Amy gave him a small smile. ‘You don’t have to say anything, Jake.’
‘If that’s the way you want it, then thank you, Amy,’ he murmured, not knowing what else he could say.
‘There’s something I want to say … I want to apologize to you, Jake, tell you how sorry I am that I was a bad wife.’
‘Amy, for God’s sake, you weren’t a bad wife!’ he cried. ‘You did the best you could, always. I know that.’
‘My best wasn’t good enough. Not for you, Jake. I was always so negative and apathetic, and I never helped you when you were trying to make a better life for us. I did everything wrong, and I’m truly sorry.’
He stared at her silently, again at a loss for words.
Amy said, ‘I really did die the night of the crash. I did leave my body. My soul did, I mean. Or my spirit, if you prefer to call it that. I went to another plane, to another dimension. And I saw my father. Then my mother joined him, and that’s how I knew she was dead. There was an old soul there looking after me, and she took me into a crystal cave of wisdom. There were two wise women spirits, and they told me things. And they showed me how wrong I’d been. I saw my whole life, Jake; I saw my past and I saw your past.’
Jake was silent.
Amy said, ‘I can’t change anything in my life now because I have no time to do so. I have become the person I should have always been, and I must try to make amends.’ Amy leaned back in the chair and focused her eyes on Jake. ‘You’re sceptical, aren’t you? I mean about my dying and coming back.’
‘No, as a matter of fact, I’m not,’ he replied. ‘I do know there are other people who have had similar experiences, and a number of books have been written about them.’
‘I didn’t know that, although I didn’t think it could have happened only to me.’
‘What happened to you is called a Near-Death Experience, Amy.’
Amy nodded then closed her eyes. After a moment she opened them. Leaning forward, she fixed them on Jake.
He blinked. They seemed brighter, more full of life than he’d ever seen them, and the smile spreading itself across her face was one of pure radiance.
Amy said, ‘I not only saw my past, and your past, Jake. I also saw your future. I didn’t see mine because I don’t have one. Not on this plane at least.’
‘You saw my future,’ he repeated.
‘Yes, I did. There’s a woman in your life, Jake, and you love her very much. She is older than you, but that is of no consequence. You and she are meant to be together. You were always meant to be together, and your whole life has been a journey towards her. As hers has been a journey towards you. Once you were souls who were joined together as one, and then you were split asunder. Your whole lives have been spent trying to get back to each other. When you found each other you became whole. Never doubt her in any way.’
Jake opened his mouth but no words came out.
She said, This woman, your soulmate, is carrying your child. She’s five months pregnant. The baby is due in February. It’s a boy, Jake, you’re going to have the son you always wanted. The future is good for you. You will be prosperous; you were always right to start your own business. It will go well, and this woman, who is devoted to you and will be your wife, will also be your partner in your business. You are going to have all the things you always wanted, Jake, and somehow never managed to get with me. But you must not let your success change you, or turn your head. You’re such a good person. You must cling to your values always.’
‘Amy, I don’t know what to say. It’s true, I did meet someone. In April. I never mentioned her to you because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings – ’
‘Don’t say any more; it’s not necessary. I am the one who hurt you. This was shown to me, and I was sent back in order to put things right with you and to help you with your future.’
‘Help me how?’
‘To show you the way, to set you on the right path. You have already started out on it with your soulmate. She is strong, wise, and you must always listen to her.’ Amy nodded. ‘You must take her advice. And you must also follow all of your instincts. You are usually right. Trust yourself more.’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ Jake began and stopped. Amy was looking at him intently and he realized how lovely she was. It seemed to him that at this moment she had undergone a startling transformation. Her face was radiant, her pale blue eyes bright and sparkling, and even the curly blonde wig she was wearing looked suddenly right on her.
‘Now it’s my turn to say you’re staring at me,’ Amy exclaimed.
‘I was thinking how beautiful you looked.’
‘I am. Inside. I want you to promise me something, Jake.’
‘Yes, Amy, I will. Tell me what it is.’
‘I want you to promise me you’ll get married immediately after I die. I don’t want you to have any mourning period. That would be false anyway, since we’ve been separated for almost two years.’ She paused and gave him a very direct look. ‘Longer, if you think of the years we lived together without communicating. Do you promise?’
Jake nodded.
Amy went on, ‘I think I’ll die soon, Jake.’
‘Oh Amy …’
‘There’s something else I need to say to you and it’s this: love is the most important thing in the whole world.’
‘I know you’re right,’ Jake responded.
Amy smiled her radiant smile and said softly, ‘I’m not afraid to die. Not anymore, Jake. You see, I know there is life after death. Not life as we know it here, but life on another plane. I will be glad to shed my body, then my spirit will be free at last …’
CHAPTER
15
MAGGIE STOOD STARING out of the kitchen window, wondering what had happened to Jake. It was snowing hard, the tiny crystalline flakes sticking to the panes. She always worried about him in bad weather. The roads could be so treacherous.
Christmas traffic, she decided, that’s what was holding him up. He had promised to be here by two, but perhaps he had been delayed at the Little Theatre in Kent. At Samantha’s request he had gone up there to look at one of the lighting systems which had blown the night before. None of the stagehands knew how to fix it permanently. Since Jake had designed it, Samantha and Maggie knew he would be able to solve the problem.
Maggie’s thoughts drifted to the play for a moment. The Crucible had opened in September and, much to everyone’s surprise and delight, it was still running. It was a sell-out at weekends; Samantha was in her element as the producer, director and owner of the theatre.
Turning away from the window, Maggie walked across the room, her steps slower these days. She was seven months into her pregnancy. The baby, a boy, was due in two months and she couldn’t wait to deliver. The baby was big and she was heavy; and every day she seemed to grow slower and slower.
Sitting down at the kitchen table, she looked at her list of gifts. She had finished almost all of her Christmas shopping, having started it earlier in the year. Today was Saturday the sixteenth of December, and anything else she still needed Jake would have to buy. Maggie knew she did not have enough energy to struggle through the stores, the big stores at any rate.
At least she wouldn’t have to do much cooking. She and Jake were going to spend Christmas Day with Samantha. That was the big day, of course; on Christmas Eve Samantha was coming to them along with some of the cast and other members of the theatrical group. Weeks ago Maggie had decided to make the supper a cold buffet, so much simpler for her to handle.
Rising, Maggie lumbered into the small sitting room and walked over to the tree. Jake and she had decorated it slowly, gradually, over the past two weeks, mostly because he was so busy with business. And she was unwieldy, not very much help to him.
Maggie smiled inwardly and put her hands on her stomach. The baby was her treasure. Hers and Jake’s. He couldn’t wait for the child to be born, and was forever pampering her, treating her like a piece of crystal.
Stepping up to the tree, she eyed it critically, knowing that certain branches were still rather bare. Perhaps today they would have time to stop at The Silo to buy some more gold and silver icicles, gold angels and fruits. She and Jake had created a gold and silver tree, with touches of red and blue here and there; and it was eyecatching, she thought.
Maggie walked slowly back to the kitchen and stood at the window again, waiting for him, wishing he would get home. After a while, she moved away, went to the radio and turned it on.
‘Hark! the herald-angels sing, Glory to the new born king. Peace on earth and mercy mild …’ a female voice was singing on the Christmas record the station was playing.
Maggie was immediately distracted. She heard the pick-up coming into the yard and stood looking at the door expectantly, waiting for him.
As always, she felt the impact of him in the pit of her stomach whenever she saw him, even after a very short absence. What it was to be so in love. Sometimes she worried that she loved him far too much.
‘Hi, sweetheart,’ Jake said, striding over to her, tracking snow across her clean floor.
But Maggie did not care. ‘Hello, darling,’ she answered, beaming at him. ‘I was beginning to worry, wonder what was taking so long.’
‘That stupid system I invented!’ he exclaimed, brought her into his arms and kissed her cheek.
‘Oh Jake, your face is cold, and your hands. Why didn’t you put on your gloves and a scarf?’
He grinned at her boyishly. ‘Oh stop worrying about me. I’m fine. Anyway, the system’s okay for tonight and tomorrow. But I think I’ll have to rig up something else next week. Samantha’s going to kill me if I don’t get it perfect, and this one’s not.’
‘Do you want a cup of coffee?’
Jake shook his head. ‘I think we’d better get going. It’s snowing hard, and the snow’s settling. It’s going to take us a good half hour to New Milford. Do you have the plant for Amy?’
‘It’s over there on the counter top.’
Jake walked over and looked at it. ‘You’ve made it look pretty with the blue and silver bow, Maggie.’
She nodded. ‘Shall we go, Jake?’
‘Yes. Let me get your coat.’
The snow had stopped falling by the time they arrived in New Milford, and the sun was shining in the brilliantly blue sky.
Maggie held onto Jake’s arm tightly as they walked down the path. There was a light covering of snow on the paving stones, and she was afraid she might slip.
‘Here we are,’ Jake said a few seconds later. ‘Now, just let me undo this.’ As he spoke he pulled the wrapping paper off the plant and shoved it in his pocket. Bending down, he placed the miniature evergreen on the new grave.
Straightening, he turned to Maggie and put his arm around her. ‘I’m glad we came,’ he murmured. ‘I gave her my word we would. “Come and visit my grave as soon as you can after you’re married,” she said and then she made me promise.’
‘She’s at peace now,’ Maggie said. ‘Out of her pain and suffering.’
Jake nodded. ‘Her soul is free. She wasn’t a bit afraid to die in the end.’
Maggie pulled off her gloves. Leaning over the grave, she straightened the blue and silver bow. Her broad gold wedding ring gleamed brightly in the afternoon sunlight. ‘That’s because Amy knew where she was going,’ Maggie murmured.
Jake merely nodded and put his arm around his wife protectively. Together they stood in silence at the grave for a few moments, lost in their own thoughts. Jake was thinking of Amy, who had died ten days ago. He had known her most of his life, and she had been his high-school sweetheart. Somehow everything had gone awry with them. Still, in the end, they had remained friends. He was glad of that, and happy that he had been able to give her comfort in the end, had helped her through her illness. He had been with her when she died, and her last words had been for him. ‘Bless you, Jake,’ she had said. ‘And your soulmate and the baby.’
A week after her death he and Maggie had married, fulfilling Amy’s wish that they do so immediately. He had wanted it that way himself, and he knew that Maggie had too. The wedding had been at Samantha’s house in Washington; Sam had insisted. She had also arranged for a local judge, who was a friend of her family, to perform the short ceremony. She and Alice Ferrier, the costume designer from the drama group, had been the witnesses.
Jake knew he would never forget last Saturday morning. Their wedding day. Maggie had looked so beautiful and full of life. She had worn a blue wool maternity dress that reflected the colour of her eyes but did little to conceal the fact that she was seven months pregnant. Neither of them cared. Maggie’s eyes had been full of tears when the judge pronounced them husband and wife, as his had been. They had both been very emotional that morning, and for days afterwards.
Sam had given a small lunch and members of the cast of The Crucible had come in to toast them and wish them well before going off to the Little Theatre in Kent. It had been the most special day of his life.
Jake said, ‘I think we’d better go, Maggie. It’s starting to snow again.’
Together the two of them walked along the path that led to the gate of the cemetery. At one moment Maggie glanced up at the sky, and high above them she saw the arc of a rainbow. It was indistinct but it was there. She blinked in the bright sunlight and looked away. When she turned her eyes to the sky again the rainbow had disappeared.
She held Jake’s arm as they continued on down the path, and at one moment she said quietly, ‘The cycle of life is endless, and it never changes.’
‘What do you mean?’ he asked, glancing down at her, frowning.
‘There has been a death … and soon there will be a birth. That’s the way it is. Always. One soul has gone to her rest, a new soul is about to be born in a few months.’
Jake nodded and was silent as they made their way out of the cemetery and back to the Jeep. Once he had helped Maggie in and settled himself in the driver’s seat, he leaned in to her and kissed her cheek. ‘I love you, Maggie of mine,’ he said. Looking at her huge stomach he placed his hand on it and added, ‘And I love our baby. He’s going to be born well blessed.’
‘Oh I know that,’ Maggie said, smiling into his eyes. ‘Come on, darling, it’s time to go home.’
Home, Jake thought, as he put the key in the ignition and turned it. Home.
The Women in his Life
Barbara Taylor Bradford
At the centre of this stunning novel stands Maximilian West, billionaire tycoon, corporate raider extraordinaire and a man of almost mythical power, glamour and charm. Yet, while Maximilian appears to have everything, in reality he is riven with internal conflict – and torn apart by personal doubts.
Many women have loved Maxim – and many strive to reach his fortress heart: Anastasia, his first wife; Camilla, the beautiful English actress; Adriana, the competitive American career woman; and Blair, the mistress who schemes to become his wife. But only one woman holds the key that will unlock Maximilian’s secret – and set his soul free …
Sweeping through war-torn Berlin, through the heady atmosphere of Paris, Madrid and Tangier, to contemporary London and New York, The Women in his Life is a superb, compelling novel and ranks triumphant alongside Barbara Taylor Bradford’s other phenomenal international bestsellers.
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ISBN 0 586 07035 4
Everything to Gain
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Mallory Keswick is a woman with the world at her feet. Then out of the blue, that world is shattered by violent tragedy and she loses all that she holds dear.
Torn by grief, Mal knows that she must rebuild her life. She flees to a village on the Yorkshire moors where she learns to draw on the deepest reserves of her spirit, and to look life in the eye onc
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Sebastian, the fifty-six-year-old patriarch of the Locke clan, is handsome, charismatic, a man of immense charm and intelligence. He heads up the philanthropic Locke Foundation, funded by the vast family fortune built by his forefathers. Committed to relieving the suffering of those in genuine need, Locke travels the globe, personally giving away millions a year to the poor, the sick, and the victims of natural disasters and wars. He is seen as a beacon of light in today’s darkly violent world. That is why the police are so baffled when Sebastian is found dead in mysterious circumstances. Has he been murdered, and if so who would want to kill the world’s greatest philanthropist? Could such an upstanding man have enemies?
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ISBN: 0 586 21739 8