Bishop,_Carly_-_The_Soul_Mate.txt Read online

  Already kneeling, Kiel bowed his head, instinctively seeking guidance,

  the wisdom of a power greater than his own. Robyn Delaney hovered

  between life and death, and no radiant cocoon of warmth, no direction

  of her life forces, no therapy, no miracle save love was going to bring

  her back this time.

  He knew how far she had come, how many times since -her leg was crushed

  in that mine shaft that she had bat-tied back from death's door. She

  could have given up and joined Keller Trueblood in eternity a year ago,

  but she had chosen life then, a dozen times since then--and even this

  night when she fought to get back to her car.

  Body and soul, her resources were spent. She needed the intimacy of

  another human body, the reassurance of love and life and purpose and

  meaning in order to go on living. She needed the love of Keller

  Trueblood one last time, and Kiel was as close as she was going to

  get.

  He took this reasoning for the divine guidance he sought, and stood to

  tear off his clothes and join her in that feather bed in a place that

  had no real existence in space and time.

  He drew her on her side flush to his body, and deep, cell-level memory

  took over, fitting her head to his breast, her breasts to his torso,

  her pelvis 'to his stomach, her thighs to his male flesh. He crossed

  one leg over hers, taking her more fully into his body's embrace.

  At last her body began to respond, burrowing closer, instinctively

  seeking contact deeper than flesh and bone, and after a few moments, a

  deep shuddering took her in its powerful grip. Even then, Kiel 'knew

  it was not from the hypothermia but the hollowness of her soul where

  the love of Keller Trueblood had lived. Her hands began to move over

  Kiel's human form in deeply instinctual ways, seeking union in the only

  vein left to her.

  He made love to her. His touch, his kisses, had nothing to do with

  lust, which, like swearing and all the seven deadly sins, were

  forbidden him. His soul was Keller's, united for all time with Robyn

  Delaney's. Making love to her was an expression of deep and abiding

  love, one precious moment in which he could give her reason to go on.

  His human flesh grew hot and turgid. He stroked her, trailed his lips

  from the jagged course of her terrible scars to her breasts, to her

  sweetly bow-shaped lips, and slowly, slowly, he seduced her back from

  the terrible brink.

  She called out Keller's name when Kiel penetrated her

  Afterward, when she had fallen deeply asleep, Kiel prayed that this

  union of his and Keller's soul with hers would have the flesh-and-blood

  result of a child.

  But, being an angel, Kiel was required absolutely to be truthful, so he

  admitted to himself that he had not prayed on her behalf but for

  himself, instead.

  Chapter Three

  Robyn wavered in and out of consciousness, still caught up in the

  remnants of a dream. Could she awaken in her dream and still be

  asleep? It must be so, for her eyes opened and her gaze fixed on the

  man in her dreams sitting quietly on the stone hearth of a log cabin.

  A tide of sensual memories flowed through her. Her heart began to

  thump.

  She watched him through her lashes. Nothing about his physical

  appearance reminded her of any man she had ever known--least of all

  Keller, who had been long and too lean, darkly handsome and deeply

  tanned. He was, Keller had always joked, a candidate for that

  weather-beaten leathery look in old age.

  This man's softly curling hair gleamed like polished bronze. His skin

  was fair, his eyes a stunning, deep shade of blue, his body more

  muscled than Keller's had been. He seemed ageless to her. He held

  something white in his hands--ivory, maybe--turning it over and over as

  if some treasure was concealed inside.

  She had never expected to awaken from that moment when she saw Keller,

  when she believed that she had crossed over from life into the

  Hereafter with him. But sometime after seeing him, she had been

  compelled to turn back.

  She'd expected that when she woke the dream would be over. She would

  discover that she had not really been saved from freezing to death by a

  mysterious rider and been warmed by his body. That she had not seen

  the light of Keller's eyes in those of a complete stranger, and that

  she had not made love with him.

  But she had. Her body told her that.

  In her dreams, it was Keller touching her, Keller whose lips trailed

  fire and life, Keller whose touch incited her body and invited, no,

  commanded, that she edge back from extinction, Keller whose thrust she

  recognized and craved like no other, ever. But this man was not who

  she had believed he was.

  Her cheeks flamed, but she could not sustain the flash of deep,

  piercing anger because something more deeply substantial, more

  meaningful than his physical appearance, spoke to her heart.

  So much so that she knew.

  Making love with this man was more the brushing together of her soul

  with his than a physical mating, which scared her more than if she'd

  gone out looking to have Keller's memory blotted from her heart.

  Lying naked and afraid of what she had done beneath a fluffy down

  comforter, she closed her eyes. The feather bed era died her.

  Pillows, soft as clouds, cushioned her head. Her ankle felt whole and

  healthy. Her cheek didn't ache, either, so she knew she must be in that

  nether-world of not being quite awake. But her heart still thumped,

  and the stranger consumed her dreamy dismay at finding herself still

  occupying her body, even in a dream.

  She opened her eyes again. He had begun to whittle the piece of ivory.

  "What is your name?"

  He looked up. His intense blue eyes. focused on her in a way she

  didn't understand, as if he didn't expect her to have to ask such a

  question. "Kiel," he said. "Kiel what?" "Just... Kiel."

  "And who are you, just Kiel?"

  His lips curved.

  Her eyes fastened on his lips. An errant fris son of a thrill skated

  over her skin. How could this, this, be a dream?

  "An Avenging Angel," he said.

  "Of course." She drew a pillow up tight against her tender breasts.

  She clung to her dream as if her sanity depended upon it. "That's

  possible in a dream. Isn't it? Did you leave your wings at the

  door?"

  "No." He raised his brow. "I don't do wings, except under extreme

  circumstances." He gave a half smile. "Even then, I don't check them

  at the door."

  She smiled dreamily. "I don't fall into bed with strange angels,

  either--except in near-death experiences, I guess. I'm a widow," she

  confided, then frowned. "But I guess you know all that if you're an

  angel, huh?"

  "I know, Robyn."

  The firelight behind him set a halo around his golden red hair. Or

  maybe, expecting angel accoutrements, she was only making that up in

  her dreams, too. The troubling thought occurred to her that angels

  didn't go around making love to mortals, even in dreams. Kiel was way

&nbs
p; too sexy to be an angel. The way he made her feel, looking at her, was

  how Keller had always made her feel, only more so. More earthy.

  Sexual. Rooted in what was real. Love.

  But she must be wrong about dreams. Anything could happen, couldn't

  it? He could know what was in her heart if this was her dream. Isn't

  that what all women wanted in a mate, a man who understood what was in

  her heart?

  She sat up, pulling the comforter up to cover herself. "Maybe that's

  what this is all about. My poor little lost psyche fulfilling my

  deepest needs in my dreams." His eyes betrayed a glint of terrible

  guilt. "What?" she asked. "Tm sorry, Robyn."

  She swallowed. She didn't understand. "Sorry for what? Being in my

  dreams?"

  "Not exactly." Dressed in jeans and a green-and-blue plaid woolen

  shirt, barefoot, male, freckled, strong and testy enough to make a

  believer of her, he stopped whit-fling and set aside the chunk of ivory

  and his knife. "This isn't a dream."

  "Oh. Well." She straightened her backbone. "In that case you need to

  pop out, or whatever earth angels do, and I need to be on my way."

  She tossed aside the comforter and stood, naked, her body still rosy in

  the afterglow of sleep and one dangerously sensual dream. She figured

  Kiel, the-figment-of-her-imagination-angel, would fade in a trice. That

  she would wake up in her own bedroom with Keller's outrageous

  pen-and-ink cartoon sketches on the bookshelves, the thick

  gray-and-peach Aubusson carpet, the too-neat, half-empty sleigh bed and

  the scent from a vase of white roses that she had bought herself

  because Keller wasn't around to bring her flowers anymore.

  The only trouble was, when she stood, naked as the day she was born,

  Kiel didn't fade. Reality crowded in on her. A bare plank floorboard

  creaked beneath her feet.

  The bed was rumpled. The scent of burning pine logs permeated the

  cabin.

  And the Avenging Angel Kiel stared an instant too long at her body.

  He stood and raked a hand through his fiery golden hair, then turned to

  plant his hands on the. mantel and stare into the fire instead. "Get

  dressed, Robyn."

  She panicked. Would an angel have a gritting voice of a frustrated

  human male? No. Keeping a sharp eye on his broad, plaid-dad back, she

  snatched up clothes from her open suitcase, then stared at the designer

  jeans she didn't remember packing and a beautiful Scottish wool

  pullover sweater of Keller's she wore only at home. The remains of her

  euphoria vanished into thin air. "What are these?"

  "Your clothes?"

  "I want to know what is going on right now!" She put on the underwear,

  jeans and Keller's sweater, then jerked on warm socks. "Who are you,

  really? How did these things get in my suitcase? For that matter,

  where is here?"

  He sighed, then picked up the poker and sent sparks flying up the stone

  chimney. "I'm an angel, Robyn. An Avenging Angel." He seemed to know

  the precise moment she was dressed and he could safely turn around

  again. He put the poker back in its place and sat down, taking up his

  knife once more. "The clothes are yours--"

  "No," she contradicted him fiercely, ignoring for the moment his

  delusions of being an Avenging Angel. "The sweater belonged to my

  husband--to Keller--and I only wear it when I'm... alone." Her head

  dipped low. Embarrassment nagged at her for betraying herself.

  Again.

  That she would wear Keller's sweater to drive away her loneliness told

  a pretty pathetic tale.

  "I must be going crazy." She pressed her lips together, and lifted her

  chin. She couldn't question how Keller's sweater got in her suitcase

  if she wasn't willing to accept the possibility of an angel--an

  Avenging Angel--intervening in her life. "I must have put the sweater

  and jeans and socks there myself."

  "I thought the sweater would be a comfort to you." Kiel whoever-he-was

  sat back on the hearth. His eyes never left her.

  She swallowed. "How would you know that?" She met his gaze defiantly.

  He seemed to be waiting on her to accept the absurd, but he would have

  a long wait.

  He tilted his head. "Robyn, I know this is a stretch to believe--"

  "It's more than a stretch, buster. It's either loony tunes or a

  miracle." She had made her reputation drawing together the threads of

  unlikely events, crimes, motives. She knew how battered and bruised

  hearts became so twisted that a woman could drown her own children or a

  husband kill his wife, but those weren't things that led to a great

  deal of faith. "I don't believe in miracles." "Not in any, Robyn?"

  Her chin tilted stubbornly. "Not unless I count Keller's presence in

  my life. But then Keller was ripped right back out again, so that

  would be a miracle gone awry, wouldn't it?" she demanded. "Not a

  miracle at all, but some cruel cosmic joke I can't ever forgive!"

  He lowered his wildly blue eyes. Didn't have an answer for that did

  he? she thought. She felt perilously close to panicking. She latched

  onto her anger instead, watching him leaning back against the stone

  fireplace, his legs outstretched. His bare feet were utterly

  masculine,

  therefore completely human. And whether she'd packed those clothes

  herself or fallen into bed in some hypo-thermic stupor, she wasn't

  ready to be carted off by men in white jackets.

  She plopped herself down in the wooden rocker a little way away with

  her cosmetic bag and began tugging at the laces of winter hiking boots

  she had not packed, either. "Suppose you start at the beginning. With

  the truth, this time."

  His fingers toyed with the knife but his eyes focused on hers. "Angels

  can't lie, Robyn." His voice was still laced with that human male

  grittiness. "It doesn't matter whether you believe I'm an angel or

  not. I've been sent to prevent your death."

  She went along for the hell of it, wisecracking to pretend she had a

  choice. "Wouldn't that more properly be the province of Guardian

  Angels?"

  Kiel's lips curved. "Usually." His smile made her skin prickle. "The

  truth is, Robyn Delaney, your Guardian threw up his hands in

  despair."

  She blinked. "I hope you're kidding."

  "I'm not."

  "You're saying there are such things as Guardian Angels?"

  "Yes." He nodded. She knew he was looking again at her black eye and

  swollen cheek where the mugger had backhanded her. "Yours gave you up

  for a hopeless cause. He didn't know what to do for you anymore."

  For an intelligent woman, she had made some fairly reckless decisions.

  She knew that. Her fingers went to her cheek. It didn't hurt at all,

  or feel the slightest bit swollen to her fingers. She snatched up a

  compact from her tapestry bag of makeup and flipped it open. Her black

  eye was completely clear, and her cheek unbruised.

  "Oh, my God." Her hands began to shake. She snapped the compact

  closed and let it fall into her lap. Her hand waved aimlessly in the

  direction of her cheek. "Did you do this? Fix this?"

  "Not exactly
. I made your own healing go a little... faster, is

  all."

  She took a deep breath and blew it out. She could no longer cling to

  the notion that this was all a dream. Kiel didn't seem to fit the

  manic mold, which might have explained his delusions of being an

  Avenging Angel.

  She had a preocupation with reasons, a passion to know why people

  behaved as they did, what drove them, a need to understand how things

  happened. Right now she couldn't explain anything, not her clothing,

  not her cheek being healed, not this place.

  Or even why she had allowed Kiel to entice her back from the promising

  brink of the Hereafter where she could have had Keller back again. Why

  had she been so willing to see something of Keller in this stranger?

  Queen of the Lonely Hearts, Robyn Delaney Trueblood .... If her eyes

  weren't deceiving her and she hadn't gone over the edge, then what he

  claimed must somehow be true. She needed answers.

  She needed them now. "Where are we?"

  He paused in his whittling and looked around the cabin. "This place

  doesn't really exist."

  "Humor me. If it did exist, where would it be?"

  "A ways from your car, tucked away in a remote valley beyond Aspen."

  Then, Robyn thought, she was still within striking distance of Spyder

  Nielsen's place. "And you just materialized out of thin air? On--"

  "You were half frozen to death."