Using a bench for leverage, he pulled himself to his feet and stood, solid and steady. Gingerly, ignoring the pain, he walked closer to the edge of the veranda. Squinting into the shadows, he looked for something, anything to indicate she’d been out there. Tempting him. Teasing him. Making him think he was going crazy.

But nothing moved in the forest.

No woman hid in the deep umbra.

No drop in the temperature indicated a ghost had trod upon his soul.

And, beyond all that, Jennifer was dead. Buried in a plot in California. He knew that as well as his own name. Hadn’t he identified her himself over twelve years ago? She’d been mangled horribly in the accident, nearly unrecognizable, but the woman behind the wheel in the single-car accident had been his beautiful and scheming first wife.

His stomach twisted a bit as a cloud passed over the sun. High in the sky jets streaked, leaving white plumes to slice the wide expanse of blue.

Why now had she returned—at least in his mind? Had it been the coma? He’d lain unconscious in the hospital for two weeks and he remembered nothing of those fourteen lost days.

When he’d finally awoken, staring through blurry eyes, he’d seen her image. A cold waft of air had whispered across his skin and he’d smelled the heady aroma of her perfume, a familiar scent laced with gardenias. Then he’d caught a glimpse of her in the doorway, backlit by the dimmed hall lights, blowing him a kiss and looking as real as if she were truly still alive.

Which of course she wasn’t.

And yet…

Now, as he stared into the shaded bayou where shadows lengthened and the steamy scent of slow-moving water filtered through the leaves of cypress and cottonwood, he second-guessed the truth. He doubted what he’d been certain was fact; he questioned his sanity.

Could it be the pain pills he’d been taking since his accident as his daughter—their daughter—had insisted?

Or was he just plain going nuts?

“Crap.” He glared at the woods.

No Jennifer.

Of course.

She was all a part of his imagination.

Something that had been triggered by nearly half a month of teetering on that razor-sharp edge between life and death.

“Get a grip,” he told himself.

Man, he could use a smoke right now. He’d given up the habit years before, but in times of stress nothing gave him a clear sense of what needed to be done like a hit of nicotine curling through his lungs.