by Unknown
Something besides her patient.
Reggie opened her eyes to mere slits. Dawn had finally broken and a dismal grey light eked through the window slats to her right. That pervasive, antiseptic stench so typical of hospitals filled her nose. Caught her off guard.
Sorrow welled but she pulled a breath in through her mouth and pushed the sadness back into its tight, small rock at the center of her stomach.
She knew better. Knew she had to keep her defenses strong around her in the hospital.
That she was way too vulnerable.
“Who are you?” A man’s deep voice came from across the room. “What are you doing here?”
Startled, she blinked once then straightened. The thin blanket she’d held to her chin pooled in her lap. “You.”
Ah, hell. Mouth engaged before her brain. Again.
But that voice. She knew that voice, had heard it only a few hours ago. The stranger in Lee’s dream. Heat flooded her cheeks.
The very sexy stranger in Lee’s dream.
“I’m sorry. Who did you say you were?” Wide awake now, she planted her feet on the floor and lifted her chin as she stared across the dim room at the man standing on the other side of Lee’s bed.
The stranger’s eyes narrowed.
Pity, that. In the gloomy landscape of Lee’s sleep world, this man’s eyes had been dark but without color. Here, in spite of the greyness of the morning, those eyes radiated a startling blueness. Cornflower blue, maybe. Deep. Nothing icy about that blue. Except maybe their expression.
That was icy. Cold.
“I asked first.” His mouth, such a firm and kissable mouth, drew down in a frown.
“Did you now?” Lord, she needed to corral her thoughts. “Considering you woke me from a sound sleep, you’ll have to forgive me.”
Those gorgeous eyes narrowed more. Definite frost.
Maybe she shouldn’t taunt him. After all, she had the advantage here. He hadn’t been cloaked in the sleep world. She’d seen exactly who he was, what he was made of, and that he was no danger to Lee. A protector. A guardian of sorts. Her gaze flicked to his broad shoulders. She had a weakness for strong shoulders.
“Do I know you?” His hands settled on his hips.
Tread carefully here. “I’d remember you if we’d met.”
With a quick glance at Lee’s still form, the man moved around the bed to stand less than a foot from her. “Same here.”
She swallowed once. Not a threat, remember? Yeah, she’d keep telling herself that. The stranger wasn’t a threat. Unless she counted the, ah, way her body responded when his hand had waved through the mist she camouflaged herself with. That could prove to be an issue, now that he’d materialized in the flesh.
“How did you get past the guard?” He scanned her face, her body, the touch of his gaze left heat in its wake. “You’re a nurse? Lee’s nurse?”
Definite threat. Her cheeks flushed but she shook her head. “How do you know Lee?”
“I’m a friend.” His hands again settled on his hips. “You?”
“Anesthesiologist.”
“Lee’s?”
Why did that question feel so weighted? Like, maybe, answering would set things in motion she didn’t want set in motion? “Yes.”
“You’re here in his room, why?” That frown deepened. “Isn’t that taking patient care a bit far?”
And there it was, the reason she needed to tread so carefully, especially with this man. “Some patients get under your skin. Lee’s one of them.”
“That’s the only reason?”
“That’s not enough?” Ire tightened in her chest.
“Seems odd. For a nurse who simply administers anesthesia.”
“If I were a nurse, I would be an anesthetist. And there’s no simple about it, for me or an anesthetist.” Lord, she needed to get a handle on her temper. “Mr. Lee’s friend.”
His mouth twitched.
Her own eyes narrowed. With him towering above her, she was at a definite disadvantage. Her standing wouldn’t help much, considering how tall he was and the fact she was on the shorter side. Dammit. “What the hell is your name?”
“Cliff Braxton.” The corners of those cornflower blue eyes crinkled. “And yours would be?”
“Regina LeFleur. Reggie.” She stuck out a hand and his swamped hers. Awareness flooded her senses, wrapped her in its heat.
Those gorgeous eyes widened. “You.”
Shit. Busted.
Cliff leaned against the hospital wall outside the ladies bathroom.
Reggie had escaped in there shortly after the changing of the guard outside Lee’s room, which happened moments after she’d offered him her hand and he’d gotten another shock.
Twice in one day.
But curvy, sexy little Reggie had some explaining to do and he wasn’t leaving until he had answers.
The bathroom door eased open and she stood there in her bright pink scrubs. She must have run a comb through her now tamed hair, but he kind of liked it messy. Like when she’d first woken in that chair. He doubted she was even thirty, but there were a multitude of white strands threaded through all those shades of brown and black, giving her hair the look of dark smoke surrounding her pixie face.
Dark mist.
His mouth tightened but he worked his jaw to loosen it. “Coffee?”
She shrugged a shoulder but her dark, nearly black eyes held his gaze. “Since you’re obviously not going away, why not?”
“You got that right.” He touched her arm, intending to guide her down the hall. Heat sparked under his fingertips, like embers flaring underneath his skin.
She flinched and dropped her gaze.
“Reggie?”
“Just don’t touch me, not now, okay?”
“All right.” He curled his fingers into his palm. Another mystery added to the growing list surrounding this woman. “How about breakfast to go with that coffee?”
“Sure.” She moved away from him, down the hall, in what he presumed was the direction of the hospital cafeteria.
He followed, nodded once at the guard outside of Lee’s room. Lee was physically safe and this guard would alert him if anything changed. Why hadn’t the earlier guard told him Reggie was in that room? Had she been in there when the guard came on duty?
Lots of questions.
The cafeteria was small, like the hospital itself, and he and Reggie ordered, collected their food and coffee then settled at a small table in the far corner. Away from everyone else, where they’d be able to talk without being overheard.
“Is Lee going to make it?”
Across from him, Reggie pushed scrambled eggs around her plate with her fork but wouldn’t meet his gaze. “I hope so.”
“But?”
She looked at him, away, then met his gaze again. “He has to fight. He has to want to make it. Neither of us can give him that. It has to come from inside himself.”
“Is that why you were inside his dream? To help him fight?”
Her eyes closed and she wet her lips.
God save him, but he couldn’t tear his gaze from the tip of her tongue. From her mouth.
“What were you doing there?”
There? His gaze flicked to hers. Right. There. Inside the dream. “Looking for answers. For who did this to him.”
She nodded.
At least she wasn’t going to try and pretend she hadn’t been there. “Any ideas?”
“No.” She took a bite of the eggs.
With his elbows on the table he pushed his own plate forward then cupped his hands around his coffee cup. “Why were you there, Reggie?”
“He’s my patient.”
“You enter all your patient’s dreams?”
Her gaze again flicked to his then back to her plate. “No.”
“But he got under your skin.” A faint spurt of jealousy flared in hot pricks across his chest. His fingers tightened on the cup. What the hell did he care if Lee meant something to her?
She pulled in a deep breath through her mouth then glanced around the cafeteria before meeting his gaze. “Can we go somewhere else to talk about this? Any place but here.”
“Any place but here as in this room, or as in this hospital?”
“Hospital.”
“Sure. We can go for a drive, if you’d like. A walk in the park I spotted across the street. Or –”
She pushed back her chair and stood. “How about your place?”
Air left his lungs in one swoop. “Reggie, you don’t know me –”
“I actually know you better than you think.” Her breath in short, shallow gasps, she balled her hands into fists over her stomach. “I’m not talking about jumping you. I need to be away from here. Now, please.”
He studied her pale face for a fraction of a moment. “Let’s go.”
I’m not talking about jumping you. So why was that all she could think about now, confined in Cliff’s low slung, sexy as hell, sleek convertible Jaguar? Even with the top down, a cool breeze lifting her hair from her face, his presence filled the car, his earthy scent fueling her fantasies and that firm shoulder less than a few inches from her. So close she could rest her head against him. Rub her cheek over the soft material of his T-shirt.
Whoa.
Heat radiated up her neck, across her cheeks. No rubbing. No leaning.
So he was the first person, other than the actual dreamer, she’d shared a dream with. That didn’t mean he was anything special. Or unique. All it meant was that he was her first dream sharer. Partner.
Oh Lord, but she was in trouble here.
Maybe she should’ve stayed at the hospital.
Phantom whiffs of antiseptic clogged her senses, tightened her chest. Okay, maybe not. She ran her hands through her hair, linked her fingers behind her head.
“Reggie?” Cliff’s voice vibrated its way through her body, hit little pockets of desire that threatened to swell and consume her.
Such a damn, bad idea.
“The difference between an anesthetist and an anesthesiologist, you’re an actual doctor, aren’t you?”
Her fingers tightened behind her neck and her gaze flicked towards him of its own accord. Where was he going with this? “Yes.”
“But hospitals seem to make you sick.” He met her gaze for a brief second then he refocused on the road.
Small favors.
“Or am I mistaken?”
No, but how much did she want to share with this virtual stranger? She pressed her elbows together to hide her face then gave up and shook her hands out before folding them in her lap. “You’re not mistaken.”
She doubted he made many mistakes. At least not that kind.
Another of those quick, side glances from him had the heat in her cheeks spreading. She angled her head to stare out at the passing scenery. They’d left the confines of town a few miles back. Now, rolling hills stretched as far as she could see. “Where do you live?”
“Not far from here. On a few acres my mother left me.”
“So you are a local.”
“Of a sort. My job involves a lot of travel, so I’m not around much. Lee’s more of a local than I’ve ever been. And he’s only lived here a few years.” He tapped a tempo on the steering wheel with his thumb. “Reggie, I can take you back to the hospital. Or anywhere else you want to go.”
“Scared of me?”
“Excuse me?” The tapping stopped.
“I know it’s weird, but I know I’m actually safe with you. But maybe you’re not so safe with me.”
“Really? And what is it I have to fear from you?”
Stupid game she was playing here, but it beat talking about the hospital. He definitely tripped her trigger. And he wouldn’t hurt her. Not physically. She angled her head so she could gaze at him from under lashes without actually facing him. Her lips tilted in a semblance of a smile.
“Reggie, whatever’s going on in that sly mind of yours, stop.”
She frowned, let her mouth form a pout.
“That’s a good look for you, but no.”
“Excuse me?”
He swung the car into a left turn off the main road then a right and pulled the vehicle under a trio of trees whose leaves had just begun to unfurl. Pale, weak morning sunlight filtered through the branches. With the gear shifter in park, his seatbelt off and an arm looped over the steering wheel, he turned to her. “We’re away from the hospital. Away from eavesdroppers. Talk to me.”
Her gaze caught in his, she opened her mouth to deny but then shut it again. Tight.
“Fact number one. You’re a Dreamwalker.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“Glare at me all you want. That’s one hard to deny considering I saw you.”
“That makes you a Dreamwalker, also, doesn’t it?” Dreamwalker. Not something she’d heard before, but appropriate. And it didn’t freak him out. At least not in any way that mattered.
He nodded one time. “Fact number two. You’re a doctor, but hospitals make you ill.”
She slid her gaze away.
“Why, Reggie? What is it that connects those two facts?”
Under her lashes she saw the hand he reached out curl into a fist rather than touch her. She swallowed once. “Tell me who you are, first. How is it that you can enter Lee’s dream like that? Why did you think you might find clues there and why does Lee have a guard on his door, a guard who isn’t from this area?”
Cliff drummed his thumb against the steering wheel again. He wiped his other hand over his mouth and chin. “All right. Me first.”
She lifted her head and met his gaze. Her breath caught at the darkness swirling inside those eyes.
“Lee and I are both part of an elite, psychic agency. Detectives. We work in tandem with several governmental agencies.”
Say what? She blinked once. “You’re a psychic crime fighter?”
“You asked.”
“That wasn’t quite the answer I expected.” She undid her seatbelt then twisted to better face him and pulled her left leg under her for comfort. “And you’re not full of shit, either.”
His turn to frown as light flickered across the intense blue of his eyes. “How do you know I’m not?”
She waved a hand. “I just do.”
“The same way you know I won’t hurt you?”
“Yes.”
“Your turn.”
“Wait a damn minute. You drop a bomb like that and expect me to just move on, to start talking about myself?”
“You said yourself that I’m not full of shit. Your turn.”
“Fine. I’ve never heard of Dreamwalkers before, but I’ve always been able to enter other people’s dreams. Talk to them. As far back as I can remember. Now you. Why was Lee shot?”
“Not sure. We’re hoping it’s wrong place, wrong time. But until he can talk to us, we have little to go on. Why were you in Lee’s dream?”
“Because he needed an anchor.” And that’s who she was, what she did. Her chin lifted. Let him make what he wanted of that. “Your turn.”
“Back up.” Cliff glanced out his windshield then back at her. “An anchor. During surgery? Or afterwards?”
The man was sharp. Probably why he scared her so badly. A fear that had nothing to do with her physical safety. “Both.”
“You’re more than a simple anesthesiologist.”
“What did I tell you about the word simple?”
“In this case, it’s appropriate. Reggie, are you –” His mouth closed and his lips thinned.
Okay, here comes the disapproval. The censure. The fear of who she was and what she was capable of doing.
“When you said Lee needed an anchor, you held him here, didn’t you? You anchored him to this plane while he was on the operating table, didn’t you? And afterwards, you were in his dreams to monitor, to keep him anchored.”
Her chin up, she held Cliff’s troubled gaze.
“Reggie, that –”
“I don’t want to h
ear it.” She held a hand up between them and angled her head away to stare out the windshield. “I don’t need to hear it. You won’t be saying anything I haven’t heard before.”
“Who knows you’re capable of this?” The quiet firmness in his voice pulled her gaze back to his. “Reggie, you do this on a regular basis?”
She shook her head. “What Lee needed was more than I normally do, it’s just that sometimes there are those who need something, someone, to hang on to, and it’s really not that many. They never actually remember me.”
“How does it work?”
She sighed and settled a shoulder against her seat. “For the most part, it’s little more than easing their minds as they go under. Like a soothing massage. Just a mental stroke or two of it’ll be fine, relax.”
“And when that isn’t enough?”
“I let them hold on to me. To focus on me, my essence, rather than what’s happening to them.”
“If they don’t remember, who was it that gave you grief about doing this?”
Damn him for being so sharp. “My grandfather.”
“His problem with it?”
She wet her lips. “That I’m messing with their free will.”
“What do you think?”
“I’m not coercing anyone. I’m simply giving them an anchor. Their choice whether they use it or not.”
“You can’t convince your grandfather of that?”
“No. He’s –” Dammit all to hell. She wiped the back of her hand across her cheek. “Gone.”
Silence stretched.
Dammit all to hell and back again. “He was involved in a terrible accident. I met the ambulance at the hospital. Not to work on him, but because he was my grandfather.”
She so wasn’t going to shed more tears over that old bastard.
“They let me see him for a moment before they wheeled him into surgery. I brushed his hair back from his face. He looked so frail. So battered. I didn’t mean to –” She scrubbed the heel of her palm over her cheek. “I guess I must have reached out to him, connected. His eyes flashed open and there was such anger there. Seriously pissed doesn’t cover it. He shoved me out, slammed a door. I swear I heard a lock slam home. They took him into surgery. Those were the longest hours of my life. I paced between the operating room and the waiting area. I couldn’t reach him. I could no longer connect. And we’d always had a thing, you know? A mental connection. But he –”