Someone tackled her. She gave a cry, confused as arms wrapped around her. The flutter of a black trench coat blended with the dark sky as Gabriel twisted them in midair, so he'd hit back first, with her protected in his arms. Deidre couldn't move as they fell in slow motion. She saw the flash of a street lamp. Before they hit the concrete, darkness swallowed them, and they fell through a cold, damp place punctuated by strange yellow doors.
Suddenly, they broke free. Blinded by sunlight and blue sky, she closed her eyes.
They hit the ground hard. The impact jarred her to the core. Gabriel's arms fell away. Her breath knocked from her, Deidre didn't move for a long minute then sat up, gasping. She scrambled off him, senses reeling. Blood soaked into the sand around him. He was unconscious - or dead? - while she stood on a beach near blue-green depths so clear, she could see the white sand at the bottom of the water.
She'd done it. She'd killed herself and Gabriel and landed … here. Did heaven look like an island in the Caribbean? She turned around. Ocean surrounded the small island, upon which a fortress sat, several hundred meters away, up a sloping hill on top of solid rock.
A stunning man with a large smile dressed in white stood a few feet away, his brown hair ruffled by the sea breeze.
"Are you… are you an angel?" she asked, hopeful yet confused.
"That's not as funny as you think it is," he replied. "Dammit. I swore I'd get the first and last word in this time. Fifty percent chance of that now."
He moved closer, and she found herself arrested by handsome features and eyes that turned every color in the world. He wasn't human. She had to be dead.
Taking one arm gently, he turned her back to him and pushed her hair away to read the tattoo. He pulled her to face him and released her, satisfaction on his face.
"Is this heaven?" she tried again.
"Oh, no. Nowhere near that," he assured her. "I've waited to tell you this since we met long ago." He paused and drew a deep breath.
Deidre felt the sense of losing it again. She was going to break down any second, but the effort the man before her put into preparing himself held her horrified attention.
"It will mean more to me than you, at this point, but I am at peace with that," he continued. "Ready?"
Speechless, she waited.
"Checkmate," he said and gave her a blinding smile. "That was worth the wait."