“One that works just fine for us, thank you.”
“But Molly’s already grown. I don’t want her pinning my drawers.
“Time is irrelevant.”
“Maybe here in limbo land. But dang it, I’ve been cooling my heels in this milky joint for a hundred years. A hundred years today!”
“Happy anniversary. Please take your seat.” Had it only been a century? Seemed longer. Time didn’t fly when you weren’t having fun.
“No! I ain’t taking my seat. I’ve been sitting for a century. I need wrongs to right and laws to serve. I should be on earth catching crooks and protecting the innocent, not here jawing with a yahoo like you.”
Celestian rolled his eyes. Just because Pendleton’s destiny was to stand up for truth, justice and honor, didn’t mean he had to be so self-righteous about it.
Due to his untimely end as a Texas Ranger, the warrior spirit had yet to complete his cosmic cycle. He had evolved through many lifetimes, serving variously as village constable, musketeer, palace guard, crusading knight and tribal warrior, but as Will Pendleton, he had arrived too soon, leaving unfinished business on earth.
The Ranger leaned across the desk, invading space that was not his. “I feel useless. Give me something to do.” His conversational style hadn’t improved much. He’d arrived making demands and was still doing so ten decades later. “I ain’t used to living in a sitting position.”
Celestian smiled. “Technically, you’re no longer living at all.”
An angry, insubstantial fist slammed onto the desk without disturbing the tranquility of the white, soundless room. “I’m dead because you made a mistake, you pea-brained fool.”
“You are not dead,” Celestian corrected. “You are currently not living.”
He snorted. “Pardon the hell outta me if I can’t appreciate the difference.”
“You are not living because you slipped your mortal coil. You know that.”
“I know all right. I know my mortal coil got a decent burial back in Slapdown in 1903. I know the whole town mourned my passing, and some of my compadres even sobbed at my graveside. I know the woman I was meant to spend my life with died a sad and lonely old spinster because you yanked me back before my time. That’s what I know.”
“Spirits live forever. Mortal coils decline and die. Maybe you weren’t listening the first ten thousand times I explained the transmutation process.” Celestian concealed his irritation. The Boss frowned on displays of human emotions. Conversations between routing reps and detainees were often recorded and assessed for quality assurance.
Backsliding was duly noted during evolvement reviews. Since being demoted to time-out monitor, Celestian had been cited more than once for acting too human. It wasn’t his fault. Pendleton could provoke a senior-level saint.
The situation had begun innocently enough. Less than a day after Celestian began working in the Department of Natural Forces, Pendleton had alighted in Reception yelling about how he’d been hot on the earthbound trail of a cold-blooded killer. Just when he had the miscreant in his sights, a lightning bolt had arrowed out of a cloudless sky and ended his life.
That assessment was a bit off. It was actually the desperado who had gotten the drop on the lawman. An Emergency Order to Intercede had been fired down to the department, and Celestian had dispatched a spear of lightning on the Ranger’s behalf. New to the job, he’d miscalculated both the trajectory and heaven to earth time differential.
Misfiring lightning bolts was bad enough, but Celestian’s real mistake had been admitting his error. News that the shocking end had been intended for the bad man only fired Pendleton’s anger. Seems he’d been snatched from the arms of his true love three days before their wedding.
In the end, failure to accept his unscheduled death had earned him a U.F.R. designation and a trip to the cooler. Bungling his very first assignment had earned Celestian a demotion.
“I want to go back.” Pendleton paced like a caged beast. “There must be a way for me and Molly to be together.” He slammed his fist into his palm, and the silence only increased his frustration. “Didn’t you mention once that there’s an alternate way to return?”
“If the opportunity arose, I suppose you could go back as a walk-in.” Celestian heaved a sigh he hoped wasn’t too human. “But transmutation is beyond my abilities. I’m not certified in the latest technology.”
The Ranger wheeled around. “A walk-in? What’s that?”
“Sometimes when a mortal coil expires, and the resident spirit alights, another can assume the body and live out its natural life. If the M.C. is revived in time. It’s a simple transference procedure but only used in emergencies.”
“I want to do it. Send me back. Now!”
Celestian scoffed. “It’s not that simple. First, we need an appropriate M.C. You don’t want to return to your beloved as a cockroach do you?”
“No. But there is a way we can be together? So we can live as we were meant to do before you made a hash of everything?”
He sounded so sad, so hopeful that Celestian couldn’t tell him the odds against such a transfer. Pendleton’s soul mate was currently living her last earthly life during which she would fulfill her destiny. At demise, her spirit would retire. She and the Ranger, lovers in many lifetimes, would spend eternity apart. An injustice that might have broken Celestian’s heart, if he still had one to break.
“There may be a way. But it’s a long shot. Transference only works if an appropriate coil becomes available at the right moment in the precise geographical location. The resident spirit must alight before the coil is revived. The chances of that happening are—”
“What? A million to one?” There he went again, being hopeful.
“At least. The paperwork’s a killer. It has to be completed in triplicate and approved—”
“I’m willing to do anything, be anybody, for the chance to go back.”
Celestian reluctantly keyed in the routing request. Fat chance, but miracles had been known to happen. A miracle was exactly what the lovesick Ranger needed.
No point telling him the real odds. That he had about as much chance of returning to his true love in her lifetime as he had of being struck by lightning.
Again.
Chapter One
A whopper of a west Texas thunderstorm was headed her way.
The hair on the back of Dr. Mallory Peterson’s neck prickled the instant she stepped out the back door of the Western Plains Medical Clinic. The severe weather front, predicted to move in at midnight, had arrived ahead of schedule. Heavy black clouds boiled across the sky, and the sharp scent of rain tingled in her nostrils. She squinted in the unnatural gloom of an unseasonably hot and humid early May evening. No doubt about it. Trouble was brewing.
A stiff wind yanked the heavy door from her hands and slammed it shut with a bang. Blue-white lightning flickered on the horizon, followed by the rumble of distant thunder. She shivered, unsure whether the chill was due to dropping temperatures or a premonition of disaster.
After ten on-her-feet hours caring for a steady stream of patients, she was ready for a quiet Friday night alone with a good book and a bag of microwave popcorn. A big bag. With extra butter. She’d earned a treat. Not just for today, but also for every grueling shift she’d worked since accepting the position last autumn.
Clutching her medical bag, Mallory locked the deadbolt. If she got a