Part 17 (1/2)

”Well, either way, you're getting awfully personal.”

Doc was unabashed. ”Maybe I am. Maybe I'm getting too personal. But I'm concerned because I'm thinking about what it would mean for a woman to be . . . well, let's say, in love with a man who can do the things you thought I was accusing you of doing.”

He waited until she gave him a hesitant look. ”It'd be a terrible responsibility, Kate.”

”I know.”

”Do you?”

She nodded, then ducked her head as she spoke very carefully. ”If a woman were in love with a man who could do those sorts of things, she'd have to find a way to protect him, if she didn't want to see him broken by people who wanted to use him-people who were so desperate to have what he could give them that they didn't see their demands were too many and too great for him to handle . . . people who didn't understand it was all still new to him.”

Drawing a shallow breath, she continued. ”So for a while, at least, until he had a chance to learn his limits and how to handle those people on his own, this woman would try to help the man she loved buy the time and the peace he needed. And she'd feel very selfish about it. Because aside from not wanting to see him hurt, she couldn't stand the thought that he might get scared and leave . . . and that she'd lose him.”

”I guess it would be pretty bad if that happened.”

”Yes. Very bad.”

Doc was silent for a moment, then asked, ”Does this woman have any ideas about how she might protect this man of hers?”

”A few,” she replied. Then, abandoning all pretense, she said, ”First, I'm not going to ask him to use his gift for my purposes. I'm going to trust him to make his own decisions about it. Because the giving has to come from inside him, or it isn't a gift at all-it's a duty, and there's no joy in it. And the ability he has to perform the duty becomes a terrible burden.”

Doc nodded slowly. ”Sounds wise. What else are you planning to do?”

Kate held his gaze unwaveringly. ”I'm going to ask the only other person in town who knows not to tell anyone else.”

”I'd say this falls under the heading of doctor-patient confidentiality, wouldn't you?”

”Definitely.” Closing her eyes, she added fervently, ”And I'm going to pray like mad that Martin Anderson means what he says, that he wishes Sam well.”

She opened her eyes to find Doc frowning thoughtfully.

”The man sounded sincere,” he said. ”I don't think he's going to cause trouble.” Tilting his head, he added, ”By the way, I think tonight would be a good night for me to be on call. Don't you?”

”Doc, you don't have to . . .” Kate stopped, realizing her foolishness, and instead simply gave him a grateful look. ”Thank you.”

His mouth sloped into a smile of both approval and rea.s.surance. ”Don't look so worried. I think we can cover the tracks that man of yours is leaving behind him. In fact, it could be quite an interesting challenge.” Reaching out to give her arm a pat, he added, ”I don't think we could do it forever, but between us we ought to be able to buy Sam the time he needs.”

But who would buy her the time she needed? Kate was afraid, knowing what she had to do, that the timer was about to run out.

Fourteen.

At four o'clock, Kate closed up the office and started out the old lake road. Yesterday's warm suns.h.i.+ne had disappeared; the sky was overcast, the air chilly. She reached for the denim jacket on the seat beside her as she hesitated at the turnoff to Sam's, then drove on to the Nielsens'.

She found Lynn doing laundry and sent her straight to bed, ignoring the young woman's protests that she'd been fine all weekend. Then, grimacing in disgust at the Nielsens' ramshackle living conditions, Kate went looking for Erik. She found him putting a roof on one of the camp's small cabins.

No, Erik said, he'd had no idea Lynn's condition could be really serious. She hadn't told him that, and she certainly hadn't said anything about any bleeding the previous week. And he guessed he knew why. They didn't have any medical insurance, they were strapped for money, and they had just enough put aside to pay for Lynn's prenatal care and to have the baby in the hospital-provided the hospital stay only amounted to a day or two. Sheepishly he admitted that he'd been worrying out loud a lot and that, in not telling him the whole story, Lynn had probably been trying not to make him feel any more pressured.

Kate figured he was right, and she promptly told him that he, at least, could forget her fee. Erik's pride wouldn't let him accept her offer, but he swore he'd see to it that Lynn kept her appointment the next morning with the obstetrician, and Kate left feeling a tad less worried, after telling him where she'd be for the rest of the evening, should Lynn need her.

Sam's Jeep was nowhere in sight when she arrived at the cabin, but the door was unlocked. She went to the kitchen with the notion of fixing dinner and found a pot of fresh vegetables- carrots, brocoli, peapods, and onions-chopped and ready for what looked like a Chinese-style stir-fry. Stuck in a book, lying on the counter, was a note penned in straight, definitive strokes: I'll be back in time to cook. You relax. Read this, if you want to. Sam.

Smiling, Kate looked at the book, which was tattered from numerous readings. The author was a physician with impressive credentials, and the back-cover blurb described the book as a collection of accounts given to the physician by people who had experienced death. Thumbing through the first couple of pages, Kate walked slowly toward the couch. And there she spent one of the most thought-provoking hours of her life.

Sam, it seemed, was not alone. Rather, he was part of a growing number of people, most of whom had suffered a grave physical crisis-heart attack, drowning, or the like-that by all natural laws should have killed them but had not. In some cases, improved resuscitation techniques had brought the victim back, either from the brink of death or shortly after clinical death occurred. In other cases, though-cases like Sam's-no apparent reason could be found to explain why the victim, who had been declared dead, was suddenly alive again. In all cases, those who'd had close brushes with death, in the process of trying to a.s.similate the extraordinary experience, found that their physicians were either useless or, worse, downright obstructive.

Kate immediately understood the problem from the medical point of view. Nothing in her training even began to address how to help a patient who related a story such as the one Sam had related to her; in that respect, at least, her training wasn't much different than, for instance, the average cardiologist's. Doctors and nurses were taught to consider the physical, not the spiritual, ramifications of death. They certainly weren't taught how to respond when a patient began telling them what had happened to their nonphysical being while vital functions had ceased.

Now, however, it seemed that a growing number of sensitive professionals were listening to and recording near-death survivor's experiences, despite the almost universal claim among those who'd visited that noncorporeal realm that no words existed to describe it adequately. As Sam had told her, there was no language. The first thing that struck her was the phenomenal similarities among the experiences near-death survivors claimed to have had. In content, sequence of events, and detail, each story had elements in common with the others, and a few elements were present in nearly every one.

A tunnel-a vast, dark s.p.a.ce. The dying soul moved through the tunnel, beckoned toward a light-a clear, white light, dazzling yet not blinding. The gate to heaven, Kate thought, recalling Sam's words to Francis when he'd likened the light to a sunrise seen while flying over the water. As the dying person moved closer, the brightness became a ”Being of Light”-a name chosen by the book's author from among the many given by the socially and religiously diverse group of near-death survivors. Although the names the survivors used differed, their descriptions of the Being of Light did not: All were certain they'd met a superior being, and all said that, in the being's presence, they'd felt completely accepted and flooded with a kind of warmth and love that defied any description.

The purpose of the encounter for the dying soul also seemed clear. The Being of Light posed a question, not in words, but in pure thought: Was the person prepared to die?

To help answer the question, the soul was given a display of his or her life events, the events flas.h.i.+ng by quickly, although each remaining distinct. In the review, the survivors claimed they didn't feel they were being judged, but through it they reached an understanding of what had really mattered- what they'd done that counted, and what had not. Often, the things the person had thought important, in the face of death, appeared to have been only a waste of time.

A waste of time.

How would a man meet eternity having come to such a conclusion about his life on earth? Would he be glad for a chance to try again? Or would he resent being sent away from that better place? And what would he do differently? Would he plunge into his second chance with enthusiasm and confidence, knowing immediately how to proceed? Or would he hesitate, uncertain about which pieces of his old life were worth keeping and which, indeed, had been a waste of time-or, worse, genuinely wrong?

And suppose the man returned from death with some special gift? For Sam was not alone in this, either, she discovered. Telepathy, visions of the future, uncanny knowledge of subjects never studied, and, yes, healing: Not all near-death survivors acquired such skills, but many did, in varying degrees. How would the man who felt his life had been a waste view such a gift? Would he feel compelled to use it to make his ”second” life into something better, something worthwhile? Would he experience it as a burden? Or would he simply feel confused?

Kate was tucked in a corner of the couch, her eyes closed in thought, when a rough male voice, coming from behind her, whispered something in her ear that made her blush furiously.

”Sam Reese, you are-”

”Hot.” His hands slid down the front of her jumpsuit to cover her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. ”Hot and hard, from thinking all day about you and . . .”

He muttered something else that made Kate gasp-not in shock but at the instant arousal he sent coursing through her. Her head turned toward him, her fingers curling around the back of his neck, but she caught only a glimpse of windswept hair and clear gray eyes before his mouth covered hers and she was wrapped in a greeting that was both intensely erotic and achingly tender.

Finally, with his lips still nibbling at hers, he said, ”I'm sorry I'm late. How was your day?”

Kate smiled. ”Fine, but why do I get the feeling I'm supposed to ask you that question?”

”Because knowing what to say is one of the things you do best.”

”You think so?”

”I know so.” Giving her another quick kiss, he put a leg over the back of the couch and rolled across it, ending up on his back with his head in her lap. Bending a knee to lay the lower half of one leg along the top of the couch, he got com pletely comfortable, then prompted, ”So ask me.”

Kate chuckled. ”How was your day, Sam?”

”Good,” he said. But then his eyes narrowed. ”No. Make that great. I had a great day. Now, ask me- ” ”Why did you have a great day?” ”I healed a kid with braces on his legs.” At her burst of laughter, he tugged on her braid. ”What? You think that's funny?” She couldn't have said what she thought it was. With his head in her lap, her hand resting on his flat abdomen, and his fingers leisurely unbraiding her hair, she was suddenly struck by the absurdity of the cozy scene.

And how was your day, dear?

Oh, the usual. I healed a kid.