I Know You're There

by R.H. Proenza



  I Know You're There

  By

  R.H. Proenza

  * * * * *

  PUBLISHED BY:

  - A Paranormal Romance –

  I Know You're There

  Revision #8 01/06/2017

  (WITH AN ALTERNATE ENDING)

  Copyright © 2015 by R.H. Proenza

  ISBN: 9781310226465

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author's imagination and used fictitiously.

  Your support and respect for the property of this author are appreciated.

  Many thanks to who encouraged me to write and to publish. I hope you enjoy the story and perhaps become one of its characters, if for only a short while.

  * * * * *

 

  Daniel recognized her the minute she came out of the University student lounge – a girl he had never met. It was a chance encounter but it hit him between the eyes! He could have missed her had he been looking in a different direction. Here he was about to graduate from a long four-year stint in college and leave this place forever and could have missed her. Yet there in front of him was the girl of his dreams—LITERALLY! Her face was the same girl he had already seen in a dream. Many dreams in fact. The girl stopped outside the door to read a sheet of paper she held. He stood nearby mouth agape to admire her and catch his breath.

  He was dumbfounded. Yes—she was real! Every part of her face was familiar from his dreams—her beautiful green eyes, the perfect eyebrows, her flawless complexion, the way she did her lustrous dark hair, the way she walked. It WAS the girl, the girl in his dreams, down to the recognizable tiny freckle on her neck under one ear! A girl out of my imagination here in the flesh! But, how could this be? The thoughts ran through his mind.

  She looked up and caught him staring, giving him a small jolt. She appeared surprised and seemed to give an odd shiver. She looked startled, then turned and began walking away. It left Dan still in shock. It was a few seconds before he snapped out of it and started following. Two other girls caught up with her as she walked. He heard them say that they needed to hurry or they would be late to wherever it was they headed. They all turned and walked off in that direction.

  He wanted to, no he HAD to, follow her before she got away. He had to find out why he had been dreaming about her these past months. If he caught up with the girl what would he say to her? How would he explain? Would she think he was some kind of stalker or pervert and would never have anything to do with him? He couldn’t ruin this serendipitous encounter. It was a chance he had to take. The girl and her two friends went in a door to an auditorium. As he arrived at the same door and entered a moment later, a confusing sea of students confronted him. Crap! He chastised his bad luck. He had lost her in the crowd.

  Dan knew it was futile to look for her inside. He looked around to make sure others did not see how foolish he felt. He sat outside the front doors of the auditorium and waited until she left at the end of this session. Still, he knew it was a lost cause because the building had four other side doors. The girl could just leave through any one of those and he couldn't watch all of them. Double Crap! But he had to try.

  At the end of a long boring hour and a half, people began streaming out of the doors. He looked hurriedly everywhere across the swarm of students, but to no avail. There was too much movement, too many heads turning and moving, too much people traffic. She was gone. He had found the mystery girl in a chance encounter, and now he lost her! What rotten luck! How could fate do that to me? he thought, shaking his head.

  Sitting on the outside bench he ran a list through his mind of how he could go about looking for her. I could walk around the campus while there was light and try to spot her, I suppose. His mind raced. But what a waste of time that would be. Perhaps I could go to all the girls' dorms and sorority houses. I could describe the mystery girl to a skeptical house mother. That would take forever. Or perhaps I could...

  The sound of crunching leaves behind him made Daniel turn. He jumped up and froze when he saw the object of his searching standing a few feet behind him. It was the girl's turn to stare. She furrowed her forehead as she contemplated him in silence.

  "I saw you at the Student Union today. And now seeing you again perched here sort of watching that building… I started to worry a bit. But …" She hesitated. "You sort of look familiar. Do I . . . do I know you?" she said in the sweet all-too-familiar voice of his dreams.

  "Yes, I mean, no. I mean, well, it's complicated." The girl's eyes narrowed with confusion.

  "You DO look familiar," she said. "Did you go to Huntington High before college then?"

  "Uh, well, I recognize you, but, no, not that way. Um, no, I didn't go to Huntington," he said, not knowing where to begin.

  "Maybe you went to my middle school and we knew each other from there as kids?"

  "No. You might say we kind of have seen each other before, not like.. It was in a ..." He paused to take a breath. Mistake, Daniel! "It was in a… in a dream," he said almost in a mumble. Her confusion worsened as she tried to sort out his words.

  He took a deep breath. "My name is Dan … Danny, uh, Daniel Brody. Do you have a few minutes so we can talk? What I have to say is going to sound strange, but I need to talk to you. I still can't believe it myself," he said almost to himself. "Look, I'm not a stalker or a weirdo. I've never, uh, seen you before but I … I know everything about you," whispering those last words. He fumbled with his wallet and took out his driver's license to legitimize himself to her. The girl looked at it for a moment, then up at his face again. "Can we talk, please?"

  The girl took in his words for a minute as she stared at Dan and seemed to relax. "Maybe I don't know you but -- you still look familiar." She looked downward like a thought just occurred to her and chuckled showing a cute dimple at one cheek. "I'm sorry, it's just that back home I have a dog named Danny. He belongs to my dad even though I came up with the name. They adopted him after they saved him from the dog pound." He smiled back.

  "Ha! That's what my parents call me."

  "Hmm, well, okay Dan; tell me why we are familiar with each other. Oh, by the way, my name is Callie Stevens."

  "Callie?" Dan's eyebrows moved upward for a second. "Okay, this keeps getting ever stranger. My little sister's name is Callie also." The girl seemed to have another slight body shiver like he had seen earlier. A puzzled look came over her face, then disappeared.

  "Um, okay, well, here goes, Callie Stevens. A couple of months ago I started dreaming about a brunette with…green eyes and dark hair." He took a breath. "They were YOUR eyes. And she had YOUR exact hair, YOUR height, YOUR exact voice ..."

  Callie's eyes narrowed again and looked at him askance.

  "Wait. I know you're thinking this is some kind of come-on like I'm hitting on you. Well, I mean, you ARE beautiful but that's not it. I'm telling you the truth! I even remember the tiny freckle under your left ear from the dreams. I remember you have a dimple when you smile, and the fact that you are left-handed. I remember that you are artistic, and that..."

  "How could you know I was left-handed, or artistic? I've never written or drawn anything in front of you! Hey, have you been spying on me?"

  "Oh NO, NO. It's just ..." He breathed out trying to put the words together. "Some weeks or so ago I 'watched' you in my dream do something artistic. I saw you draw this intricate design with some of your colored pencils. You even told me that you enjoyed me watching you draw. But anyway, the design you drew was a detailed cluster of pretty soap bubbles having this teeny-tiny little u
nicorn in the middle. Have you ever drawn anything like tha...?" The color was already draining from Callie's face as she backed away a foot.

  "Hey, wait a minute. What´s going on here -- Nobody, but like, NOBODY knows about that drawing. I never showed it to anyone. I have it hidden at home inside a book which is inside a drawer. Hidden!" Her eyes were like saucers.

  "I told you this was getting weird. There's more, Callie. But let me just tell you something that I couldn't know otherwise—you have a cute little, uh..." he stopped talking, furrowing his brows, sorry he had started. He rubbed his face and then the back of his neck. He wondered if he should even go on.

  "Little what?" she asked, now with hands on her hips. "Well ...?"

  He looked at her with raised eyebrows then looked away before continuing. "You, uh, have a cute, um, teeny-tiny mark, uh, freckle in the shape of a heart on your ... your . . ." Dan was visibly uncomfortable. "On your right buttocks," he ended in a rush of his breath.

  Her face paled again. "WHAT? But how . . . how could you know about that? It's even too tiny to see from across the room. You have to get up close to … nobody can… ONLY MY MOTHER KNOWS ABOUT THAT!" She stood up and walked a few paces away. She turned around, started to speak with her hands on her hips, then changed her mind and spun away.

  "Well good going, Daniel, now she thinks I'm a lunatic AND a pervert for sure," he said out loud. "I'm glad I didn't tell her how I found out about that tiny heart freckle. And about all the intimacy we shared in my dreams and all the rest of it. Craaaap!" He put his hand to his forehead in dismay.

  The next day Dan wandered around campus looking for the girl named Callie Stevens. At least now he had a name to go on. After hours of fruitless searching, he ended up at the Office of Student Affairs. I shoulda come here in the first place! he thought in frustration.

  "I'm sorry, sir," said the young coed at the desk. "That's protected information so we can't give out the address or phone number to anyone, other than family. I'm guessing you can't prove you're actually related to her?" The girl gave him a sympathetic smile knowing what his answer was going to be.

  "Crap!" he muttered. "Okay, that's what I figured you'd say. I understand. Thanks anyway." He turned to leave when a striking red-headed girl with bright red lipstick who had stopped behind him stood to stare. He recognized her as one of Callie's friends that walked off with her.

  "Hi. Um, I heard what you said to that clerk. I know Callie. Weren't you talking with her yesterday near the Student Lounge, though?"

  "Yes, I was," he said with eyes wide. "Do you know how to get in touch with her?"

  "Um, have you known her long?" she asked.

  "Yes, no … Well, it's complicated. Look, here ... please give her my cell phone number." She looked at the note he handed her. "Tell her I need to talk to her."

  She looked at his number again then up at him. "Hmmm. Well, if she doesn't want to return your call, maybe, um, I will be the one to call you?" She beamed a smile, batted her eyelashes at him, and walked off.

  Dan just looked at her wide-eyed and shrugged his shoulders. The girl had just flirted with him, but right now his interest was not with this one but with a beautiful green-eyed dream-girl.

  He finished boxing up his belongings at his small studio apartment. He was going to move to a bigger place and into a new job, but he wasn't in any hurry. He was not going anywhere until he talked to Callie. He had to solve this mystery!

  Now that he met the girl from his dreams---From Your Dreams, Daniel! His mind shouted at him---he couldn't stop thinking about her. How could I have dreamed in such detail about a girl I have never met before? He wondered again. He didn't have ESP so he had not 'seen into the future'. But the dreams were so vivid and detailed; in the dreams, they were even engaged to be married. They even had gotten intimate with each other. THAT'S how he knew about that little freckle on her butt.

  Good grief, he thought. I'm not particularly looking for a bride, and yet ... He realized he was being seriously drawn to her—someone he had never seen before, someone from a recurring dream! This is insane! His cell phone rang.

  It was an unknown number but he hoped ... "Hello, this is Dan Brody." There was a long disappointing silence at the other end.

  "Hi, Dan Brody, it's Callie Stevens. Remember?" she said in the same sweet voice he had grown to love.

  Did she just now say 'remember'? "Of course, Callie. How could I forget?"

  "I almost wasn't going to call you. You sort of frightened me with what you said earlier."

  "Oh, no. I'm so sorry about that. I'm still amazed at having found out you existed, and about all this, believe me. I should have gone a little slower, maybe ... to let you get to know me better, so you'd know I wasn't a psycho. But, instead, I just rambled on like a psychotic dummy and …"

  "No, that was fine. I'll admit I would have walked away from ANY other guy immediately, but..." She breathed into the phone as if collecting her thoughts. "There was something about you that put me at ease, even from the start. I din't know what it was." She paused again. "Well, anyway, Dan, even so, now I know why you are familiar to me."

  "You do? How?"

  "I'll have to show you, in person. Can we meet in the morning at that bench in front of the Student Lounge again?"

  "Sure. Now that I'm through with college I'm free anytime, so any time works for me."

  "I also just finished. I'm graduating but have decided not to 'walk' for my diploma, and, you know, just let them mail it to me."

  "How about that? Same here -- all the above!"

  After a pause, "Can we meet at 9 AM then?" she said.

  "Yes. See you tomorrow."

  Next morning Dan was at the bench ten minutes early, anxious to see this girl Callie again. His head was still spinning about how all this had come about when he saw her turn a corner toward him. Again the sight of her dazzled him. What an awesome beauty, he thought. She almost glides when she walks. Good grief, I'm smitten by her!

  "H … hey, Callie. You made it!"

  "Hi, Dan. You're not going to believe what I'm about to show you." She sounded excited.

  "I'll believe anything you tell me," he grinned at her. She gave him a crooked smirk of a smile and a sideways glance, yet another thing that was cute about her.

  "I had a restless night trying to process all that impossible stuff you told me about your dreams. You say that in your dream you saw me drawing, and you learned all these other things about me, too, right?"

  "Yes. No cameras, no microphones, no private eye following you around. Please believe me!"

  "Well, you were dead right about that little soap bubble drawing. That blew me away! I had to get over the shock about that one. So, although it's not logical, I guess I'm starting to … believe you, I think. Especially after what I'm about to show you." she said with hesitation.

  "I remember how good you are at art, you know, in my dreams. You sketched a lot in a notebook with tiny apples drawn on the cover, like doodles." He saw her take out something from her portfolio. "A notebook that looked … just … like – THAT ONE!" he gasped as he raised his eyebrows in recognition.

  She looked at the notebook, then at him with furrowed brows. "This is one of my many sketchbooks. I like to draw random things in it to unwind or to practice assignments. Some I do in black graphite pencil, others with pastels or colored pencils. But I guess, of course, you already knew my college curriculum was in art, right?"

  "Um, yes I did already know that. You told me so in dreamland." She gave that cute little smirk of a smile again.

  "Okay. Well, I date all my sketchbooks. This one is two months old. See?" She held it up to his face as he nodded. She started turning pages, stopping at one as she shook her head back and forth. "I swear I had never seen you before we met here on campus, but look at this." She turned the sketchbook to face him.

  Dan's eyes became wide. There, l
ooking back at him was a perfect drawing of himself, down to his hazel eyes and day old shadow on his face. "Did you see a picture of me somewhere?"

  "No! Honestly. I drew that out of my own… imagination." Her face showed she was questioning her own words.

  "Wow," was all he could say, shaking his head. "Callie, didn't you just tell me you drew this TWO months ago?"

  "Yes, look, here's the date underneath." He noticed a little heart with a tiny star in its middle next to the date.

  "Wow again. Wait! That date … that's when I started dreaming about you. I remember because that's the day I got hired for my job even before I graduated." They both looked at each other with furrowed brows.

  "I don't understand all this," Callie said almost to herself. "There's something bigger going on here that we're not seeing."

  "The only thing that comes to mind—and this going to sound sooo like a cliché—is that we're, well … soul-mates?" It ended up as a question.

  Her eyes widened as she absorbed this. "Any other time I would have laughed in your face and walked off." They were quiet for several minutes, trying to take it all in. "Any – other - time ..." she said in a whisper, searching deeply into his eyes.

  "What does this little heart with a star in the middle mean?"

  "I sometimes draw that next to a drawing that has some, like, significance, but I'm not sure why I drew it under … yours." She knitted her eyebrows while pondering this. Long quiet moments passed before he spoke again.

  "Callie, would you, um, like to go out with me, like, maybe for dinner tonight, so we can talk this through?" Again she looked into his eyes before responding. He noticed her having a tiny shiver, like before. They seemed to be coming on more often.

  "Um, yes. I think that would be a good idea. Yes, I would like that a lot. After all, I have already drawn a picture … of ..." She took a breath, "... of you, never having seen you before," she said while scratching her head.

  "I should mention that the dreams didn't tell me everything about you. Only certain things. For example, I don't know where you live to pick you up from." She smiled at him.

  "I think we can fix that," she said with a side glance, and wrote down her address on a sticky note and handed it to him. He noticed how sparkling her eyes were looking since they began talking.

  That night Dan took her to one of the nicest restaurants in town.

  "… and when I was eleven," she was explaining, "I fell out of an apple tree trying to reach this beautiful humongous apple. I was such a tom-boy. But I didn't …"

  "... and the fish hook went just barely into my finger but I squealed in a, you know, high pitch girly-way. How embarrassing was that! Boy was I was glad the other guys didn't hear me sound like ..."

  The conversations were personal and full of warmth and laughter, with many deep questions. They included lots of meaningful looking into each other's eyes. Afterward, they went to a popular club and danced to exhaustion. During the slow songs, they came up against each other. He loved the scent of her skin, her hair, and everything about her. It drove him crazy. Again he noticed she had that little shiver every so often.

  Driving back to the small house she shared with two girlfriends they chatted. "Callie, I would like to ask you something?"

  "Yes?"

  "Well, every so often I see you have this little 'shiver-thing'. Do you get cold easily, or is it, like a medical condition, unless it's personal?"

  She went a deep crimson. "Oops…I guess it is personal. Sorry. Nevermind."

  "No, it's okay. It's not that I get chilly or any other 'condition'. It’s . . . Well, it's weird. I started doing that when I first saw you the first time. I don't know why. I never did it before. It's like something comes over me. Like when you're a child and you first wake up and realize it's Christmas morning. It's an intense but fleeting feeling of joy, but more than that. It's like . . . you know the anticipation of joy. And even more than that. I’m not making any sense but it's the only way I can explain it. And it's so intense that it gives me a little body shake." She looked at him then looked away as if embarrassed.

  "Hmm. I didn't see that in my dreams of you."

  "Well, like I said there's even more to it." She blushed again.

  "More? Like what?"

  "I, um …" She started fanning her face with her hand. "I … can't tell you all right now. It's sort of intimate since, you know, we just met and all." She mumbled the last part. "Maybe, um, one day I will." He shrugged his shoulders. He would wait for her to get more comfortable with him.

  "Dan. Now I have a question for you! But before I say anymore let's agree, to be honest –I mean absolutely honest –with each other, okay?"

  "With you, I can't help but be honest. Okay. Agreed. Shoot."

  "How in the world did you know about that little freckle on my . . . my behind?" It was his turn to squirm and then giggle.

  "Well, as you know we have no control over what we dream about -- right?"

  "Ye-e-e-s," she said waiting for the rest of it.

  "Okay, uh, in my dream we were . . . we were . . ."

  "Ye-e-e-e-e-s?" she said with exaggerated emphasis.

  "We were, you know, intimate," he said letting his breath out.

  "Intimate?" She raised her eyebrows, gave a shiver, and caught her breath. She looked into his eyes for a long moment before turning crimson and looking down.

  "You see, we were engaged, and very much in love -- in my dreams, over which I had no control… ah hem. And you, it was YOU, who pointed out your tiny heart freckle on your butt when you had no, um, clothes on!" He whispered the last two words.

  She let that sink in for long awkward minutes. "Um, I won't ask you what we were doing at the time . . . Your dreams seemed to have come with plenty of details, I see." She was trying to be serious but couldn't stop the smile breaking across her face. At once, she started to giggle the more she thought about it, and could not stop.

  Oh my gosh. She is gorgeous when she laughs and smiles, and... Well… She's gorgeous all the time! Looking at her could occupy all his attention at any given moment.

  She rested her head on his shoulder. "Dan, I've had the best time tonight. I'm so comfortable being with you especially now that I know so much more about you."

  "Comfortable? You mean like an old pair of slippers?" he teased.

  "No, silly," she giggled. "It's like we've known each other for a long time as if we had grown up together. Like I don't have to put on a fake face for you and I can be myself. You know, emotionally comfortable. That's why I thought we had gone to the same school. And, you know, maybe just ran in different circles."

  "Even so, I still KNEW almost everything about you before we even met. Somehow. I don't know how. That's why I wondered about the 'soul mate' thing." She moved up against him and they both got quiet.

  "Daniel, earlier tonight, when you took my hand … That first touch was …electric; kind of weird. Then like my whole body got warm, and, and …" She paused to take a breath and seem to collect her thoughts. "It's as if we're supposed to …" She paused.

  "Suppose to what?"

  "As if we're SUPPOSED to be together" she finished with a little shiver. They got quiet and looked into each other's eyes.

  "Callie, you said you would tell me more about why you have that little shiver-thing. Are you comfortable enough now to tell me?"

  "Well, we DID promise to be truthful with each other, didn't we? Okay then, um..." She took a deep breath. "You know when two people are in love and they are, you know, at the point of making love ...?"

  "Yes."

  "And, well there comes a time when they, um … well, there is a, you know, a, um, climax," she said softly while turning pink.

  "Uh, yes-s-s. I’m acquainted with that," he said with a smirk.

  "Well, right before I get that little shiver, I get that … um … like the anticipation of that same feeling. And I
get goose pimples all over … and my body reacts like that, and I have to force myself to get control again as I get that weird shiver."

  "Oh ... Ohh, Ohh ... I see," he said not realizing he had been holding his breath. He let that sink in for a few minutes.

  At once she broke the long awkward silence. "Okay, so, you said in your dream we were in love, huh?" she said with a coquettish little smile.

  "Yes, um, fiercely in love! Smoldering!" he added.

  "'Fiercely?' And even 'smoldering,' huh?" she echoed with eyebrows raised. "Interesting … smoldering," she whispered to herself. “Never heard that one.”

  "And in my dreams we did, you know, things."

  "Things?" She paused to consider this, her voice going higher. "Yes, I guess we would have done …’THINGS'" she said with a lilt to her voice; her cheeks coloring.

  "Yes, you know, things, like some of this ..." he ran his hand up the side of her neck and face through her hair and caressed her ear. She found herself leaning her head into the warmth his hand. “And some of this ...," he continued as he placed his hands on either side of her face caressing her temples. She got chills feeling her body respond, and went wide-eyed while looking into his eyes. Her breathing came a little faster now.

  "We… we did these things, did we?" she said in a breathless whisper. Her eyes once again sparkled.

  In a soft voice, he continued, "And we did lots ... and lots ... of this ..." He placed his lips tentatively on hers expecting some alarming reaction but instead felt the now-familiar little shiver. What started to be a sweet little kiss turned into something else. She melted into him parting her lips in a deep kiss, and pressing herself into him. Small sounds came from her throat as the kiss became much more heated. Then without warning, she pulled away.

  She was breathing hard now. "OH!” she blurted out. “Oh, my... I don't... I mean, I don´t know what just... what came over me. I don't usually do that on a first date. Never! No, NOT EVER!"

  "Was it so bad? I kinda thought it was wonderful. And oh, so ... familiar," as he narrowed his eyes and mumbled to himself.

  "Yes, it was so wonderf … NO, I mean smolderi ... NOOO ..., "she said as if thinking out loud."This is just happening so fast. I need time to digest it all." She was looking down with eyes closed and hand on her stomach. A quiet moment passed.

  "Speaking of digesting -- can I pick you up in the morning, for breakfast, say 8 o'clock?"

  "What? Breakfast? Um, I don't know, yes, no, maybe..."

  "Good. Then that's settled. Breakfast it is."

  After several more quiet minutes passed she took a breath and looked into his eyes, as if looking for an answer to an unspoken question. "Wait. I need to be certain of … of ..." She lunged up and put her mouth on his. Again a little shiver occurred, feeling her body automatically mold up against his again against her will. "Oh, my … like two Science 101 lab magnets…" she whispered. He noticed her eyes dilated, as she pushed a folded note she had written earlier in his hand, and moved away.

  "Yes!" she said almost breathless.

  “Huh?” he said still dizzy from the kiss.

  "I'll be ready at 8 – And … no, it was NO mistake!" She spun around and went inside.

  "What …?" What did she mean? He stood there staring at her door and realized he was already in love with this girl. He had been for a couple of months … the girl of his dreams! In the car he unfolded the note she had written earlier:

  I hope tonight is not a MISTAKE, I mean, Do I really KNOW you?? But, Thank You for asking me out. Looking ahead to having a pleasant time at dinner! --Callie.

  At the bottom was a small artistic heart with a tiny star in its middle.

  The next morning he was there at her house before 8 AM to pick her. To his surprise, she was standing inside looking through the front window waiting on him. Coming outside she gave him her brilliant smile. This always made his heart skip a beat.

  "Hey, sweet girl. You must be hungry; I didn't have to wait for you like for other girls. Ha!"

  "Not all girls are the same, you know." She tried to cover up her little shiver again.

  "No, you're right." He spoke in a more serious tone, "Callie, you're like no one else. You're one of the EXTRA special ones that are so hard to find." She beamed a smile at him.

  "Naw. I'm not that special. A dime-a-dozen type of girl."

  "WHAT? No way! Not in a million years!" he said pausing to be drawn into the beauty of her eyes.

  He noticed how they sparkled today. They always did when there was an eye connection between the two of them.

  She got a quizzical look on her face and stared at him. "Why do I feel so at ease with you? Are you sure we weren't dating before and I just woke up from a coma and found you again?"

  "Nope. No previous dating, no coma, no UFO abduction, just a dream of mine."

  Her giggle made her face glow.

  The following day their breakfast was quiet and warm and relaxed, sharing things about themselves like at the restaurant the night before. They talked more about growing up, their home life, and learning more and more about each other.

  “Gosh, Dan. It feels good now knowing so much about each other.”

  “Well, I didn’t tell you everything about myself.”

  “Oh.” Her face dawned a worried look for a moment.

  “I, uh, forgot to tell you one more thing about myself…what kind of toothpaste I use.” Her mouth flew open in protest as she poked a finger into his belly. Their laughter was smothered in a warm hug.

  Afterward, they walked to a park across the street from the coffee shop. It was picturesque with well-tended flower gardens. A large stately fountain stood in the middle overflowing with crystalline water. She seemed to be more comfortable with him with every passing minute. She had started looking at him differently than she had the night before, and now clung to his hand every time he was near. Indeed, it felt like they had been together for a long time. They stopped at one end under a large tree in a more secluded area and he turned to her. She got right up to him.

  "Callie, last night when you said something about 'having to be certain' about something, you know? Then you kissed me and ran inside. What did you mean?"

  Her eyes softened as she took a deep breath and looked into his eyes. "It meant that I don't know what to make of all this that's happened. It meant that you have my head and my heart spinning." Then in a softer voice, "and now that we know so much more about each other, it means that …" She looked down and seemed to shake her head. "It means, God help me, I've… I've fallen in love with you!" She looked like she didn't mean to say that out loud.

  His eyebrows shot up as his breath caught in his throat.

  "Oh no," she blurted out. Her face was crestfallen as she dropped his hand and stepped back. "Dan, did I just scare you away?"

  "FINALLY!" he exclaimed with a huge grin.

  "What?"

  "I've been in love with you for a couple of months and realized it just yesterday! Yes, I was in love with you even before we met! Remember, I dreamed you up? Go figure THAT one out!" He put his hands on her waist. "I've been waiting for you to come around. And waiting … and waiting ..."

  She put her arms around his neck and purred, "Well wait no more 'cause here I am." She gave a little giggle just before their lips met. She molded herself into him with a deep searing kiss. This time, she was not alarmed at the passion that burned between them. Long minutes passed as their bodies seemed to fuse together before they remembered they were in a public park. Sparks were practically jumping between the two.

  "Um, what now 'girl of my dreams'? Answer quickly, before I need to jump into that fountain to cool off!" he said somewhat breathless. Her eyes sparkled brighter than ever as she caught her breath and pondered the question.

  "What now?” They were still pressed up against each other. “Well, Mr. Dreamer, we, uh, we could ... um…" She paused.
"Or we could ... or maybe …" she stumbled on.

  "How about this," he interrupted her cute ranting. "We could go to my place … or ... we could just go to, uh, my place? " She gave him her cute little smirk of a smile. "… And we can celebrate our discovering each other, over a little wine and pretzels perhaps?"

  "Let's see. I pick ..." she paused and looked upward for effect. "I pick YOUR place."

  "Good choice," he mumbled against her lips.

  After another hot deep kiss that seemed to cross over yet another line, they raced to his car.

  Hours later they clung to each other in bed with the sweet sensation of naked skin against each other. He stroked her back while she tickled his hair at the back of his neck. He had grown to love her fingers tickling at the hairline. His hands wandered everywhere, caressing as he went along. He was exploring her exquisite beauty---beauty beyond belief. She too had explored all of him. Soon they reignited each other with their caresses and once again made love, slowly, deliberately, sweetly.

  Afterward, they basked at length in the sweet afterglow. She raised herself up on one elbow and looked at him like she was getting ready to make an announcement. "Hey, my Dreamer" she purred into his smile.

  His hand floated to her soft behind. "Hay is for horses."

  "Yes, well, can I start calling you Danny? I happen to like that name."

  "You can call me whatever you want, just so you call me when you want a kiss!"

  She giggled at his corniness. "Okay, Danny. I just wanted to let you know that, for starters, no guy has ever seen me completely naked, and made me feel comfortable like you have. And I want to say you have made me the happiest I have EVER been. I'm about to explode with it! I never knew it could be like this." She radiated with it.

  "Well, then we will explode together. Callie … my dreams about you were ... were incredible. And yet, compared to the real you, the dreams were like nothing … like a vapor; they had no substance. You, my darling, are the REAL thing. You take my breath away. You have pulled the rug out from under me. I have never been so in love with anybody. You are, in fact, my dream-come-true."

  Her eyes moistened. She squeezed herself against his chest and rested there for a while. "My dreamer…I don't want this to end … ever."

  "Not ever," he echoed. After a long pause: "Imagine the news commentator on TV saying: ' Lovers found clinging to each other in bed, starved to death. It took several pathologists hours to untangle them. Film at 11' ".

  "Silly boy." She giggled and gave her little funny smile. She batted her eyelashes with exaggeration at him. "You know, um, I guess we haven't committed to anything permanent here. But when you decide that you, um, want to find the right girl to actually marry, I might still be available. Well, perhaps I might be. Not sure. Maybe."

  "Well, if I were looking for a girl to settle down with and actually marry what kind of girl would I pick ... let's see. You know, recently I saw an attractive redhead at school who approached me and batted her eyelashes at me and..."

  "That would be my friend Rhonda!"

  "Um, well, she didn't ring my chimes. But then I met this other girl. An extraordinary brunette. One with gorgeous green eyes that I could get lost in, and a dazzling smile. She had gorgeous skin and a figure that would stop traffic. And she's smart as a whip, and she's an exceptional artist. Did I mention she was gorgeous? Yes, now that one might do as a choice for me. OH, WAIT ... HERE SHE IS!"

  "Yes, naked and in bed with you!" she giggled.

  "Callie, you had me ‘at hello' as they say, and while dressed even!"

  She just stared at him with sleepy bedroom eyes, smiling brilliantly.

  Then in a whisper, he told her, "Yes, I pick you, baby … my honey, my dream girl. I'll pick you EVERY time!" They hugged and played and caressed each other until they reignited their passion yet again.