recently, in L.A.

  They weren’t all the ABPD’s jurisdiction, but maybe that was a good thing, for Skye and Trevor had a plan.

  They were a team now. And they knew the kinds of remote roads, near affluent areas, where the suspect was inclined to commit his crimes.

  “Do you think it’ll be tonight?” Skye asked as they cruised the winding, mountaintop street that they’d selected for occasional stakeouts. This was their third time here. Nothing had happened on the first two nights—except they’d made out like teenagers while stopped at one end of their surveillance area. If nothing else, they were having fun. Skye left Bella at home on these nights so she could not be hurt.

  “We’ll see.” Trevor drove slowly. “Hey, look over there.”

  He pointed toward where two cars were stopped on the shoulder ahead. Almost as soon as he did, Skye heard familiar chanting in her head.

  “Someone’s badly hurt there,” she gasped. “Dying.”

  “Let’s do it,” Trevor said grimly, pulling quickly off to the side. “Stay safe, Skye.”

  “You, too,” she managed to say as her head spun with the sounds.

  They exited the car, weapons drawn. “Police!” Trevor shouted.

  The report of a gunshot reverberated along the hillside, and they threw themselves to the ground. Trevor shot out the tires in both vehicles, then they approached, weapons drawn.

  “Stay there, or I’ll shoot this guy,” yelled a male voice from the vicinity of the first car.

  “Oh, I’d say you’ve already done that,” Trevor shouted. He glanced at Skye, who nodded grimly.

  “I’ve got to get to the victim right away,” she said.

  “We’re in accord here?”

  “Do it.”

  “You’ve got one chance,” Trevor shouted. “Drop your weapon, shove it this direction, lie facedown on the ground, hands on your head, and we’ll take you into custody. Otherwise, you won’t survive this night.”

  Another shot resounded.

  “Okay, then. Die, you son of a bitch,” Trevor said, inching forward.

  Skye got a glimpse of the guy pointing the weapon at them. Trevor obviously saw him, too, since he aimed his Glock at the same time she aimed hers—no special SWAT weapons tonight.

  “You heard me,” Trevor shouted. “Die. Right now. Die!”

  The suspect suddenly grabbed his chest, gave a yell as if in pain…and fell to the ground, dropping his weapon.

  As Trevor carefully edged forward to check on him, Skye advanced toward the front car. The chanting in her mind grew louder, and she silently conveyed her thanks to the ancestress she believed she had met a few weeks earlier on the rainbow bridge.

  On the ground beside the car lay a man. Facedown. Carefully
, Skye turned him over. He was still breathing, but barely.

  She closed her eyes, and suddenly she was on the rainbow bridge with him. The texture where her feet stood was as unsteady as flowing water, but she faced the victim. Her analysis of him, his past and future, was instantaneous, as was her decision. She would save him.

  “It is not your time to die,” she told him as she glanced toward the light at the far end of the bridge. She saw nothing, no shimmering towers, no Valkyrie forebears to communicate with her. She had been told the vision would fade in her memory, and it had, somewhat. She remained uncertain how much had been her own hopeful subconscious, and how much was true.

  But now she had a job to do.

  “Come back with me, sir,” she said softly to the spirit of the man whose body she had left waiting on the ground by the car. “Your family and friends will be glad you survived this terrible night.”

  “Thank you.” The man had thinning brown hair, a round face and glasses. He looked confused but took the hand Skye offered.

  Suddenly she was back, beside the car. The man lay there moaning.

  “I’ve called 911.” Trevor put his hand down to help her to her feet.

  “The suspect?”

  “Gone. Permanently. And I’m sure you didn’t see him on your bridge, did you?”

  Skye shook her head. She smiled up into Trevor’s handsome, beaming face.

  “We make a hell of a good team.” He lowered his mouth to hers.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-3466-0

  BACK TO LIFE

  Copyright © 2009 by Linda O. Johnston

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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