Destiny's Chance

by Cara Bristol

  “Destiny was a nice girl.” Not that Zoe wasn’t, but in Destiny’s case, nice meant vanilla.

  “You’re such a kinky bastard.” Roman understood.

  “Says the man whose idea of a double date is a ménage à trois.”

  Roman laughed. The man rarely took offense no matter what the insult. He was too good-natured…and dissolute. But a good brother. He’d dropped everything to come to the hospital. And while Chance was a one-woman-at-time man and his brother probably had never had a girlfriend he hadn’t cheated on, Roman had pegged him straight about his kinky side.

  He and Zoe had shared a fetish, so while they weren’t soul mates, their relationship had filled their needs. For a while. Until Chance had decided he wanted to find his one true love. Zoe had understood. If she hadn’t just lost a modeling job, she would have moved out already. It would take a little longer now, that was all.

  “Once Zoe recovers from the accident, she’ll get her own place,” he told Roman.

  Chapter Three

  Destiny huddled under the thin hospital blanket, worry and confusion knotting her stomach. She sounded hoarse, like she had a cold, but her parents should have recognized her anyway. They hadn’t given her an opportunity to explain. Why had her mother screamed like that? What was going on? After her father slammed the phone in her ear, she called the house again and their mobiles, but no one answered. Why hadn’t the sheriff’s department or the hospital contacted them? Chance had been notified about Zoe.

  She wished she could bounce her worries off her sister, but she was vacationing in the Caribbean. Besides getting insight on what was going on with her parents, she needed Laura’s assessment of the weirdness of the accident. She recalled the car flying through the air, the door popping open, and then…then she’d had one of those out-of-body experiences she’d read about, a mental disassociation in which she’d seen her body tumble out of the vehicle. She wiggled, the small motion stirring a large ache, evidence that, unlike her out-of-body hallucination, the bone-jarring impact of the car smashing into the rocky canyon bottom was real.

  She stretched her legs and curled her toes. Muscles protested, but the pain reassured her she was alive. The drugs the hospital must have given her caused her body to feel strange. Light-headed she could understand, but light-bodied?

  Destiny expelled her breath in a heavy sigh and reached for the phone to try her parents one more time.

  What the hell? She’d been too wrought by news of Zoe’s death to pay attention to much else, but now she noticed her arm looked…weird. Her wrist seemed thinner, her skin paler, the hair so fine it appeared almost nonexistent. And when had she gotten acrylic nails?

  Her pulse rate doubled. The arm, the hand, the silver infinity ring on the index finger weren’t hers, but she recognized them. She fixated on the ID bracelet encircling the skinny wrist. RICHARDS, ZOE. And her friend’s date of birth.

  They got the bodies mixed up. Gave you the wrong wristband.

  But they couldn’t have switched arms. She flipped her hands over.

  Destiny ripped back the covers and swore in frustration when the bed rail fought her frantic efforts to lower it. She forced it down, but her hospital gown caught in the metal. She tore it loose and scrambled for the bathroom.

  Bruised and battered, Zoe stared at her from the mirror over the sink.

  A nightmare. Wake up! Wake up! “No! No!” Slapping her face, Destiny searched for her plump cheeks, her ski-jump schnoz, and the mocha-brown eyes she considered one of her best features. The image mimicked her movements but presented high cheekbones loved by the camera, a perfect nose, and large blue eyes gone feral.

  She yanked up her hospital gown. Where were her hips? Her boobs! She stared at her flat chest. She dropped the gown and screamed.

  A nurse charged into the bathroom. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

  “My face!” she yelled. “What happened to my face?”

  “The bruises will heal, and your hair will grow back and cover the scar.”

  “No, no! It’s not my face!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The person I see isn’t me,” she cried.

  The nurse stiffened, and wariness erased her expression of concern. “Who is it, then?”

  Destiny flung a hand at her reflection. “She’s Zoe Richards.” She thumped her chest, which felt bony and nothing like it should. “I’m Destiny Grable. I am.” Confusion and fear overwhelmed her, and she collapsed into sobs. “What happened to me?”

  The nurse grasped her arm with a gentle but firm touch. “Zoe, let’s go back to bed now. You’ve been in a bad car wreck, you’ve had a big shock, and you need to rest.” She used the ultracalm tone reserved for lunatics.

  “I’m not crazy.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re upset,” agreed the nurse insincerely, continuing to tug. “You’ve suffered a trauma.”

  Recognizing the futility of arguing, she allowed herself to be led back to her room.

  The nurse raised the head of the bed, then plumped up the pillows and poured a glass of water, even though she hadn’t requested one. Destiny’s hand shook as she obediently took a sip. Shivers racked her body. Goose bumps roughened her skin.

  “Are you cold? I’ll get you a warm blanket.” Without waiting for an answer, the nurse exited. “Contact Dr. Myerson,” she called in a hush from the corridor. “Tell him to order a psych consult.”

  Moments later the nurse draped a heated cotton blanket over Destiny, who continued to tremble. A warm blanket couldn’t eliminate the cold horror.

  “Better?” the nurse asked with a fake smile.

  “Yes, thank you,” she lied.

  Once alone, Destiny reread the name printed on the wristband. She yanked her arm under the covers and huddled under their warmth.

  Maybe she did need a psych consult. Perhaps the accident had caused a delusion in which she had assumed another person’s identity. Could she be Zoe? She peeked again at the ID tag. The hospital thought so. As did Chance, apparently.

  Her face and body claimed she was.

  Memories disagreed. She recalled her parents bringing Laura home from the hospital. Her third grade teacher, Mrs. Norris, used to draw big red stars on her homework papers. She’d gotten her first kiss from Tommy Thomason in high school after their movie date. Her savings account held $9,450, and the dry cleaner had her navy wool sweater waiting to be retrieved. She could recite Destiny’s social security number, her late grandmother’s address, and her high school locker combination. Zoe didn’t have that information.

  Feelings belonged to Destiny too. She loved her sister and her parents, longed for Chance, but resigned herself that her yearning would go unfulfilled, and worried that Mr. Right would never appear. She took pride in the photography business she and Laura owned, and suffered angst over her inability to lose a stubborn twenty pounds.

  The mirror, her body, the bracelet, the nurse were wrong. But what the hell had happened?

  Sleep eluded her, and she tossed, checking her wristband half a dozen times, hoping against hope for different results. As dawn tinted the drawn window blinds, she dozed, only to be awakened when a visitor in a shirt, tie, and sport coat strode into the room.

  “Good morning,” the man said in a suspicious, atonal voice and scraped a chair across the floor to the bed.

  She eased to a sitting position and sneaked another peek at the name band. “Good morning.” She parroted his deadpan greeting.

  He shook her hand and then sat. “I’m Dr. Hahn. I’m a psychologist.”

  Shit. The nightmare shifted from bad to worse. If she didn’t tread carefully, she would compound her troubles by getting locked up in a mental ward the way her sister had been.

  “Can you tell me your name?”

  “I’m Zoe Richards,” she stated, her inflection insinuating the question was ridiculous.

  If she’d blinked, she would have missed the slight nod, indicating she’d chosen wisely to play along.r />
  “The nurse was concerned, so I thought we could chat for a bit.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you know where you are?”

  Disneyland, she almost snapped. How deranged would a person have to be to not recognize a medical facility? “I’m in the hospital. My friend…Destiny Grable was killed in a car accident.”

  “Do you know what day it is?”

  She’d had an appointment yesterday to shoot first-birthday photographs. “It’s Saturday. The twenty-fourth.”

  “What is your occupation?”

  “I’m a model.”

  “Do you know who the president is?”

  She felt like a contestant on the Jeopardy! game show, only the loser didn’t go home empty-handed but ended up in lockdown. Would it help her case if she phrased her answers in the form of a question? After passing a brief Q and A on American current events, she convinced the headshrinker of her mental soundness. He wished her a speedy recovery and left.

  Whew! Close one. Destiny expelled her breath in a whoosh, her heart thumping as if she’d run a marathon. She wasn’t crazy. The world was. During her restless night, she’d pieced together a theory.

  She and Zoe had switched bodies.

  Chapter Four

  >While Destiny choked down a tasteless hospital breakfast of powdered scrambled eggs and cardboard toast, the discharging doctor arrived for a final checkup. He asked many of the same questions the psychologist had, and she delivered the same answers.

  A new nurse explained how to care for the stitches in her head and instructed her of signs and symptoms requiring medical attention. She was eying Zoe’s dirty, bloodied clothes when Chance strode into her room, a duffel slung over his shoulder.

  He’d dressed in another pair of thigh-hugging faded jeans and a T-shirt, this one tan. A recent shower darkened his short espresso hair, but he hadn’t shaved, and the stubble on his square jaw enhanced his rugged appearance. “Good morning,” he said.

  “Good morning,” she lied.

  “How do you feel?” He pecked her on the cheek, and she forced herself to remain still to receive it. Awkward. Zoe had told her a couple of months ago they’d broken up, yet they still lived together as roomies. But twice now he’d kissed Destiny. They hadn’t been sexual kisses, but still. Had they reunited?

  “I’m stiff. Sore.” Not to mention anxious, confused, worried. You have to tell him the truth. He deserved no less. Plus, if he and Zoe had gotten back together, he’d have certain expectations.

  Her parents hadn’t recognized her voice. The hospital literally had tagged her as Zoe. How would she convince him? No one else had believed her. Why would he? If she told him the truth right now, he might call the nurse, who would call Dr. Hahn, and they might not allow her to leave. She could end up in the psych ward with no one to vouch for her sanity, confirm her identity.

  Better to wait until you’re well clear of the hospital.

  He held out the duffel. “I bought you some fresh clothes.”

  “Thank you. I’ll hurry and get dressed,” she said.

  Eager to leave the hospital, she scurried into the bathroom and nearly shrieked at her reflection. Bruises had darkened from red to violet overnight. One would never guess a beautiful model existed behind the hideous purple face framed by a mat of rusty blonde hair.

  She’d promised to be quick, but she had to fix the worst of it. She wet and soaped a cloth and washed her face, discovering that some smudges resulted from dried blood and not contusions. After rinsing it out, she wiped as much of the same from her hair as she could, then examined the bald spot. The nurse had advised her to avoid soaking her head for the next couple of days, but she would wash her hair, stitches or no, as soon as she could.

  Chance had provided a toothbrush, comb, and hairbrush, and after cleaning her teeth, she gently attacked the tangles in her hair. Muscles ached from the accident. She averted her face from the mirror, only to compulsively peek and receive a jolt when her image conflicted with the expected picture in her head.

  She told herself she wasn’t stalling but was taking care to be mindful of her injuries, but she didn’t fall for her excuse. Uncertainty awaited outside the hospital. She wished she could lock the bathroom door, curl into a ball in the corner, and hide until her life returned to normal. But she feared nothing would be normal again.

  Once her hair was fairly smooth and she’d dressed in the comfy sweats Chance had provided, she had no excuse to avoid the inevitable. She shoved her feet into flip-flops, snagged the duffel, and with a deep breath for courage, exited the bathroom.

  Chance lounged in a chair near the window.

  Her feet rooted to the green speckled linoleum, but her stomach lurched when he padded toward her and wrapped his arms around her in a loose but enveloping hug. He rested his cheek against her head. She and Chance had been friends, but until now their hugs had been quick, cursory ones.

  Destiny held herself stiff but closed her eyes and inhaled his scent. Soap, fresh laundry, and a heady male essence settled over her like a warm blanket, soothing and comforting, except for the barbs of guilt woven into the fabric. Chance might mistake her for Zoe, but she knew she wasn’t, and she had no right to steal this moment of intimacy.

  But she lacked willpower to push him away. Didn’t she deserve a moment’s solace? Her mind had tumbled all night, tossing out ramifications. She’d lost everything—her family, her friends, her business, her possessions. She didn’t even have her purse or her cell phone. Everything associated with Destiny Grable had disappeared.

  Chance pressed his lips to her head. “I knew something had happened yesterday, even before I got the call from the sheriff’s department.”

  “You did?” She spoke against his throat. His T-shirt brushed her cheek. She couldn’t help it; she rubbed her face against it and inhaled. Wrong. This was wrong.

  He nodded. “At the shop…I got a feeling of dread. Moments later I got the call. They told me you’d been in an accident. They didn’t give me any information on your condition.”

  So he’d had a flash of ESP. Everyone had them. But he would need more than a flash to believe the unbelievable. Even a true psychic would give more credence to the evidence of his or her own eyes than some vague vision. People did not switch bodies. It violated the laws of nature. Of the universe. Of everything known and theorized.

  What about reincarnation? People have claimed to have had past lives.

  Never been proven.

  Aren’t you proof?

  “I’m sorry you were worried,” she said, hearing Zoe’s husky voice come out of her mouth. She’d assumed her vocal cords had been strained by screaming, but she now understood why her parents hadn’t recognized her on the phone. And when a person had a different face and body? Would she be able to convince anyone who she was?

  He hugged her gently, mindful of her injuries. “I’m so sorry about Destiny.”

  He meant she’d lost a friend. But she had lost herself too, because her identity had been erased. Her losses added up, and her eyes watered. Then guilt stung her. What right did she have to feel sorry for herself when she was alive but her friend wasn’t?

  Chance pulled back and sought her gaze. “I didn’t mean to upset you again,” he said.

  “It’s all right. It’s going to be a difficult adjustment for a while. That’s all.”

  He released her. “Let’s get you home.”

  “Home.” She gulped. Chance’s house.

  She snagged Zoe’s purse from the closet, Chance took the duffel, and they left the hospital.

  * * * *

  Chance wended the vehicle out of the parking structure and entered the bright sunlight of spring. Cotton-ball clouds drifted across an azure sky. Street-side jacaranda trees bloomed in glorious lavender, crepe myrtle in vivid fuchsia. As if Mother Nature had bustled through and tidied up, the previous day’s rain had cleaned the streets and buildings and spritzed the air with a fresh scent. Eyes wide, Zoe pivoted her head
, taking in the scenery as if she’d been plopped in the middle of a foreign landscape. She trembled, and Chance suspected she was reliving the car crash, how close she’d come to losing her life. He threaded his fingers through hers. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s over.”

  He watched her chest move as she took a breath. Partly to distract her, he asked, “You hungry?”

  “Actually yes.”

  He squeezed her hand before gripping the steering wheel. “What would you like?”

  “A breakfast burrito,” she joked.

  He chuckled. “Anything is better than hospital food, right?”

  “True.” She wrinkled her nose. “But I do have a hankering for Taco Paco’s.”

  “Are you serious?” He snapped his gaze in her direction.

  “If you’d like another place, that’s fine. I’ll eat anything.” She shrugged.

  He checked the road, then glanced at her and furrowed his brow.

  She fidgeted in her seat. “What did I say wrong?”

  “You dislike Mexican food in general, and Taco Paco’s in particular.” She watched her weight and almost never ate fast food.

  “Oh.” She blushed, the color mingling with her bruises. “Maybe I thought I’d give it another try. Unless you don’t like it.”

  What game was she playing? “You know it’s my favorite.” He and Roman often grabbed lunch from Taco Paco’s. He went there without Zoe because she didn’t like it.

  “So let’s go there, then.”

  He’d give her what she asked for. “Okay.” He shrugged. “Drive through?”

  “Please.” She smiled.

  * * * *

  Chance pushed open his townhome door and gestured for Zoe to proceed. She inched inside but stalled out in the foyer.

  He brushed past her. “Let’s eat. I’m starving.” The smell of fast foot had filled the truck cab and caused his stomach to growl. He strode across the tiled floor to the small dining area connecting the kitchen and living room, and plopped the bag on the table.