In Your Dreams

by Gina Ardito

  Nicole moaned, and a solitary tear slipped from one eye to wet her cheek.

  “Don’t let today’s pain condemn all your tomorrows, Nicole. Wake up. Don’t sacrifice yourself and your mom because of a couple of louts who will mean nothing to you a year or two from now. Fight back. They stole your dignity. Take it back. Don’t let them steal your future, too...”

  Meanwhile, on the other side of the desk, for Isabelle, the third time was the charm. When her phone rang again, Pamela Zuniga grabbed her cell, punched the button, and growled loud enough for Xavia to hear through the clipboard, “Who the fuck is this?”

  Isabelle got right to the point. “Call 911 and go into your garage. Now. Nicole’s trying to kill herself in there.” She paused only long enough to make sure Pamela was awake enough to understand the warning, then hung up.

  Sure enough, within seconds, while Xavia kept coaxing Nicole back to life, Pamela appeared in the garage. “Nicole!”

  Chapter 12

  “You’re a hero, Belle. Or I guess, in your case, a heroine.”

  “I prefer the term, ‘super goddess,’ if you don’t mind.” She snuggled against Sean on the plush couch and watched firelight dance shadows over the hard lines of his face, in such contrast with his starlit eyes. This time, he’d brought her to a winter wonderland. She’d barely hung up the phone before he whisked her to this quiet, rustic ski chalet. Outside, snow swirled while she and he stayed warm and cozy together. The two of them. Together. Alone. Romantic—in a weird kind of way.

  “Super goddess, huh? What does that require? A cape and a halo?”

  “A cape, a halo, and a super god by her side. You interested in becoming my sidekick?”

  “Maybe.”

  “We make a great team,” she said with an enticing lilt. “Don’t you think this is kind of like...fate? Like, I don’t know…I’m the Pepper to your Iron Man-slash-Tony Stark persona. Maybe I’m supposed to keep helping you with these cases of yours. I could be your official liaison with the living.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “That’s a great idea, but I’m not so sure the Elders will see it that way. In fact, I bet I’m going to be in a heap of trouble after this interlude is over. Maybe even before. So if I leave here suddenly, without warning, don’t be afraid, okay? It just means I’ve been called up to face the penalty for my actions.”

  “Why should you be penalized?” Peeved on his behalf, she sat up straight and screwed up her face. “We saved that poor girl’s life. Isn’t that what’s important?”

  “Somehow, I don’t think the Elders are going to be too thrilled that I involved you, an attempted suicide offender, to save another attempted suicide offender.”

  “You know,” she retorted, narrowing her eyes at him, “under normal circumstances, I’d kick your ass over that whole ‘attempted suicide offender’ moniker you’ve tagged me with, but I’m more concerned that you think you’re going to get in trouble for saving a teenaged girl’s life. Which, by the way, is ridiculous. All you hafta do is tell them the truth. I was around, and I could do what you couldn’t. It’s not like I was your first choice, right? I mean, you tried other options before you contacted me. But it’s because of my phone call that Nicole Zuniga is alive and will get the treatment she needs.” She thumped her chest. “Because of me. For the first time in my life, I really feel like I made a difference to somebody. And no invisible ‘Board’ is going to take that away from me.”

  The wood popped, and a spark flew. Startled, she flinched.

  “Easy, tiger,” he crooned and, with a low laugh, gathered her closer against his chest. “I got you.”

  Yeah, he did. More than he realized. She shook off the crazy thought that she might be falling for her guardian angel. Stick to the topic, babycakes. You’re much safer there.

  “One thing bothers me,” she said. “How come your boss didn’t just call Nicole herself? I mean, why’d she have to drag you in to help that poor girl—and then you had to call me? Not that I’m angry about it or anything. I’m glad I could help, but...why’d she need us?”

  “Because communication between her and any of her cases is much more limited than what I have with you.”

  “You were telling me about that on Rodeo Drive. Remember? When I was trying on shoes?”

  His forehead pleated. “Yeah, but there’s more to the story than what I told you then. It’s strange. Everyone else in my department is limited to communicating with their offenders through dreams—only dreams. Meaning, the offenders have to be asleep. As far as I know, you’re the first person to ever sense one of us is around when you’re awake—and to address that fact. And I’m the first officer to physically leave my realm to come to yours. To be touched by someone and feel that touch. Apparently, the bond you and I share is unique.”

  Unique. What exactly did that mean? What made them so special? Could it be love? Oh, Jeez, she was seriously jumping the gun here. But then again, her experience with true love was nil. Carlo had never really loved her—she saw that now. For her part, she’d only been infatuated—and not even with him. With the idea of him. She’d been in love with love, not her husband. Big difference.

  She glanced upward at Sean. What kind of experience did he have with love? Probably a helluva lot more than she did.

  “Sean? Have you ever been in love?”

  He didn’t answer at first, and Isabelle mentally prepared herself to hear he’d left a wife and six kids behind on Earth, and he couldn’t wait until they were all reunited.

  “I don’t think so,” he said at last, and she had to stifle her sigh of relief. “Not in my last lifetime anyway. I was engaged in another life, but I don’t remember any of the details.”

  “I don’t really understand love,” she admitted. “I thought I did. I mean, I look at Justin and Tony, and the love between them is so obvious—so palpable—it hurts. You know? I don’t think anyone’s ever loved me like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like…I don’t know. It’s not so much that Justin would lay down his life for Tony and vice-versa. I mean, I know they each would. But the loss of one partner would totally devastate the other. Me? I’ve always been…replaceable. God knows, no one who proclaimed they loved me has ever held me in higher regard than everyone else. When push came to shove, my mother chose my stepfather, Carlo ran off with a younger version, all my so-called ‘devoted’ fans have long forgotten me.” He started to say something, but she put her fingers to his lips to halt the argument. “I’m not feeling sorry for myself; I’m just stating fact. It would be nice to know someone loved me unconditionally, no matter what dumb thing I did, what careless remark I made, whether or not I had money or clout. Not like the way Justin and Tony love me—in a friendship way. But how they love each other—in a romantic way. I want someone who values me for who I am, not what I can give him. Someone who guards my heart and places his in my hands for safekeeping.”

  The wood popped again, as if even the fire scoffed at her childish dreams. “Forget it.” She shook her head. “I’m not making sense. Forget I said anything.”

  He didn’t reply right away, but his fingers twirled in her hair. Funny. He seemed to know exactly what to do to make her comfortable, to make her feel loved.

  “First of all,” he said while his fingers tunneled through her hair to massage her scalp, “there is nothing about you that’s replaceable. Would I be working so hard to convince you to stay alive if you weren’t special? Trust me when I say, you have a lot to offer the world and the right man who’s lucky enough to discover you. Just because no one—including you—has figured that out yet doesn’t make you unworthy of love. If I were alive, I’d haunt you more than I do now. I’d spend every second of my life marveling at your courage, your wit, your enormous heart. Stay alive, sweetheart, and find the love that was meant to be yours.” He kissed the place where his fingers had traveled. “And secondly, for the record, I l—”

  Poof! Isabelle woke in her room. The chalet, th
e fire, and the man of her dreams were all gone.

  Alone in the dark, she rolled over and stared at the silken swaths overhead. What had he been about to say? And why had he disappeared at that precise moment? Was he going to tell her he loved her? And had the powers-that-be stopped him for some reason? Or had they dragged him back to face punishment for interfering with Nicole Zuniga? If so, what kind of punishment would he be forced to endure?

  Her mind pictured his beautiful face surrounded by burning flames, and she shivered.

  No, she told herself. Sean had insisted there was no hell.

  She glared at the canopy as if she could see through the fabric, past the roof, beyond the sky, to the invisible beings who held his fate in their hands. “He’s mine, you know,” she said with fervor. “And if you hurt him, I will never forgive you.”

  ~~~~

  Sean landed back with Xavia in her office in time to hear their clipboards buzzing in unison. He looked up into her triumphant eyes and grinned. “Well, that didn’t take long, did it? Ready to face the firing squad?”

  She clutched his wrist within her cranberry-painted talons. “If they threaten you, Sean, I want you to blame me. You hear? Don’t play good guy cop, okay? This was my case, my idea. You were following my lead. You assumed this kind of ‘consultation’ between me and my staff happened all the time. You get me?”

  Prying her grasp from his arm, he clucked his tongue. “Forget it, Xavia. I told you before. We’re in this together.”

  “And I told you, I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

  He folded his arms over his chest and shot his weight to one hip. “Too late.”

  Her exasperation exploded in a heavy exhale. “Stubborn ass.”

  “Back atcha, babe.”

  The clipboards buzzed again, angrier than a swarm of hornets, and with enough energy to shoot across the desktop.

  After tucking the two obnoxious devices under one arm, Sean held out his hand to Xavia. “You ready?”

  Grim determination hardened the sparkle in her eyes to a harsh glint. “Let’s go.”

  They transformed into twin lightning forks and landed side by side in the Welcome Center, outside the closed doors of the auditorium. Sherman, spirit guide to the lost of the Afterlife, stood there, a glorified theater usher garbed in his traditional white and gold braid uniform.

  “I don’t know what you did,” he greeted them in a harsh whisper, “but the Board is livid. The Elders are in there, shouting at each other. Shouting! In all my time here, I’ve never seen them so worked up.”

  “Yeah, well, Xavia and I have never worked together before,” Sean replied, kicking an imaginary pebble with a booted toe. “What can I say? When we put our heads to it, we can create magic.”

  “Uh-huh.” Sherman opened the door and waved an arm in a flourish. “Go on in, magical ones. They’re waiting for you.”

  Sean crossed the threshold at Xavia’s side and stifled a flinch when the doors snicked closed behind them. The empty seats poked the usual annoyance in him, and the long walk up the carpeted aisle—meant, he was certain, to intimidate—only gave him time to form cohesive arguments for the battle to come.

  For her part, Xavia maintained a Queen of the Amazons posture: head high, eyes staring straight ahead. Each step she took forward was a graceful glide. Only the tremors bouncing off her aura belied her composed exterior. “You okay?”

  “Yup,” she murmured in a voice laced with iron. “Just another day in paradise. Let’s do this.”

  Up ahead, ten of the council members sat at a long glossy table. On each side of the aisle stood the other two, Verity on Sean’s side, and he assumed the bulk of Egyptian on Xavia’s side was her Elder Counselor. What was his name again? Something with a U. Ukiah? Eureka? Something like that.

  “Sean.” Verity’s disapproving tone brought his attention to her lovely face lined in worry. “Come with me, please.”

  “Xavia.” The Egyptian’s voice thundered with the force of a sonic boom. “You chose your own ending. Again.”

  Oh, the hell with this. “Why?” Sean whirled on the glowering tower of outrage. “She saved a girl’s life. Why would that kind of success be a disappointment to anyone? Isn’t that what she’s supposed to do? Prevent another person from winding up here, serving you and the auspicious Board?”

  While Mr. Big glared through obsidian eyes, Verity placed a hand on his sleeve. “Sean. Don’t. Allow Uriah to handle Xavia while you and I talk.”

  “You and Uriah can go to hell,” he replied then looked up at the panel of timeless bastards on the platform. “You can all go to hell.”

  “Sean, that will do.”

  He turned to Verity, all respect gone. “You’re not my mother, Verity. No matter how you try to emulate her, you’ll never be her.”

  “Enough.” She barely finished the word before the auditorium disappeared, replaced with the Bensonhurst kitchen setting of his childhood. This time in an act of pure insolence, he sat in his father’s chair. And plopped his booted feet, crossed, on top of the table. He only wished mud existed in the Afterlife to drop onto the scrubbed Formica. His mother wouldn’t approve, but since she wasn’t here…

  “You disappoint me, Sean,” Verity said with a frown.

  “The feeling’s mutual.”

  She sighed and took the seat beside him, staring openly at his feet, but saying nothing.

  Fine. He’d open the discourse. Maybe throw her off-script. “Where’d Xavia go?”

  “She’s with her Elder Counselor, same as you.” Verity laced her fingers together and propped her chin on her clasped hands. “Do you know why you were summoned here?”

  Yeah, right. First rule of interrogation: let the perp fill in the blanks to figure out what he knew. Give him the rope to hang himself. Not gonna happen. Sean looked her dead in the eye—literally. “Nope. Not a clue.”

  Her fine eyebrows arched in twin half-moons. Picking up his clipboard from the table, she jerked her fingers in his direction. “Come closer. I want you to see something.”

  He shifted his legs to the floor and pulled the captain’s chair toward her. Onscreen, Xavia sat on a sunny flower-laden porch, steely-eyed and steely-boned, arms folded over her chest. “You told me you wanted me to get close to him. I assumed that meant being able to use whatever talents he had to my own advantage.”

  “You assumed no such thing,” a bass voice admonished. “You both knew you had no authorization for such an act. The two of you discussed which one would take the fall, if you were caught.”

  She glanced at her manicured nails. “So if you know all that, why ask me? Seems like you already have the answers. Forget the interrogation. If you’re going to punish me, go ahead. I saved that child’s life. Whatever you dish out to me was worth it.”

  Sean looked up. “Hey. What does she mean about getting close to me?”

  “Never mind that. Why did you do it, Sean?”

  “Do what?”

  “Use Isabelle Fichetti to interfere with Nicole Zuniga’s attempted suicide.”

  “To save a life. What would you have me do? Sit there and watch that poor kid sleep herself here when Isabelle could make a phone call and change her fate?”

  “Your sensory link with Miss Fichetti was not intended for that purpose.”

  Ah, so there really was an intention behind his screwy circuitry. Score another point for his suspicious nature. “Then, what was the purpose?”

  “You’ll find that out in time.”

  Bastards. Still keeping secrets, still manipulating souls. When Sean thought back to all the times Luc had tried to tell him the Board was against them, not for them. How often he’d insisted the Elders set up tests for schmucks like them to fail. But, no. No matter how long he’d been here, Sean always wanted to believe his actions had merit, that what he did here mattered. If Luc were here now, he’d laugh so hard the walls would shake. Everything the Elders and the damned mysterious Board did was a test, a game where only they kne
w the rules. Luc had always known that. Sean had always debated. He was a naive fool.

  “Okay, then.” He leaned back in the chair, arms folded behind his head—as if he didn’t give a damn what she thought. Because, honestly? He didn’t. “Why did Xavia’s counselor tell her to get close to me?”

  “That, too, will be revealed in time.”

  They just had to keep pulling strings. He rose to his feet. “I guess we’re done here.”

  “Sit, Sean.”

  “No, thanks. I have to get back to Isabelle. Make sure she’s all right.”

  “Sit.” The single syllable, spoken in her usual mellifluous voice, commanded obedience.

  He sat.

  “Isabelle’s fine,” she told him after he’d complied. “Which is more than I can say for you at the moment.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Board has ruled that, in convincing Miss Fichetti to call Nicole’s mother, you showed a lack of responsibility to your offender. She is still too fresh from her own suicide attempt and could be susceptible to suggestion. By involving her in another offender’s case, you displayed a reckless disregard for her fragile nature.”

  Was that what the Board thought of Isabelle? That she was fragile? Ha. He’d have to tell her that next time they talked. She’d spit venom and blister the sidewalk.

  “Not to mention the obvious issues that might have arisen should she explain to anyone how she knew of Nicole’s situation,” Verity added, her lips twisting in a moue of distress. “We have, therefore, decided to restrict your access to her.”

  He stiffened. Now, she had his undivided attention. “In what way?”

  “In the same way as all other probation officers. Moving forward, we will expect you to limit your communication with her to the hours when she’s asleep. All mental telepathy will remain in her dreams. You will not leave this realm in order to spend time with her, no matter what the situation. Nor will you discuss with your offender what happens here or why you’re no longer able to come and go as you please. Is that understood?”