In Wildest Dreams

by Linda Palmer

  In Wildest Dreams

  By

  Linda Palmer

  Uncial Press Aloha, Oregon

  2015

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events described herein are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-60174-205-6

  In Wildest Dreams

  Copyright © 2015 by Linda Varner Palmer

  Cover design

  Copyright © 2015 by Linda Varner Palmer

  Images: © Canstock.com/4774344sean,

  © Canstock.com/mitarart,

  © Canstock.com/DavidSchrader

  All rights reserved. Except for use in review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five (5) years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Published by Uncial Press,

  an imprint of GCT, Inc.

  Visit us at http://www.uncialpress.com

  The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.

  ~~Paul Valery

  French poet, essayist, and philosopher

  Prologue

  I stood in the park with the sun high overhead and thick green grass beneath my Disney princess flipflops. A Frisbee lay nearby. I scooped it up. “Woof, fetch!”

  Before I could toss it, I was lost in that awful cave again.

  Not that I could see anything in the dark. But the park was definitely gone, and I remembered the stink, the chill, and the scrape of creepy things on bare rock. My whole body trembled. My heart began to pound.

  “Mommy? Daddy?”

  My echo answered me.

  Certain I was about to fall into a deep, dark hole, I stayed glued to the spot and hugged myself. It wouldn’t be like before. They’d find me soon. They had to.

  “Get out of her head now!”

  I jumped. It was a boy’s voice and close by, though I couldn’t see him.

  “Help me!” Once again, my echo was all the reply I got. Something slithered across my bare toes. I screeched.

  “I told you to leave her alone.”

  “Chill out, will ya? I’m just having a little fun.”

  “I mean it, Ben. Stop now.”

  “Why? You got a crush on her?” He snorted a laugh. “She’s still playing Barbies, bro.”

  I heard a strangled yelp, some curses, and a scuffle that quickly escalated into a fist fight from the sound of it. Dropping to my hands and knees, I shielded my head even though I still couldn’t see a thing.

  Suddenly everything went quiet. Waves of warmth took away the cold.

  “He’s gone, okay? You’re safe now.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Just my big brother, acting like the bully he is. Forget him. I want to show you something.”

  The heavy darkness receded. I saw that I was alone and crouched in the middle of an arched cavern. Random shafts of sunlight revealed swirled rock formations in rainbow colors. I stood and slowly turned to take it all in.

  “See there? Caves are just hidden castles.”

  “Did fairies build them?”

  “Yeah, sure, so you shouldn’t be afraid.”

  “But why is it so dark?”

  “So you won’t see them. Watch this.” A rock to my left lit up for a split second, just long enough for me to spot Tinkerbelle sitting on it. “So what’s your name?”

  “Ellie Sierra Boone.”

  “Hey, Ellie. I’m Topher, your personal dream catcher.”

  “Why can’t I see you?”

  “Because I’m hiding. Don’t be scared anymore, okay? I’ll never be farther than a whisper away. Now we should probably get out of here before we upset the fairies. On the count of three, I want you to wake up. One. Two. Three.”

  I opened my eyes. I saw familiar things—my TV, my bookshelf, my stuffed unicorn. I did not see my dream catcher. Sighing softly in disappointment, I let my drooping eyelids close.

  I stood in the park with the sun high overhead and thick green grass beneath my Disney princess flipflops. A Frisbee lay nearby. I scooped it up. “Woof, fetch!”

  My dog shot after it, his beagle ears flapping in the breeze.

  Chapter One

  “I had a god-awful dream last night.” My friend and across-the-hall neighbor Hanna Mills scooped some queso into her mouth with a chip even as she shivered all over.

  I was working on the salsa and chips that made Esquina Tijuana a hotspot. “Yeah, well, we did watch Night of the Living Dead and Paranormal Activity right before we went to bed, so…” Once we’d figured out that we both loved scary movies, we’d started bingeing on them every chance we got.

  “So no bad dreams for you, huh?”

  “Nah. Never for me.”

  “Must be nice. Mine range from showing up at school naked without my homework to being attacked by a zombie in the alley behind Starbucks.”

  I snorted a laugh. “I used to have doozies. The worst were when I was nine and still traumatized about getting lost in a Warsaw cave three years earlier.”

  “Poland, huh? What were your folks looking for?”

  “A basilisk.”

  Hanna never even blinked at my crazy answer, but then I’d told her all about my adventurous parents. Leigh and Rich Boone hosted a long-lived TV series called “Myths and Monsters” aka MaM, and basically roamed the planet looking for creatures that didn’t exist.

  “What stopped the nightmares?”

  I hesitated. Did I really want to go there? “Let’s call him a dream catcher.”

  “Look. There’s Kit.” Hanna half stood and waved to our newest neighbor, Kit Macchioni, who’d lived down the hall for two months now.

  With a nod, he began making his way through the tables. I pretended to check out the cafe, which was busy for a Wednesday night. What really had my attention was Kit, smokin’ hot in jeans, a Henley, and brown Sanuks. Yeah, he had good reason to be so full of himself. Too bad he was so opinionated. We wound up knocking heads every time we got together.

  “So what’s a dream catcher?” Hanna asked.

  Wishing I’d kept my secret, I quickly worded my reply. “Dream catchers originated with the Ojibwa Nation to assist Asibikaashi in taking care of her people. It keeps away bad dreams and thoughts.” Yeah, I’d done my homework…years ago.

  “Huh?”

  “He’s a product my subconscious created to calm my fears.”

  For the hundredth time, I wondered how old Kit was. Hanna guessed he was in his mid twenties, like us. I figured early thirties. Either way, we were both fascinated by him and his crazy lifestyle.

  “Ah. Sort of like a split personality, but not really?” She always had a theory, and, yeah, she was staring at Kit, too. A Canadian transplant, he had charisma and then some, no doubt the reason he entertained a new girl in his apartment every night. Or maybe it was his build—tall and perfectly proportioned. Any girl would feel petite next to him. His thick lashes and dark brown eyes simply added to the allure.

  I shrugged slightly. “You could call him that, I guess.”

  “Has he aged with you?”

  “I never really thought about it.”

  “Thought about what?” Kit slid into our booth next to Hanna.

  She and I both inhaled his dreamy cologne and t
hen burst out laughing because we’d caught each other doing it. Girls will be girls, I guess, and he was some kind of hunky, even if neither of us actually wanted to own him.

  He glanced from me to her in confusion. “Did I miss something?”

  Somehow Hanna got an answer out. “Ellie’s cure for nightmares.”

  Kit quickly gave his order and a dashing smile to the server who’d miraculously appeared and now flirted with him. “Which is…?”

  “Something silly.” Why had I brought this up? I deliberately ended any dream discussion by dipping another chip into the salsa. I really didn’t want to talk about the dream figment that had guarded my sleep the past eighteen years. Both of them would think I’d lost it.

  “Silly, huh? Let me guess.” He made a show of thinking. “You sleep with the lights on.”

  “No, and I’m taking no more questions on this topic tonight.”

  Kit gave me a wicked sexy grin. “Why, Boone? Because you sleep with a teddy bear?”

  “No, Macho-man.” I deliberately garbled his last name, as usual.

  His eyebrows shot up. “Because you sleep with a man?”

  Could he sound more surprised? Insulted, I opened my mouth to retort, but snapped it shut again. In a way, Kit was right. I did sleep with a man. Unfortunately, said man didn’t have a face or even a body. And though our nightly trysts had felt intriguingly intimate lately, he was still just a product of my childhood imagination and possibly the fact that I hadn’t had sex in for-e-ver.

  “You do sleep with a man!” Kit’s grin widened into a full-fledged smile.

  My non-answer had clearly been taken as affirmation. Embarrassed, I launched a denial. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Sleeping with a man is ridiculous?”

  “More like impossible.” Hanna sighed woefully. During the six months we’d known each other, we’d hosted more than one pity party with a where-are-the-good-guys theme.

  Kit sat back in his chair so the waitress could set his drink on the table. “Thanks, beautiful.” He shifted his attention back to me. “So how to you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Nightmares. How to you avoid them?”

  “Oh. My, um, subconscious converts them to happy dreams.”

  “It’s a self-defense mechanism.” Hanna shared her multiple personality theory, blurting details I sincerely regretted sharing with her.

  That clearly piqued Kit’s curiosity. “Your dream catcher is male?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what does this dude look like?”

  “I never actually see him.”

  “How old is he?”

  “How would I know?”

  He thought about that for a second.

  I tried to explain without appearing even more foolish. “He’s with me every way except physically.”

  “Well that sucks cheap beer.”

  Hanna spewed her punch.

  Kit’s chocolate brown gaze never shifted from mine. “So you don’t know what he looks like?”

  “He’s not real. He doesn’t look like anything.”

  “Hm. I wonder why your subconscious made him a guy instead of a girl.”

  Hanna answered between coughs. “That’s easily explained. Traditionally, it’s the male who’s the defender.”

  Kit grunted. “Or maybe her brain’s telling her she needs to get laid.”

  I faked a laugh. “Are you talking about sex? Doesn’t that require a social life? I’m way too busy at the moment trying to make ends meet. You’re not the only one with a hectic schedule, you know. Summer will be my busiest time.” If things went well, anyway. So far my expensive ads and word-of-mouth strategy was getting me nowhere fast. But I’d only been the proud owner of Hot Cakes for ninety days. Business would pick up once customers realized what I could give them. Want a cake that’s shaped like a coffin and has a fangy vampire in it? Call Hot Cakes. Or how about an edible Christmas tree with working lights? I’m your girl. “And speaking of busy… How’d the swanky birthday party go?”

  Kit let the server place our orders on the table before answering. “A dance is a dance is a dance.”

  He couldn’t have sounded more bored. “So not your favorite photo opportunity?”

  “Nah. Neither are proms, recitals, and weddings. But they’re paying the rent while I wait for World Wonders to hire me.”

  I sipped my drink to cool my mouth, my mind on my parents, who’d certainly paid their dues before landing the TV gig. “So you’re into exotic locations, wild animals, and local customs, are you?” I remembered those days well and, at the moment, sort of missed them.

  “Not necessarily exotic, though I get what you mean. I just think there’s no better way to promote tolerance than honest reporting on the who, what, when, and where of this planet we’re all sharing.”

  “That’s deep,” Hanna murmured with a speculative glance at me.

  Were we wrong about him? Did he have—gasp—sensibilities? “You’ve really applied to World Wonders?” My parents had subscribed to the magazine at one time, so I was familiar with its informative layout and beautiful photos.

  “Often. Whenever there’s an opening, they have thousands who apply. I’m hoping this time will be my time.”

  I tried to imagine him hiking the wilds, backpack and camera in tow. It wasn’t hard. He had that rugged I-can-do-anything look about him. “Good luck with that.”

  “Your phone’s ringing.” Hanna flicked a glance at my cell, which was dancing across the table. I’d cut off the sound.

  I checked to see who was calling. Mother. I glanced at my watch. It was two in the morning in Africa. Why were they up so early? “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hi, sweetie. How are you?”

  “Fine. Is everything okay?” They seldom checked in while on the road and never at this hour.

  “No.”

  My heart flip-flopped. I jumped up and headed outdoors, where I could hear better, but still had to block traffic noise with my palm flat to my ear. “Is Dad all right?”

  “No.”

  “What’s wrong with him?” I instantly assumed the worst. Cancer. Heart attack. Stroke. Malaria.

  “We’re going to be canceled.”

  It took a second. Mentally, I was stuck in a makeshift bush hospital in the Congo. I gasped when the words made sense. “They wouldn’t dare!”

  “Phil says we’re getting too old for the show’s desired demographic.” Phil Havens was their producer. “And he thinks our format is dated, too. He said something about younger viewers preferring Seegee. I don’t even know who that is.”

  Sheesh. Although Mom was definitely the brains of the family, she was so absorbed in her work that she was oblivious to almost everything else. “Not who. What. Computer graphics. It was how Peter Jackson created Gollum in Lord of the Rings.”

  “I thought Andy Serkis played Gollum.”

  She would know that. I sighed. I wasn’t about to attempt an explanation of motion capture. “I can’t believe Phil said you were old. He’s seventy-five if he’s a day. Besides, you’re only fifty.” Dad, on the other hand, had eight years on her, but Mom kept him young. “And what’s wrong with your format?”

  “I have no idea, which is why I called. I’ve been watching the competition for hours. I think I might have a solution. My plan involves you.”

  I tensed. “Me?”

  “Yes. I’ve noticed that the successful shows star twenty-somethings. So I want you to make a guest appearance on our next amazing adventure.” Mom sounded like a commercial for upcoming episodes. “It’ll be just like the old days.” She’d truly shifted gears and was in full mother-knows-best mode. “Remember what a good time we had? I never understood why you started begging to stay with Mags.”

  That would be her sister and my sweet aunt, who’d graciously opened her arms when nine-year-old me finally crashed and burned.

  “I know getting lost that one time upset you, but it’s all ancient histo
ry now. If you’d just stayed close like we asked, it never would’ve happened.”

  I ignored that dig because she was right. I had wandered off. “I can’t just drop everything and hit the road. I have responsibilities. People depend on me.”

  “But it would only be for a week.”

  “A week!”

  “Well, I suppose we could do it in less time, but I don’t want to rush post-production edits. Everything has to be perfect just in case Phil already has a replacement series in mind.”

  “Listen, Mother. While I’d love to help out some way, I can’t leave St Louis right now.”

  “You’re that busy?”

  Her tone put me on the defensive. “I’m doing really well.” Yeah, I was fudging, but I had to defend borrowing their money to get my business started. Although more than willing to loan me what I needed, mom had made it clear that baking cakes wasn’t her idea of a worthy career. Guess she couldn’t figure out how anyone could prefer a hot oven over the great outdoors. I’d never admit that these days I wondered that, too.

  “Don’t you have people working for you?”

  “Of course, but they’re trainees. I’m the decorator.”

  “Hmph. What are your slowest days?”

  “Sunday and Monday, I guess, but they’re all pretty wild right now.” A quick glance at the glass front of the restaurant revealed that my nose hadn’t started growing…yet, anyway.

  “No worries. Throw in Tuesday and Wednesday, and we’ll be fine. I’ll arrange use of Phil’s private jet so you won’t waste time on layovers.”

  “Mom, no! I can’t.”

  “You mean you won’t help us after all we’ve done for you?”

  Of course she’d play the loan card. “I’m paying you back with interest.”

  She huffed in exasperation. “I’m not talking about the money. Do you have any idea what cancelation would do to your dad? Besides, he misses you so much. Think how thrilled he’ll be to have you along. Surely time with your father is more important than making someone a novelty cake.”

  Ouch. In spite of myself, I began to weaken. I missed Dad, too, as in every minute of every hour.

  “Four days. That’s all we need. Your father and I are flying to Chile tomorrow. I’ll have a strategy in place when you join us. Once we’re done, you can get back to your baking.”