Somewhere to Dream (Berkley Sensation) (24 page)

CHAPTER
37

Daylight

We awoke later, curled around each other, and he reached for me again. I was there, welcoming him as I always would. I loved the smell of him, the sweat, the strain, the lust that no longer frightened me. Far from it. Knowing he wanted me roused feelings I never could have imagined before, making my blood race. I wanted more every time.

When we lay exhausted, my head on his chest, a thought struck me. “Where’s your father?”

“In the woods.” His words vibrated through his chest, through my ear, my cheek. “Moved him while you were asleep last night, in case of animals.”

“I could have helped you.”

He looked down at me and smiled, vaguely amused. “As if I would ask you to help get rid of the man who tried to violate you.” He touched the blanket, then tugged it to my chin as if to keep me covered. “I would never ask that of you.”

“Jesse, he was your father. How did you feel—”

He rolled to his side and held up one finger. “You should know something about Thomas Black, Adelaide. He was a bad, bad man. He was not a man I would like to offer as a father-in-law.” His smile was grim. “He was so bad, I’m a little concerned about offering his son as a husband.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I work every day of my life trying not to be like him. But sometimes I wonder, when I get really angry, if it’s just something I can’t avoid. If it’s in my blood or something.”

I frowned. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?” He smiled gently, but his gaze looked distant. As if the thought resonated in his mind. When the echoes died down, his eyes came back into focus and he changed the subject. “God, you’re beautiful, Adelaide. I’m the luckiest man in the world.”

“I hardly think so,” I said. “Not when people find out you killed your father and made love to an unmarried woman.”

He laughed, tapping one finger on my chest. “Ah, but I intend to marry her as soon as I can. That’s gotta count for something, don’t it?” He leaned toward me and kissed me a long, long time. “Hey,” he said, watching me regain my breath, “I never thanked you for saving my life.”

“How’d I do that?”

“Loads of ways, but right now I’m talking about Thomas and his gun.”

“But you couldn’t see. You were—”

“No, I didn’t see it. But there’s no other explanation for why he’d leave his pistol lying by my head.”

I touched his cheek. “He was going to shoot you.”

“I don’t doubt that,” he said, kissing my forehead lightly. “And he would have. Thank you. Pretty brave of you. I don’t think I can call you ‘mouse’ anymore after that.”

That made me smile. The idea of having even one brave image in my head. “Not bravery. It was selfish. I didn’t want him to kill you, because I wanted you.”

“Whatever it was, it was brave. Don’t doubt yourself so much.”

“I never had a brave thought before I met you. Then I started dreaming of you, and I knew something was going to change. Something big.”

“When did you first dream of me?” he asked, his tone teasing.

“Long before you came to the village. I saw your eyes, I saw you were white, and I saw that you were very, very angry. Full of hate.” I touched his face again, let him rest his cheek in my palm. “You don’t seem so angry anymore.”

“Not right now,” he admitted with a lopsided smile. He pulled a strand of my hair off my brow and hooked it behind my ear. “I’ve found life ain’t always pretty, and sometimes it’s even less than that. But there are times when it’s so goddamn beautiful, it’s hard to breathe. That’s where I’m at right now.”

I blushed and enjoyed the prickles of heat as they spread over my cheeks. He rolled onto his back again, and I laid my head on his chest, in the spot I had claimed as mine forever. It was a hard place, set between his ribs and his collarbone, and the muscle that pillowed my cheek was taut and warm. But the heart beneath, the heart I had believed so well protected, was soft and vulnerable. And it belonged to me. I would protect it with my own. The night breeze didn’t bother me. The rustling and secret noises in the trees barely touched me. I was safe and warm with Jesse. I closed my eyes, and Jesse stroked my hair, my cheek, down my neck as I fell asleep again.

I dreamed we walked along the path again, but no threat lurked in the trees. Nothing waited to leap upon us, shoot us, rape us, or beat us to death. It was just Jesse and me. His hand was warm around mine, and he was laughing, telling me something I couldn’t hear in my dream.

But I was distracted. My left shoulder was stiff, which I assumed was from sleeping on the hard ground, and my stomach pain had grown worse. It was higher now, as if I’d damaged something within my chest. I stopped walking, and we both stared at my torso. It slowly turned blue while we watched, as if with a massive, spreading bruise. I collapsed onto my knees and looked up at him, but he was still staring at my stomach. I shook my head, and he frowned at me, not understanding. Then all at once the skin over my ribs began to tear, opening into a yawning wound that seeped, then poured blood. I fell backward, seeing him there, reaching, but never quite getting ahold of me.

Jesse!
I screamed, but my voice was lost, drowned in the rush of blood that rose higher around me, rising until I feared it would cover me—

“Adelaide?”

A hand on my shoulder, trying to pull me out, but I’m too heavy. Drowning. Can’t—

“Wake up, Adelaide. You’re at it again,” came Jesse’s voice, soft and sweet in my ear.

Jesse!

“Yeah. It’s me. Wake up, sweet thing. Sounds like you got something you need to tell me.”

CHAPTER
38

From Within

The pain came in waves, an aching pressure becoming a fist, twisting deeper. In my mind, I could see it, something within me that would explode, that would devour me. Thomas Black had broken me. Thomas Black would have his vengeance, take me from Jesse, kill me even after he was dead. Thomas Black, just like Jesse had said, was a bad, bad man.

Jesse tried to question me when I’d awoken, but I could offer little. I told him about my dream, then said, “I’ve seen it, Jesse. I’m broken inside. I’m not going to survive.”

“That’s hogwash,” he said, hoisting me into his arms as if I were a child. The pain shifted and subsided, then came back full force, so that I grasped him tightly around his neck.

“Careful,” he teased. “I can’t run far if you strangle me.”

He ran forever, or so it felt, heading down a separate path from the one we’d been on before. I dimly recognized it as the one from which his father had come. I moaned when the pain caught me, feeling so weak my arms slumped from his neck. He stopped running and laid me on the ground while he caught his breath. I curled around my stomach, aching inside.

“Don’t you do this, Adelaide,” he puffed, frowning down at me. “Don’t you go and do this.”

“Take me to Wah-Li,” I begged. “Or Nechama. They’ll know what to do.”

“No time for witch doctors. No time to get there anyway,” he said. “Doc’ll know.”

“Doc?”

“Yeah. Doc. You’ll like him.”

I lost the rest of the journey, receding to a place where the pain had trouble finding me, hiding behind the sweat of Jesse’s body as he ran. He spoke to me, telling me stories to distract us both, occasionally stopping to catch his breath, but not resting for long. He set me by the riverside and bathed my face, helped me drink the water, but I was weak. Dizzy. Disconnected from my limbs.

“Hang in there, girl. Almost there,” he said at least a dozen times.

I woke to silence. A complete silence. No trees blowing, no water trickling along a pebble-lined edge. No birds or insects. No soothing voice of the man I had come to think of as home.

But pain, oh, that was there, roaring through me like a hurricane. I moaned, pressing my hands against my chest, and the sound brought me help, or what I assumed was help. A tiny, white-haired man stepped close, his hard-soled shoes causing the floorboards to squawk in protest. A strange, deeply creased face appeared, squinting down at me through spectacles badly in need of a cleaning. I watched him from as far away as I could get, clutching the sides of the bed on which I lay, then reverted back to the words I’d said so often in my past: “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me, don’t touch me . . .”

“Hello, my dear,” said the man. “I am going to help you.”

“No, no, no, no, no,” I cried.

“Ah, now. There’s nothing to fear.”

“Jesse?”

“Yes, Jesse. Jesse brought you to me. So you see? You have nothing to be afraid of. I will help you.”

His words seemed muffled, far away, and my tongue with them. “Jesse?”

“My name is Doctor Allen. I am an old friend of Jesse’s. He brought you here.”

I was captivated by how his small, pointed beard moved like a trapdoor when he spoke. “Where is he?”

“Out. But don’t worry, my dear. He will be back momentarily. I have sent him to pick up something I thought you might like.”

The stomping of boots in the next room jerked me alert, but Doctor Allen merely patted my wrist. “See now? Here he comes. Ah, Jesse,” he said, turning away from me. “Were you successful in your quest?”

“Yes, sir.”

Jesse. I relaxed, breathing easier again, though the pain seemed to have spread through my ribs as well. Were they broken?

“How’s the patient?”

“Just waking up in time to go to sleep,” the doctor said.

“So you really—”

“Come along, then, Jesse. Let’s not worry the lovely girl. She has enough on her mind. Speaking of which, she’s been asking for you. Seems she’s rather fond of you, my boy. Can’t imagine why.”

Jesse laughed, a sound that was rapidly becoming one of my favourite sounds in the world. It was lower than his regular speaking voice, and rolled gently. Like a purr.

“There she is,” he said, coming to my side. “How are you?”

I smiled, trying to still my quivering chin. I didn’t want to start crying again. God, he must be so tired of seeing it. But I was relieved he was there. As friendly as Doctor Allen seemed, it wasn’t enough.

“What’s going to happen?” I whispered.

“Doc’s gonna fix you like I said he would. Remember that? I told you about him. He’s fixed me up so many times I’ve lost count.” He gazed down at me, golden eyes soft with concern. The roughness of his calloused fingers slid down my cheeks and curled my hair behind my ears. “I ain’t going nowhere, Adelaide. I’ll be right here with you the whole time.”

The monster in my chest twisted. I gasped and squeezed my eyes shut.

“Yes, yes. Time to move along, children,” said the doctor. “Jesse, bring me that bottle there, would you? The brown glass. Yes, there. And bring me the honey as well. Thank you, my boy. So excellent to have your assistance. Now, my dear, I suggest you not smell this before swallowing. Just drink quickly. There. There you go. That’s right.”

He touched the bottle to my lips and I choked on the foul stuff, sputtering brown liquid, but he was persistent. “There, there,” he said, his voice calm. “You must drink this down or I will not be able to help you with the pain in your stomach. Jesse? The honey, if you please.”

Jesse pressed a spoon to my lips, sticky with honey. “Try a lick of this, Adelaide. Takes the edge off the other. But you gotta drink it. You’ll get past the taste soon enough.”

I managed to get it down, swallowing whatever they gave me, alternating between the sweet and the repugnant. After a while, my limbs felt heavier, my stomach pained me less. Or if it didn’t, at least I wasn’t aware of as much. My mind drifted, Jesse’s face faded in and out, and I clung to it, as if he could anchor me with his eyes.

“You sure, Doc? That’s enough?”

“She’s too small for more, dear boy. We shan’t encourage her to expire on my table.”

“But—”

“She feels very little now, but I imagine she will drift further soon.”

And I did. I floated above the bed, around the room, through the meadow that stretched beyond my family’s forlorn little house, listing slightly to one side, like a ship taking on water. Ruth and Maggie and me, skipping through the faded yellow grass. The faraway mountains that held the Cherokee, Wah-Li’s toothless smile and ancient hands, the baskets in her council house with their tightly woven reeds.

Then a burning. A pressure, a pain so sharp I screamed. I was back on the table, in the white room, with the little spectacled man. Jesse’s face loomed just behind, his brow creased with worry. He had grasped my hand to hold it down, and I needed to raise it, to protect myself. But his hand was too strong, my own strength almost gone. I gave up, aware I would either survive by some miracle or I would never see Jesse again.

“There, there,” the doctor said, clearly distracted. “So you see, Jesse, the spleen is located . . .”