Bishop,_Carly_-_The_Soul_Mate.txt Read online

  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."