Stranger in the Mirror [Shades of Heaven] (Soul Change Novel) Read online

  Jesse leaned back on the swing and propped his feet up on the porch railing. “So this Jamie guy was a model, too?”

  She smiled, remembering the first time she’d seen him. A redhead was brushing his hair, flirting with him. Jamie’s eyes were on Hallie, though.

  “Yeah. He was rich, good looking, and fun. We got married soon after we met. About a year later, he bought part of an island and turned it into a resort.”

  “If he was so great, why were you a lousy wife?”

  Marti’s shoulders tensed before she remembered she’d used those exact words earlier. “I didn’t appreciate what I had.”

  “Sounds like you still have that problem.”

  She glared at him. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, if I died and got a second chance, I’d be happy in the body of a dwarf, just to see the sunshine and smell the fresh air some more. Playing along with your crazy game, it seems to me you should be damned grateful you got a second chance, no matter where you are or what you look like. But all you keep talking about is how rich and gorgeous you used to be.”

  She ignored his remark about craziness. “I’m thrilled I got another chance, but is it ungrateful to want my old life back? I had a great life, a great husband, more money than I knew what to do with… of course I want it back.”

  Jesse crossed his bare feet on the railing, leaning further back on the bench. “Why were you going to leave your good-looking, rich husband?”

  She stood and leaned against a nearby wooden post. “You listen too much, you know that? I said I wasn’t smart enough to appreciate what I had when I had it.” She sighed. “I wasn’t all that smart anyway.”

  “I thought you went to college.”

  “I went to three classes, all right? That’s when I got into modeling. That seemed a lot more fun than sitting in a classroom. And I made good money at it.”

  He shook his head almost imperceptibly. She looked away. Why did he put her on edge just sitting there beside her? They remained silent for a while, static electricity between them. Her past was nothing to be proud of, and she didn’t want to share it with anyone, particularly Jesse.

  All the times she and Joya went out dancing, flirting… oh, be honest with yourself, picking up men, that’s what you were doing. The day after, on the phone with Joya, they’d talk about how great or how lousy their man had been in bed. Only Hallie had lied most of the time, varying the details so Joya wouldn’t pick up on the fiction of her bedroom tales.

  Like an addict, she craved the validation men’s attention gave her. Having sex was something she couldn’t do, so she invariably ended up picking a fight and stalking out in a huff before ever getting to the bedroom.

  She let out a soft sigh and sank down on the bench again, focusing on the wood grain on the post. “I can see so much more about myself and my life from a distance. Almost like Hallie DiBarto is someone else. She pushed Jamie. Tested him. Because she didn’t feel she deserved him, or anything nice. She pushed him past his limits so he’d leave her like she was sure he was going to eventually.”

  “Why’d you feel that way?”

  “It’s how I was raised to see myself. Maybe it was how my mother was raised, too, to put all her value in her looks. When I hit my teens, I suspect she felt threatened by a daughter who got the attention she no longer did. I don’t think she did it on purpose, but she made me feel insignificant and ugly … inside.”

  Wait. Where had that come from? She’d never had the clarity to see the truth, but now it seemed so obvious.

  She shot to her feet, her hand over her mouth. “I was becoming like her. Oh, God, I was.” She pictured the woman desperately clinging to the only attributes she thought she had—her sexuality. The makeup and skin-tight, low cut clothing … the same kind of clothes Hallie had worn. “You’re right. Dying was probably the best thing to ever happen to me.”

  Now some other woman was having to deal with her mother. But the new Hallie wouldn’t have the childhood scars she had borne, scars that still marked her soul. Or the memories of a mother who negated every compliment Hallie got, even as a child.

  That woman’s obviously blind. Look at your mess of hair.

  The only reason he said that is ‘cause he wants to get in your pants.

  Men’ll tell you anything …

  Can’t believe a word they say …

  After a while, Hallie started doing what her mother did, eschewing compliments or viewing them with jaded eyes.

  She dropped back down again. “You think I’m crazier by the minute, don’t you?”

  “Well, we started out pretty high on the scale already.”

  “I suppose we did.” She laughed, trying to see this from his point of view. It was a wonder that he hadn’t trotted her off to a mental hospital. Yet.

  He rocked the bench, assessing her as though he were considering just that. He actually looked kind of cute, when he wasn’t irritating her.

  She decided to change the subject. “I can’t believe my name is really Marti May. At first I thought it was some cutesy nickname.”

  “That’s your maiden name. We joked about how funny it was, you going from Marti May to Marti May West.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “And that makes you Jesse West?”

  He bowed. “Jesse James West, if you please. My brother’s Billy the kid. And my sister’s Calamity Jane West, although my parents didn’t want to actually name her Calamity, so they shortened it to Caty.”

  Marti forced a smile. “Well, it sounds as if your parents had a sense of humor, anyway.”

  “My pa was obsessed with old westerns. You’re not going to want me to call you Hallie now, are you? I couldn’t get used to that.”

  “No, it’ll make things easier if I adopt Marti’s name.” Her breath hitched as she realized what he’d said. “Does that mean you believe me?”

  He shrugged. “I won’t say that I do, and I won’t say I don’t. But I do know there’s something between here and Heaven.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “It was something weird that happened when I was seventeen. Ah, it was nothing.”

  Marti leaned closer. “No, tell me.”

  He seemed to weigh the sanity of telling her then probably figured she was as loony as anything he could have encountered.

  “It was right before three in the morning when I woke out of a sound sleep. My granny was standing there by my bed. She said, ‘I’m going now, but don’t worry ‘bout me none, you hear? God’s going to take good care of me. Your pa’s up here. He says you’re doing real good in the races, but you pulled too early in the fifth lap in last Sunday’s race. You need to get a handle on that. He’s proud of you, Jesse.’”

  He shook his head. “Then I fell back to sleep. It was true; I did cut too early in the fifth lap. The next morning at breakfast, I told Ma about the weird dream I’d had. She got the willies, and a minute later, she got the phone call. My granny had passed away in her sleep, they figured around three.” He shrugged. “It’s my one claim to fame around the campfire.”

  “Ooh.” Marti rubbed the goosebumps from her arms. “That’s spooky.”

  “I thought that was spooky enough. But then you come along claiming to be some dead woman from California turned up in my wife’s body.”

  “Yeah, I guess that does sound pretty spooky when you put it that way.”

  He sank into deep thought again, a contemplative expression on his face. His eyes always seemed to be smiling. After a few minutes, he turned to her. “Tell me what dying was like.”

  Marti pulled up her knees and rested her chin on them. She would make him believe, if it was the last thing she did. “I’d had these terrible migraines all through my teenage years. The doctors couldn’t find any cause for them. I was talking to Jamie, and my head felt like it was going to explode. I went cold, and my arm went numb. Then everything went black.” She stared off into the bare branches of a nearby oak tree, remembering.

  “
I didn’t wake up until I was in the ambulance. Except it wasn’t really waking up. I could see everything, and I could hear the machines beeping. The paramedic said the woman on the stretcher was in a coma; he was moving frantically, giving the woman shots, feeling pulses. Jamie was there, holding this woman’s hand. I was mad at first, that he was holding her hand and not mine. Then I realized the woman was me.

  “I panicked at first, trying to get Jamie’s attention by yelling, but no one could hear or see me. I was floating up by the roof of the ambulance.”

  Marti shoved her fingers into her hair, pulling it tight as she plunged back into those moments. “When I realized I was dying, I tried desperately to get back into my body. After the initial panic, I felt this rush of peace. It’s hard to describe, but it was overwhelming.

  “Then suddenly I was in this dark cave, and someone else was with me. I say someone, because I don’t know how else to explain it. I think it was God, but not the old guy with the beard I always thought of as God. I felt no sense of whether it was a he or a she. It was more like a presence, a brilliant light, warm and pure.

  “He asked me, but not in a real voice, what I had done with my life. Not in a condemning way, just asking. I’d done nothing with my life, but I felt I must do something. I didn’t know what, and I still don’t. Through this strange communication, He told me I would get a second chance. That’s all I remember. Wherever I was, I was there for two months.”

  Jesse had been watching her the whole time; she had felt his gaze on her.

  “I’m glad to know there’s something out there, beyond death. I believe in Heaven and God, but I’ve never heard of anyone getting a second chance in someone else’s body.”

  “Me either. But I did.”

  “Why do you think God gave you a second chance? I mean, did you save someone’s life or do something really great?”

  “No, I never did anything great. Maybe I got another chance so I could do something important.” Something that didn’t involve other people’s hearts. She turned to Jesse. “Have you ever been married before?”

  “Nope. Didn’t plan on it for a while, if ever. I had other things on my mind first.”

  She tilted her head, finding herself curious about the man who was suddenly her husband. “Like what?”

  His eyes sparkled, giving him a little-boy appearance. “Stock-car racing. A few months ago, an oil company offered me a ride in the ASA.” At her blank expression, he added, “They asked if I was interested in driving their car in the American Sports Association. It’s to racing what the minor leagues are to baseball. It wasn’t final or anything, but that was before you told me you were pregnant. I couldn’t see juggling all the hassles of setting up a house and you having a baby while I was on the road every weekend. You can’t have that kind of fuzz on your brain while you’re driving a hundred and fifty miles an hour.”

  “So you gave that up when Marti got pregnant?”

  He held up a finger. “I put it on hold. As soon as the baby comes, and life is settled, I’ll get another ride. I turned the oil company onto a friend of mine, Mark Ankins, and now he’s driving for them.”

  Marti could see a spark of resentment in his eyes, held carefully in check. She wondered if he would have ever forgiven Marti for getting pregnant. Or come to love her instead.

  She asked, “Do you race around here?”

  “We’ve got a track on the edge of town. It’s a good starting ground, but I didn’t think I’d be back to it so soon.” He sighed. “For now I’ll just keep beating the local boys.”

  “You must be pretty good.”

  “When it comes to racing, I’m damn good. Cars have been part of my life since I was three years old. Making ‘em run and making ‘em run fast, that’s what I live for.”

  “Is that how you make your living? Racing cars?”

  “I wish. For now”—he shot a meaningful look at her stomach—“I’ve got to keep fixing other people’s cars down at Harry’s Garage.”

  She glanced at his hands, remembering the black grease encrusted in the ridges of her Porsche mechanic’s fingers. Jesse’s were spotless.

  “Looks like we both got derailed,” she said, pulling her gaze from his hands.

  “Ain’t that the truth?”

  Long after the sun went down, she and Jesse walked inside. Gravity dragged her down, making her eyelids feel like concrete. She glanced toward the bedroom, then at Jesse. The couch looked too short for his tall frame. She thought of the bed, warm and comfortable.

  “Jesse, why don’t you let me sleep on the couch? I don’t want to kick you out of your bed again.”

  He stretched his arms upward, his untucked shirt revealing a slice of tan, ridged stomach. “That’s awfully nice of you, doll, but I thought we’d both sleep in the bedroom. We’re adults, and that’s one big bed in there. We can work on putting a bed in the second room for you.”

  She nodded, not sure how at ease she would be sleeping with a strange man. She wasn’t tempted, she assured herself. Jesse was good-looking, strong, virile… but he wasn’t her type. Even if her stomach did tingle every time he called her ‘doll’?

  “Sounds reasonable.”

  When Jesse walked out of the bedroom, she slipped into the oversized Garth Brooks T-shirt she’d found earlier. She slid over to one side of the bed and wrapped the sheets around her, facing the dresser.

  Everything felt so much more real tonight—the scent of Jesse’s cologne from the bathroom, the feel of the cotton sheets against her skinny legs. Just as real were her memories of the past, of Jamie. He was a good man, and once, he’d been warm and affectionate. In the last year of their marriage, he’d become cold, withdrawn. Had she caused that?

  Yes, she probably had. Love had been hers once, and she’d destroyed it. Would it be any different just because she was in a new body?

  You still have the same self-destructive soul. Let’s not go destroying anyone else’s heart.

  It could have only been a few hours after Jesse finally drifted off to sleep when he heard her scream. She was sitting straight up in bed, the sheets pulled up to her chin, her eyes wide. Then he heard Bumpus barking and growling as though he had cornered a demon.

  “Somebody’s out there!” she whispered.

  “It’s probably a coon, but stay here just in case.”

  Jesse was up and had his rifle in hand by the time he’d reached the bedroom door. Bumpus raced back and forth in front of the large window in the living room, leaping up on the couch to peer out and snarl.

  “Why is he doing that?” she asked behind him.

  He whirled around. “Geez, you could get yourself shot sneaking up on a guy with a rifle!”

  She looked at the gun, then up at him. “What is going on?”

  He leaned forward and opened the door. “Check it out, boy.” Bumpus raced out the front, making the sound of eight elephants as he charged across the damp leaves.

  Jesse looked out the window, watching the dog race into the darkness, his barks fading. What had he seen? His fingers tensed on the rifle as he fought the urge to walk out there and find out for himself. He didn’t want to leave Marti alone in the house. A few minutes later, Bumpus trotted back, his mouth stretched in that funny grimace when he missed his quarry. Usually a lizard or mouse.

  Jesse turned around to face her. “Didn’t I tell you to stay in bed?”

  She put her hands on her hips. “I’m not staying in there by myself when that crazy dog of yours is barking up a storm.”

  “Come on, let’s go back to bed.”

  She stared out the front window for a second before letting him lead her back to the bedroom. “What did he go after?”

  “I don’t know. It was probably a raccoon.” He wasn’t so sure.

  He didn’t want to talk anymore, to let on how fired up the thought of confronting Marti’s attacker had him. He had been ready to find someone standing out in the hall, waiting to finish what he might have already done: kill Marti. Je
sse’s finger was still crooked, ready to pull the trigger. The rage had him shaking.

  CHAPTER 3

  Marti hadn’t gotten much sleep after Bumpus’s barking fit. Shadows had her jumping, frightened of some faceless man with his fingers outstretched toward her.

  As soon as Jesse stirred, she sat up and stretched. He turned over on his back, and she found herself grinning at his early morning hairdo. Just as she was about to say something, a strange twinge lighted in her stomach. Hunger? Ooh, the thought of food turned the twinge into a full-blown twist.

  “Crackers are in the top drawer over there.”

  Inside she found half a package of Saltines. She grimaced as another wave of nausea washed over her, then jammed one in her mouth.

  “Please don’t tell me I have morning sickness,” she said through a mouthful of crackers.

  “Okay, I won’t.”

  As she swallowed the lump of chewed-up cracker, she held her stomach and ran with as much dignity as she could muster to the bathroom.

  “You okay in there?” Jesse called from the other side of the door a few minutes later.

  “Fine and dandy,” she mumbled into the towel she held over her face as she emerged.

  He rolled out of bed and scooped up the jeans he’d deposited on the floor the night before. His briefs were bright white, and why she was watching him pull up his pants baffled her. She looked elsewhere, floor, dresser, jeans pockets, whoops, back to the floor.

  “You ready for some breakfast?” he asked as he buttoned his fly.

  She shot him a dirty look. “You’ve got to be joking. I don’t feel like eating anything for the next two days.”

  He leaned close and brushed his hand across her stomach. “I don’t think he’d like that too much.” With a smile, he disappeared into the hallway and was soon clattering pots and pans.

  She called out, “What makes you think it’s a boy?”

  “That’s what I want it to be. And I always get what I want,” he called from the kitchen.

  She shook her head. Exasperating male, she could already tell.