What Dreams May Come Read Online Free PDF

Not without a hell of a fight."
    Ten years before, he had been the most determined, strong-willed man Kelly had ever known. Confident and assured, he had gone after what he wanted with a single-minded intensity that had utterly fascinated her. Their personalities had meshed perfectly then; he a leader and she willing to follow. She had, with the unconscious fervor of a young girl in love, begun molding herself into the kind of woman Mitch had wanted her to be; he was a strong man with a dominant personality, and in all likelihood she would have echoed his thoughts and opinions without forming her own.
    But ten years stood between then and now, and for Kelly those years had been filled with events and emotions that had forever changed the woman she might have been. Looking back, she saw herself as weak and submissive, and with Mitch taken away from her, those flaws had become painfully evident. She knew now the price she had paid for her own lack of individuality.
    Her maturity and independence had been hard-won, and she valued both now because the cost had been so great.
    After a moment she said quietly, "What are you going to fight? Time? Fate? There's no villain, Mitch. No thief you can get your hands on. A drunk driver crashed into a car, after which lives took separate paths. If you came here thinking you could change that, you were wrong."
    A muscle tightened in his lean jaw. "I can't accept that. Ill fight you if I have to. I'm not giving up on us." He hesitated, then drew a breath and added in a hard tone, "You owe me. You owe me time."
    "I didn't take that away from you."
    "No. But you walked away."
    She wanted to walk away again. Just turn and walk away, order him out of her life. But he had, whether deliberately or not, laid bare her greatest regret—and her guilt. She had given up on him. She hadn't been strong enough, or hadn't loved enough, to wait no matter how long it took. It wasn't a rational guilt, and Kelly knew it, but knowing did nothing to lessen her feelings. She had lived with the guilt for more than five years, the only chain still binding her to the past.
    She felt that she did owe him, that she should somehow atone for having failed him.
    It had to be resolved, she knew that as well. The ring she still wore on a necklace was the constant reminder of everything and everyone she had lost one cold night, and until she made peace with herself she would never be able to put the ring—and the guilt—away. She had made so many mistakes in her life, and there would never be an opportunity to correct most of them. No matterwhat it cost her, at least she had to try to correct this one.
    "Kelly?"
    She looked at him, focusing on his face—a face almost as familiar to her as her own, even though it had changed in both stark and subtle ways. "I suppose in a way 1 do owe you," she told him steadily. "I owe you an ending. You won't be able to get on with your life until that chapter of it is closed."
    "That isn't what I want, Kelly. I didn't come here to finish anything. You weren't a chapter in my life, you were the whole damned book. That hasn't changed."
    "But I have. I didn't sleep for nine years ... I lived. I got through the days one at a time. I buried my brother. I buried my parents. I finished college and built a career. I even ... I even married another man."
    "I know," he said flatly.
    Kelly didn't want to let either of them dwell on that fact, and went on determinedly. "Then you know I'm not the girl you remember. I can't be. Pretending anything else would only hurt us both. It's over, Mitch. It was over years ago."
    He slid his hands into the pockets of his jacket, his gaze never leaving her. After a moment he moved slightly, his shoulders settling as if he had braced them against something. "All right." His voice was even. "Maybe it is over. Maybe the girl I loved is lost to me, just like the years. But you still owe me. And I'm collecting on the debt."
    "What kind of payment do you expect from