Until I Die Again [On The Way To Heaven] (Soul Change Novel) (6 page)

Then there was her mission, from He who gave her a second chance.
Find his heart.

She followed the soft orange glow of the nightlight to the bathroom, purposely avoiding the mirror for two reasons: the disconcerting feeling every time she saw a stranger looking back, and that this time the stranger would have puffy red eyes and tear streaks down her cheeks. She blew her nose and washed her face. The two DVDs caught her eye.

Peering out into the dark hallway, she listened for any sounds in the deep night. Jamie’s bedroom door was ajar, and she studied the slit of black to see if he might be standing there. She could make out no distinct shape. No doubt, he was lying there in blissful sleep, unaware that a stranger slept across the balcony from him.

When she reached the living room, she turned on the lights. To her chagrin, there was no door to close. She turned the volume knob way down. She chose the wedding DVD first.

She turned off the lights, sat on the floor, and leaned against the burgundy leather chair. She studied every move Hallie made, the way she laughed and talked, the way she walked, or more like sauntered across the room. Chris realized then that she still walked in her old style, casual with a slight bounce.
That’s because you still see yourself the way you used to look
. The reason she was always startled at the mirror’s image.

Weddings always made her cry, and this one was no exception. It was hard to relate herself to the woman in the video. Hallie was in control, confident and sexy. Even in a white wedding dress and on the arm of the most handsome man there, the other men in the video gawked at her. Chris was sure she’d never received one single look like the ones those men were giving Hallie. No, she was an average girl, nowhere near glamorous.

Although her goal was to study Hallie, her gaze kept drifting to Jamie. She had never seen a more debonair, charming man in her life. Debonair. There was that word again. Oh, did it fit. In his black tuxedo, setting off his light hair and vivid blue eyes, he could easily be a movie star. Those finely chiseled features, high cheekbones and sensual lips. And his crooked smile. She caught herself grinning every time he did. He was the kind of guy she had had crushes on in high school, the ones who treated her like a little sister or one of the guys. Being a tomboy did have its drawbacks. Those guys always went for girls who looked like Hallie.

Their reception was held in a huge, formal banquet room with crystal sconces and chandeliers. The party itself was nothing near formal and stuffy. Jamie whispered in Hallie’s ear during their dance, and she blushed before nibbling his chin in response. Then, for the camera, she winked and pinched his buttocks, which elicited a wiggle from him.

During the toast, her glass of champagne splashed over the side of her glass and down to her elbow. Jamie ran his tongue down the length of her arm, licking off all traces of the champagne. He made the most of the garter removal, moving to the jaunty tune and pulling the garter back up her leg just when he had it to her ankle.

Chris found herself laughing, feeling jealous and wistful all at the same time. It was the kind of wedding she’d always wanted. She tried to picture her old self and Alan having such a wedding, but the image refused to form. Instead, she saw herself and Jamie. This Jamie on the tape seemed a different man than the one she had just met. His blue eyes sparkled with love and laughter, as did Hallie’s. Something had gone terribly wrong with their marriage, despite the promising start.

Chris wiped her eyes when the video ended with a beautiful sunset shot over the pool, silhouetting the newlyweds in an embrace. Leaning over to the player, she put in the next disk, hoping it would give her more clues to Hallie’s personality, and why their marriage had fallen apart.

That tape was a mixture of different events. In one section, Jamie ushered a blindfolded Hallie along a stone pathway that led around a lovely one-story brick house. When he removed the silk handkerchief, her bright blue eyes widened at the sight of a red Porsche in the driveway, a huge blue bow on top. With a squeal, she hugged Jamie, then leaped into the car.

The date at the bottom of the screen moved closer to present, and slowly Chris could see a change in Hallie. A year previous, there was an extravagant party on what looked like Theresa’s lawn. Jamie walked in the garden gate with Hallie on his arm, but minutes later she was off visiting with friends, mostly males. That brilliant blue in his eyes in the earlier sections was a distant memory by then. Chris watched carefully, only getting glimpses now and then of Jamie or Hallie in the background. Never together.

There were a couple of larger parties on the tape, and Chris watched Hallie flirt and get drunk. She watched Jamie’s eyes grow dimmer, and his face grow older. It was almost like seeing two entirely different couples. She felt sad for them, for the death of their marriage. And she felt sad for herself. She had always held the strong belief that her first marriage would be her only. She would be a divorced woman before she’d ever really fallen in love and married.

Jamie leaned against the doorframe just outside the living room, watching Hallie sitting in a pool of light cast by the television. He noticed that she wore the blue peignoir he had given her a year ago. The one she had never worn before.

She had watched their wedding tape and had even cried. He’d seen her wipe her eyes and sniffle. Then she’d watched the second tape, her shoulders slumping as the scenes grew more dismal. At least it looked that way; maybe he was projecting his own feelings onto her actions. Would the videos spark a memory or two in her mind? Would they swiftly return her to her former self?

The sooner the better. Her staying there was a big mistake, and now she didn’t want to leave. She hadn’t taken the hint, in any case. What had possessed him to insist on her staying with him? He should have turned her over to Mick when he had the chance. But she was here, and he was watching her like some voyeur.

He had never seen her sit on the floor. In fact, she used to comment that people who sat on floors must see themselves as dogs. Yet, there she was, like a dog on the floor. He turned to go, but found himself drawn back again. There was something different about her since her stroke. She looked the same, but something in the way she moved had changed. Her voice was different, too, as well as the way she said things.

He realized there
was
something different about her looks, although he thought it might be his imagination. Now that he had watched the videos, he knew what it was: her eyes. They were a deeper blue now, as if she had borrowed some blue from the clouds on her halted trip to the pearly gates.

The fact that she was wearing her wedding ring had not slipped his notice either. During dinner, the diamonds had glittered every time she moved. He wanted to ask her why she still wore it, but for some reason he didn’t want to hear her answer.

Hallie stopped the video and started to get to her feet. He scooted out of the doorway and back down the hall to his room. He didn’t want her catching him there. He felt foolish enough. In a couple of weeks, he would return home, and she would run off to France with Mick. His life would be free of pain and disappointment. Free because he would never again let himself love any woman the way he’d loved Hallie. What a fool he’d been. But he had learned. Yes, he had learned well.

It was nearly eleven o’clock before Chris woke the next morning. The late summer sky was blue and bright, and she sat up and stretched, adding a yawn in for good measure. Then she remembered once again where she was. Mornings were hardest. She awoke thinking her death and new life were all just a bizarre dream, only to be jolted by reality.

The only good thing about her new life, she mused as she looked in the bathroom mirror, was that her hair looked a lot better in the mornings. No more brown afro that had to be tamed into a thousand ringlets.

The only pair of shorts she could find in her suitcases that sufficiently covered her buttocks were so tight she could barely squeeze into them and still breathe. An off-the-shoulder peasant top covered the most skin. Even without any makeup, the woman in the mirror was a knockout. Okay, another plus for the new life.

Jamie’s door was open, and she could see no sign of movement within. With just the slightest trepidation, she ventured down the winding staircase in hopes of running into him before she encountered his mother. The house was quiet, like a museum.

She walked behind the stairs and into the great room. The smell of lemon oil drifted through the air, reminding her of days when she and her sisters would pick slips of paper out of a jar to see what job would be theirs that weekend. Chris hated polishing duty, because afterwards she smelled like oily lemons all day.

A woman dressed in drab brown looked up, startled by Chris’s entrance.

“Good morning, Mrs. DiBarto,” the young woman said quietly.

Chris felt strange being addressed so reverently by someone who was probably in her own social class.

“Hi, what’s your name?”

“Elena.”

“Well, good morning, Elena. Have you seen Jamie?”

“He’s out back.” The woman returned to her task of polishing the dark wood.

“Nice work.”

The woman looked surprised as she stopped mid-wipe and stared up at her. “Thank you.”

When Chris walked out back, she found herself on a terrace that spiraled down to the deck below. The sound of splashing water drew her attention to Jamie, furiously swimming laps in a huge rectangular pool. Sunshine glinted off the waves and spun his wet, blond hair into gold. She watched him and wondered if he’d get mad when he saw her there. She didn’t care. If the tension between them was a string, she could add it to a guitar. Yet she couldn’t take her eyes off him, his lithe, tan body gliding through the water, the way his long, muscular legs pushed him from the wall and back into stride.

Something else, perhaps, to add to the list of good things in her new life? She shook her head. Definitely not. In her twenty-three years of life as Chris, she didn’t have a lot of experience with men, but she knew a defensive barrier when she saw one. She saw his every time he looked at her. Not that she could blame him. His wife had mistreated him, taken him for granted. Worse yet, he had once loved her so very much.

Chris couldn’t even dare to hope her someday husband would look at her the way Jamie had looked at his bride. Maybe someone would be able to penetrate the insurmountable fortress he’d built around his heart; his wife could not be that person.

Something strange clutched her insides for a moment, and her fingers tightened on the railing. When she had thought about the fortress around his heart… there it was again, that odd, squeezing feeling. She dropped her head and closed her eyes, a bright light filling her eyelids.

“Hallie! Are you all right?”

Jamie’s voice pulled her from whatever spell had gripped her, and she snapped her head up. The pool was empty. A hand touched her, and she whirled around to find him at her side, concern filling eyes that matched the sky.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m fine. Just a little…” She tried to find a word to describe what she’d been feeling. “Strange,” was all she could come up with.

“Here, sit down.”

His touch made her arm tingle as he led her to a wooden chaise lounge. She couldn’t keep the tiny grin from showing at the fact that he was creating a puddle around his feet. She glanced down to hide her eyes from him until she could pull herself together. The blond hairs on his legs were plastered against his skin. Part of what made her smile was his gallant effort at coming to her aid, racing up the stairs to the rescue.

“What’s so funny?” The concern in his eyes was transforming to something close to a smile.

“You’re dripping wet, and your hair’s sticking out.” A giggle escaped her lips, but it was the tickling feeling in her stomach as he leaned close that made her feel giddy.

“You’re something else, and I truly mean that.” He shook his head, a lopsided grin on his face. “One minute I think you’re fainting and the next, you’re grinning. At me.”

He was crouched down beside her, and for a moment, they just stared at each other. To her surprise, she realized her heart was hammering away inside her. How crazy, she thought. They looked at each other for the longest time, their smiles fading as the moment became serious. His eyes searched hers for a moment, and her gaze dropped to his mouth as she thought about leaning forward and touching her lips to his.

Jamie squeezed his eyes shut and stood up, running his long fingers through his wet hair to smooth it back. He looked intently out over the property, then back at her from a safe distance.

“Have you had any of those awful headaches since the stroke?”

Chris shook her head, aware of her blonde hair swinging in the corners of her eyes. “No, I’ve been fine. I feel like my old self again.”

The hardening in his expression was barely noticeable, yet she had seen it just the same. She had studied his face as much as Hallie’s last night. She knew every inch, every line and feature.

He walked over to the railing and leaned against it, putting more distance between them. His voice took on that flat tone she had heard before.

“I’m glad to hear that.”

Her words slipped out before she could hold them back. “Would you have been happier if I’d become an invalid? Maybe you would have preferred that I die to pay for my sins?”

Fire lit his eyes as they met hers, and he stood up straight to face her. “Yeah, you’re definitely sounding like your old self again. I don’t love you anymore, but I don’t want you dead or an invalid. The faster you return to full health, the better. Then my husbandly duty is over, and you can go your own way.”

The strain of the last few days culminated in a blast of her temper. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were doing this out of the kindness of your heart. But I can see you don’t have one.” Instantly, the strange feeling returned, and with it regret.

He flinched at her words but bit back, “Sweetheart, you can give yourself credit for that.” He turned and strode down the stairs, diving into the poosloops a bullet.