Chapter 1

The day I was supposed to marry Maria Chavez, the woman I' d loved for sixty years across two lifetimes, she died.

Or so they told me.

The Texas sun was already high and hot, beating down on the small chapel where we were supposed to say our vows. I was standing at the altar, my hands sweating inside my best suit, waiting. My best friend, Andrew Scott, stood beside me, trying to crack jokes to ease my nerves. But the nerves weren't the problem. The problem was that Maria was late.

Then her mother, Elena, stumbled through the chapel doors, her face a mess of tears. Her husband followed, his expression grim.

"Matthew," Elena wailed, collapsing into her husband' s arms. "There's been an accident. A terrible accident."

The words hit me, but they didn't make sense. An accident? Maria was the most careful person I knew.

"She's gone, Matthew," her father said, his voice flat. "Maria is gone."

The world tilted. Gone? We had just been together last night, talking about our future, the kids we' d have, the life we would build right here in this town, just like we did before. We had lived until we were old and gray, and when we died in our sleep, holding hands, I thought it was the perfect end. Waking up back in my twenty-year-old body felt like a gift, a chance to do it all again, to love her even better this time.

Now, that gift felt like a curse.

I spent the next few days in a fog of grief. I sat vigil at the Chavez house, a closed casket in the living room. I accepted condolences from neighbors who looked at me with pity. I was the tragic groom, the man who lost his bride on his wedding day. I kept replaying our last conversation, searching for a sign, anything I might have missed. But there was nothing. Only love. Only promises.

I couldn't understand it. How could a lifetime of devotion just end like this? How could fate be so cruel?

A week after the funeral, Andrew found me in my garage, staring at the engine of a pickup truck I had no intention of fixing.

"Matt," he said, his voice low. He worked as a hand on the Fowler farm, and he looked uneasy. "I don't know how to say this, man."

"Just say it."

"I was at the Chavez house this morning, dropping something off for my boss. They were... celebrating."

"Celebrating?" The word tasted like ash.

"They're marrying off Sylvia to Wesley Fowler."

Sylvia. Maria' s twin sister. In our last life, it was Sylvia who married Wesley, and she' d died in a suspicious car accident not long after. Wesley was the son of the richest farmer in the county, a man who thought he could buy anything.

"They're moving fast," I said, my voice hollow.

"That's not all," Andrew hesitated. "The way they were talking... it was weird. And Sylvia... she didn't look like Sylvia. She looked... exactly like Maria."

My hands stopped moving. I looked up at Andrew, a cold dread creeping up my spine. It couldn' t be.

"I'm going over there," I said, wiping the grease from my hands.

"Matt, maybe you should just let it go."

But I couldn't. I had to see for myself. I drove to the Chavez house, my heart pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs. The lawn was full of people. Laughter and music drifted through the open windows. It was a party. An engagement party.

And there, in the center of it all, was Wesley Fowler. He had his arm wrapped around a woman in a bright yellow dress. Her back was to me, but I knew that hair. I knew the way she stood.

Then she turned, and my breath caught in my throat.

It was Maria.

My Maria. The woman I had held as she took her last breath. The woman I had just buried.

She was laughing, her head tilted back as Wesley whispered something in her ear. She looked radiant, happy, and very much alive. The grief that had been crushing me for days instantly turned into a white-hot rage.

I pushed through the crowd, my eyes locked on her. "Maria?"

The name came out as a choked whisper.

She saw me. For a split second, I saw a flicker of recognition, of shock, in her eyes. The smile on her face vanished.

But then it was gone, replaced by a cold, blank stare.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice smooth and unfamiliar. "Do I know you? I'm Sylvia."

Wesley stepped in front of her, his hand on her arm. "This is Matthew Roberts," he said, his tone dripping with fake sympathy. "He was engaged to Maria. Poor guy is still in shock."

Maria, or "Sylvia," looked at me with a pained expression. "Oh, you poor thing. I'm so sorry for your loss. Maria and I were very close."

The lie was so blatant, so shameless, it knocked the wind out of me. The people around us were starting to whisper, their pity turning to suspicion. I looked at her, at the woman I had shared a soul with, and saw a stranger.

"You're lying," I said, my voice shaking. "You're Maria. I know you are."

I reached for her, needing to touch her, to prove she was real.

She flinched back, hiding behind Wesley. "Please, stop," she cried, her voice trembling. "You're scaring me! Wesley, make him leave!"

The crowd gasped. Now their whispers were about me. The poor, grieving fiancé had lost his mind. He was harassing his dead fiancée's sister. I was a creep, a predator.

Wesley put a protective arm around her. "You heard the lady," he said, his voice hard. "Get out of here, Roberts, before I call the sheriff."

I stood there, frozen, as the whole town stared at me. Humiliation burned my cheeks. I looked from Maria's terrified act to Wesley's triumphant smirk.

This was a setup. And I had walked right into it.