What Dreams May Come by Kay Hooper Read Free Book Online Page B

sat uncomfortably on her shoulders.
    "Kelly? You look tired. Go into the den." His voice was suddenly gentle.
    How long had it been since anyone had cared that she was tired? Too long, because it affected her too strongly. Nodding, she left the table, carrying her coffee back through the house to the front den. The fire had been rebuilt, and the room was warm and cozy. She could dimly hear the wind whining outside, and it was a lonely sound that disturbed her. The wind always grew stronger at night, and she'd thought she was getting used to it, but tonight the sound was unnerving. Ignoring the television in one corner, she went to the stereo nearby and put in a cassette tape of soft music.
    She looked at the couch for only a moment before kicking off her shoes and curling up in the big armchair near the fireplace. She was tired. Half listening to the quiet music, she gazed into the fire and tried to ignore the sneering taunt that had begun running through her mind during dinner.
    You can't go back . . . can't go back . . . can't. . .
    Somebody had wisely said it. You can't go home. Can't go back to your past. The problem was that Kelly's past had come to her. Too much had been left hanging between her and Mitch, left unresolved, incomplete. And she could no longer fool herself into believing that her own feelings had died. Perhaps she had buried them when she'd said good-bye to him, but he had walked through her front door, bringing the feelings with him.
    They were inside her now, a little alien because those old emotions were being filtered, passing through the experiences and awareness of ten years. She had been conscious of them while she had talked casually to Mitch, trying not to let herself feel but helpless to prevent it.
    Though lovers be lost, love shall not. . .
    The next line of that suddenly remembered poem was just as vivid in her mind, and she felt the stark truth of it for the first time.
    And death shall have no dominion.
    Mitch had cheated death, awakening from a coma that medical science maintained he should not have awakened from. He had come looking for her across the years and the miles, determined to find what had been lost, mend what fate had broken. And she had offered him the chance, wary and convinced she felt too guilty to refuse what he asked of her. But it wasn't guilt, not just that.
    "Did you love him?"
    She turned her head slowly and looked at Mitch, everything inside her stilled. He had come into the room quietly, and now stood just a few feet away, gazing at her with a hard look around his mouth, a tightness in his jaw.
    "I didn't think I'd want to know," he said in the same roughened voice. "But I do. Did you love him, Kelly?"

Three
     
    Kelly looked away from him and returned her gaze to the fire. She felt curiously still inside, as if everything had stopped to wait for something. "It isn't that simple," she said finally.
    "Isn't it?" Mitch moved to the chair on the other side of the fireplace and sat down, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, staring at her with the hard, almost driven intensity that made her feel wary. "It should be, Kelly. It should be that simple."
    She could feel his gaze, but continued to look at the fire. "No. It isn't. I—I needed someone, Mitch. I was alone, and I didn't know how to be."
    "So you didn't love him?"
    Kelly set her coffee cup on the small table by her chair, then looked at him. The stillness was giving way to a confused tangle of emotions, and she was trying to sort through them, trying to find only the bleached white bones of a truth that would satisfy him.
    "I don't know. I felt a need for him. An emotional need. He had a kind of aura. Purpose, strength. He said he wanted to take care of me, and I needed that."
    Mitch looked down at the hands clasped before him, and she could see that his knuckles were white. After a moment, steadily, he asked, "What happened?"
    She rested her head against the high back of the chair, trying to think of an