didn't want anything to do with Keller Trueblood's remembrances. "Why
don't you just restore his memory to some other sap?" /
Angelo glowered at Kiel's choice of labels. "That is impossible."
"Why?" Kiel demanded. "Humans get themselves age-regressed and claim
other people's memories and lives all the time."
"Crackpots," Angelo muttered darkly. "We're not restoring Keller
Trueblood's memory to you. It can't be done. But your soul is your
soul, and your consciousness of earthly exPerience may expand to
benefit your cause."
He paused and glanced skyward, shaking his head. "Look. This is all
celestial psycho-babble to me. I just pass out assignments, and these
orders come from on high. You may refuse this assignment, Kiel, but
it's been hinted that one of Robyn Delaney's descendants will be
crucial to the fate of mankind in the next millenium. That won't be
possible if Robyn provokes her' own murder."
Kiel stood and paced to the window overlooking the gardens in back. The
last of the roses clung sweetly to the vine. Autumn leaves had begun
to fall. Angels didn't need oxygen, per se, so it wasn't possible that
his lungs were failing him. Still, he felt this sensation to the core
of his angel being.
A curious, dangerous sparkling hummed through every cell of his human
form. Kiel shut his eyes and let his memory reconstruct for him
Angelo's three-dimensional image of Robyn Delaney Trueblood. The
extraordinary bond he felt with her overpowered his considerable
angelic detachment... and then he understood the strange emotion human
beings called despair.
He would fight to save her life; and though he was her soulmate,
because his natural life had been cut short and he was an angel, Robyn
Delaney's children would not be his.
He drew a deep breath and allowed the peace of his heavenly existence
to ease the painful mortal emotion, restoring his equilibrium.
The dice of God, after all, were always loaded.
ONE MOMENT THE TRAFFIC was at a standstill, and the next, flowing
freely. Robyn had never seen anything like it. In fact, fifteen miles
further up 1-70, she began to wonder if there had been any delay at
all. Maybe she was just so anxious to get on with confronting Stuart
Willetts and Trudi Candelaria that she had imagined the whole thing but
no.
She hadn't imagined anything.
The sun went down behind the mountains early, casting a glow around the
asPen groves. In Silverthorne she pulled off the interstate to fill
her gas tank. Dark clouds had begun to roll over the mountains,
obliterating the sunlight. The gas station cashier said she'd heard
they'd closed Independence Pass and it was snowing even now on Vail
Pass both entries to Aspen.
What else could go wrong? Robyn thought, changing in the rest room
into a clean pair of oatmeal-colored linen slacks and a turquoise silk
blouse. But a late September snowfall in the mountains wasn't all that
uncommon.
Resuring herself that a few inches of snow would not make the roads
impassable, she tossed her ruined clothing into the back seat of the
car, then darted across the way into a French bakery near the warehouse
outlet stores. She bought a small crusty baguette and a large coffee,
then resumed her drive.
By the turnoff south of Minturn, high in the heart of the Rockies,
Robyn knew the sudden storm was more than she had counted on. She
hadn't packed for this. She stayed on 1-70 westbound, and in Glenwood
Springs she almost turned off and took a room at the famous Hotel
Colorado. The natural hot springs in the area would have gone a long
way toward easing the ache in her leg from taking on the creepy little
mugger and then driving so far.
What would it matter if she didn't get to Aspen tonight? Willetts and
Candelaria would not be any more guilty or less innocent.
Robyn simply couldn't endure the delay. She hadn't made her reputation
by coddling herself. She wouldn't start now. She knew from long
experience that if she waited, her advantage might crumble. Frau Kautz
would return. Robyn might lose the element of surprise, or catch one
and not the other at home Spyder's home. For her purposes, she needed
to Catch Candelaria and Willetts together and off guard and without the
interference-running Frau Kautz.
South from Glenwood on what the locals called Killer 82, Robyn wended
her way up the Roaring Fork River valley to Aspen. Winding, steep,
breathtakingly gorgeous in her headlights even against the pitch black
of night, the road twisted and climbed through the mountains until the
pink glow of Aspen in the distance began to shine through the snow.
She couldn't see the lights of private airplanes twinkling above Sardy
Field, but the landing approach sent them so close to the highway that
she could hear the whine of jet engines in descent, landing in rapid
succession before the storm made it impossible.
Short of Main Street, she turned back on the McClain Flats Road, back
toward some of the most expensive properties anywhere on earth. She
might have taken the county road itself outside of the town of
Snowmass, but there was no marker for the road Spyder lived on.
Robyn backtracked slowly. She knew that many of these ritzy
communities were gated, with at least a security guard and a boom to
lower and raise, but not the one she sought. Spyder Nielsen was
extravagant to the extreme in many ways, but not in this.
No one who didn't belong on his estate or serve there even knew where
Spyder's property lay not, at least, until he'd been murdered. She
turned onto a road she would not have seen in the dark and snow without
knowing exactly how far she'd come back.
No snowplows had been through, but so far, it hadn't mattered. She
hadn't hydroplaned or been unable to brake. She would make it just
fine.
In keeping with the rugged, natural environs, there were no street
lamps. Her headlights reflected back at her off the blowing snow, and
she passed through steep patches that in another few months would be
impassable without four-wheel drive.
Spyder Nielsen's estate lay yet another four miles ahead. One mile up
the narrow, winding road the snow began to drift. Robyn's tires began
to slip on icy gravel beneath the snow. She pressed on the gas pedal
and plowed through a small drift, but on the other side of the barrier,
her speed sent her into a sickening spin and her coupe careered
backward, slamming the rear of the car into the mountainside.
"Damn it!" she cried, jolted hard, banging her fist in frustration off
the steering wheel. A part of her knew she should take a cosmic hint
and give up confronting Willetts and Candelaria tonight, but she
refused to be stopped.
Nothing would have stopped Keller. Nothing had ever stopped Keller not
until that mine shaft collapsed and nothing could stop her short of her
goal now, either. "The engine had died, but she was able to switch on
the ignition again. She tried rocking the ear back and
forth to gain
momentum and escape the drifts, but every maneuver she tried to pull
her coupe back onto the road only buried her tires deeper.
The car refused to budge. She knew she would never be able to see in
the dark how she could work her way free and back onto the road.
She pared down the contents of her shoulder bag to a small voice
recorder, her identification and a toothbrush, then pulled a disposable
rain slicker over her head, the only garment she had that might come
close to protecting her from the elements, got out of the car and began
hiking up the deserted and treacherous mountain road.
The thick, wet snow soaked through her canvas espadrilles. The rain
slicker, her only protection, barely held up. Her limbs began to feel
leaden and her fingers frozen, then fiery and finally numb from the
cold. The wind sliced through her linen slacks and plastered the
slicker to her shoulders. One shiver after another shuddered through
her body, and Robyn began to cry.
Her tears made the going even tougher. She couldn't see where she was
going, much less gauge her steps. The rugged mountain road was meant
for four-wheeling, not hiking. The terrain created drifts and the
ice-encrusted gravel gave way beneath her feet.
Getting out of her car was the worst decision she had made in a string
of impulsive, irrational choices. She wasn't getting better, she was
getting worse. She wasn't getting over Keller, she had merely
uncovered whole new vistas to obsess in. She loved him more than life.
She didn't want to go on without him. She didn't want to be brave
anymore, or strong.
It was just too hard pretending to be fine when her heart ached so much
that she just wanted to lie down and die.
When her leg collapsed beneath her and she fell, she struggled back to
her knees, anyway. Something inside her would not say die. Some
primitive part of her brain refused to give up and let her heart have
its way.
She swiped at her tears, but her hands were cold and wet from failing
in the snow. She would follow the road back to her car and wait in the
warmth from the heater for help to arrive. How long could it be before
someone drove by?
Days.
She shoved the thought away and pulled the strap of her purse back onto
her shoulder. She tried to stand, but this time her ankle, stiffened
by the numbing cold snow, twisted and threw her into a patch of scrub
oak. She fought off more tears, willing herself to crawl back to her
car if that's all she could do.
At last she saw the lumpish shape of her car, covered by snow in the
time since she had taken off on foot, but her leg collapsed beneath her
one last time. The extreme mountain cold and damp ate away at her
will. A dangerous euphoria threatened her thinking. Her body was so
cold that her mind shut down the pain signals. She had finally found
the way to end her anguish with no one around to shame her out of it or
stop her.
All she had to do was fall back and let the cold sap her body heat a
little longer, and then she would be free and clear. Hypothermia would
save her from feeling anything ever again.
She fell asleep, startled awake and drifted off again, and finally,
finally succumbed to the overwhelming illusion of warmth and peace.
Her tears froze on her lashes, and her eyes fell shut. It wouldn't be
long now.
She dreamed she heard the laboring sough of a stallion, and that she
could feel the pounding of hoofbeats through the snow-blanketed
earth.
Caught in her frozen dream, a golden horse and rider seemed to
materialize in her hallucinations from out of the snowy darkness. A
peculiar lightness seemed to emanate around them. The rider wore a
long sheepskin coat, boots, jeans and a light-colored Stetson pulled
low over his eyes.
"Keller!"
Untold joy suffused her sleeping mind and frozen heart. She was going
now. She would not have to endure an hour longer.
Keller had come for her.
Robyn vt Kmt. tYrT her name and scooped her up from the hard
snow-covered earth and cradled her against his body. He held her
close, sheltering her, knowing it would take a miracle, and a fast one,
to bring her back from the brink of a fearsome and terrible decision.
She wanted to die, to let go, and she would unless he could find some
way to lure her back.
He carried her back toward the golden stallion. Supporting her weight
in one ann, he grabbed the leather horn, lifted a foot to the stirrup
iron and swung high into the saddle. The stallion sidestepped,
searching for footing. Kiel wedged Robyn's limp body between his and
the swell of the saddle pommel, then urged his mount up the steep,
treacherous slope.
He guided the stallion further from the upscale ski resort town of
Aspen, Colorado, beyond civilization and onto national fort service
land. In a valley not too distant from Spyder Nielsen's home, Kiel
constructed a log cabin safe house in his mind and it materialized in
the next instant.
Dismounting, he carried Robyn through waist-high drifts to the warm and
welcoming cabin. The door closed behind him. A fire crackled in the
stone hearth fireplace as the need occurred to him.
Had Robyn been conscious, he might have been a little more circumspect
about utilizing his extensive powers, but she wasn't and he feared for
her life. Her hypothermia was meaningless in his arms; her normal body
temperature was already restored and had been from the moment he
plucked her from the snow, but the will to live had all but fled her
fragile spirit.
He strode across the room to the feather bed and sat, still holding
RObyn in his arms. By the light of the fire, he began to peel away the
wet, bone-chilling clothes from her body. He knew at this moment it
was in Robyn Delaney's subconscious power to choose to live or die, and
he feared her choice. He could help keep her alive. He could even
speed the healing process, but without her will, her choice, he could
do nothing.
He dropped her sodden, ice-crusted clothing on the floor and, holding
her against his body, threw back the covers. Wrapping her tightly in
the down quilt, he tucked her body between the flannel sheets, knelt at
the side of the bed and took her raw and bleeding hands into his.
He focused all his angelic powers upon bringing the life-sustaining
resources of her body to bear upon the scrapes and abrasions on her
palms. As he watched, the healing began to take place. A lit He
longer, and fresh new skin, whole and sweet, overtook the bleeding
places, restoring her hands until the shape of them caught at his
memory. Or rather, Keller's memory but it was Kiel who turned her left
hand over and recognized the wedding ring, the square-cut sapphire
surrounded by half-carat diamonds, that Keller had vowed upon to be
hers forever.
His throat thickened, another first for him, like the flash of despair
he had experienced. He separated himself from t
he emotions as a ghost
slips from a dying body.
"Robyn, listen to me," he urged. "You must come back. Don't go. Don't
go." Her body was still and stiff as a sculpture in ice. Her body
temperature was normal, but she lay still as death.
He maintained a cocoon of radiant heat around her, then let his
awareness traverse her body, searching for other injuries he had not
seen. When he sensed the damage to her face, an un angelic rage
stirred in him.
He tilted her chin upward. Firelight illuminated the bruised and
swollen cheek her Guardian Clarence had mentioned. As an angel, Kiel
could not swear but he had never been as sorely tempted. Again he
focused her body's own healing power upon the battered flesh below her
eye, and that injury healed, as well. Still she showed no signs of
fighting to live.
Kiel jerked back the covers and ran his hand from her calf up her
thigh, along her slender waist and torso, and he knew from the
lifelessness he sensed that Robyn Delaney had given up.
"Don't do it, Robyn!" he urged. "Try. Come back to me!" He shook
her shoulder, and for a moment her beautiful brown eyes opened and
fixed on him. "Robyn, do it for Keller. Hang in there."
Her eyes filled with tears. Her chin quivered, and she swallowed and
caught her lip between her teeth, looked away, then again deep into
Kiel's eyes. Her small whimper sounded to him like "Keller."
Unblinking, she reached to touch his cheek, but her body had been
pushed past its limits. Her hand fell away. "Hold me. Please. Hold
me."
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