Chapter 9

September 7, 1986

"CHANCE!" Dad called in that tone of voice kids have heard for countless millennia. It meant he'd been calling me a few times and I hadn't answered. It wasn't my fault. I had a lot on my mind.

"Sorry, Dad," I replied, looking over at him. Even at 40, dad looked young; he didn't even seem to have any gray hair – though if you looked close enough, you'd probably find a few single strands here and there throughout his long, blonde head. His face was leathery but somehow he even managed to make that look young.

He sidled Bronco over next to Terror and gave me a long look. "You feeling okay, son?" he asked, concern crinkling his brow.

Bronco was a large roan 'bulldog' quarter horse my dad had picked up last year from the Double Bar Z; old Mr. Wallish was retiring and neither of his kids wanted to work cattle. His oldest son was a dentist and his youngest was a congressional aide in Washington. Mr. Wallish was proud of both of his boys but he was a little sad that neither wanted his land. Dad had picked up Bronco for next to nothing.

I was riding Terror, a large black intermediate quarter that did nothing to live up to his name. He was one of the most docile horses we had on the ranch but he was the best at wrangling cattle – even better than Bronco. My dad didn't like him much because he had a bad tendency to jump sideways – or shy – a lot. I had to admit that it was annoying and I often found myself holding on for dear life but I loved the silly thing so he was mine – at least, sort of.

"I'm feeling fine, Dad," I replied to my father. It wasn't really a lie; there was nothing physically wrong with me that a little sleep and a whole lot of thought wouldn't cure. I just didn't have time for either at the moment. "I've just got a lot on my mind."

"Women troubles," he half-smiled, nodding his head.

He didn't know the half of it.

According to Mikayla, I had some kind of weird attraction to women. I hadn't really believed it when Mikayla told me; I assumed it was just something she and her friends were imagining. After last night though...

I hadn't slept with Lee. I'd come close, damned close. I'd found myself pulling up her tee, her hands undoing my jeans, before I'd come to my senses. Okay, so I did manage to feel up her breasts and they were ... magnificent ... but I'd managed to stop myself before I'd gone any further. Stopping her had been far harder but I even managed to do that. I'd had to take her hands from my jeans, letting them drop to my ankles, and push her away.

"Please, Chance," she'd husked as our lips finally parted. Her lips tasted like strawberries – the flavor of her lip balm – and her hair smelled liked jasmine; it was intoxicating and for the briefest of instants I could think of nothing better than to give in to her – our – desires. Using a strength I didn't even know I possessed, I managed to resist and the moment passed.

As I shuffled back, trying not to fall over the jeans puddled at my ankles, she was reaching for my boxers and I grabbed at her hands even as she reached them. "I need it. I need you. Please."

"We can't, Lee," I said, holding her back. My voice wasn't fooling either of us. It was weak and unsure but that was to be expected; I wasn't against the idea, not really. Incest didn't scare me; I'd faced it between my children as Alex and turned a blind eye. Love was love no matter the filial relationship between the two people involved. As Alex, it had been one of the few comforts in my long, lonely life; that my son and daughter had found love, if even only briefly – if even only with each other – before he'd died and she'd gone to prison.

Besides, Lena was exquisitely beautiful ... but I had to be strong until I could get everything sorted out. "Mom and Dad ... I want to just as badly as you ... but Mom and Dad would be devastated..."

Thankfully, it was enough. With a shudder, she took a step back and looked at me. There was a fierce hunger in her glazed eyes, a desire that went beyond anything I'd ever seen. I watched as her jaw clenched and she closed her eyes, shaking her head. When her eyes re-opened, the hunger had waned and her eyes were once again in focus.

"You're ... you're right," she whispered, clenching her jaw again. She took a step towards me, a shadow of that same hunger re-emerging in the depths of her green eyes, and grasped my arms. "This isn't over, though, Chance. It ... it can't be over. There's ... I ... it's going to happen. It has to happen. I can't ... I can't..." Then she'd turned and run, running back up the stairs. I couldn't be sure, but I think she was crying.

Eventually, I'd gone to bed. I hadn't slept, though. I couldn't sleep. I had to face the fact that all Mikayla had told me just might be true. Somehow, for some inexplicable reason, it seemed I might hold some weird, unnatural attraction to women. Evidently, all women – even my sisters. Even, Lord help me, my mother.

It was a lot to wrap my head around.

In the dead of the night, though, I found myself railing against that belief. There was ... evidence ... that I held some strange power over women – but I wasn't yet willing to succumb to that idea. There was still doubt. There was still reasonable explanations I hadn't covered yet; probably even reasonable explanations I couldn't – or wouldn't – even think of.

Taking a deep breath, I began to go through the so-called proof of my magnetism ... and I found that the proof wasn't as strong as I'd been led to believe.

Attraction between siblings is hardly unheard of; if it were, there wouldn't be laws against it. The same has to be true of parents. Sure, such an allure between relatives was probably abnormal but it still occurred. It was weird, maybe even strange, but it was still within the realm of possibility and therefore wasn't necessarily proof that I was abnormally attractive to women.

The matter with Mikayla, Sally, Anna and Jesse was different, but not even as difficult to understand as my family. I'd spent a lot of time with them; I could see them being attracted to me, at least marginally. I may not have movie star quality good looks but I believed I was reasonably attractive and that, coupled with my proximity to them of late, was likely enough to make me appealing to them.

Yet another cornerstone of the "Chance is irresistible" wall of proof came crashing down.

Alicia Parval was a bit harder to explain. Her and all the rest of the girls in high school. Still, it was more likely that Mikayla and her friends had imagined it than for me to have some kind of pheromone-based attraction to women, wasn't it? I mean Occam's Razor and all that; the simplest solution is, all things being equal, the most likely explanation.

Using logic, all the pieces could be explained away. At least, individually. It wasn't until you put them all together that it started stretching the bounds of reasonable deniability. As I lay there, brooding, sleep seeming to grow further away rather than closer, and I couldn't deny that the little, niggling facts, when taken together, were starting to add up ... and I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy what they were adding up to.

So, instead of sleeping, I'd thought. There was just too much evidence mounting that something really strange was going on; that maybe my being 'reborn' decades into my own past – and into another body, no less – wasn't random. It was becoming difficult to ignore the fact that my return was something targeted; that my being here had a purpose. As sleep remained elusive, I had no choice but to revisit events from my recent past.

I'd seen the Angel of Death. As Alex, I could explain that away – I was dying, after all. As Chance, though ... I had still seen her even when the death had not been my own; even when the dying person was a stranger to me. I had talked to her and not only talked but even briefly interfered with her. She had basically knocked me on my butt but I had managed to briefly detain her.

She'd called me Gadriel. I'm not sure why ... or even who Gadriel is or was. I wasn't even certain it was a name; it could have been some kind of title, for all I knew. Maybe that was just what the Angel of Death called everyone she wasn't there to acquire. I was certain I'd never heard the word before. I was just as certain that no other person had ever called me that before.

I had to admit that there was something about that name though; even just thinking it unlocked something inside of me that made me want to jump into the air with joy. Why it held that power over me was a mystery and one I was no closer to solving. When I'd researched the word, I had turned up some impossibilities – that Gadriel was an Angel; one of the fallen. The more I thought about that, the more I had to believe the Angel of Death had either been mistaken or I'd heard her wrong. I didn't feel like an Angel. I didn't have the abilities I'd always associated with an Angel.

Or did I? Angels, at least in most representations I'd ever seen, were musical – as in harps and trumpets and such – and I had a musical talent I couldn't explain away; a musical talent that had not been there, as far as I knew, in either Alex or Buck. Sure, as Alex I'd played the piano – but I'd never been particularly good at it. As far as I could tell, Buck had never picked up a musical instrument in his life. Even if he had tried to play something, I had the feeling he'd have been horrible at it; based on his memories of his own humming, the boy couldn't carry a tune in a bucket.

Beyond the music, though, things became much murkier. My reading had indicated that Gadriel was said to have brought witchcraft and science to humanity. I had no special knowledge of science – well, other than Alex's memory-tricks and Buck's natural mental abilities; memorization was not talent, however. As for the other, I certainly had no knowledge or capabilities in witchcraft.

Finally, it was believed Gadriel's 'mission' was to breed with women. While I had to admit this potential 'attraction' thing could certainly be used for such a mission, the fact was that I didn't want to breed with anybody, much less everybody. I just wanted a normal life with a normal girlfriend. I just wanted Mikayla. Yes, I found Lee and Suze attractive – who wouldn't? They WERE incredibly beautiful. For all their beauty, though, I certainly didn't want to knock them up ... no matter how enticing that sounded.

Okay, so it was normal for a man to want to 'spread his seed' to females that were the most compelling. I wasn't going to follow up on that natural desire no matter how many dreams of Lee, Susie and my own mother, during the night or the day, I had. I had those kind of dreams of a lot of females and I wasn't going to fulfill those desires, either. There was something to be said about not giving in to one's more base instincts.

So, taking everything into account, I was batting .250 on this whole Gadriel thing. In the plus column, I had some freakish musical ability – but everything else was just wrong. Either my research was off or the Angel of Death was. Heck, for all I knew, I had just imagined the whole thing. Even if I hadn't imagined it, it was likely I'd misunderstood her in some way. Any way you looked at it, it was sheer lunacy to start thinking I was some kind of Angel, fallen or otherwise.

"Chance, watch what you're doing!" my father yelled. He was angry and I couldn't blame him. Stuck in my own head, I'd almost run over Max and Scoundrel ... the two mutts who were better than either Dad or me at herding cattle. They lived out with the herd, helping us move them and keeping them reasonably penned. The two dogs were smarter than many humans I knew – and I'd come damned close to killing one or both of them.

"Go home, Chance," my dad said, still angry.

"Sorry, Dad," I started, but he interrupted me before I could finish.

"Sorry doesn't pay the bills, Chance," he said, turning back to the herd. "You're useless out here the way you are. Go on home and sort this out; I'll need you at your best tomorrow."

I wasn't happy when I got home; I felt as if I'd failed my Dad. I knew that he really didn't need me right now – between him and the dogs, the herd was in good hands. That wasn't the point, though. The point was that I'd told my Dad I'd help him and now I couldn't.

I sat at my desk up in my room and just stared out the window, my mind in turmoil. I felt like I wanted to work out; to punish my muscles so that I could free my mind. It wasn't a good idea, though; I was wasted. The situation I found myself in with Mikayla and Lee had kept me up virtually all night.

Instead, I tried to concentrate on the sky. I was trying to clear my mind of distractions; to allow it to focus only on my myriad of problems. I wasn't sure I could pull it off. There was just far too many things going through my head.

The sky wasn't a problem. It was clear with just a few clouds drifting off towards the mountains in the distance. The sky was the most stunning blue; a blue that seemed like it went on forever. It was the perfect sky to get lost in ... and yet I couldn't no matter how I tried.

No, the sky wasn't the problem; I was the problem. I thought I knew who I was. I thought that, finally, I had figured out how to mix Alex and Buck to come up with the perfect Chance. I guess I was fooling myself. How could I successfully mix Alex and Buck when I wasn't really sure who either of them were? No matter how I arranged them, no matter which parts I kept and which I threw out, there just seemed to be something more added in; something that refused to be quantified.

Finally, with no answers to my problems presenting themselves, I just went back downstairs and picked up the phone. I dialed "Aubrey's Green", the florist in Rouleau. The owner, the aforementioned Aubrey Green, was a young woman, no more than 22 or maybe 23 but she'd started the florist when she'd been only 18 with her father offering her a business loan to start her dream. I talked to her for a few minutes, explaining what I wanted and why and then agreed with her suggestion; red roses, of course. Probably inappropriate, all things considered, but it made the perfect statement to Mikayla. I asked her to include a card – 'Thinking of you and all you mean to me' – and then agreed to stop in after school tomorrow to pay for them. It was just one of the things I liked about Aubrey; she'd send the flowers and trust you to pay it off later. There weren't many merchants that would do that anymore.

Of course, sending flowers didn't really solve any of my problems. It didn't make them any worse, though, and it was the best thing I could come up with for the moment.

September 8, 1986

There was some excitement Monday morning but not the kind I wanted. Mikayla still wasn't talking to me.

Evidently, we'd acquired a few new students. Of course, nothing travels faster than the high school gossip mill; I swear it violates the laws of physics, travelling faster than the speed of light. I knew most of the rumors about the new kids before I even saw them.

Monique Robicheaux had transferred all the way from France though the reasons for her transfer were murky at best. Some rumors had her transferring because she'd killed a boy who had dared to kiss her, others said she was kicked out of the country because her parents were smugglers. I even heard that she was part of a youth diamond smuggling ring, moving conflict diamonds across Europe before she was caught and exiled. It seemed the longer that time went on the more outlandish the stories became.

There were five other kids transferring into school along with Monique, but they were no relation to her – though it seemed they were somehow related to each other. There were three girls and two boys but only one girl was young enough to be in my class. One of the girls and a boy was a senior, another boy was a junior, and the remaining girl was a sophomore.

According to the rumor mill, their family had moved here from Utah and were members of an outlawed sect of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints – Mormons. It was also said that they were brothers and sisters – or half-brothers and half-sisters. Apparently, their parents practiced polygamy – one man and at least three wives.

I'm not sure I believed the rumor mill, obviously. I mean, how could anyone know that much that quickly about the lives of students? I knew from my first life that polygamy was supposedly still practiced on the outer fringes of society; not legally, of course, but how could the government stop a group of people from living together as a family unit? It was unlikely, though, that I would see it in rural Montana. Besides, the stuff about Monique just kept getting more and more far-fetched. The last I heard before ignoring the stories was that she was one of the last princesses of France and her exile was to prepare her for the day when the monarchy would rise again.

Strangely enough, both Monique and the new Mormon girl were in my Music class. Mr. Windham was talking to them – Monique in French and the Mormon girl in English – while the rest of the class was seated. I took the opportunity to study them while waiting for class to begin.

Monique was a stunning brunette, her hair a dark and glossy black that hung in long, tightly curled rivulets down the sides of her face. There was a white, rounded comb on the top of her head, holding another thick expanse of her hair down the back and forming a small, attractive bump of curly hair midway back on her head.

Her eyes gleamed hazel, almost violet, behind long, lustrous lashes and they almost seemed to flash under thin, immaculately tweezed brows. Between those two shining orbs, her thin, haughty nose rose from her face before a sharp descent into twin, rosy-red lips that were stuck in a mysterious little smile that never seemed to leave her face. Surrounding those lips, her rounded cheeks glowed rosy, giving her entire face the look of someone who was used to laughing at the world around her.

Anna Seeley – the Mormon girl – was as fair as Monique was dark. The two were a study in contrasts as they stood talking to Mr. Windham; the taller, athletic, deeply-tanned Monique standing next to the shorter, more voluptuous and fair-skinned Anna. Even Anna's straight, reddish-blonde hair gleamed distinctly against Monique's dark black with Anna's deep blue eyes steady against Monique's flashing hazel and Anna's small, dainty nose a rounded orb against Monique's more rapier-like long, thin, aquiline one.

Even the way they held themselves was different, Monique standing tall and proper, her arms held easily at her side when they weren't moving fluidly to emphasize a point she was making to the teacher. You could tell that Monique was comfortable up there, standing in front of her peers, smiling and laughing out loud with her new teacher. She just seemed outgoing and confident; completely sure of herself and her place in life.

Anna, meanwhile, was closed, her arms crossed uneasily before her. Her head was lowered shyly, her answers crisp but low, almost never meeting the teacher's eyes. Her eyes glanced nervously at the students sitting in the stands. You could tell she was uncomfortable standing up there, the eyes of the students on her.

As different as they were, it seemed they had at least one thing in common; they were both exceptional musicians. For the first 15 minutes of class, Mr. Windham had Monique and Anna regale us with Vivaldi's "Spring from the Four Seasons" and they were incredible. Monique played the violin with ease and verve, her fingerings quick and precise. As good as she was, Anna was even better on the flute, her shy demeanor dropping away as she lost herself in the music.

For me, it was a sheer delight for my senses, the sounds tumbling into my ears and the colors of the chords and melodies over-whelming my eyes. I felt myself getting lost in the music, my fingers itching for an instrument of my own so I could join the beautiful piece of music. My heart leapt as the flute entered a trilling upward cadence, the violin drawing in my soul as it joined in stunning counterpoint. I could feel my eyes tearing as the two instruments met and intertwined, their sounds mixing together until you could almost not tell them apart. When it was over, I found myself on my feet, clapping enthusiastically – and I wasn't the only one.

I felt rapturous – but unfortunately the feeling didn't make it past lunch.

"We need to talk," I said to Mikayla at lunch time. I'd tried to talk to her all day but she just ignored me, even going to the extreme of having Darcy sit next to her on the bus ride in. Of course, that hadn't really stopped me. Darcy was older but she was Lee's best friend and she'd always been nice to me.

At least, until now. When I got up and started moving over she'd just scowled and shook her head.

"I don't think so, little boy," she'd almost sneered at me. "My sister doesn't want to talk to you right now."

I'd returned to my seat but it seemed that everyone on the bus was looking at me and snickering. I managed to keep my head up high, even though I was almost sweating with embarrassment. Thankfully, Danny kept me occupied by talking about the Nintendo Entertainment System his father had picked up for the family on his last trip to Cheming. I pretended to pay attention but I really couldn't follow him; he was going on and on about a game his dad had bought with the console; Zelba or Zelda or something. It was a long ride in to school.

"I don't think so, Chance," Mikayla sighed, returning me to the present. She turned away from me, ducking her head, even as she echoed her sister's sentiments of earlier. At least she did it without her sister's sneer. "I think I've said everything I need to say."

"Why are you doing this?" I asked in exasperation, standing in front of her so she couldn't ignore me. She glanced up at me before turning her head and looking away. Her eyes looked strangely haunted which exasperated me even more. "Why are you so intent on pushing me away?"

"I told you why, Chance," she said, angrily. "Have you watched the other girls as you walk by? Have you seen how they stare at you?"

I hadn't. I hadn't even thought of it. My mind was stuffed with cotton from lack of sleep; it had just never occurred to me to pay attention.

"Look," she whispered, pointing out a blonde cheerleader-type standing in the lunch line. The girl had turned and was staring at us. That proved nothing to me, of course; we weren't exactly being silent here.

"That doesn't mean anything, Mikayla," I said, my exasperation beginning to overwhelm me. "She could have just overheard some of this crazy conversation."

Mikayla just shook her head and moved closer to me. "With hard nipples?" she hissed so only I could hear. I turned to look at the girl again – sure enough, she was still staring at us – at me – with this look of confused desire on her face ... and her nipples were hard. "That wasn't what I was talking about anyway, though. That's just one. Look around; I mean really look around..."

So I did ... and I wasn't ready for what I saw.

Every girl in a 10 to 15 yard radius had stopped whatever she was doing and was looking at me. Even the lunch ladies. Hell, especially the lunch ladies. Not only were they looking but I noticed that every single one of them, without fail, were breathing harder than normal and there was a needy, yearning look on each of their faces.

"You see?" Mikayla hissed. "Finally, do you see? How can I compete with that, Chance? How can I hope to compete with that? Even if I win, I'd lose – because all of these girls would end up hating me because I had you and they didn't."

"There ... there has to be some ... some reasonable explanation..." I sputtered but I was going down hard. When had I become a clueless teen? When had I stopped seeing things happening right in front of me? How had I missed this?

"There isn't, Chance," Mikayla said firmly. "It's you ... there's just something about you..."

I gritted my teeth in frustration and turned back to her. "What if I don't care?" I hissed back at the young, dark-haired girl vehemently. I had to make her see that she was the most important thing to me at that moment; that I wanted her no matter how many other girls looked at me – with or without hard nipples. "What if all I want is you, Mikayla? Isn't that fair? Don't I get some say in this?"

"No," Mikayla said softly, her eyes cast to the ground and her face scrunched as if in pain. "Yes. I don't know."

"You're all I want, Mikayla," I said firmly.

Mikayla stopped and closed her eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I'll date you," she whispered, opening her eyes and looking at me. "It can't be exclusive, though. We can date as long as we both understand that it isn't a ... a ... dedicated, one on one relationship."

"I don't want that," I started. "I want the whole thing; I want the boyfriend-girlfriend thing."

"It's all I can offer, Chance," she said, sniffling. "It's all I've got to give right now."

I looked down at the floor, my heart pounding and feeling as if it were breaking. "Fine," I whispered in reply. "If that's all I can have, then ... that's all I can have."

I turned, leaving Mikayla to pay for her food, and walked to the table where Sally, Anna, Jesse, Danny, Pete and Rudy were sitting. I wasn't really paying attention to the table, I was thinking more about what I could do to convince Mikayla that she was the only one I wanted. So, I didn't really see the commotion at the table until I was right up on it.

"If he's sitting here, I ain't," Jesse almost snarled. When I recognized her voice, I looked up at her in shock. I'd always thought Jesse and I had gotten along well; we weren't the best of friends but I had never done anything to deserve this level of animosity. I had certainly never done anything to deserve the look of pure anger and hatred on her face right now. Why was she so angry? Was it because of the feelings that I was evoking in her? Was I somehow evoking feelings in her?

"Jesse, that's not fair," Sally said immediately.

"I don't give a damn about being fair," Jesse spat. "It's either him or me."

"Jesse!" Sally said, her brows closing. "He hasn't done..."

"It's okay, Sally," I jumped in. I didn't want to cause any problem between the two friends. Whatever reason Jesse had to be angry with me, I'd deal with it later when Mikayla and I'd sorted ourselves out. "I can sit somewhere else." I turned and walked to an empty table and sat down, pushing my tray away from me slightly. Suddenly, I just wasn't hungry any more.

I'm not sure what I expected when Mikayla got to the table ... well, that's not exactly true. I guess I expected her to notice that I wasn't at the table, get up and come sit with me or smooth things over with Jesse and invite me back. At least, that's what I was silently hoping would happen.

It didn't quite work out that way. Mikayla went to the table and sat her tray down. She looked around, her face showing a bit of confusion and then looked around the cafeteria, her eyes finally coming to rest on me. For a moment, she looked startled and unsure; she looked around her table, saying something to Sally, Anna and finally Jesse.

Jesse said something angrily, tugging on Mikayla's arm, trying to force her to sit. Mikayla looked troubled for a moment but finally succumbed, shrugging her shoulders and smiling at her friend. I watched as she sat down and started laughing with her friends and mine, apparently forgetting I even existed.

I've never been an angry person. As Alex, I pushed all my anger down and let it fester inside of me. As Buck, I'd been too young and afraid of the world to really foster much anger. So as Chance, I wasn't quite sure how to deal with being as angry as I suddenly was. All I knew for certain was that I was suddenly burning up with a terrible rage.

I mean, maybe it was unrealistic for me to believe Mikayla would choose me over her friends; I'd had hopes but I guess I just wasn't even good enough to sit with now. Good enough to fuck, I suppose – but not good enough to be seen in public with.

When the hell did I become 'the sure thing'? Is this how all of those girls felt when we'd date them and then move on? Because if it is, I'm not sure why one of them didn't lose her marbles and go postal on us.

I did believe my so-called friends would get up and come sit with me, though. I didn't expect all of them to just keep sitting there, cracking jokes, laughing at me. I certainly didn't expect them to completely ignore me.

September 13, 1986

I'd often wondered, when I'd hear news reports on television or the radio about people bringing guns to school and movie theaters and post offices and such, where the line was between anger and rage. I'd wondered even more about the line between rage and insanity. Was there a point where you just crossed one of those lines and just completely lost the ability to control yourself? Was there a point where you just said 'fuck it, I'm going to murder some people' and then pulled out a gun and started shooting?