Never Alone (43 Light Street)

by Rebecca York

  “Beth, you’re all right. Take it easy.” Sam’s voice filtered into her consciousness. “It was just a dream.”

  She blinked. Just a dream? Was that all?

  One moment she had been standing with Cal on a beach. Now here she was in the bed where she’d gone to sleep. She remembered it all. The terrors of the jungle, Cal’s finding her, taking her to the other side of the wall where everything was different, where they’d made love.

  She ducked her head, unwilling to let the people around her see the expression that must be on her face. She imagined she looked astonished, vulnerable—and embarrassed.

  Grabbing the edge of the sheet, she clenched and unclenched her fingers. Lord, had she dreamed all that out of her wild imagination, because it was what she wanted so much? Or in some crazy way, had something real happened between her and Cal?

  She saw a flicker of movement and glanced up through her lashes to see a look pass between Hannah and the two men.

  Sam cleared his throat. “Uh, we came rushing in here to find out if you were okay,” Sam said. “We’ll clear out.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “I mean, thank you for being concerned.”

  Hannah waited until the door closed behind the men, leaving them alone. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  Beth pushed herself up. “I had a dream,” she said cautiously.

  “It sounded like you were in considerable distress,” Hannah said, her voice filled with concern. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  Beth knit her fingers together in her lap. “Distress,” she murmured. “I guess you could call it that. I was trying to get Cal to face reality and wake himself up, and he ran away from me. We were in a garden with a swimming pool. He dived into the pool and disappeared. I went in after him, but he was gone. Then we were standing on a beach, still arguing.”

  “That’s pretty upsetting, all right.”

  Beth kept her head bent. What if she explained that she wasn’t upset by a mere nightmare? What if she said that she was pretty sure what had happened between herself and Cal in the dream was just as real as the reality of his unconscious body lying down there in ICU.

  Her automatic reaction was that Hannah would think she was delusional, at best. Then she reminded herself that Hannah and Sam and Lucas weren’t like the people she had known all her life, the people who had thought she was cracked in the head because she had no control over the psychic experiences that ambushed her.

  Still, it was difficult to force the words out of her mouth. Finally she said in a rush, “Cal’s in a coma. When you look at him, it just seems like he’s unconscious. But his mind has gone somewhere—to a dreamworld where he’s living. Because of my…psychic abilities I was able to communicate with him. When I went to sleep I ended up in that world with him. He saved me from a dangerous animal in a jungle, then he took me into a walled estate with beautiful grounds, a summerhouse and the pool I told you about. We talked and…touched each other…” Beth stopped and swallowed. “Cal told me he doesn’t want to come back here. I think it’s partly because of me. He feels guilty about our relationship. I mean, he thinks we shouldn’t have gotten involved. It was all right for us to make love there, but back here, he thinks that his being attracted to me is wrong. Because he can’t make a commitment to me, he said. So that’s why he won’t wake up. His feelings are all tied up in knots so he bailed out.”

  Beth stopped abruptly, realizing that she’d given away far more than she’d intended and wishing she hadn’t said quite so much. Tension crackled through her as she waited for Hannah to say something.

  “You know, Cal’s mom left him and his father in the lurch. Cal’s dad did his best to raise him, and for the most part, he did a pretty good job. But Mr. Rollins’s own bad experience with marriage was the foundation for some of the attitudes he passed on to Cal. So I guess if he started falling for someone like you—someone who’s sweet and natural and honest without an ounce of guile—that would call into question all the rules he’s always relied on in his dealings with women who attracted him. I guess that would be hard for him to handle, all right. And maybe the only way he could cope would be to run away. The part I don’t like is that he’s using his medical condition as an excuse for not dealing with your relationship.”

  The unconditional acceptance of her story made Beth feel light-headed. “Then you believe me?” she whispered.

  Hannah gave her a frank look. “If somebody else told me that story, I’d have a lot of questions. From you, it makes sense.”

  “And you don’t think the coma is my fault?” Beth whispered.

  “Certainly not! You go down to ICU and tell that jerk that if he doesn’t come back to the world right now, you’re going to take a stick to his worthless hide.”

  “I can’t tell him anything. I can’t reach him—not from here.” She stopped, remembering something. “He said he had an urgent message for Luke. That someone named Sedgwick is in Baltimore. That he’s using the name Sierra. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “It certainly does! If I needed proof that you’d talked to Cal, you’ve just given it to me. Nobody knows about Sedgwick but the people close to me and Luke.”

  While Beth was taking that in, Hannah continued, “And that’s proof you can do something about Cal. You reached him when you went to sleep. You can do it again. And you’d better get on it, because I didn’t like what I heard in the last report from the doctor.”

  “He’s worse?” Beth breathed.

  “He’s the same. And the longer he stays that way, the more dangerous it is for him.”

  Beth pushed herself off the bed. There was no thought of protecting herself now, no thought of what anybody was going to say about her odd behavior. She didn’t even bother to put on her shoes as she dashed out of the room and made for the elevator.

  She arrived breathless at the door to the ICU, then stopped short, thinking that they’d throw her out if she came barreling in like a madwoman. After giving herself a minute to calm down, she pushed open the door and walked to Cal’s room.

  The nurse looked at her, and she knew by the woman’s face that she wasn’t expecting Cal to wake up any time soon—if at all.

  Ducking her head away, Beth tiptoed toward Cal’s bed. The sight of him lying there pale and still, surrounded by monitors and hospital equipment sent a jolt through her. When she had come to him in his fantasy world, he had wrapped his strong arms around her, kissed her, swept her away with his lovemaking. But that was only in his dream. This room was cold, sharp reality.

  She came to a stop beside the bed, looking down at him, struck by the sensation that she’d had the first time she’d seen him here: his body might be in this bed, but his mind was far away. And now she knew where he was. At least she had known, before he had plunged into the swimming pool and pulled her up onto the beach.

  Now he might be in some other place, farther away, where it was impossible for her or anyone else to reach him.

  Her heart squeezed painfully. Maybe he didn’t want her to find him, but she was damn well going to try.

  After pulling up a chair and sitting down, she reached out and laid her hands on his arm, the feel of his hair-roughened skin making her body throb as it brought back vivid memories of their lovemaking.

  Once again, she closed her eyes. Only this time she wasn’t lying in her bed alone. This time the connection between herself and Cal was physical.

  Once again, she was seized by a jolt of fear—fear of the unknown, fear of failure. Until she’d met Cal, she’d never deliberately tried to use her special abilities. She’d considered them a curse, and every time she’d succeeded in locking them away in some hidden part of her mind, so much the better. Now she was fumbling with the lock on that door, when she wasn’t even certain where she kept the key.

  She did know one thing for sure, though. She wanted desperately to reach Cal. The problem was, she didn’t know how she had done it before. Didn’t know how to accomplish that g
oal again. And there was one more terror as well. The idea of going back to that dark, dangerous jungle sent a wave of cold through her body. Cal had found her and rescued her but what if he didn’t come this time?

  She felt the cold fear penetrate all the way to the marrow of her bones, but she didn’t pull away—either physically or mentally.

  Teeth clenched, eyes squeezed closed, she tried to send her mind toward Cal’s.

  Cal, she called. Cal, where are you?

  He didn’t answer, yet she felt something. Some kind of barrier, too far for her to reach. Going there was impossible. But she would dare the impossible.

  She wasn’t conscious of falling asleep, only of images coming to her. The night sky, stars. At first they were above her. Then she wasn’t seeing them from the ground. She was up among them, flying through them, the wonder of it almost canceling out the cold and the terror.

  The stars stopped abruptly ahead of her, and she could see a massive barrier, a great dark wall, blocking out the light.

  “Go back!” Cal’s voice rang in her head. “You’ll be killed.”

  There was no way to stop. She was flying straight toward the wall, her speed and trajectory out of her control now. She braced for the impact, knowing that her body was going to smash against that solid barrier.

  Then at the last moment, she saw a tiny chink, a crack in the massive surface. With a little sob, she angled toward it, slipped through and found herself floating in bright turquoise water. In the swimming pool where she had followed Cal last time. Only the pool was much larger than it ever could have been. As large as the ocean. Cal was miles away, but he couldn’t hide from her.

  She swam toward him, kicking her feet, stroking with her arms, under the water like a fish with no need for air, moving impossibly fast, so that she caught up with him and clamped her hand on his arm.

  He turned, his face fierce. “Leave me alone.”

  “No.”

  They were both underwater and there should have been no way for either one of them to speak. But they did.

  “If you don’t come back, I’ll stay here with you.”

  His face contorted. “You can’t. You’ll die here.”

  “So will you, you bullheaded idiot. Is that what you want? To die here?” she screamed. “Are you a coward? Is that it? Did I finally figure out the secret of Calvin Rollins?”

  “I’m no coward. Don’t you dare call me that.”

  “What would you call it? You’re afraid to face me in the real world.”

  “Don’t let your head swell too much. It’s not just you. Do you think I want to come back and hear everybody talking about how I walked into an ambush like a rookie cop and got shot?”

  She stared at him incredulously. “Your macho pride is wounded? That’s why you can’t wake up, because you’re not living up to your male image?”

  His eyes were angry, defiant—and uncertain.

  She went with the uncertainty. “Prove you’re not a coward. Prove you’re not afraid to face your life,” she shouted.

  “I don’t have to prove a damn thing to you!”

  She reached out to give him a rough shake, the action muted by the water around them. But then, suddenly they were no longer in the water. She gasped and found herself back in the ICU, sitting beside Cal’s bed.

  She felt a jolt of sensation as she looked down into his face. His eyelids fluttered, opened. And he was staring at her, a stunned expression on his face. “Where am I? What happened?” he asked.

  “You’re in the hospital. You were shot.”

  “You and I—” He stopped, gave her a look that she felt over every inch of her body. And in that instant she knew he was remembering what had happened. Not just behind the wall in the sky but earlier, in the summerhouse on the wide bed.

  The expression on his face stopped her heart and then started it throbbing like a jungle drum.

  “You and I…we…made love.” He waited a beat before destroying her world. “That should never have happened.”

  That was what he thought about the most joyful experience of her life? That making love with her, even in his dream, had been a mistake?

  She felt an iron fist squeeze around her heart, cutting off her breath. Struggling to her feet, she barreled through the door of the ICU, and almost collided with Hannah and the two men standing there.

  As Hannah caught the expression on Beth’s face, her own skin went pale. “What happened?” she gasped. “Is Cal—”

  “He’s awake. I’m sure he’d like to see you,” she managed to say, then fled because she couldn’t face these three people who had been so kind to her over the past few days.

  SERIAL KILLER ARRESTED.

  Cal set down his spoon with a thunk on the kitchen table. As he stared at the stark black headline in the Baltimore Sun, he cursed. He had been on medical leave for a week, rattling around his house with nothing to do. So he’d slept in, fixed himself a bowl of cereal and gone outside to retrieve the morning paper around 11:00 a.m.

  Now he was hopping mad.

  Damn! Nobody had bothered to tell him they had the bad guy in custody. And it was his case, dammit. His case!

  But he knew why he was out of the loop. Because Patterson was giving vent to his ire. He supposed that was better than getting suspended, which would have been within the lieutenant’s rights.

  His heart was pounding as he focused on the text. The suspect was a little jerk named Wayne Jenkins, a guy who’d been teased and ridiculed by class members and had set about getting even. After the letters inviting everyone to the reunion committee had gone out, he’d been caught vandalizing the car of ex–football player Billy Nichols. Apparently he’d been charged with other acts of vandalism, too. And the tie-in to the killings was that he’d been spotted lurking in the parking lot of the Fairways Restaurant when the reunion committee had been meeting.

  Cal read more of the story. When he came to the part about Detective Calvin Rollins of the Howard County Police working undercover, posing as the husband of Beth Wagner, he blanched.

  How the hell had that piece of information gotten into circulation? Had Patterson let it out now that Jenkins was in custody?

  He picked up his cereal bowl, dumped the contents into the trash and reached for the phone.

  Patterson was busy, but Alex Shane, a fellow detective, was willing to fill him on the details. So far Jenkins hadn’t confessed. In fact, he was steadfastly maintaining his innocence regarding the murders, although he had refused to take a polygraph test.

  Still, Patterson was sure they had the right guy.

  Cal hung up the phone and sat staring into space, so many emotions coursing through him that he felt his head start to pound.

  Like Beth, he thought as he pressed his fingers to his throbbing temple. She got those damn headaches when she was having one of her psychic experiences.

  Ever since he’d awakened in the hospital with a jack-hammer pounding away in his head, he had tried not to think about Beth. But she kept stealing back into his mind.

  It was tempting to dismiss the dream experiences with her as just that—dreams. But he couldn’t. They were too real, too vivid.

  She’d saved his life. He had no doubt in his mind about that. She’d used the psychic powers she hated so much to pull him back to reality when he’d withdrawn into his little dreamworld where he could pretend any damn thing he wanted.

  And he’d thanked her by shoving her away, because he couldn’t deal with what had happened between them. Couldn’t deal with what he was still feeling. A gut-deep longing that he’d never felt before—coupled with the need to escape.

  He clenched his fists. He’d told her he was embarrassed about getting shot. That was the least of what had sent him running headlong from the real world. Mostly he’d tried not to think about the trick his unconscious mind had played on him. Now he was forced to confront his demons. He’d been worried about what he was doing to Beth, so he’d bailed out. And it hadn’t done him any dam
n good. Not with this article in the paper. Now his name was publicly linked to hers, in the most humiliating way possible.

  His fists clenched and unclenched. He couldn’t just sit here. He had to do something.

  Twenty minutes later, showered, shaved and wearing jeans, a dark T-shirt, and a light jacket to hide his shoulder holster, he was on his way to McKinley’s where it had all started—where Hallie Bradshaw was supposed to meet her friends for drinks after work.

  As he suspected, the lunchtime crowd was talking about the Baltimore Sun article. And as he waited for a table, he spotted Candy Marks and Donna Pasternack having lunch together. Donna had been the reunion committee organizer. Candy was the football player’s wife.

  She saw him and bent her head toward Donna. Moments later, they were both staring at him. Hands in his pockets, he sauntered over to their table.

  Donna pointed to an empty seat at their table. “Why don’t you join us. It’s Cal Rollins—not Roberts, isn’t it?”

  “Right,” he answered, accepting the invitation. Why not? He’d come here for information, and this was as good a way as any to get it.

  They asked him about Wayne Jenkins. He told them he was on medical leave and didn’t know any more than he’d read in the papers.

  “Medical leave? Were you injured by Jenkins at the reunion meeting?”

  “No. I got hurt on another case,” he answered, thinking that it was true. Just not another official case.

  “Well, it was very naughty of you not to tell us you were working undercover on a police investigation,” Donna said.

  “That’s the nature of undercover work,” he pointed out.

  “Um, yes. And now it makes better sense. We were all trying to figure out how Beth Wagner…uh, snagged a hunk like you for a husband.”

  He felt his stomach muscles clench. “Well, it’s true Beth and I weren’t married,” he heard himself saying. “She’s an old-fashioned girl, so I knew she wouldn’t be comfortable telling people she was living with me without benefit of marriage.”

  He saw Candy’s mouth drop open. “You mean the two of you really were living together?”