by Jessi Gage
He didn’t suspect injury. The man wasn’t bleeding. The passenger-side airbag had deployed. The man’s seatbelt had been secure. He must have had a heart attack or something.
Derek needed to get him breathing again.
He wanted to argue with the operator or simply hang up and do it his way, but he heard himself sniffle and say, “Okay. I’ll try it in the car.”
Fuck that. He overrode the dream and tossed the phone. Emergency response was on the way. That was all he’d needed from the operator.
Ignoring the pain shooting up his spine, he wrapped his arms under the man’s armpits and levered him from the bucket seat. Frustrated with his smaller body and lesser strength, he lowered the man to the ground, feeling muscles in his back give. He cried out in agony and fell on top of the man.
Pushing through the pain, he scrambled up to the man’s head, tilted his chin back and breathed into him. He pumped the man’s chest to the count of thirty, breathed again, pumped again.
No response.
He kept pumping, even though his back was on fire, even though he couldn’t stop sobbing.
“Just a dream,” he heard from somewhere outside the terror of the rainy night. It was a female voice, too, but a mature one, trustworthy in its quiet, confidence. “It’s just a dream. It’ll be okay. I’m here with you.”
“But he won’t wake up!” he cried.
“Shhh. It’ll be okay. It’s not real.” Caring fingers brushed his temples, traced the sensitive edges of his ears.
How could he be dreaming two things at once? In the one dream, rainwater drenched his knees through his jeans, a sodden ponytail tugged at the back of his head and he worked desperately to save this man he didn’t know but loved with all his heart. In the other, he was in his bed with someone sitting beside him. A calm feminine voice grounded him, and the scent of honeydew melon chased away his horror.
“Whatever you’re seeing, it’s not real. Don’t be afraid. Just let it go.”
That voice pulled at him, encouraging him to abandon the clearly futile effort. The man was gone.
I killed him, said the young woman in his head. Guilt scrabbled for a foothold.
“It’s not your fault,” he said to the girl in the dream, the girl whose body he shared. He wished he could shake her by the shoulders and tell her the man had a weak heart. The accident might have triggered the attack, but it would have happened anyway—next time a balloon popped near him, next time the folks at work jumped out to surprise him bearing party hats and cake. It wasn’t her fault. He desperately wanted to absolve her.
But the other voice, the calm one belonging to what he imagined to be a stone-cold beautiful figment of his imagination, maybe even a figment with auburn waves and dark blue eyes, tempted him. Hmm, roadside tragedy from the perspective of a teenage girl, or warm comfort in the arms of a beautiful woman? No contest. He chose the latter, letting the soft insistence of those stroking hands draw him away from the rainy night.
* * * *
“That’s it. Just relax. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Her chest swelled with fulfillment as the man calmed. His head stopped thrashing back and forth on the pillow, and his pleated brow smoothed. She was actually helping him, and it felt wonderful.
She had a purpose. She didn’t feel lost as long as she had that. She could even bear the fog again if she knew she’d end up back here with this man and have the privilege of easing him through his nightmares. Not that she wished more nightmares on him. But if he was going to have them anyway, she liked being allowed to help.
She traced his stubbled jaw with her fingers, loving the way his normally hard and serious face became open and vulnerable in sleep. She should stop fondling him. He’d passed through his dream. From watching him for two nights now, she knew he typically went into a period of light sleep after his dreams. If she didn’t back off, she risked waking him.
Feeling a naughty thrill, she didn’t back off. She kept petting him partly because she drew as much comfort from touching him as she suspected she gave to him, and partly because she wanted to be noticed. Two nights of being invisible was two nights too long. Now that she knew he could feel her on the bed, she longed to make real contact, conscious contact.
There she went being selfish again. Her conscience reminded her of the little girl in the next room. If she woke the man and scared him, it might upset Haley. Huffing with frustration, she forced herself to stop. To be safe, she scooted back, giving him some space. But it was too late.
His eyes popped open, and his gaze locked on hers.
Rusty streetlamp light flooded the bedroom. There was no darkness to blend into, no deep shadows that might offer her cover. He could see her, and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.
Her heart raced and she held her breath as she braced for his reaction.
His firm lips curled into a contented smile. He clasped his hands behind his head, putting his impressive triceps on display. His eyelids went to half-mast. “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve had one of these kinds of dreams?”
Her body had so many different reactions at once, she would have passed out if she’d been alive. Desire unwound in her like a sprung coil at the confident look in his eyes. Relief that she hadn’t scared him kicked her lungs back into action. But he thought he was still dreaming.
Her shoulders sagged with disappointment.
“You’ve got too many clothes on, sweetheart,” he said, jarring her out of her stupor. “And you’re much, much too far away.” He held a hand out to her. “Come here so I can fix both of those travesties.”
Heat flashed from her neck to her core. This was exactly what she wanted. His attention. His affection.
But not like this. She hardly knew him, and he was looking at her like that didn’t matter, like he’d made her up and could use her without consequence. His cocky grin irked her and turned her on at the same time.
She sat back on her heels and shook her head, too conflicted to form words.
“Pretty please?”
“I— Uh, um—” Jeez. Who should she blame for that genius utterance, her suddenly pouty lips or her flustered brain? To be safe, she’d have a talk with both of them later. For now, though, she clamped her mouth shut and resorted to shaking her head again.
He put his hand back behind his head. His grin grew wider. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.” His eyes twinkled. “It’s just a dream.”
Her heart skipped a beat as he threw her words back at her. “Is it?” she said, her voice barely there.
“You bet.” He propped up on his elbows. The comforter slid down to expose the mounds of his pectorals. His nipples puckered like copper rivets. A sudden urge to test their hardness with her tongue had her leaning forward. She caught herself, but the unintentional movement didn’t go unnoticed. Triumph radiated from his every pore. “And not just any dream.”
The mischief in his voice disarmed her. How could a man be intimidating and playful at the same time?
“Oh?” She quirked a brow, finding her way with him.
“You see, this is my dream. I chose it. Over another. One that wasn’t so sweet.” He flipped back the covers and patted beside him. “So what I say goes. And I say come up here where I can get a better look at you.”
“Are you always this bossy?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “That’s why they pay me the mediocre bucks at the job site.”
“You work construction?” Yes, yes. Talking. Normal people didn’t jump between the sheets with total strangers. They had conversations. They got to know each other.
The man nodded, then raised an expectant eyebrow and patted the bed again.
She bristled. “Aren’t you going to ask what I do? It’s only polite.”
“I know what you do.”
She blinked, stunned. “You know me?” Hope propelled her forward. “What do I do? Who am I?” She stopped short of grabbing his shoulders and shaking him, but barely. Finally! S
he’d learn her name!
The man wasted no time wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her down to lie beside him. She was so relieved, she let him. He wasn’t a stranger after all.
“You’re my dream girl. Your job is to make me happy. And you deserve a raise, ’cause—” He lifted the blankets and pressed her hand down the line of his body, where she came into contact with the evidence of his arousal.
“Ohmygosh!” She snatched her hand back and rocketed off the bed. Back pressed against the closet door, palm glued to her chest, she said, “You—I—what the heck?” Another brilliant bit of dialogue. Her brain had overloaded, plain and simple. She swallowed and composed herself.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to freak out. I just hoped we knew each oth—”
The man interrupted her with a curse directed at the ceiling. He fell back on his pillow and threw an arm over his face. “Can’t even hang onto an imaginary woman. Too goddamned aggressive for my own dream girl.”
He cursed again, a long, drawn-out whisper. Then he lifted the covers and looked down at himself. “What am I going to do about you?” He glanced at the clock, which read 4:58. His whole face softened as he pressed a hand flat to the wall over his head. Haley slept on the other side. “Nothing. That’s what.” He rolled over with a pained grunt and went back to sleep.
Her throat closed with longing. Longing to crawl back in bed and put his arousal to good use. Longing to tell him he hadn’t been too aggressive for her, that if she’d been scared of anything it had been the strength of desire his forwardness had kindled in her. Longing to show him she wasn’t imaginary.
For every impulse to indulge those longings, a little voice of caution presented a reason to hold back. Don’t want to scare him. Don’t want to wake Haley up. Don’t want to come off as desperate. Don’t want to get hurt.
She watched the clock change to 4:59. In the next second, she was sucked back to the fog, denied even the slightest glimpse of dawn, just like the morning before. Eerie silence replaced the sound of the man’s breathing. Empty air replaced the hardness of the floor beneath her feet and the closet door at her back. Regret drowned the voice of caution.
Don’t want to waste any more time.
Chapter 5
Derek stared at the streak of morning sun on his bedroom ceiling. He really ought to get some blinds. The neighbors had a tall fence, which made privacy a nonissue, and he usually got up before sunrise for work, so the light didn’t bother him, but he’d been in this 1920s Craftsman for two years now. He ought to make it more of a home. Haley deserved it. Maybe he’d recruit her to help him pick out some curtains and area rugs today while shopping for back-to-school clothes.
Sleepy footsteps shuffled past his cracked-open door. Haley, headed to the bathroom.
He should get up too. He usually looked forward to firing up the griddle for Sunday morning pancakes, but a rollercoaster night of strange dreams and unspent arousal had him wishing he could sleep in.
He’d had the nightmare where he was driving the Honda again, but he’d also had another.
The second dream had dumped him in a car wreck too. Even though he’d witnessed the accident with the Honda in real life, the one on the rain-slicked roadside had felt much more personal. Hours after the dream, the weight of the girl’s loss pinned him to the mattress.
He refused to accept the added weight of her guilt, however. It hovered in his psyche, right there, ready to upset him if he chose to let it. But he ignored it. The girl might have been driving, and the accident might have even been her fault—he didn’t know since he’d shown up after the wreck—but no way did she cause her father’s death. It didn’t matter she was a figment of his sleeping subconscious; knowing she believed that made him cringe.
Blowing out the useless emotional shit on a breath, he heaved himself out of bed.
After taking care of the necessities, he found Haley kneeling on a kitchen chair, using his laptop. “Whatcha doing, kiddo?” He ruffled her hair with manufactured cheer.
“Looking up ghosts.”
He blinked a few times. Of all the things he’d been expecting her to say, checking email, looking at Facebook, playing games… “Ghosts? Why?”
“’Cuz I think you have one.”
“Haley, hon, there’s no such thing as ghosts.” He wanted to talk about Little League, about school, about Girl Scouts, frigging boys, anything but ghosts. What the hell was Deidre letting her get into that she was curious about ghosts?
“Uh, yeah there is, Dad. You know how I know?” She didn’t wait for him to answer.
“’Cuz I saw one. She woke you up Friday night. And then last night, I thought I heard you crying again, so I went in your room to check on you. She was sitting on your bed touching your hair like Mom does when I don’t feel good.”
His heart stopped while he processed what she’d said. He hadn’t realized Haley had looked in on him last night. A flush crept up his neck as he remembered the erection he’d had before dawn. He hoped to God she hadn’t come in then. Thankfully, her words reminded him of the gentle caresses that had taken the edge off the car-wreck dreams, which had happened earlier.
But that comfort had been in his dreams. How had Haley seen?
“She had pretty red hair,” she said, oblivious to his confusion. “But not red like Rebecca’s. It was darker. And she looked worried about you. Don’t you know who she is? Was it someone who died a long time ago?” She tapped the computer screen. “It says here sometimes deceased loved ones from your past hang around and look out for you, like watch over you. I think she was watching over you. I like her. She seems nice.”
Dark red hair, as in rich auburn waves. His legs felt weak. He gripped the back of a chair as he moved around the table. Crouching, he wiggled the griddle from amidst the pots and pans in the cupboard.
“There’s no such thing as ghosts, honey.” He clunked the griddle onto the counter and flipped the laptop closed. “It’s pancake time.”
* * * *
Derek cleaned up after dinner to the sound of crinkling plastic and excited feminine chatter. Haley sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor de-tagging half of Target’s stock of curtains, pillows and rugs. The kid seemed more excited about helping him spiff up his house than about the two bags of school clothes languishing by the front door, where he’d dropped them before grilling up kebobs. Apparently, she’d inherited the decorating gene from Deidre.
He turned from the sink to face a kitchen that looked like a landfill for the mounds of shopping bags, crumpled packaging material and random piles of colorful fabric—holy hell, was that pink leopard print?
“That better be for your room,” he said, indicating the fuzzy pink pillows and glittery fabric occupying one of the kitchen chairs.
“Duh, dad.”
Guess he ought to think about getting rid of all the stuffed animals in there. She was growing up so fast. Maybe it seemed faster since he only saw her on the weekends.
“And these are going to look awesome in your room,” she said, holding up a wad of sheer blue fabric he guessed to be curtains. They matched the blue whorls and arcs in the silver-gray king-size comforter she’d picked out for his bed. “Just imagine waking up to this color every morning!”
In Target, he’d found Haley’s selections for his room on the feminine side, but here in his house, he liked the colors, especially the blue. There was something familiar about it. The doorbell gonged in the living room, derailing his train of thought.
Over the last two years, he’d learned to dread the sound of his doorbell. No one ever rang it but Deidre. Always at eight sharp on Sunday night. Always reminding him he wasn’t like other dads. He had to squish in his time with his kid between Friday’s five-o’clock news and Sunday-night’s SportsCenter. He’d lost the freedom to enjoy Haley week round when he’d failed in his marriage.
“Is that Mom?” Haley knelt on the linoleum with a gold-and-rust striped pillow in one hand and a brass curtain rod in the other
. Her eyebrows slanted with disappointment, probably because she didn’t want to stop in the middle of her project.
“’Fraid so, kiddo. Time flies when you’re having fun.” He offered a hand to help her step out of the quagmire of crinkly plastic, but she ignored it, bounding into the living room and throwing open the door.
“Hi, Mom!”
“Hi, babe!” Deidre strode in wearing a stylish denim jacket over a lacy top that looked more like lingerie than a shirt, and wrapped Haley in a long hug. “Missed you.” Her eyes darted to the two overflowing bags of school clothes on the floor. “This looks like a lot, Derek. Are you sure you can afford all this?”
How many times did he have to tell her he was doing okay? He never missed a child support check, and he pitched in with expenses like clothes and school supplies all the time. He was sick of her treating him like he was one step away from collecting food stamps. She might make more than him, but he lived a hell of a lot more modestly than she did.
“Mm-hmm.” Probably best to keep his mouth shut. She couldn’t pick apart mumbled responses, could she?
She shot him a warning with her eyes. “I’m not judging you,” the look said, but it was a lie. Deidre ran on judging him. It was her fuel. She didn’t know how else to be. She’d lose animation if she ever stopped pointing out the thousand-and-one ways he was an inferior parent.
“Dad also let me pick out curtains and throw pillows and rugs and a ton of stuff to make his house way better.”
The tension sailed over Haley’s head. Thank God.
He and Deidre would never be more than passably cordial to each other, but he’d be damned if he’d let Haley grow up refereeing fights between them. He didn’t want her to fear his moods. Kids deserved to run carefree, not walk on eggshells.
