Chapter two

Pain. Immense, incalculable pain.

Tess lay perfectly still. She tried to breathe and found that even that simple action hurt. Every square inch of her body felt battered and broken. Even her breasts ached.

Why? Why did she feel like this?

She'd been hit by a bus.

The memory came at her like a hard right punch, catching her square in the gut. Her breath expelled in a sharp rush. Her lungs burned at the effort. No wonder she hurt. She was lucky to be alive.

Or was she?

Am I dead?

She remembered uttering that small, quiet question, remembered the endless star-spangled night sky and Carol's barroom voice. Yep.

Just as she'd thought. It had all been a dream. Or a painkiller-induced hallucination. Or one of those near-death experiences inquiring minds loved so much.

She moved a fraction of an inch and immediately regretted it. Red-hot pain twisted her midsection, brought a surge of nausea so strong, she thought she'd vomit. All thoughts of life after death vanished.

She felt as if she'd been hit by a bus.

It had all been a dream. There was no second chance for Tess; no family to join or ability to hear. No man standing by a crib, reaching out.

She was surprised by the sharp regret that flashed through her. She'd really wanted that second chance at life. At love. No one in this life would have missed her.

Disappointed, she closed her eyes and sank back into the darkness of oblivion.

She was dreaming she could hear. "... blood loss ... don't know ... not good ..." Tess clawed her way to consciousness. The pain was still there, gnawing with dull teeth at her midsection, but it was more manageable now. She said a quick prayer to the God of anesthesia and coaxed her eyes open.

She was in a huge bed, looking up at the floor. She frowned in concentration, willing her tired eyes to do their job, and h

er equally tired brain to function. Blinking, she tried again.

It wasn't a floor. It was a ceiling built of oak boards. "Dead? Don't know . . . possible."

Tess gasped. She'd heard that! She struggled up to her elbows. The effort left her shaking and winded and in inconceivable pain. Her head pounded. She found a stationary lump of black and focused on it.

The lump became a shadow, the shadow became an old man. Sparse gray hair studded his pointed, balding head. Thin wire-rimmed glasses perched precariously on his beaklike nose. Rheumy eyes stared into her own.

"Mrs. Rafferty? Axe you okay?"

Tess glanced around for Mrs. Rafferty.

He scooted his stool closer. The wooden legs made a squeaking, scraping sound. He laid a skeletal, blue-veined hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. "Welcome back."

This was no dream. She could really hear.

"Whaas?" Tess tried to speak, but her throat felt as if she'd been screaming for hours. She signed her question instead: What's wrong with me?

The man glanced over his shoulder at the shadows in the room's corner. "It's like she's trying to say something. ..." He leaned closer and peered into her eyes. "I'm Doc Hayes. Do you recollect me?"

She shook her head no.

He frowned and pushed to his feet.

Even in the midst of her pain, she marveled at the slow, tired shuffling of the doctor's footsteps. After so many years of silent nothingness, the common, everyday sound of his bootheels scuffing across the floor was indescribably wonderful.

He melted into the shadows by the door. "I don't know, Jack. It's the damnedest thing I've ever seen. I was pretty sure she was dead. This ain't the sort o' thing one sees ever' day. She might be sort o' ... different for a while. Who knows? Appears her memory's shot to hell."

"What can we do for her?" It was another male voice, softer and richer. The warm, brandy-soft sound of it sent a tingle slithering down Tess's spine.

"I don't know," the doc answered. "But if she gets a fever or takes a turn for the worse, send someone for me."

The shadows moved. The door creaked open, then clicked shut. She was alone.

Confusion swirled about her like a thick, gray fog, drawing her into the mists. Tiredly she glanced around her hospital room, but the shadows were so thick, she couldn't make out much beyond her own bed. Yet something about the darkened room felt weird. Apprehension tingled along the back of her neck. She'd been in enough hospitals to recognize one, even in the dark. Where was the familiar antiseptic smell and muted buzz of fluorescent lighting? And docs hadn't made house calls since Welby.

Minutes ticked by, quietly, without the marching tick of a clock to herald their passing. She stared up at the strange ceiling, feeling the warmth and light from the lamp beside her bed. The acrid scent of a burning wick teased her nostrils.

So strange, she thought. Everything was so damned strange.

Before she could figure out why, she was asleep again.

Tess tried to force her eyes open, but the painful throbbing behind them made it impossible. She tossed uncomfortably.

Something cool touched her forehead. It felt unbelievably good. A soft sigh of relief slipped past her parched lips.

After a few moments she was able to open her eyes. The first thing she saw was that weird floor/ceiling again.

"Oh, crap," she mumbled. She thought for sure she'd waken to the comfortingly familiar sight of white acoustical tile and long tubes of fluorescent lighting.

The cool, damp rag on her forehead vanished. A flesh-tone smear wobbled in front of her eyes. She blinked, tried to focus. Gradually the blur coalesced into a man's face that seemed both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

He shoved a too long lock of black hair out of his eyes and bent closer. Tired, bloodshot eyes peered questioningly into her own. Stubbly, dark hair accentuated the hollowness in his cheeks and the hard, masculine line of his jaw. Tess frowned. A wisp of memory winged through her head, and she tried desperately to chase it down. Somewhere she'd seen this face before.

It came to her in a flash. He looked sort of like a young Sam Elliot ... on a very bad day.

But why did the man look so utterly exhausted, as if he'd sat vigil by her bed for endless hours? There was no one who cared about her so much.

An intern, she realized suddenly. He had to be the intern assigned to her case. She'd seen that ragged, haggard look before?it was a surgical intern on the tail end of a three-day round.

"Amarylis?"

"No, thanks, I don't drink." The moment the words were out of her mouth, she realized that something was wrong with her voice. It sounded ... southern. / doan draank.

"What?"

A headache jackhammered across her head. She squeezed two fingers against her temples. "Forget the liquor. What I need is an Excedrin the size of Baltimore, and a look at my charts."

"Charts?"

It took a supreme effort to remain civil. "Just tell the doc in charge of my case that I'm conscious and I'd like to consult about my condition. Okay?"

"H-He's not here."

One eyebrow cocked upward. "Golf day at the club?"

"Golf?"

Tess clamped her dry lips together and didn't say a thing. It was best that way.

He offered her a tense smile. "Do you want to see the baby?"

Tess frowned. She thought he'd said "baby."

She was about to suggest he get some sleep when a question crept cautiously into her consciousness. What if Carol hadn't been a dream? What if?

She chewed nervously on her lower lip and stared up at him. "Baby?"

"You ... don't remember?"

She winced. The last time someone had asked her that question, Tess had forgotten getting run over by a bus. That kind of memory lapse did nothing to inspire confidence. Cautiously she said, "No."

"Yesterday you had a baby. Our son."

She started shaking, and all of a sudden remembered where she'd seen this man. He wasn't an intern. He was the man she'd chosen in the theater of second chances.

"Oh my God ..." She clamped a hand over her mouth.

It had been real. Real.

The bus had killed her. She'd died in Seattle and been reborn in the body of a woman who'd died in childbirth. Questions and concerns and hopes and fears tumbled one after another in her mind. What did one do at a time like this? Laugh, cry, scream?what?

One thing at a time, Tess. Only one.

She took a deep breath and offered him a tenuous smile. "I?I need some time here. To think. How about getting me that aspirin?" At his utterly blank stare, she added, "Acetaminophen is fine, too. Whatever you have. That and a glass of ice water would be great."

"Aceta?what?"

"Tylenol."

He shook his head. "I don't understand, Amarylis. What are you asking for?"

Tess shoved her hand through the bunched-up sheets in search of the nurses' button. Except there was no button; no button, no metal railing, no utilitarian food tray. There was only a splintery, old-fashioned wooden bed.

The woman had given birth at home?

Tess shivered. No wonder the poor woman had died.

She glanced around the room for a bottle of something?anything?that would take the edge off her migraine. Sunlight spilled through a small, thick-paned window and splashed across a dull, planked floor. Blue

gingham curtains hung listlessly on either side of the small window, their hand-hemmed edges bleached from too many days in the sun. No flowers peeked through the glass or brightened the sill. Against the far wall, standing alone and unadorned with photos or knick-knacks, was an oaken washstand with a tilted mirror. A white crockery ewer and basin sat dead center on a wrinkled white scrap of lace.

A prickly-hot feeling crawled through Tess. Reluctantly she shot a look sideways, and immediately winced. The bedside table was a fruit crate turned

on its side, and the lamp was a small, triangular glass jar with a wick sticking out of the narrow top. Tucked beside the crate was a pink porcelain chamber pot.

Horror rounded her eyes. She thought of the cowboy and the knight in shining armor, and shook her head in denial.

No, Carol wouldn 't do that to me....

"What is it?" the man asked anxiously. "Should I call Doc Hayes?"

"Where am I?"

"At home ... on San Juan Island."

Tess felt a tiny stirring of relief. At least she was still in Washington; she could get home from here.

But her location wasn't really the issue, and she knew it. She took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut. It took every scrap of courage she possessed to ask the next question: "What year is it?"

There was a heartbeat's pause before he said quietly, "It's 1873."

"Oh, no." She covered her mouth with her hand. "Oh, shit ..."

Eighteen seventy-three.

No television, telephone, electricity. And that was just for starters. How was she supposed to live without showers, razors, tampons?

"No way." She curled her hands into fists and screamed at the top of her lungs. "CAROL!!!"

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