by Adrianne Lee
“Who killed her?” Sookie demanded, pivoting. “If not Jay, then who? Which one of you killed my daughter?”
Only then did Livia realize Ali gripped a knife from Mark’s kitchen. But Sookie held a small pistol in her palm. She aimed it at the brunette. “You, Ali?”
She swung the barrel toward Livia. “You?”
Ali brought the knife into view.
Mark stepped between Sookie and Livia, and Sookie leveled the gun at him. “Or the man who killed my son? You…Ethan.”
“No.” Livia had to choose between stopping Ali from throwing the knife and Sookie from shooting Mark.
Sookie pulled back the hammer.
“No! Mark is innocent! Ali killed Reese and Wendy!” Livia dropped the album and leapt at Mark, shoving him out of the way.
The gun blast resounded in her ears at the exact moment she felt the bullet tear through her flesh. She heard someone scream and realized it was Sookie.
Chaos seemed to explode in the room.
Livia felt a burning pain, felt the world going black, felt Mark catch her as she slipped to the floor. The hourglass had gone deadly cold again and she didn’t need to see it to know that the stardust had drained to zero.
“I love you, Mark. Be strong for Josh.”
She should have known she couldn’t make bargains with Heaven. Couldn’t cheat Fate. Her only consolation was that Mark would have his son again, and Josh would have his daddy. For that she gladly paid this ultimate price.
The last thing she heard was Mark calling her name. The last thing she saw was his golden eyes so like the light for which her soul headed.
Chapter Nineteen
ANGELS’ FOOD
Bright Light
Haloes and Wings
Processing
Heavenly Sentence
Mark’s eyes faded in the blare of the bright light pulling Livia upward, but nothing could strip her of his memory or the way he’d made her feel. That was seared so deeply into her spirit it would be with her through eternity.
As before, she seemed to be walking without feeling solid substance—floor or pavement or ground—beneath her feet. She noticed no noise or sound, until a sudden dull roar, like static, stole into the quietude.
She sensed she was not alone, that others, unseen, walked with her, beside her, ahead of her, behind her. She felt unseen hands bump against her like offers of sympathy.
She deserved no sympathy.
No forgiveness.
She’d been callous and full of herself the last time she’d faced the Processor, outraged that she’d ended up dead on the eve of her marriage to a man she’d chosen for all the wrong reasons. Then she’d thought she understood the importance of life: money, status, and staying forever thin. Then she’d figured it was more important for her to live than some hapless chef she’d never met.
Now she knew nothing was more important than to love and be loved in return. Maybe Heaven would have granted Mark and her a long life together if she had also followed the physician’s credo: First, Do No Harm.
But she hadn’t.
She’d been given a chance to change things so that she could keep herself from getting shot and dying. She’d changed things, all right. She’d fallen in love with her caterer, which had led to her fiancé’s murder. She’d wished Reese no harm. Certainly hadn’t wanted him to die. But because of her actions, he had. She would never forgive herself for that. Heaven would certainly never forgive such a sin.
In fact, she wouldn’t be surprised to discover she was on her way to Hell this time around.
She didn’t seem to be descending, however, but rising; floating, weightless and as airy as fluff on the wind, sailing upward toward a destination she could not see.
She was not frightened this time, nor hesitant. She’d known what would happen if she took another bullet meant for Mark. She’d taken it willingly. Would take any consequence due her. The airy feeling left and she now seemed to be gliding along as though on a motorized walkway.
Soon, the light began to dim.
Ahead, she made out shapes. Outlines. Gauzy, but recognizable, slowly emerging as if from a fog of light. People. Three women and two men. Beyond them, the image clearer than the others, stood a tall figure in a hooded robe of pure white silk, the edges trimmed in gold. The Processor. Behind him stood the massive, solid-gold gate, its filigree scrolls as sparkly as a diamond tiara.
She hadn’t been sent to Hell.
Livia felt humbled. This was better than she deserved.
A sense of peace hung in the air so palpable she could taste it, smell it, touch it, but she felt no peace knowing that Reese had traveled this same path hours before her, been processed through that mesmerizing gate and into Heaven before his time…because of her actions. What she felt was an awful guilt. Loneliness. Inevitability.
And then it was her turn.
The Processor lifted his head and beneath the pristine hood she saw her grandfather Poppy’s face. Saw the eyes widen in dismay and braced herself.
“Oh, no,” the Processor said, tsking in his best Poppy voice. “Not you again. And early, too.”
“I know.” Only then did Livia realize the golden hourglass no longer hung from her neck. “I changed all the wrong things, I guess.”
“Well, you know what this means.” He seemed as sadly resigned as she felt.
“Yes. But maybe I don’t belong here at all.”
“What?”
“Maybe I belong…you know…” She pointed toward her feet. “Down there.”
“Down?” His eyes widened. “In Hell? Why would you say that?”
“Why would I say that? Don’t you know I’ve caused my fiancé’s death? I’m sure you processed him through earlier.” She pointed to the golden gate this time. “Reese Rayburn?”
“You say you murdered him?” He consulted his computer.
“No, but—”
“His name is not in my files.” Silk swished as he shook his head at her. “If he was murdered, he didn’t come here.”
She considered that a minute, deciding for all his faults, Reese wasn’t a bad man, couldn’t have done anything so awful he’d have gone to Hell. There had to be another explanation. She pointed at the computer. “Are you sure you’re spelling his name correctly? R-e-e-s-e R-a-y-b-u-r-n?”
He worked the keyboard again. “Oh, he is here.”
Even though she expected this, her heart sank. “Before his time…like me.”
“Oh, no.” The Processor peered at her with Poppy’s kind eyes. “He’s just a couple of weeks early, but not before his time. He died as he was supposed to have. Stabbed with a knife, right?”
“Yes. Stabbed.” Reese was supposed to have died before their wedding? Livia struggled to make sense of this. “I guess I wasn’t getting married on February twenty-eighth no matter what I did, even if I’d lived, even if I hadn’t fallen in love with another man?”
“I remember you like to ask questions,” the Processor said. “But you’ve forgotten that I don’t have the answers. All I do is process souls into Heaven.”
Livia was trying to process the fact that Reese had been slated to die. As she thought about it, though, she realized it made sense. Was even inevitable. He’d sealed his own fate the moment Ali discovered he’d decided to check into Jay-Ray’s handling of Josh’s money.
I’ve been giving myself too much credit, too much power, as though I controlled life and death. She blushed, chagrined. Talk about someone needing an ego check. “I guess you’d better process me.”
“Yes. My hands are tied. We must proceed.”
He seemed so sad, she felt the need to reassure him. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. I could have avoided the bullet, but I did what I did on purpose and I’d do it all over again, even if you gave me another chance to change the outcome. In other words, I’m ready and willing to go in Mark Everett’s place.”
“My, but you are a changed woman, aren’t you?”
More
than she’d ever thought possible.
His hands sped across the keyboard. “There, that’s it. Step over to the gate and as soon as it swings inward, you’ll see loved ones who’ve gone before waiting for you.
Livia started to walk past the Processor.
“Livia Kingston!” A golden voice rang down from above like the toll of a bell and stopped her in her tracks.
“Yes?” she whispered, her mouth dry. Here it comes, she thought, I’m going straight to Hell for trying to alter God’s divine plans, for saving Mark, for trying to keep us both alive when I’d been told specifically that one of us had to die.
But she’d promised herself she would take her punishment, and she would—without allowing them to see the fear that threatened to turn her to jelly. With every ounce of will she could muster, she squared her shoulders and raised her chin.
“Yes,” she said, loud and clear. “I am Livia Kingston.”
“Livia Kingston—by giving up your life for the sake of another, you have shown great courage and selflessness.” The imperial voice tolled. “Such deeds do not go unrewarded.”
This didn’t sound like a ticket to the underworld. This sounded like good news. Rewarded. How did they reward someone in Heaven?
With a halo?
Wings?
“Livia Kingston!” the voice boomed. “You have learned the lesson set before you and redeemed yourself.”
Redeemed myself? “I did?”
“Yes, and in doing so, you have earned the right to live.”
What? She gave her head a shake. Did your hearing leave when you died? It must. He couldn’t have said what she thought He had.
She frowned, asking, “The right to live? As in alive? Breathing? Heart beating? Pulse pounding? Alive?”
“There she goes again.” The Processor sighed. “Questioning everything, repeating everything.”
“What about Mark? If I get my life back will he lose his? Because you should know that I don’t want to be alive without him. I don’t want his son to lose him.”
“No. You have saved Mark Everett as well as yourself.”
“Oh, thank you. Thank you.”
“Livia Kingston,” the golden voice bellowed, “I sentence you to life and love!”
With that came a clap as loud as thunder, followed by a blinding flash of light. She squeezed her eyes shut and moaned. The next instant she became aware of noise all around her, rain, voices and the static of a police scanner. Strobe lights seemed to blink behind her eyelids.
Mark’s voice cut through it all, reaching out to her. “Livia, can you hear me?”
She pried open her eyes and stared into that golden gaze of his, and awareness splashed through her. He was holding her hand, running beside her as two EMTs wheeled the stretcher she was strapped to toward a waiting ambulance.
She breathed in the wet night air, felt an awful pain in her side and a wondrous joy that she was alive to feel it. “Yes, darling, oh, yes, I hear you. I’m going to live.”
He looked worried, as though he didn’t believe her. “I can’t go in the ambulance with you, but I’ll follow it to the hospital.”
“Okay. And stop worrying, I’m going to be fine. We’re going to be together this Valentine’s Day and every other one to come.”
Mark stepped back and they lifted Livia into the ambulance. As he started toward Candee’s pickup, she saw two uniformed police officers and a man in a suit approach him. The plainclothes officer flashed his detective’s badge. “Mark Everett?”
“Yes.” Mark went rigid.
“You’re under arrest for the murder of Reese Rayburn.” The detective slapped handcuffs on him, then barked to the other officers, “Read him his rights and don’t mess up. He’s not getting off on a technicality this time.”
Epilogue
WEDDING TOAST
Something Old
Something New
Something Bubbly
Nothing Blue
July
Celebratory voices echoed off the walls of the Old Grange Hall, underscored by the swinging beat of the six piece dance band. This was not the formal, upscale wedding reception Livia had expected when she’d planned on marrying a Rayburn. This was the Kingston clan in all its generations, its full glory, loud, laughing, raucous, the noise level deafening.
She had never appreciated being part of it as she did this day.
She gripped Mark’s hand and leaned in to whisper above the din, “Get used to it. You haven’t married just me, but the whole family.”
“Good.” Mark turned his joy-filled gaze on her, making her feel downright sinful in her virgin-white satin and lace, as though she wore the skimpiest, most man-luring scrap of red-hot lingerie.
She’d known this plain-Jane off-the-shoulder dress was “the” gown the moment she’d tried it on, the moment she’d seen that sensuous gleam of approval in Mark’s eyes. But after being shot, she’d feared she wouldn’t be able to wear anything that clung to her as this did, feared the scar would show. The bullet wound had left a puckered divot at her waist, front and back, a permanent reminder of how close she’d come to losing all that was precious to her in this life.
As though he read her mind, Mark said, “You’ve gotten us with all of our warts, too.”
He gazed toward his son, who played with two of her nephews, boys being boys, starting a mini food fight. The joy in his eyes dimmed slightly as Josh forgot the play and glanced their way. In his child’s tuxedo, he appeared to be a happy, normal little boy, but he’d been going through a clingy stage since being reunited with his daddy, and even today, especially today, though he was better, he seemed to need reassurance that they weren’t going to disappear on him.
On the advice of their family therapist, they’d decided to postpone their honeymoon for a couple of weeks, to stop Josh from associating big events with abandonment. He’d had enough upheaval in his young life.
“Aren’t you two hungry?” Charlie Kingston, Livia’s dad, set his overflowing plate on their table. “You should see the spread. Bridget and Candee done you proud.”
“Wait until you taste the cake, Dad.” Livia had Mark to thank for helping her conquer her fear of sweets. Especially cake. “Bridget outdid herself.”
He leaned closer and lowered his voice, glanced toward the buffet table, then back at Livia and Mark. “Between you two and me, I suspect I’m gonna be throwing another one of these shindigs in another few months. Every time Bridget and your partner glance at each other, they wind up all moony-eyed.”
Livia and Mark laughed. It was true. Somewhere along the way while sharing banquet preparations for the reception, Candee and Bridget had begun paying as much attention to each other as to the food, and now her sister had set her sights on Mark’s partner. The grand thing was, the feelings seemed mutual.
“It’s been a wild five months,” Mark said, pulling her chair out so they could hit the buffet line.
Livia smiled as she passed relatives and friends, accepted kisses and hugs and more congratulations. She couldn’t believe all that had happened since Mark had been arrested and she’d been hurried off to the hospital and into surgery. She’d been fortunate in that the bullet had missed every vital organ and major artery.
Mark had been less fortunate. The district attorney had claimed to have an open-and-shut case against him and had been dead-set on the death penalty. But he’d wanted a solid case without mistakes. To that end, he’d listened to Livia and Sookie and eventually to Mark. He’d checked into Jay-Ray’s misappropriation of funds, his criminal handling of both Josh’s and Wendy’s monies, found proof of embezzlement, and charged him as an accessory to two homicides.
Jay-Ray had offered to give up Ali and his lawyers plea-bargained him to a lighter sentence in exchange for that evidence. It helped that the police had also found her fingerprint on the audio tape of Livia and Mark making love, which Ali had used to lure Reese to Mark’s bedroom, to his death. The idea of all those detectives and lawyers
listening to that private tape made Livia blush, but it was a small price to pay for Mark’s freedom, his complete exoneration.
Sookie had had a nervous breakdown after shooting Livia and was still undergoing counseling.
Though none of Josh’s gambled money could be recovered, Reese had left him his share of Rayburn Roost and Rayburn Grocers Inc. The business had been sold, Josh’s half put into a trust fund no one could touch without going through several lawyers and bank officials.
Her father called, “A toast to the happy couple.”
A hush fell over the hall and everyone lifted their glasses. Love poured from their faces and into Livia’s heart.
She squeezed Mark’s hand, hugged Josh between them, and listened as first her father, then her uncles began giving a round of toasts, an old family tradition that would take a long while to get through.
The smile seemed to bloom from somewhere inside her, spreading to her lips, her eyes, and radiating out to all who looked on her. There was no rush, no hourglass counting down the minutes of her life. All the time in the world stretched before her. All the time that Heaven allowed.
Livia wasn’t going to miss a second of it.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-4307-1
SENTENCED TO WED
Copyright © 2003 by Adrianne Lee Undsderfer
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
