When Hearts Collide - By James, Kendra Page 0,18

for a job, gone on vacation, separated from her father. Maybe the child’s mother had died.

“Can we crayon, Molly Mommy?”

She should put a stop to it, but Molly couldn’t help smiling at the child’s name for her. And despite the enticing picture of Pierce and Gracie being her family, that was a flight of fancy, and she didn’t have the excuse of having a head injury to create that particular delusion.

How was Pearce doing? Should she call the hospital and inquire? They should give her his status. They thought she was his wife. Was he conscious? How lucid would he be? Would he remember anything about the accident? Would he remember begging her to pretend to be his wife, or would he deny even knowing her?

Darkness surrounded him. It came in varying shades–pitch black to cumulous clouds of silver. Through the luminous silver, he sometimes saw a halo of light, a glimpse of scarlet, dots of blue, fading to charcoal again. Then he would sink back into the darkness, and a feeling of numbness would weigh on him. Gradually, the periods of gray came more often, lasted longer, beating out the black, as if a war were being waged.

He floated in the waves of dense clouds. At times, he rose almost to consciousness, but never quite attained it before plunging into darker depths, where no sensation penetrated. He tried to swim to the surface, but the current overpowered him. The weight of the water engulfed him. He treaded furiously, but was swept into the depths again.

Sensations of pain came and went in varying degrees. He would rise to the surface where the light was, but there the pain was too intense. He tried to reach out, but it hurt too much. He let himself drift below the surface again, deeper and deeper, the pain becoming less and less.

He heard muffled sounds, sounds and voices that seemed somehow familiar. He fought to make sense of them, but they sounded like a foreign language spoken through layers of cotton batting. He struggled to open his eyes, struggled to keep them open, struggled to not succumb to the forces keeping him prisoner.

There was one vision that continued to hover over him–a vision of a red-haired angel. Sometimes the angel held him, her soft fingers caressing his face. Other times, she cradled Gracie. He reached out, but his body refused to obey his commands.

Then she was there again. Who was she? Did he know her? He should have remembered that face with its halo of red curls. She reminded him of Rachel. But he didn’t want to think about her. He wanted to think about the angel.

He concentrated on the red-haired vision. It was better than the recurring nightmare—the one where a flash of brown darted across the road, the car swerved out of control, the tree came at him. His heart quickened as he remembered a loud crash, sand and gravel exploding around him, pain, and then everything went black.

Briefly, the blackness had cleared, and he’d seen the pale face, a halo of red curls, felt the brush of warm breath on his ear before he’d plunged into darkness again.

The dream kept recurring. The same dream, the same crash, the same angel. But he didn’t believe in angels. He tried to open his eyes and move his head, but the pain returned like a torrential wave.

He fought to escape the pain. He heard a low moan, then realized it was coming from deep in his throat. He felt the softness of a hand on his arm, a soothing voice, the faint smell of alcohol. Then he was sinking under the layers of fog as the piercing wave receded. By the time the nurse put the syringe in the sharp’s container, Pearce was dreaming again of the red-haired angel.

When he was finally able to focus again, Pearce saw walls, some pale green, some glass, and he saw pale striped curtains, but mostly, he saw the white-tiled ceiling above him. And he heard sounds, beeps and wheezes and clicks and drips. He saw wires leading from his chest to a monitor, felt tubes stuck in his arm, his mouth, his nose.

He tried to move, but the pain was too much. He closed his eyes, but voices disturbed him. They were close. One was deep; the other was softer, higher pitched. The female voice spoke his name. Pearce forced his eyes to open. His vision was blurry and sleep coated his lids. He blinked