Wishes Read online

  Critical acclaim for the marvelous romances of

  Jude Deveraux

  TEMPTATION

  “An exciting historical romance that centers on the early twentieth-century women’s rights movement…. Filled with excitement, action, and insight…. A nonstop thriller.”

  —Harriet Klausner, Barnesandnoble.com

  “[A] satisfying story.”

  —Booklist

  “Deveraux[’s] lively pace and happy endings…will keep readers turning pages.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  HIGH TIDE

  A Romantic Times Top Pick

  “High Tide is packed full of warmth, humor, sensual tension, and exciting adventure. What more could you ask of a book?”

  —Romantic Times

  “Fast-paced, suspenseful…. [A] sassy love story.”

  —Publishers Weekly

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  Chapter One

  Later, it was said that Berni was the best dressed corpse any of her set had seen in decades. Not that many of them admitted to having lived for much more than a couple of decades, and, what with the wonders of plastic surgery, none of them needed to admit to the exact number of years.

  They filed by the expensive coffin and looked in admiration at Berni. There wasn’t a line in her face. Every pit, wrinkle, even some of the pores had been shot full of collagen. Her breasts, filled with silicone, even in death pointed skyward. Hair expensively colored, eyelashes permanently dyed, nails manicured, waist tucked into a youthful twenty-three inches, her body clad in a six-thousand-dollar suit—she looked as good in death as she had in life.

  There were sighs of admiration from the people attending, and hope that they would look as good in death as she did. Only two people shed any tears at Berni’s demise, both of them men. One man was her hairdresser. He was going to miss Berni’s business, but he was also going to miss Berni’s wicked tongue and all the juicy gossip she passed his way. The other mourner was Berni’s fourth ex-husband, and his tears were tears of joy, because he was no longer going to have to support the army of workers it took to keep a fifty-year-old looking twenty-seven.

  “Going to the cemetery?” one woman asked another.

  “I would like to, but I can’t,” said the second woman. “I have an appointment. Emergency, you know.” Janine, her manicurist, could only give her a time slot today at two, and she had to have her broken nail repaired.

  “Same here,” said the first woman, and she gave a quick, guarded, angry glance at Berni in her coffin. Last week she’d bought the same suit Berni was being buried in, now she would have to return it. It was just like Berni to show up in the latest, the newest, the most expensive at every gathering. At least that won’t happen anymore, she thought, and she managed to suppress her smile. “I do wish I could go. Berni and I were such good, close friends, you know.” She smoothed her silk Geoffrey Beene pantsuit. “I really must leave.”

  Before long there were more murmurs of people having emergency appointments elsewhere, until, in the end, only Berni’s hairdresser rode in the limousine to the grave. There was a line of twenty limos behind the hearse—Berni had arranged and paid for her funeral years in advance—but they were empty of mourners.

  At long last the words (planned by Berni) had been spoken, the music (also planned by Berni) had been played and sung, and the single mourner had gone home. The grave was filled in, new sod rolled into place, flowers artistically arranged around the tasteful gravestone, and the sun began to set over Berni’s grave.

  Four hours after her coffin was covered, not one person gave a thought to the woman who had been so much a part of their lives. They had eaten her food, attended her parties, gossiped endlessly with her and about her, but no one missed her now that she was gone. No one at all.

  The Kitchen

  Berni opened her eyes with a jolt, feeling as though she’d overslept. Her first thought was that she’d be late for her nail appointment with Janine, and the bitch was ruthless if a client was late. She’d tell Berni she was booked up for the next week and make Berni suffer with ragged-looking nails for days. I’ll get her, Berni thought. I’ll tell Diane that Janine’s been sleeping with her husband. With Diane’s temper Janine will be lucky to come out alive.

  Smiling, Berni started to get out of bed and then realized she wasn’t in bed. It was then that she began to see that something was wrong. She wasn’t in bed but standing up. She wasn’t wearing her red silk Christian Dior nightgown but her new white Dupioni silk suit—the one Lois Simons had purchased on sale. Berni planned to wear the suit first, then Lois wouldn’t be able to wear hers; she’d try to return it and wouldn’t be allowed to, and she’d be stuck with a four-thousand-dollar suit she couldn’t wear. The idea made Berni smile.

  But she lost her smile as she looked around. There was fog everywhere, and she couldn’t see anything except a gold-colored light far ahead. What now, she thought. She squinted a bit to see better, although she now had twenty-twenty vision thanks to eye surgery last year.

  She took a few steps forward, and the fog cleared a path. She started to frown but caught herself (frowning gives one wrinkles). Perhaps this was some stupid idea of her latest lover. He was a twenty-year-old muscle-bound beachboy she’d picked up a few months ago, and she was growing tired of him. He kept talking about how he wanted to be a movie director, and he wanted Berni to finance him. Maybe all this fog was his doing to get her to open her checkbook.

  She walked for several minutes before she saw anything. Under the golden light was a big desk, and behind it was sitting a handsome, gray-haired man.

  When she saw the man Berni perked up and put her shoulders back so her high breasts pointed straight ahead.

  “Hello,” she said in her throatiest, sexiest voice.

  The man glanced up at her then down at the papers on his desk.

  It always worried Berni when men didn’t immediately respond to her beauty. Maybe she’d better make another appointment with her surgeon next week. “Are you with Lance?” she asked, referring to her beachboy lover.

  The man kept looking at his papers and didn’t answer her, so Berni looked at his desk. She tried not to look startled, but his big desk was twenty-four-carat gold. Many years ago Berni had developed an eye for jewelry that would have made any jeweler proud. She could quickly and easily tell twelve-carat from eighteen-carat from the genuine, pure twenty-four-carat.

  She reached out her hand to touch the desk but drew it back when the man looked up.

  “Bernadina,” he said.

  Berni winced. She hadn’t heard the name in years. It sounded as old as she fought not to be. “Berni,” she said. “With an i.”

  She watched the man use an old-fashioned fountain pen to make a note, then she began to grow annoyed. “Look, I’ve had just about enough of this. If this is some scheme you and Lance have cooked up, I—”

  “You’re dead.”

  “—am still going to throw him out. I’m not going to support him, and—”

  “Died in your sleep last night. Heart attack.”

  “—his harebrained schemes to—” She stopped and stared at the man. “I what?”

  “Died in your sleep last night, and now you’re in the Kitchen.”

  Berni stood there blinking at him, and then she began to laugh. She forgot about wrinkles and how unattractive a woman looked when she was laughing as opposed to smiling coyly and really laughed. “Great one, buster,” she said, �€