Lake of Dreams Read online

  She scowled. She didn’t know whether to back away or to turn around and let him get a good view of her rear end, too. She didn’t have enough hands to cover all her points of interest, and it was too late anyway. She compromised by sidling.

  “Thea.”

  She paused, her brows lifted in question.

  “Will you come on a picnic with me this afternoon?”

  A picnic? She stared at him, wondering once again at the disturbing blend of strangeness and familiarity she felt about him. Like the baby turtles, a picnic sounded almost unbearably tempting; this whole thing was feeling as if she had opened a book so compelling that she couldn’t stop turning page after page. Still, she felt herself pulling back. “I don’t—”

  “There’s a tree in a fallow field about a mile from here,” he interrupted, and all amusement had left his ocean-colored eyes. “It’s huge, with limbs bigger around than my waist. It looks as if it’s been here forever. I’d like to lie on a blanket spread in its shade, put my head in your lap, and tell you about my dreams.”

  THEA WANTED TO run. Damn courage; discretion demanded that she flee. She wanted to, but her legs wouldn’t move. Her whole body seemed to go numb. She let the hem of her nightgown drop into the wet grass, and she stared dumbly at him. “Who are you?” she finally whispered.

  He studied the sudden terror in her eyes, and regret flashed across his face. “I told you,” he finally answered, his tone mild. “Richard Chance.”

  “What—what did you mean about your dreams?”

  Again he paused, his sharp gaze still fastened on her so that not even the smallest nuance of expression could escape him. “Let’s go inside,” he suggested, approaching to gently take her arm and guide her stumbling steps toward the house. “We’ll talk there.”

  Thea stiffened her trembling legs and dug in her heels, dragging him to a stop. Or rather, he allowed her to do so. She had never before in her life been as aware of a man’s strength as she was of his. He wasn’t a muscle-bound hulk, but the steeliness of his body was evident. “What about your dreams?” she asked insistently. “What do you want?”

  He sighed, and released his grip to lightly rub his fingers up and down the tender underside of her arm. “What I don’t want is for you to be frightened,” he replied. “I’ve just found you, Thea. The last thing I want is to scare you away.”

  His tone was quiet and sincere, and worked a strange kind of magic on her. How could a woman fail to be, if not reassured, at least calmed by the very evenness of his words? Her alarm faded somewhat, and Thea found herself being shepherded once again toward the house. This time she didn’t try to stop him. At least she could change into something more suitable before they had this talk on which he was so insistent.

  She pulled away from him as soon as they were inside, and gathered her tattered composure around herself like a cloak. “The kitchen is there,” she said, pointing. “If you’ll put on a fresh pot of coffee, I’ll be with you as soon as I get dressed.”

  He gave her another of his open looks of pure male appreciation, his gaze sliding over her from head to foot. “Don’t bother on my account,” he murmured.

  “Your account is exactly why I’m bothering,” she retorted, and his quick grin sent butterflies on a giddy flight in her stomach. Despite her best efforts, she was warmed by his unabashed attraction. “The coffee’s in the cupboard to the left of the sink.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He winked and ambled toward the kitchen. Thea escaped into the bedroom and closed the door, leaning against it in relief. Her legs were still trembling. What was going on? She felt as if she had tumbled down the rabbit hole. He was a stranger, she had met him only the day before, and yet there were moments, more and more of them, when she felt as if she knew him as well as she knew herself, times when his voice reverberated deep inside of her like an internal bell. Her body responded to him as it never had to anyone else, with an ease that was as if they had been lovers for years.

  He said and did things that eerily echoed her dreams. But how could she have dreamed about a man whom she hadn’t met? This was totally outside her experience; she had no explanation for it, unless she had suddenly become clairvoyant.

  Yeah, sure. Thea shook her head as she stripped out of the nightgown and opened a dresser drawer to get out a bra and panties. She could just hear her brothers if she were to dare mention such a thing to them. “Woo, woo,” they’d hoot, snorting with laughter. “Somebody find a turban for her to wear! Madam Theadora’s going to tell our fortunes.”

  She pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and stuck her feet into a pair of sneakers. Comforted by the armor of clothing, she felt better prepared to face Richard Chance again. It was a loony idea to think she’d met him in her dreams, but she knew one sure way of finding out. In every incarnation, her dream warrior’s left thigh had been scarred, a long, jagged red line that ended just a few inches above his knee. All she had to do was ask him to drop his pants so she could see his leg, and she’d settle this mystery once and for all.

  Right. She could just see herself handing him a cup of coffee: “Do you take cream or sugar? Would you like a cinnamon roll? Would you please remove your pants?”

  Her breasts tingled and her stomach muscles tightened. The prospect of seeing him nude was more tempting than it should have been. There was something dangerously appealing in the thought of asking him to remove his clothing. He would do it, too, those vivid eyes glittering at her all the while. He was as aware as she that, if they were caught, he would be killed—

  Thea jerked herself out of the disturbing fantasy. Killed? Why on earth had she thought that? It was probably just the dreams again—but she had never dreamed that he had been killed, only herself. And he had been the killer.

  Her stomach muscles tightened again, but this time with the return of that gut-level fear she’d felt from the moment she’d heard his step on the porch. She had feared him even before she’d met him. He was a man whose reputation preceded him—

  Stop it! Thea fiercely admonished herself. What reputation? She’d never heard of Richard Chance. She looked around the bedroom, seeking to ground herself in the very normality of her surroundings. She felt as if things were blurring, but the outlines of the furniture were reassuringly sharp. No, the blurring was inside, and she was quietly terrified. She was truly slipping over that fine line between reality and dreamworld.

  Maybe Richard Chance didn’t exist. Maybe he was merely a figment of her imagination, brought to life by those thrice-damned dreams.

  But the alluring scent of fresh coffee was no dream. Thea slipped out of the bedroom and crossed the living room to stand unnoticed in the doorway to the kitchen. Or she should have been unnoticed, because her sneakered feet hadn’t made any noise. But Richard Chance, standing with the refrigerator door open while he peered at the contents, turned immediately to smile at her, and that unnerving aquamarine gaze slid over her jean-clad legs with just as much appreciation as when she’d worn only the nightgown. It didn’t matter to him what she wore; he saw the female flesh, not the casing, Thea realized, as her body tightened again in automatic response to that warmly sexual survey.

  “Are you real?” she asked, the faint words slipping out without plan. “Am I crazy?” Her fingers tightened into fists as she waited for his answer.

  He closed the refrigerator door and quickly crossed to her, taking one of her tightly knotted fists in his much bigger hand and lifting to his lips. “Of course you’re not crazy,” he reassured her. His warm mouth pressed tenderly to each white knuckle, easing the tension from her hand. “Things are happening too fast and you’re a little disoriented. That’s all.”

  The explanation, she realized, was another of his ambiguous but strangely comforting statements. And if he was a figment of her imagination, he was a very solid one, all muscle and body heat, complete with the subtle scent of his skin.

  She gave h