by MJ Rodgers
She let the water pound the grogginess out of her brain. By the time she had shampooed her hair and scrubbed the rest of her body, she felt that all vestiges of sleep had slipped away. She reached for a towel and blotted the water off her skin.
Now all she needed was to brush her teeth and hair and get dressed and she’d be ready to face the world, maybe even her three missing weeks of it.
At least that was what she told herself.
But the instant she glanced into the mirror, she knew she’d been wrong. Dead wrong.
Chapter Three
Michael looked forward to his dreams as eagerly as he looked forward to the waking world. For he had discovered what few would ever know—and still fewer would ever achieve. He had discovered how to be conscious in his dreams.
“Waking up” in a dream had led Michael to some extraordinary experiences. He had walked through walls, perfected skills, soared past stars in the night sky, watched the birth of a sun, created colors beyond the spectrum of light and music beyond the scales. He could do anything he wanted to in his dreams.
But tonight, all he had wanted to do was make love to Briana.
Michael had worked hard to integrate his dreaming life with his waking one. To behave in his dreams in a manner inconsistent with the image he held of himself would be tantamount to putting his very sense of self in jeopardy. Which was why he had fought indulging his desires in his dreams tonight
He had never had to fight his dreams before. It disturbed him deeply. Michael was a man in full control of his actions. But not even he was in full control of his dreams.
He wanted Briana. It was a good thing that she was leaving today. If she couldn’t immediately get a plane to Washington, he’d make sure she had a hotel room in Las Vegas for however long she needed it.
He needed her safely on her way back home, so that he could safely work on controlling his dreams tonight. For he strongly suspected that she would be back in each and every one of them.
He glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It was after seven-thirty.
He rose from his bed and quickly washed, shaved and dressed. He headed for the kitchen to make himself some much-needed coffee.
The water gurgled and spit as the rich aroma of the ground beans filled the room, Outside the window, the winter sun was stretching across the horizon in a saffron haze. The desert terrain spread beneath it in patches of ivory and oatmeal. Night clouds unraveled in silken threads of plum and puce.
Michael never tired of this view.
Here in the heart of the high desert, he had found a quiet, subtle, unhurried beauty unlike any other, anywhere. Here he had found the perfect place to dream.
He had just poured himself a cup of the rich-smelling coffee when he heard the noise behind him. He whirled around, thinking it was way too early for Briana to be up. But there she was, stepping into the kitchen.
He froze in place, the cup in his hand suspended halfway to his lips as he stared at her. She had been an arousing enough apparition in the dark night. Beholding her by day made him feel a little dizzy, as if he’d stared at the desert sun too long.
Her hair was liquid fire, long and wet from her shower. Her skin was pure white desert light, and her eyes were that porcelain blue that he’d seen only once before, when he watched a winter sunset dip into the warm waters of Lake Mead.
She was wearing a blue terry-cloth bathrobe that hugged her slim body and ended high on her thighs. Her legs and feet were bare.
He rather suspected that the rest of her, beneath that robe, was bare, as well.
He wanted to act nonchalant, wish her good-morning, offer her a cup of coffee. But her unexpected arrival and attire after a night of dream denial made his brain go numb.
“Michael, I have something odd to tell you,” she said, stepping forward. “I think you’d better sit down. Matter of fact, I think I’d better sit down.”
She moved over to the table and pulled out a chair. The instant Michael saw that her hands were shaking, he snapped out of his mental daze.
He set his cup on the counter and came over to hold out the chair for her. She smiled up at him weakly as she murmured her thanks.
“Would you care for some coffee, Briana?”
“Care for it? I’d marry it and have its children.”
Her humor seemed almost desperate. The sound of it sent a small warning tremor through Michael.
He’d witnessed her standing up to the unfathomable the night before with both strength and considerable stubbornness.
He saw neither of those emotions in her eyes this morning.
Michael filled a second cup with coffee as he tried to keep the foreboding from filling him. He brought it to Briana, and as he sat across from her, he watched her stir in milk and sugar before she took a hefty swallow. Her hands were still shaking.
“You’ve remembered something?” he prodded, keeping his voice even, mentally preparing himself for whatever it might be that had shaken her.
She set the cup carefully down and stared directly at him.
“Michael, I called my partner, Lee Willix, a little while ago. A Mrs. Eliot answered the phone. She doesn’t know a Lee Willix. She says she’s had that number for years.”
“So you remembered the number wrong. These things happen.”
She shook her head. “Not to me. I also called information. There is no Lee Willix listed. There is no Berry, Willix and Associates listed, either. And I spoke to the nursing home.
They say they have no record of a Hazel Doud in residence. My grandmother isn’t there, Michael. I can’t…find her.”
The sudden, devastatingly lost look in her lovely eyes made his heart lurch.
“It’s all right,” Michael said quickly. “As I told you last night, you’ve suffered an emotional trauma. You’re confused about things. With time, with help—”
“That’s not all.”
Yes, there was something else clouding her eyes. Something that went way beyond confusion. “Go on,” Michael said, in a voice that he made sure was perfectly even.
She laughed-—not a merry sound, a lost sound. “I’m afraid to tell you. It sounds so…absurd.”
Michael laid his hand over hers and smiled at her. “Briana, you never have to be afraid to tell me anything. Believe me, I’ve heard it all. We psychiatrists live on the very edge of absurdity.”
Her eyes met his and steadied. “Michael, this isn’t my face.”
The smile slid off Michael’s lips. He had thought he had prepared himself. But he had not been prepared to hear this.
“You’re speaking metaphorically, Briana?” he asked, hopefully.
“No, literally. The face you’re looking at is not my face, Michael. The first time I saw this face was when I woke up this morning and looked in the mirror. I’m not just missing three weeks. I’m missing my face.”
She paused to laugh, with no mirth at all.
“You said you lived on the edge of absurdity? Well, it looks like I’ve just dropped off it.”
“SHE’S A NUTCASE, all right,” Nate said as he leaned back in his chair and plopped his feet on the edge of the desk in the computer room at the institute.
Michael let out a frustrated breath. “Thank you so much for that helpful contribution.”
“Either that or she’s been lying to you, Michael. Would you rather believe that?”
Michael rose from his chair behind the screen and paced out into the middle of the room, his friend’s words mercilessly ringing through his ears.
After a moment, Michael turned back to face him. “Nate, she’s not lying to me. And she’s not a nutcase.”
“Then what is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, here’s what I know, buddy. We’ve been on the phones and computers for hours, trying to find someone or something to substantiate that story she handed you, and we’ve come up with nothing. You want to hear it all again?”
“No.”
“Maybe you ne
ed to. The Mirage did not have an architectural design convention three weeks ago. There is no Berry, Willix and Associates in Seattle. No grandmother Hazel Doud in a Silverdale nursing home. No Briana Berry in DMV records in Washington. No partner, Lee Willix, in those DMV records either. And when I searched the Internet for architectural designers in Washington State, neither Briana Berry nor Lee Willix were listed. Michael, the names, the numbers, nothing checks out. And to top it off, she tells you her face isn’t hers. What more do you need to convince yourself you’re dealing with someone who’s lost it?”
“She hasn’t lost it, Nate. Briana Berry is as sane as you or I.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. How do you know?”
“Because she still has her sense of humor.”
“Since when did a sense of humor become the definition for sanity, Doctor?”
“Nate, anybody who can laugh and make jokes when she discovers the world she knows doesn’t exist has a deep core of sanity inside her. She’d have to. Humor is the first emotion to go on the road to madness.”
“All right then, answer me this, Michael. How can she be sane and yet not be in touch with reality?”
“I admit the situation doesn’t lend itself to logic. But there is a sense beyond logic, Nate. That sense is what brought the Institute of Dreams into reality. That sense is the gut feeling that tells us something’s right, even when that something doesn’t fit in with what is accepted as the current ‘truth’ or ‘logic.’”
Nate stared up at Michael, a frown pulling together his dark eyebrows. “Are you sure it’s a feeling in your gut, and not another part of your anatomy, that’s telling you the lady is sane?”
“Meaning?”
“You know what I mean, Michael. Are you attracted to this woman?”
“A man would have to be dead not to be attracted to this woman.”
“Then you definitely can’t treat her.”
“I don’t want to treat her. And she doesn’t want me to treat her.”
“Good. It’s unanimous.”
“There’s just one problem.”
“What?”
“You have another psychiatrist to recommend?”
“Me? You know I wouldn’t trust most psychologists or psychiatrists with the emotional health of my goldfish, much less another human being. What about a colleague you trust?”
“I was on the phone trying to get in touch with every one I know this morning, while you were on your way over. It’s no use, Nate. None of the doctors I have any confidence in are available until after the holidays.”
“Can’t you just leave it alone until then?”
“Briana needs help now. She’s dealing with this exceptionally well, but everyone has a limit. And unless I can get her some answers quickly, she’ll soon be reaching hers. Consider. No one and nothing she remembers is real. How long do you think you could remain sane under such circumstances?”
“So you’re saying you have to treat her? You have no choice?”
“There’s always a choice. I can turn my back on her. But what kind of a doctor and man would that make me?”
“Prudent.”
“Come again?”
“Michael, have you ever handled a case like hers before?”
“I’ve never even heard of a case like hers before.”
“Which is my point. Your practice, even before you founded the institute, was geared toward enhancing mental health, not trying to reclaim it. Have you considered you may not be able to help her?”
“The nice thing about specializing in dreams, Nate, is that through them you can help anyone with anything.”
“Spoken like the eternal optimist you are, Michael. So, did you call me over here on Christmas to act as an expert for checking her background through the computer databases, or as a sounding board for a decision you had already made?”
Michael smiled. “Both, of course.”
Nate shook his head. “You expected me to try to talk you out of this?”
“I hoped you could.”
“Hoped?”
“I’m not blind to the fact that I’m far closer to…this situation than is comfortable. There was always the possibility that you could come up with a viable alternative to my treating her.”
“I may think of one yet,” Nate said, rising. “Stay close to the phone.”
“I’ll pick it up on the first ring”
Nate studied Michael’s face. “You weren’t kidding. You really don’t want to treat her.”
“I’d rather be put in a straitjacket and locked in a padded cell.”
Nate shook his head. “Maybe you should be, if you like her that much and still treat her. Which reminds me, our Christmas present to you left the party last night with a widower from Alamo who has a ranch, two kids and apparently a hankering to get hitched. Seems as though it was love at first sight. Laura told me to thank you for not showing up.”
Michael smiled. “Tell her she’s welcome. Hope you two have a great Christmas, Nate.”
“Unfortunately, it’s not going to be all that great,” Nate said. “We’re having dinner at Uncle Everett’s.”
“Our old nemesis Everett Thaw? Ah, yes. I keep forgetting he’s part of your family now that you and Laura have gotten married.”
Nate headed for the door. “I wish I could forget it.”
“At least he’s stopped trying to infiltrate the institute with his spies. Could be he’s finally given up on the idea that he’s going to get his hands on his late wife’s legacy to us.”
Nate reached the door and turned around, his hand on the knob. “And then again, it could be that Everett Thaw is still mired in that slick primordial ooze the rest of us climbed out of a billion or so years ago.”
Michael chuckled.
Nate opened the door, his expression taking on a somber look as he gazed back at Michael. “Buddy, be careful. That wasn’t a Christmas present left beneath your tree last night. That was a ticking bomb.”
Nate was out the door before Michael could respond. It was just as well. He had no idea how he could respond. For Nate was right.
The moment Briana awakened in his arms and returned his kiss, the fuse had been lit. And he knew that if he didn’t want all that dynamite exploding in his face, he must never, ever, take her back into his arms again.
“BUT LAST NIGHT you told me you didn’t want to be my doctor,” Briana said to Michael, very surprised to hear his offer of help.
“I want you to be well,” Michael responded.
Briana didn’t miss the equivocation in his words. Or their professional delivery and phraseology. It sounded almost as though he didn’t think anyone else would take her case.
Maybe no one else would.
Nothing about her life had proved to exist. There was no Grandmother Hazel, no partner Lee, no architectural firm, not one scrap of evidence that anything she remembered was real.
Not even her face.
She understood now why Michael had looked at her with such warmth when he kissed her awake the night before. This face she was wearing was absolutely fabulous. Not in her wildest imagination had she ever seen herself looking this good.
At least, if she had to lose her mind, she had lost that homely mug of hers along with it.
Dear God, her face was gone! Everything was gone! As often as she said it, she couldn’t make herself believe it was true.
And yet a part of her had accepted it—a part that sent her nerves screaming inside her body in panic and outrage. She took a deep breath, trying to calm them, trying to hold on to a thin nm of reality while the earth tilted and the ground disappeared from beneath her feet.
She had called everywhere. There was not one available airline seat on any plane to Washington for a couple of days, even if she had the money to pay for it. She needed help. And Michael was offering his.
“So, Dr. Sands, if I wait another day before availing myself of your professional services, do I get the benefit of an after-Christmas sale?”
A small smile drew back his lips. “Actually, you got lucky, Ms. Berry. My hourly rate is always its lowest for treatment started on Christmas Day.”
“Slow time of year, huh?”
“Got to do what I can to beat the competition.”
She didn’t know if it was the man or the doctor who was indulging in this light banter with her. To either, or both, she sent a silent thank-you. Humor was the only scaffolding she had left to support what remained of her sanity.
She took another deep breath, trying to summon up some conviction for the words she was about to say.
“Michael, sane or not, I still know who I am.”
“I’m glad, Briana. Hold on to that knowledge.”
Her words rushed out on a breath filled with incredulity. “You believe me?”
“I never thought you were lying to me.”
“Despite the fact that nothing about the life and people I described to you appear to exist?”
“You’re real, Briana. That’s good enough for me.”
Her relief broke through on a hearty laugh. “Michael Sands, you may be the one who needs his head examined.”
He laughed with her, surprising her anew. “I’ve no doubt I do.”
The sound of his laughter filled Briana with an odd sense of rightness—as though the world might actually find its proper axis again.
Or was she kidding herself? Could it be that he was simply responding to this beautiful face she was now wearing?
She had seen what the power of a woman’s physical beauty could do. Men would make almost any allowance for such a woman.
“Michael, you should know what I really look like,” she said, determined to have honesty between them if nothing else.
“All right. What do you really look like, Briana?”
“I have a Cyrano nose, a lantern jaw, and no cheekbones or chin to speak of. My hair isn’t really this gorgeous flame color. It’s the proverbial mousy brown. I also generally weigh about five pounds more.”
He seemed remarkably unaffected by her confession. “Anything else?”
“Michael, I don’t think you’re getting it. I’m not pretty at all. I’m quite plain.”