A Date on Cloud Nine (28 page)

L
illy wanted to tell whoever was moving her to stop it. The swaying nauseated her. But just as in a dream, while she struggled to vocalize something that seemed so important, so life-and-death pivotal, no matter how hard she tried, no words came out.

Cold seeped inside her, chilling her to the core, the kind of frigid where you shiver until your lips are numb and your teeth chatter.

Her face was wet. No surprise there; she had a lot to cry about. Her failure was so obvious, John and Elizabeth probably had banned her from Transition. Knowing she’d better have an explanation ready when she got wherever she was going this time, Lilly pondered what she’d learned over the past few weeks.

It
was
better to give than to receive—especially from the perspective of the hereafter. While money secured creature comforts, it was relationships and love that
saved a person’s soul. Comforts were fleeting; the others everlasting.

Think twice before chasing money.

Beware of a mother-in-law who always used
dear
as a form of address, mourned her dead lover right under her husband’s and sister’s noses, worked out after sixty, and made it a practice for everyone in the family to trade house keys.

Stay out of anyplace you don’t want your name linked with in headlines like
Dildo shop detonates, one dead.
She owed her mom an apology for that one.

Marry the right man first.

Well shoot, anybody could pass those on a written test. But how did one remember the lessons and take them on to the next life? She hadn’t before, and she probably wouldn’t again. She really needed a one-on-one chat with someone in the know.

“Elizabeth!”

Lilly wasn’t surprised when she didn’t receive an answer. No one had to tell her she’d really screwed up her last chance. John surely knew she had a list of suggestions as long as her arm and therefore had assigned her a
Go directly to the end of the longest line
card.

Do not visit Transition.

Do not talk to Elizabeth.

“Elizabeth…”

The deep, sexy rumble reached inside Lilly, chasing away the chill, warming every cell of her body. Hearing it again comforted her so much that she began to think they’d let her into heaven after all. Regardless, she wanted to curl up and crawl inside Jake and stay there forever, but she had to settle for turning her head and nuz
zling her cheek against his…his what? She couldn’t tell.

“Elizabeth…Is that you?”

“Could be.” Betsy said.

Betsy? Why is she here?

Okay, now she was really confused. Betsy hadn’t been at the hospital and she sure as heck shouldn’t be here.

“She calls me that when she’s really, really mad at me. You know, like for getting her blown up. Hey, Lilly, can you hear me?”

A rhythmic sound grew louder, and Lilly struggled harder to open her eyes. It sounded like approaching footsteps, not squeaky ones on a hospital floor, but crunchy ones.

What on earth?

Strong arms cradled her, shifting her to a different position.

“I’m sure you’re not supposed to move her.”

Didn’t seem so bad now.

“Well I can’t just leave her lying there. She’ll go into shock, if she isn’t already.”

Lilly couldn’t see him yet, but there was no mistake. Only one man possessed that deep, sexy rumble. Only one man ever made her heart race and her toes curl.

But Jake wasn’t supposed to be here; this was her journey.

Shoot, if he’d pulled a Romeo and Juliet in the ER and ended up in the same line, she’d spend the rest of eternity giving him hell for being so stupid.

Unlike her first energy-field trip to heaven, Lilly was still receiving sensory input. The cold was bad enough, but now her nose burned, too—inside, the same as it had after the fire at Cloud Nine.

Damn, this didn’t mean—No, not hell.

They wouldn’t
.

Would they?

She might not have done everything John and Elizabeth had wanted, but she’d done a lot. She’d given away millions; she’d helped a lot of people in need. She’d ensured that Jake could pay off all his debts and get down to what he knew best. After all, what he did helped people, even if it was in a different way than John had asked for. Progress counted. She didn’t deserve standing in an endless line with a bunch of miserable strangers who spoke in unknown dialects. She would’ve thought John and Elizabeth knew she understood now that money was a funny thing: Receiving it brought food, shelter, and luxury on earth; charity brought eternal salvation.

But no matter what, she remembered her vow. Jake had promised; she wouldn’t complain about dying early or about the line.

Something cold rubbed across her cheeks and forehead. It was a gentle touch, but uncomfortably icy. She wanted it to stop. She fought her way out of the tunnel, out of the darkness, finally opening her eyes to daylight and a big surprise.

Huge, fluffy snowflakes filled the sky, thick wet ones that floated downward and coated everything with a fresh white coat. Well, everything except Cloud Nine, which was blackened and burning. The yellow taxi was nearby, still with two red, heart-shaped balloons dancing above the antenna.

This wasn’t heaven, hell, Transition, or anything in between.

Hallelujah!

“I’m back,” she rasped. Her throat was raw from heat and smoke, but so what? “I’m back!”

She inhaled deeply, smelling unpleasant burning things, but still, she was alive and breathing. As she pushed the hand of snow away from her face, her heart lifted and soared with the knowledge that she wasn’t dead and on her way to the back of an endless line.

She lifted her head off a broad, T-shirt-covered shoulder and stared right into the dark blue bedroom eyes of—
Yes! Thank you, God
—Jake.

Her heart leaped right into a no-hands cartwheel. “Jake.”

“Hey, that’s right. Hold still,” he cautioned, gently rubbing snow across her forehead. “You’ll be okay if you don’t move.”

“Would you quit with the snowbath?”

“Let me get the soot off. You might be bleeding underneath.”

It sure felt like heaven, the way his voice rumbled through his chest and into her body, humming with sexual electricity and expectation and the memory of his touch.

As her awareness level increased, she discovered she was sitting on his lap. Too bad they had this thick fur coat between them. She wouldn’t mind losing it, but shrugging out of it would mean pulling herself out of his arms, and no way she was going there.

She stared at him, drinking him in, grateful to see no face or tongue piercings.

“What?” he asked suspiciously.

“I was afraid you’d gone and done something stupid.”
She closed her eyes briefly and murmured, “Thank you, John. Thank you, Elizabeth.”

Betsy
tsk
ed. “She’s not making sense. I’m calling 9-1-1 again.”

“Give me a break. I
died
.”

Betsy studied Lilly, snuggled all deep and safe and cozy in Jake’s willing arms. “Girl, if you’re dead, I wanna be dead, too.”

“Don’t worry. You get the paramedic.”

Betsy scanned the parking lot, empty except for a few non-EMS spectators, said, “There she goes again,” and punched three digits into her cell phone.

“Well, geez, give him a minute to get here.”

Jake cocked his head, just so, studying her. Oh yeah, that was the same—the feeling she got when he looked at her as if she were the only woman around. If he could market that, he’d be so filthy rich—

Not that that was what she wanted anymore, no no no.

“She looks all right to me.”

She wanted to listen to his deep sexy rumble for the rest of her life.

That raised a question or two, like just how long
was
the rest of her life? Her head spun with the concept. The past month seemed so real. Had it all been a dream? A premonition?

“Was I dreaming?”

“Don’t know.” Jake’s arms tightened around her. “The mind’s a funny thing. Sometimes it doesn’t see what’s right there. Sometimes it sees what we can’t.”

Betsy plopped down next to Jake’s hip, and said, “That’s quite a philosophy.”

“It’s brand-new. I’m trying it out.” He barely looked at
her, and certainly not with the undivided attention he gave Lilly.

“You should have seen him charge in after you, Lill. My God, Jake, that was so brave. All those flames, all that thick, black smoke.” She took Lilly’s hand in hers. “I don’t know how he found you in there. It was awful. But when he carried you out—”

Betsy became very emotional then and paused to wipe away tears and soot, and to compose herself. Lilly was grateful her best friend was alive and well, but really, she could do without the distraction. Where the heck was a cute paramedic when you needed one?

“Your fur coat was burning, but he put it out.”

“Oh my God.”

His hands
. Lilly pulled hers free and turned Jake’s over to check the damage.

“They’re clean,” he said. “Not that it’d make any difference to your coat now.”

“I don’t care if they’re clean. You’re hurt.”

“Nah.”

“They’re red.”

“Huh. Just from the snow I was using to put out your hair, and the coat, I guess. Damn, look at your limo.”

She glanced over his shoulder. Not only was her formerly immaculate black Mercedes totaled, the insurance photos were going to get a lot of attention due to the rainbow of panties and bras littering the top, and its new, vibrating hood ornament.

“My driver—is he okay?”

“Fine,” Betsy said. “The repairman’s helping him nurse a broken arm, but otherwise he’s okay.”

A news van pulled into the lot then, and Lilly just
knew what they were going to highlight. Might as well take out an ad that told everyone in the city where she’d been today.

Sirens wailed in the distance. If things unfolded the same as before, she and Jake would be hustled off to the ER and different treatment rooms. Then it wouldn’t have been a dream, but some kind of sick precognition, and she wasn’t interested. She didn’t want to be separated from him, not even temporarily.

“Wait, whoa,” he said, holding on to her hand. “What’re you doing?”

“I want to get up.”

“No no no, wait for the paramedics.”

“I’m okay. I just want to go home.” Was that déjà vu she was feeling? Were those the very words she’d spoken before? She couldn’t go through this again. She couldn’t lose him again. For her own peace of mind, she had to break what might be a cycle.

“Sounds like they’re almost here. Please, go to the hospital and get checked out.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t sue for getting blown up.”

“I’m sure the owner’ll take great comfort in that,” he said dryly.

It took a couple tries to get to her feet. Jake didn’t stop her again, but rose with her, steadying her until her head quit spinning.

“You must be freezing,” she said.

“I’m all right.” He picked up his jacket, the leather scarred with burns. Shit, this was too spooky.

“You sure that’s out?”

He held it against his body while he patted it down, and of all the stupid things, she envied that jacket.

“How about giving me a ride home in your taxi?” That’d be different. Change was good.

Jake put himself in her space, dipping his head to be more on her level. “You sure you’re okay?”

“You have no idea.”

“That’s why I’m asking.”

She grinned. “I’m fine.”

He patted his jeans pockets. “Okay then, let me get the keys. No sense in you freezing. You can start it up and get warm while I handle whatever I have to do here. The store belongs to a buddy of mine, and I need to make sure he’s on his way.”

Yes
. Her path was changing already. Of course she didn’t want to change it completely.

After searching his jeans, Jake checked the jacket and finally found the keys. He stroked the rabbit’s foot dangling from the ring.

“Good luck charm?” she asked hopefully.

“It’s weird. I found this on the floor earlier, and all of a sudden, I had an urge to put it on here.”

“So, you’re not normally into good luck charms.”

“I am now.”

Maybe that’s all that counts.

He detached the foot and slipped it into his jeans pocket. When he withdrew his hand, several dollar bills came with it. They unfolded, separated, and fluttered to the snow.

Lilly simply stared at them.

Jake bent down and snagged a couple as a breeze came up. Betsy picked one up, then scowled at Lilly. “Well? You could help, you know.”

Gingerly, Lilly put just the toe of her boot on the nearest one.

Betsy curled her fingers and lightly knocked on Lilly’s head. “Hello? Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?”

Lilly laughed and pushed her away, and Betsy retaliated by scooping up a snowball.

A quick succession of emergency vehicles—fire, police, EMS—pulled into the lot, adding their own brand of noise and confusion to the scene.

“I meant it, Betsy. You get the cute one. I get to go home.”

“What cute—? Oh, I see what you mean. Sure you’re all right?” Betsy dropped her snowball and walked away without waiting for an answer.

Jake tugged the bill from beneath Lilly’s boot. “Thanks. Go sit in the taxi. I’ll send one of them over to check you out.”

“I want to go—”

“I know, I know, but it wouldn’t hurt to get a second opinion.”

“I’m
not
going to the hospital.” She plucked the keys from his hand and marched to the taxi, prepared to warm up and figure out how to stick around Jake without scaring him off.

Hm, he’d saved her life. A dinner, at least, would be a nice way to say thank you. A couple bottles of wine. Some good music. A nice fire—the regular kind—for the two of them to cuddle in front of.

She didn’t even get the key in the ignition. As she slid behind the wheel, her gaze strayed around the interior, and she felt—What? Instantly disappointed?

The dash wasn’t laminated with photos.

No touch football, music recitals, synchronized swimming, or a small boy crying in a pink snowsuit.