"So what's new," she smiled. "A doctor worried about a CIPA patient."

"It wasn't Truscott."

Her spirit dimmed. "What?"

"You weren't meant to save Truscott. He was just a sign." I scooted from the table and lifted Scout's file from the counter. "He even had the same damn bed number." The earth shook below my feet and rumbled inside my cortex. Vision was blurred, and suddenly she was in front of me with nervous hands on my cheeks. "He led you to me because I was headed toward Scout."

She took the file, scanned it quickly. "A heart?"

"All the money . . ." I slid to the floor and fisted my hair just to feel something more painful than the ache inside my chest. " . . . It was meant for him."

She was quiet until she kneeled in front of me. "It's all right." I lifted my head and she repeated, "It's all right."

The truth lit my fuse. "My purpose is to bring you to someone who needs you to die and you tell me it's all right?"

"Be quiet, Andy is sleeping."

"Well fuckin' forbid he wakes up from me shouting! I mean it's clearly going to be the worst thing that ever happens to him!"

"Callum stop it!" she demanded.

"I can't do this," I snapped. "I won't do this!"

She reached for me but I recoiled. "It's not yours to refuse."

"Well guess what, I'm fuckin' refusing, so God will just have to fuckin' deal with that."

"I mean it's not your purpose . . . it's mine." She caught eyes with me and the world shifted back into focus. "And it's all right. It will be all right . . . you were willing to help me with Truscott, remember?"

I mocked her with laughter. "Because I didn't believe it would really happen. I didn't actually believe anything you told me, Everly Anne. I was only humoring you because I was falling in love with you, and I didn't want to lose you." I framed her face firmly. "I don't want to fuckin' lose you, so God can go find another purpose for my life. I'm done being his puppet of dejection."

"I warned you that you'd regret me, Callum," she said. "Do not talk about God like this because you're angry. Your heart is better than that."

My hands grew firm around her cheeks. "I do NOT regret YOU. I only regret letting hope live. I only regret believing that there was some form of redemption at the end of all of this, but no, it only leads up to another cruel joke."

Hastily she pushed my hands away, chagrin painted across her forehead, embedded in her eyes. "I don't think it's cruel at all. I've gotten to experience love, being a mother, having a family of my own, living my life as normally as I could have dreamed, and Scout is just a teen-aged boy with his foot on the starting line. So is it truly cruel if God lets him keep his life and run the race?"

"We don't get to keep you, so yes, that's pretty damn cruel in my book, Everly Anne."

"You would have never gotten to keep me forever-everyone dies-and I think it is such a tender gift of mercy that my life gets to end by allowing someone else to live."

My temper went for the jugular. "What about our son? What mercy has God gifted him that he will have to endure growing up without his mom?"

"Where is Julep?" Everly screwed her finger against my breast-bone just like she had the day we fought about Truscott. "You still feel her don't you-protective as your ribs and deep as your breath-you still feel her, you still sing her song. And someday, my brave and loving Callum Andrew, you will be strong enough to sing mine, too. I know you will, because you've given me that hope."

I shook my head. "I'm going to sleep. I can't even talk about this."

"I'll come with you."

She curled against me in our bed, but I was shut off, save for anger. Her fingers traced over my shoulders when I rolled away, soothing my back as I tried to close my eyes and fade away from the truth. But she was the ghost who would always haunt me.

Wide awake.

Dreaming soundly.

I could never remove her from under my ribs.

ROGUE WAVEs The peacefulness, the easiness, the gentle tone of our voices-it was all there. The beauty and the serenity of those last few moments gifted to us by fate as we danced in slowed down time, silent phones, and a world beyond our gate void of neediness.

They were rarities.

They were signs.

I should have known, but, Timothy was right-love clouds logic.