Sara's Promise (24 page)

Her old self would deny all of that. Her old, unbelieving self would tell her the dreams were just a reflection of what she believed she truly wanted, and not a reenactment of what happened to her when she'd died. Of course, that didn't explain why she'd had the dreams of colors in the sky before she met William, or why she'd been drawn to Seaside to begin with. But the logical part of her brain had to at least accept the fact that Sara, the ethereal being, hadn't appeared in her dreams before she'd met William. The truth was, though, that her new self wanted to tell the old self to shut up. The dreams were real. William was real. And her love for him was definitely very real. But what on earth could she do to make him see that?

William opened his front door and looked into the very determined face of Annie's friend, Cherise. It was ten o'clock on a beautiful August morning, and he'd been working in his den on a new house project. When the doorbell rang, he'd been surprised but not as surprised as he was now staring into Cherise's big, brown eyes.

"We need to talk," Cherise said bluntly, walking past him without waiting for an invitation to come in. She held up a square white box. "I brought coffee and muffins."

"Okay," William said, baffled by her sudden appearance.

"Where's the kitchen?" Cherise asked, then stopped short when she saw the sunken living room and the view of the ocean beyond. "Wow, this is beautiful." She looked around her, saw the kitchen to the right, and headed in.

William had no choice but to follow. As he walked into the kitchen, the fresh aroma of coffee greeted him as Cherise popped the lids off the cups at the table.

"Plates?" she asked, pointing to the oversized blueberry muffins.

William obliged and brought two small plates to the table as well as napkins, then the two sat opposite of each other.

Cherise looked directly into William's eyes. "Why are you breaking my best friend's heart?" she asked bluntly.

William's mouth opened, but nothing came out. He was not only shocked by the question, but he didn't have an answer.

"That's what you're doing, you know."

William found his voice. "Did Annie send you here?"

"No. Are you crazy? She'd disown me as her friend if she knew I was here. But you two have been apart long enough, and it's time to straighten a few things out. And if she isn't going to do it, or you, then I am."

William sat patiently as Cherise tore off a piece of muffin, popped it into her mouth, and followed it with a sip of coffee. Then, she refocused her attention on William.

"What makes you think you're going to screw up Annie's life by being with her?" she asked.

Again, William was taken aback, but this time, he had an answer. "Because I've done it before. I don't want to keep her away from the work she loves like I did to Sara."

Cherise rolled her eyes, a reaction that surprised William.

"What?" he asked.

"I think you're just using that as an excuse because you're afraid. I don't know what you're afraid of, but that's a silly reason to not be with the woman you love. And you do still love Annie. I know you do," Cherise finished, her tone insistent.

William frowned. "And just how would you know that?"

"Because Sandy and Sam say you do. They say you've been miserable ever since you walked away from Annie."

"They told you that?" He was shocked that his kids had been talking to Cherise about his relationship with Annie.

Cherise shrugged. "Well, not me directly. They told Annie though, several times."

"Oh," was all William could muster. He wasn't mad that his kids had said that, because it was true after all, but he wished they hadn't.

Cherise leaned in closer over the table toward William. Her tone became soft. "You're wrong, you know. You're not going to take anything away from Annie that she won't let you take away. I didn't know Sara, but from the little I've heard, I don't believe you took anything away from her, either. Sara loved you enough to make you the center of her life, and Annie loves you enough to make the relationship work between you, with neither of you giving up the things you love. It really is as simple as that."

William sat back in his chair, shaking his head. "You just don't understand."

Cherise pursed her lips. "No, it's you who doesn't understand, William."

William's brows rose in question.

"It's time you knew about a few things that have been happening that I know Annie will never tell you. It's time you knew the truth."

"What are you talking about?"

Cherise took a deep breath. If she didn't lay it all on the table now, she would never see her best friend happy again. She shook her finger at William. "You can never tell Annie I said any of this, understand?"

William nodded. She had his full attention.

"I know Annie has told you about her appendectomy years ago, but did she tell you she died during surgery?"

"Yes, she told me that."

"Did you know that she and Sara had the surgery and died on the exact same day?"

The color drained from William's face. "How do you know this?"

"Because Annie dragged me to the cemetery, and we saw the date your wife died on her headstone. Don't you think that's kind of odd, them both dying on the same day?" Cherise asked.

"Yes. It's a weird coincidence, but Annie lived," William responded as a chill ran up his spine. He could try to sound as logical as he wanted, but this one fact was very strange.

"Yes, she did live. But ever since then, she's had strange dreams. She dreams about colors in the sky, a luminous face, and an ethereal woman telling her to go back. William, she dreamt about you long before she met you. That's more than a coincidence."

"But she said she didn't remember dying or what it was like," William said, trying to belie the facts. "She said she hadn't known she'd died during surgery until just recently."

Cherise nodded. "That's what prompted her to visit Sara's grave. When she found out she'd died and was brought back to life, she had to know if it was somehow connected to Sara. Now she thinks the dreams are showing her what happened during that minute that she was dead."

Goosebumps prickled William's arms. He spoke in a hushed voice. "What exactly are you saying, Cherise? Are you telling me that Annie is my dead wife come back to life?"

Cherise shook her head vehemently. "No, I'm not telling you that. Annie is Annie, not Sara. But everything seems to tie in to the fact that maybe, just maybe, she saw Sara that day and something happened. I can't say what it was, I can only guess. But the truth is, for some inexplicable reason, Annie was drawn to Seaside, to your house, and to you. You and Annie are meant to be together, pure and simple. And it's time you stop coming up with excuses to keep the two of you apart and accept that."

Long after Cherise had left William thought of nothing but what she had said about Annie. It all seemed so crazy, and yet, maybe not. He'd grown comfortable with Annie very quickly, as if he'd known her for years instead of weeks. She had been the first woman since Sara died who had drawn his attention. Before meeting Annie, his life had been only about work and the kids. But after meeting her, he'd felt like his life was full again, like it was complete. Then he screwed it up with his outdated ideas of what a relationship should be.

Cherise said that Annie had been drawn to him. But he had also been drawn to her as well. And her eyes. Those beautiful blue-green eyes that reminded him so much of Sara. If truth be told, her eyes had drawn him in, but her personality and deep passion for life had been what kept them together over the months. She was everything he'd always hoped to find since losing Sara, and never thought he would.

William roamed the house, thinking of Annie in every room. In the kitchen, he pulled down the yellow mug and stared at it, remembering that first night they'd eaten dinner here. Annie had walked directly over to the cupboard and chosen the exact mugs that were his and Sara's. When they washed dishes, she had known exactly where to place everything from the silverware to the plates. And the first night they'd made love, she had taken out the lotion from the nightstand drawer, the very same lotion Sara had used each and every night. At the time, William had just brushed these strange occurrences off as coincidences. But were they more than that?

That night, when William crawled into bed, he was still pondering what Cherise had said and the strange coincidences of Annie and Sara. He wished he could go over to Annie's place and talk to her, but Annie wasn't home. Cherise had told him she was gone for two days on a photo shoot, and she'd be back Friday night. He made a resolution to see her first thing on Saturday. He wanted Annie in his life. They'd find a way to work everything out. As he lay there, all alone in the dark, he smiled as he thought of how nice it will be to finally have Annie by his side again. And how nice it will be to feel whole again.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The car careened around another curve while everyone inside screamed with excitement, except Sandy who grasped tightly to her seat, pale, and frightened. The driver was speeding along Highway 101 near Cannon Beach, and even though the highway wasn't too curvy, he was going too fast in the pitch darkness. Everyone in the car was too drunk to care that the fog had rolled in, and the driver couldn't see more than ten feet in front of him. Only Sandy cared, but every time she told him to slow down, he sped up faster, thinking it was funny.

I shouldn't have come out tonight
. Sandy tried to keep her wits about her. When one of her college friends, Jasmine, had called her that Friday night to ask if she wanted to go to a party in Cannon Beach, Sandy's first reaction was to say no. But she hadn't been out for several weeks and she thought it might be fun to let loose for a few hours. All she'd done lately was work at the art gallery and stay home, working on her mom's paintings. She'd completed the Fairy Falls painting and moved on to the Multnomah Falls one. She planned on working next on the seascape that had sat in her parent's room all those years, but at the rate this guy was driving, she was afraid she wouldn't live long enough to finish it.

The car hit another curve at over one-hundred miles an hour, and Sandy felt the car lift up on its side and drop with a thud on the highway. Everyone cheered with excitement, but she gasped and held on tighter.

"Slow down! You're going to kill us." Sandy screamed over the noise of the engine and the people laughing in the backseat. The guy driving, she didn't even know his name, chuckled, but didn't slow down. Sandy turned to look at Jasmine, who sat in the backseat squished between her boyfriend and another girl. "Make him stop," she yelled at her friend.

Jasmine stared back at Sandy with eyes so dilated from alcohol and drugs that Sandy realized she would be no help at all.

The car hit a bump in the pavement and flew up before falling again and bouncing on the road. Everyone screamed and laughed. Everyone but Sandy.

Tear welled in Sandy's eyes.
I'm going to die tonight. I'm going to die in a car full of people I barely know.
As tears spilled onto her cheeks, she prayed for her mother to help her.
Help me, Mom. Help me.

The car hit another curve and, up ahead, Sandy saw taillights. The driver saw them, too, but it was too late. He hit the brakes and squealed out on the curve, losing control, and spinning the car. The car clipped the gravelly edge of the road and flew off, rolling into the ditch. It rolled over four times before coming to a complete stop, upside down, in a field. Sandy's world went black.

"Sandy!" Annie sat up suddenly in bed, screaming the girl's name into the dark night. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she was covered in sweat. She looked at the clock beside her bed. 2:10 a.m. The dream had been so real. She'd felt each tight turn of the speeding car and each thud as the car rose and fell, hitting the pavement. Worst of all, she had seen Sandy crying just seconds before the car spun out of control and rolled into a field.

Annie jumped out of bed and hurriedly pulled on her jeans and T-shirt from the day before. The dream seemed too real. From somewhere deep inside her, she knew that it had actually happened. She had to get to Sandy and make sure she was all right.

Running her hands through her hair, Annie found her car keys and purse, and headed out the door into the foggy night. She drove as fast as she dared to the hospital, all the time saying inside her head,
I'm coming, Sandy. Hold on. I'm coming.

When Annie arrived at the hospital, she saw three ambulances at the entrance, their lights flashing.

"Oh, God, please let Sandy be okay. Please, please, please," Annie kept repeating to herself as she made her way past them and through the entrance. She hurried up to the counter, where the receptionist sat, talking in a hushed voice on the phone. Annie paced back and forth, unable to contain the adrenaline that was coursing through her veins.

After what seemed like hours, the receptionist placed the phone down. "Can I help you?"