Dare to Dream

by Modean Moon

  He ran his hands through his hair, and for a moment he looked tired and defeated. He shook his head. "I want to see his picture."

  "Picture?" Dani repeated incoherently.

  "Photograph. Snapshot. Portrait. I want to see a picture of the son you never once mentioned. I want to see what he looks like. I want to see if he looks like you. I want to try to get some idea of why you haven't even hinted at his existence."

  Dani steeled herself. It was worse, much worse than she had feared. Nothing had prepared her for this reaction from Nick. Where was the compassionate, understanding friend she had known? Where was the gentle, considerate lover who had soothed and comforted her? He glared at her from across the room, and she returned his baleful look, hearing the sound of her own heart roaring in her ears.

  A picture? He wanted to see a picture of Bobby? So did she! Too bad, Nick Sanders, she thought even as she spat the words at him. "I don't have one."

  "Oh, hell!" He strode to the desk and yanked open a drawer, rifling through the contents with both hands.

  "What are you doing?" she cried.

  "I don't believe you."

  "Nick, don't do this." She ran to his side and tugged at his arm, trying to stop his search. "Please don't do this."

  He shrugged away from her touch and yanked open another drawer. "I'm going to see that picture whether you want me to or not."

  "I don't have one!" she screamed at him. Oh, God, why couldn't he believe her?

  He pushed past her and went into the bedroom. She heard him pulling open drawers in there and followed him as far as the door. If possible, his face became even harsher as he opened each of the bureau drawers, finding nothing but her neatly folded clothes. He seemed to falter when he found the article featuring him, but he tossed the newspaper back in place and slammed the drawer. He opened the closet door, felt along the shelf, looked beneath the clothes, and even opened her one suitcase.

  When he came out of the closet, he sagged against the door frame. "Where do you live?" he asked in a voice devoid of emotion.

  Was it over? Or was it just beginning? At least he was no longer raging at her. "I live here," she said in a small voice.

  "No. You keep your clothes here. You sleep here and eat here and bathe here, but you don't live here. There's not one sign of you in this apartment—not one thing that makes this place uniquely yours. Not one thing that tells me who you are, or why you are, or what you are."

  He gestured about the room. "This isn't a home. It's little better, if any, than a hotel room." He shook his head. "You've stayed here for four and a half years, and yet if you walked out of here tomorrow, with the exception of maybe a few clothes, you wouldn't miss a damned thing, would you?"

  No! She wouldn't miss one damned thing. Not ever again. And she'd never miss one damned person. Not ever again.

  "Where are you, Dani?" He stood close to her now, so close, and yet separated from her by so much.

  Where was she? Where was she? A laugh tore itself from her throat and in escaping sounded suspiciously like a strangled sob. She let her gaze be drawn to the bathroom door and then closed her eyes as a quick, violent shudder moved through her.

  He misunderstood. Of course, he misunderstood. There were two drawers in the bathroom. Dani huddled against the bedroom wall and listened to the noises as Nick searched those drawers.

  Should she tell him about the fire? It would be so simple just to say, calmly and rationally, that she had lost her husband and son in a house fire. But could she tell him that and not tell him the rest of it? Would he let her stop there? She clenched her hands into fists as she waited for his return. Damn him! What right did he have to demand answers from her.? And what made her think that she had to give him the answers?

  "What are these?" Nick held the prescription bottle in his outstretched hand.

  Dani slumped against the wall with a sigh. She was not strong enough to fight with him any longer. Whatever they'd had together, if ever they'd really had any-thing, was ruined. The truth couldn't make matters worse. She'd answer the questions she could bear to answer, and when she could no longer bear it, she just wouldn't say anymore.

  She looked dully at the prescription bottle and spoke in a low monotone. "I used to take them to help me sleep."

  "Help you sleep? Don't you mean knock you out?"

  She turned her head from him in defeat, resting her cheek against the wall. "If you already knew what they were, why did you ask?"

  He threw the pill bottle across the room and grabbed her shoulders in his hands. "Because I want you to tell me what has happened to you that makes you have to drug yourself into unconsciousness to sleep. Where is your son, Dani?"

  "Oh, Nick." The words trembled on the tip of her tongue, crying to be said. He's dead.

  Nick didn't give her time to say them. His fingers bit into her shoulders as he shook her. "Where is he, Dani? Did you do something so horrible his father took him from you? Or was it just too much trouble to be a career woman and a mother at the same time?"

  His eyes glittered in the harsh light of the room. "Or was it alcohol, Dani? For someone who once told me you didn't drink, you've been doing your share of it lately. Did I start something up again by forcing wine on you that first night?"

  She tried to back away from him, but the wall held her. "What kind of person do you think I am?" she cried.

  "I don't know any longer," he muttered. He looked at her, but she could tell he wasn't seeing her. "But I've got to find out. What did you do to your son?"

  He'd never understand. Dani knew in that instant that she would never be able to explain to this half-crazed stranger who looked at her with eyes glazed with something that couldn't be pain. Could this be the same man who had held her so tenderly that magical night at the fountain lifetimes before? His words from that night echoed through her mind and then hung heavily between them as she realized she had repeated them aloud. "I promise I won't pry into areas you don't want me to know about."

  His mouth twisted with what at any other time she would have thought self-mockery, but now she knew that any mockery was directed at her.

  "You have a selective memory." His words grated harshly in the silence of the room. "Don't you remember the rest of it?" His grip tightened on her. "Don't you, Dani? Don't you remember promising not to close yourself off from me?"

  Now whose memory was selective? She tried to ignore the pain he was causing her, the pain in her shoulders, and the other, within her, that was twisting viciously around what had been her heart. She looked directly into his eyes and for less than a second wondered about the bitterness she saw there before her own bitterness overcame her and she spat the words at him. "I promised to try."

  "And are you?" he demanded.

  She closed her eyes against the probing intensity of his gaze and felt—oh, no, not now—felt herself beginning to tremble. She fought it, as she always fought it, willing herself not to give in to this weakness, but soon the wall and Nick's hands were her only strength.

  "That's another handy little trick you have." His words cut through her veil of concentration. "Guaranteed to garner sympathy from the most hardened adversary, isn't it?" He spoke carefully, shaking her to reinforce each word. "Well, it's not going to work this time."

  "Why, Nick?" she screamed at him. "Why are you doing this?"

  His mouth twisted in a grimace. "Because I loved you, Dani. And, God help me," he groaned as he jerked her against him, "I still want you."

  His kiss was meant to punish her, meant to exorcise her from his life, and knowing that, she endured the ravishment of his mouth. But when she felt a tremor course through him, when she felt him moan against her throat, and when she felt his hands become, not gentle, but less violent as they moved over her, she recognized in his actions something she was all too familiar with. She recognized despair. She recognized anguish. How ironic that she could cause those feelings in someone who, until tonight, had given her nothing but happiness—who had given he
r the only happiness she had known in five years.

  Oh, Nick! The realization cut through her. I never meant to hurt you!

  When his mouth again captured hers, she met his harshness with tenderness, parting her lips and accepting the aggressive thrust of his tongue. She slipped her arms around him, holding him to her, as though she could draw his pain from him and absorb it with her own.

  With her response she felt a change in him. His hands suspended their violent trespass and slid to her back, holding her arched against him. His mouth ceased its plunder, softened and moved persuasively over hers. She felt a deep sigh move through him as, after long moments, he dragged his mouth from hers. He looked down at her as though she were someone he had known a long time before but couldn't now quite recognize. "God help us both," he muttered thickly as he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed.

  He undressed her efficiently, and she lay passive as he did so, searching his face for some trace of the gentle lover she had known. When her clothes lay in scattered piles about the room, he stood looking down at her, then crossed to the light switch and plunged the room into darkness. She heard the soft rustle of his clothing as it joined hers. She felt the slide of his skin against hers as he stretched his length beside her and gathered her to him.

  She had thought only to provide a haven for him, to comfort the hurt she felt in him, knowing all the while that too much had happened for her to be able to take pleasure from the act of love. But her body, her deceptive, traitorous body again betrayed her. It had grown too accustomed to the pleasures Nick brought it. Even while her mind denied her ability to respond, Nick's tongue and lips and fingers sparked that impossible response to life, until she was moving against him, matching him caress for caress—not just to give him comfort, but because she loved the taste of him in her mouth, the feel of his skin on her fingers. And when they joined, desperately it seemed to her, her mind was still refusing to acknowledge her response, still refusing to accept the possibility of fulfillment, while the sensations in her body took her ever upward, finally drawing her into an ascending spiral of feeling where her mind could not follow.

  Nick was with her, moving with her, guiding her upward, urging her with an intensity she had not dreamed possible toward the blinding light waiting for them at the top of the spiral. Never before had she been this high. All the other plateaus they Bad passed—mountains they had seemed at the time, seemed so very far below, and still they climbed until the light surrounded them, shattering behind her closed lids. His name caught in her throat and then tore from her in a long cry as she shattered with the light and collapsed against him drawing long shuddering breaths which matched his.

  They lay locked together, breathing raggedly, until Nick smoothed her hair away from her face and drew her into the crook of his arm, nestling her head on his chest. He said nothing. She was incapable of forming words.

  She felt the thud of his heart beneath her cheek, and the rapid rise and fall of his chest until his breath steadied, even as hers steadied, and she sank into peaceful lethargy. Then her mind caught up with her. It didn't say much, and yet it said everything. It repeated Nick's words so clearly that had she not known by his even breathing that it was not so she would have sworn he spoke them again. I loved you, Dani. And, God help me, I still want you.

  Loved. Past tense. Want. Present tense. The significance of his words drove away all lethargy and left her chilled. Well, she argued with herself, wasn't that what I wanted? She had told herself she didn't want him to love her. She had told herself that all she wanted from him—a moan escaped from her when she realized how naive she had been—that all she wanted from him was a physical relationship. She had wanted more, much more, but even then she hadn't had a prayer of ever truly having it.

  Nick sighed and drew her closer. Be careful what you ask for. That was the second time the half-forgotten saying had popped into her mind that evening. But she had certainly gotten what she asked for. The hollow-ness of her victory mocked her, and Nick's still moist body pressing against her became a burden she could no longer tolerate. She eased away from him, intending to rise and go into the other room, but he stirred when she moved. As though one arm were not enough to hold her to him, he threw his other arm over her and burrowed his face against her throat, his body echoing the tension she felt. To try to move now would rouse him, and Dani was not able, yet, to face the questions she knew had only been postponed.

  She lay rigid within the prison of his arms, staring at the pale blur of the ceiling for what seemed like hours until at last the stress of the day claimed its toil and she sank into troubled sleep.

  She knew she was dreaming. She knew it the moment she saw the dishwater. And she knew just as quickly that something was wrong. The dream never started in the kitchen. It always started in the bathroom. The scenario never changed, and yet here she was, staring at the breakfast dishes. She knew what she must do, but something kept her from it. She pushed against the force that held her, shook free of it, turned on the hot water tap and reached for the dishes in the cabinet. She saw them shaking on the shelf and heard Bobby screaming for her. Although she opened her mouth to cry out to Rob, no sound came from her throat, and when she turned to run for the bathroom the same restraints as earlier kept her from moving. She struggled wildly against them until she was free. She still could not find her voice, but she felt the carpet beneath her feet as she dragged her way to the bathroom door. It refused to open. She threw herself against it with a sob, pounding on it. She could hear the noises behind it, crackling and then roaring. She forced the knob, found the small hold for her fingers, put her weight against it, pushing to dislodge the obstruction that held it closed, sobbing an incoherent prayer as she collapsed on her knees on the floor in the midst of flames that could never again sear her, and this time the high-pitched wail she heard came from her own throat.

  Hands drew her away from the flames, lifting her from the floor. A mouth covered hers, cutting off her cry. Hands soothed her hair and held her in a protective embrace.

  "Dani, what is it?" Nick's voice cut through the shadows of the dream. He held her, just outside the bathroom door. "For God's sake, what is it?"

  She shook away from him and looked up at him, dazed. She felt a hollowness behind her eyes and knew that it would signal tears, if she were able to cry. Tears, Danielle? Rob's mother seemed to be with her, as she had been with her those first days at the hospital, as she would always be with her, looking down on her with ice blue eyes. You have no right to tears. You have no right to life.

  "Tell me, Dani," Nick insisted, reaching for her. "What is behind that door?"

  Why had she even thought she could love again? Why had she even thought she had the right to try?

  She shrugged away from Nick's tentative hand on her arm, reached in the closet and got her robe. She belted it around her and then went carefully about the room, picking up his clothes and his shoes. She brought them to him and held them toward him.

  "What are you doing?" he asked.

  There was no emotion in her voice when she spoke, because she no longer felt anything. She walked, she breathed, she could even speak, but there was no life in her. She knew that now. "What you told me long ago I should have done," she said evenly. "I want you to get the hell out of my life."

  He started to speak, but something in her eyes must have silenced him. He took the clothes from her. She went into the living room and huddled on the couch while he dressed. She saw nothing. That was the trick, she had learned during those long months. To see nothing. Not the things that were there, but more importantly, the things that were not there.

  A hand rested lightly on her shoulder. They were still doing it. After all this time, they still hadn't learned that she didn't want to be summoned for meals, or to go through the motions of physical therapy, or to sit across the desk from the doctor and have him tell her, again, that her feelings were a natural reaction to what had happened.

  The hand moved
down her arm. They never went away. She might as well do whatever it was they wanted this time. It was the only way they would leave her in peace. She dragged her head around to face the intruder. It was not a nurse.

  Nick knelt beside her, filling her vision. Was that compassion she saw in his eyes? She didn't want compassion from him. She wanted what she had known from the first that she could never keep. She wanted what he had offered and she had destroyed.

  She turned her head so that she could no longer see him and, inevitably, felt his hand slide from her dim. She heard the click of the front door being unlocked and felt the soft rush of air as it was opened. She heard the sound of his footsteps as he moved from the carpet to the concrete of the porch.

  Still she stared blindly at the wall opposite her. He'd left in such a hurry he hadn't even bothered to close the door. She'd have to get up and do that. In a little while…

  Chapter Ten

  "Damn it, Dani. I can't just go off and leave you like this." Nick's words came from the doorway.

  Her hands clenched convulsively and she knew she was dangerously close to losing the tenuous hold on what control she had left.

  He stood outlined against the gray light of early morning, solid and strong, and for one fragile moment she dreamed of throwing herself against him and letting him wrap her in his strength. She couldn't. His concern was for Dani, a person who had existed for a few short days only because he had willed her to and who, tonight, had ceased to be.

  But if the Dani he knew no longer existed, why did she feel her throat tightening as she looked up at him. "Please," she whispered. "I don't want you here."

  It was as though she hadn't spoken. He closed the door and leaned against it. "We have to talk," he said. "I'm not leaving until I understand what's happened."