. . .”
“No, I really don’t care anymore, Sterling. I helped you start this business, I’ve been your advisor, working remotely while I try to build my physical therapy career back home. I’ve been your friend, your girlfriend, your lover, and your long-waiting fiancée, and I’ve put up with a lot for the sake of supporting you and our so-called relationship. But no more! This is the last straw. You sell out your family. You threaten them with eviction and legal action as the majority stakeholder in their business if they don’t sell out completely to you. Well, good for you. Congratulations on getting all you ever wanted. I hope you enjoy it. You can keep the cash, the fame, the fortune, the connections, the society friends. But in exchange for all of that, you have lost me. I’m out of here and I’m not coming back. Goodbye, Sterling, and good luck keeping the wolves at bay, because you’re gonna need all the luck that you can get. Perhaps, someday, you might just realize that you’re going to need more than your success and your status and your oversized ego to keep you going!”
With that, and with the party stopped cold in its tracks and everyone around listening with both shock and fascination, Tess bore into Sterling’s eyes with a look that could have both killed and broken hearts, slid the engagement ring she’d worn for years off her finger, and grasped it in her hand. Visibly shaking with emotion, she seemed ready to throw it across the room, but closing her eyes she slowly raised the ring, placed it over the glass of high-end champagne Sterling held in his hand, and let it drop, fizzing and clinking, into the glass. Turning around she walked with her head help high to the elevator, stepped inside, and disappeared behind the closing door.
The room remained eerily quiet for what seemed an eternity, all eyes fixated on Sterling and his reaction. Slowly bringing his mouth closed again after staring in shock in the direction of where Tess had walked, Sterling surveyed the room, drew in a deep breath, and cracking a sly grin, exclaimed, “Well, ladies, guess this means I’m a free agent, again!”
With a wave of nervous yet audibly relieved laughter, the room went back to normal, conversations continuing, deals developing, and the future of Sterling Enterprises, Inc. appearing more secure than ever. As Sterling wrapped up conversations that night and sealed more connections, he tried to look on the bright side of things while he fingered the engagement ring he had transferred to the bottom of his suit jacket pocket. Sure, it was embarrassing losing Tess in that way, and no doubt he would miss her on occasion. And yet, to think of all the opportunities that awaited in the future with his company. Other people’s moral scruples were not going to stop him, and nor, back in his car, was the speeding night train Sterling viewed on the horizon as he sped on, careening along the highway, high on life and the thrill of an acquisition signed and sealed. Bearing down on the train crossing the landscape in the distance, now outside the city limits, traveling at what seemed to be exactly the same speed as his new ride, Sterling was not about to let this mega steel monster get in his way! Slamming his foot on the accelerator, he raced toward the now-closing gates, ever so slightly gaining on the intrusive locomotive. This was going to be a close one, but Sterling wasn’t worried. It was do or die and he wasn’t about to give in, not with the roll he’d been on.
And so the gates were closing. Just a few feet away now, Sterling realized he wasn’t going to make it under them in time. But he had made the call. He was going to beat this massive thing and, sure enough, he did. Whizzing around the closing gates in a tight zig-zag, Sterling actually felt the blast of speeding air from the train push against the back of his car, as it cleared the far side of the tracks. This had been a close one. Perhaps closer than any before, judging by the sweat-drenched clothes now clinging to his shaking frame. But he’d done it. There was an air of triumph in what he’d accomplished, and he knew he was even more of a badass than he’d thought, even as he felt the sweat drench down his temple. Rocketing through the night air, he was on top of the world, and he couldn’t help but look down to see how fast his muscle car was rocketing him forward. 107 mph. Bad! Ass!
And then it happened. His eyes had only glanced down for a brief second to check his cell for a possible text from Tess, yet when he looked up again something was very different. Where just a moment before there had been black pavement and white lines illuminated by his headlights, now there was only brown. It took just a split second for Sterling to realize that the road had not changed color. Before his brain could even process it, he knew that a pack of large coyotes lay directly in his path and that any impact at this speed would kill him and them both. Instinctively, his hands took hold of the wheel and spun it furiously right, narrowly missing the animals but jetting the car instantaneously into a series of rolls too numerous to count. After a mere handful of seconds, the damage was done. Sterling’s new speed machine lay upside down on the desert floor, its windows blown out, its wheels still spinning in the night breeze. Sterling dangled inside, his body suspended from a seatbelt and his life hanging precipitously in the balance.
Chapter 2
It was red. That was all he could make out, at first. As Sterling’s eyes slowly opened, his head throbbed with shattering pain and he felt the fierce tug of the seat belt stabbing against his abdomen as it held him suspended in midair. Blood from the wounds covering his body dripped haphazardly down his chest and head, forming pools and streams on the now-inverted roof of his car, sparsely illuminated in the reflected glow of shining headlights and framed by the hum of still-spinning tires. But through the fog of his bewilderment and discomfort there was something taking form in Sterling’s line of sight. Shapeless and shifting at first view, gradually, as his eyes focused, the image came into clearer perspective.
A face. That much was clear by now. Sterling was staring into what resembled a pair of smiling, kind eyes. The drops of his own blood brought the image into sharper relief as they fell, but to Sterling the face was startlingly real. As he looked into the mysterious, beckoning eyes, suddenly he could feel the scene changing around him. From the inverted position of his body inside the overturned car, his consciousness now transitioned as if to an alternate plane.
Keeping his gaze fixed on the kindly eyes, the surrounding scenery finally came into view. He was in his old room, and it felt like home. Standing in the middle of the bedroom in which he’d slept throughout his childhood, Sterling took in the familiar scene before him. A bed, a desk stacked with the storybooks and adventure tales he liked to read as a boy, a shelf filled with memorabilia from childhood sports teams—including several ribbons and trophies from the school swim meets in which he often competed—all of it framed by a panel of windows overlooking a vast expanse of countryside and sky. It was the vineyard in a remote valley just south of San Jose, California that his parents had inherited from his father’s own parents and theirs before, dating back many generations. Long rows of vines stretched out into the distance, ripe for the harvest time he could tell instantly from their size and shape was just a few weeks away. The sun was gently setting over the foothills in the distance, streaming through his window and warming his forehead and arms.
Sterling was just about to turn toward the door of his room, instinctively to head downstairs toward the kitchen and living room, and where he imagined his parents and sister would be, when his eyes met the gaze of the face he had first encountered in the car. Compassionate and wise, he now looked into the eyes and realized they were connected to a body. It was a middle-aged, Hispanic gentleman of medium height and build standing there before him, and Sterling swore he knew him. He couldn’t quite put his finger on where he’d seen the man before, but there was an air of familiarity and friendliness about him. He felt as though the piercing stare from the man’s striking green eyes would bore a hole through the back of his head. It was almost impossible for Sterling to look away from the hypnotic gaze of this seemingly friendly stranger.
And then the man spoke. “Sterling,” he said. “Welcome home.” Startled, Sterling felt a jolt of recognition that he was in fact in a place that was comforting and peaceful. And yet, he was not at all sure what it meant or if he could even believe it. He felt as though he couldn’t trust his senses any longer and would have to rely instead on instinct to guide him through this confusion.
Incredulous and hopeful at the same time, Sterling asked the man, “Who are you, a ghost?” Smiling, the man responded, “No, Sterling. I’m not a ghost, I’m a friend. I’m here to help you come back.”