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After the dinner rush passed, Annalise tidied the waitress station. Sarah, the weekend backup, arrived just in time for the lull.
“Hey, Anna. Who’s the hot guy at table one?”
Sarah was a friend, a nice girl, and a few years older than Anna. She was also a hell of a lot more experienced. “He’s no one. Just a customer.” A sharp, territorial pang knifed through her and she frowned, unsure where such unwarranted possessiveness stemmed from. That guy was just another customer.
“Oh, well, if you want, I can go check on him.”
CCR’s Have You Ever Seen the Rain pumped from the jukebox. Annalise’s gaze locked on the Heinz 57 label of the ketchup bottle as she slowly wiped it down. “Sure.” Her jaw locked as she grabbed the next bottle.
Last year Sarah took a few weeks off and came back with new boobs. She was the sort of girl who chose vanity over practicality. Her hair always flowed in perfect waves and her nails were the fake kind they put on at salons. The men loved her.
“Great.” She giggled and grabbed her tray.
Annalise watched through the mirrored Michelob sign on the wall across from her as Sarah approached Adam’s table. Not like she had any claim to him. He wouldn’t care who brought him beer. He’d probably like Sarah more anyway.
Annalise’s focus returned to cleaning off the ketchup bottles and refilling the empties. The song changed as she tightened the lid of the last bottle, and she stilled.
Shivers ran over her skin leaving a tingle of recognition in their wake. The Beatles’ In My Life played from The Red Album. It was her favorite song. A smile crested her lips and her gaze lifted.
Adam stood between her and the jukebox. It was the first time she got a good look at him outside of the booth. Tall, broad, and, God help her, gorgeous. Where was Sarah?
She gave up her mirror watch and turned to see him better. The second her gaze collided with his, the side of his mouth hooked into a half grin.
This man was not Amish. Today he wore plain, possibly Amish clothing, but that was it. Where was his bowl cut and beard? Okay, he had a little scruff on the jaw, but that was more along the lines of don’t I look sexy in the morning, than ye shall not covet thy neighbor’s horse and buggy and other biblical phrases.
And now he was walking toward her. Shit! She tried to look busy, but her gaze returned to him as if under some sort of spell. He was just so ... masculine. It was as if his raw magnetism sucked her into some sort of primal vortex. Looking him in the eye felt like one of the dirtiest things she’d ever done with her body. And she wanted more.
Guitar notes threaded through the air and time stood still. He moved closer, his languid strides gliding over the distance with fluid ease as her mind and body quivered into some delicate, feminine mush.
Everyone disappeared. Her peripheral vision funneled until she was alone with the most beautiful man alive.
His unique scent filled her lungs, and a shock of electricity jogged through her veins. Nerve endings laced tight at her spine, and she straightened, everything inside of her drawn to his scent. It was ... familiar.
A twinge of hesitation settled into her bones. The strangeness of the moment tried to register, but her instincts wanted no part of logic. She only wanted to ... what?
Her brow pinched. She was on her feet, unsure when she stood. What did she want to do?
Dear God, she wanted to rub up against him, drag her face along his jaw, lick every inch of his flesh. There was no precedent for this behavior, and she was embarrassed for even wanting such things.
She tried to look away, but a frisson of familiarity grabbed hold and she stilled. This song. This moment. This strange but beautiful man...
This wasn’t new.
They’d been here before. Details were so familiar she could taste the air of a different place and time on her lips. Visions of lazing in the sun skipped through her mind. Laughing and lounging. Touching. She remembered the weight of his hair threading through her fingertips and the scent of his skin.
She remembered singing to him. But how? She’d just met him. Was this another dream?
Her lungs worked to keep up with her hammering heart. The longer she stared and the closer he came the more certain she was. She knew him from her dreams.
Freaked out, she wanted to turn and run, but he was there—right in front of her, so she whimpered. He wasn’t just some weird guy who overtipped. He was literally the man she’d been fantasizing about for weeks.
“Your heart’s racing,” he said, voice as smooth as Kit Harington’s.
“Why do I know you?”
He gave the slightest smile as if her confusion pleased him. “Would you like to dance?” His hand reached for hers and she didn’t flinch away.
What was wrong with her? What happened to stranger danger? What was this primitive side of her that insisted he would be a good provider, and she should immediately take his seed into her womb to make lots and lots of babies with him?
She frowned as he lifted her hand, drawing her body closer to his. Flawless fingers, untouched by labor. Not the hands of a farmer.
“Who are you?” Her stomach bottomed out in a rush as her breasts brushed the hard wall of his chest.
“I’m Adam.”
The lyric, there are places I remember... It lingered in the air as she looked up at him. In that moment, he held her to the earth more than gravity.
Instinct told her she could trust him, but logic argued this was how women disappeared. Good or bad, her gut warned he’d change everything—and if she didn’t start thinking with her head nothing was going to stop him.
Jimbo’s wasn’t a bar for dancing, but when he led her in a slow glide, she felt more anchored than ever before. Her gaze was sewn to his as his fingers laced with hers, palm warm and a perfect fit.
There is no one who compares with you... The simple lyric seemed written just for them. As he pulled her close, he seemed to latch onto her soul.
“The Red Album,” he said, turning her with the beat. “You like it.”
It wasn’t a question. Her head tilted back to fully see him, as he was at least a foot taller. “It’s my favorite.”
His lips curved as if he were pleased with himself. He looked over her shoulder, pulling her hand closer as they turned. His other hand drifted over her hip and glided to the base of her spine as if he’d held her there a thousand times.
A hint of possession seeped from his touch. A man had never held her so intimately before, with such... authority. He held her as if he had every right to.
Her existence and focus belonged to him in that moment. A spell she couldn’t break and didn’t want to. Every worry and weight on her shoulders slipped away. There was no darkness, no fear, no emptiness, and no gravity, only Adam.
His heart beat in synch with hers. A million questions raced through her head, but she seemed only capable of asking the most inconsequential ones. “Why did you pick this song?”
His voice rumbled from his chest. “You told me about it.”
Her brow furrowed despite her scattered memories of recent dreams. “When?”
“When we met.”
She drew back and looked him in the eye. This wasn’t real. This was a joke. So what if she dreamt of him? Dreams were personal, private, between a person and their conscience—sometimes not even that.
The idea that they somehow knew each other from some dream sharing mumbo jumbo was just too bizarre. She pulled her hand out of his and finally found the nerve to take a step back. “I just met you yesterday.”
His head shook. “You’ve known me longer than a day, Annalise. We met when the sky touched the earth, and stars were born. You were the air I breathed. And I was the first sound you heard. We were pulled apart to come to this moment in time, but it has always been our destiny to find each other again.”
Wonderful. The first guy to give her butterflies and he was a hippy-talking-lunatic. “Right. Well, I gotta get back to work—”
“I know you remember meeting me.”
She paused, only because she sort of did. But that wasn’t real. “Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Remember meeting me somewhere else?”
“Yes.” He nodded with absolute certainty.
She propped a fist on her hip. “Where?”
“When night was day and day was night.”
Her skeptical poise faltered to shock. It was her dream. Her lips parted. “In a field...”
He gave another nod. “We were there, and you sang this song—”
He reached for her and she took another step back. The song ended and she sensed others staring. “What is this? Who are you? How do you know about that?”
“I told you. I’m Adam. And I know, because I was there with you.”
They stood in the center of Jimbo’s and people gawked at her. The sense of rightness disappeared as confusion and burning humiliation cleaved into her. She was making an ass of herself.
The bar seemed abnormally quiet. The click-clack of balls traveling over the felt of the pool table and sinking into places, the sound of the restroom door swishing open, and the sizzle of the grill in the back. But no one talked.
The disorienting sense of tears spiked behind her eyes left her blinking at Kyle. He frowned from behind the bar, his eyes asking what the hell she was doing and hers answering back with a dumb I don’t know.
Gus and Bruce stared as well. They were all looking at her. Her and Adam. Oh God. Was this the psychological break she’d been dreading? She could almost hear reality breaking away from fantasy like the plates of the earth shifting. The fallout was coming—
“Excuse me.” She turned and kept her head down as she rushed through the bar to the back and closed herself in the restroom.
Her breathing kept tempo with her racing heart as she replayed the last two minutes. Two minutes that felt like a thousand years.
She went to the mirror. Her face looked pale. She’d been off all day. Wetting her hands, she blotted her face and shut off the faucet. She focused on the steady, calming drip, drip, drip of tap leaking.
Nothing made sense yet something did make sense. His comment only freaked her out because it sounded ... true. She knew the field, remembered dreaming that moment.
“Annalise?” A knock sounded at the door.
Kyle. How would she explain her crazy behavior to him? “Be right out.”
She had some sort of thing going with Kyle yet, she just had eye sex with an Amish customer in front of everyone, on the dance floor that wasn’t a dance floor, at Jimbo’s. “Oh God...”
“What?”
“Nothing!” She covered her mouth. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
“I’m coming in.”
“You don’t—” Her words cut off as he pushed through the main door and frowned. “I was just coming out.”
“What was that about?” He appeared angry, not at all concerned that she was approaching a psychotic break.
“I ... I don’t know. I just heard the song and the next thing I knew I was dancing with him.”
“Do you guys know each other?”
Only from my dreams. “No. He’s a customer. I waited on him yesterday.”
Deep creases remained in his brow as he studied her face. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you dancing with him?”
“I...” Her heart dipped in her chest as she recalled how right his hands felt in hers. A whoosh of tickles teased her insides and her skin heated. She told herself it was shame, but it was the exact opposite of shame. “I don’t know. I need to go home. I don’t feel right.”
“Are you drunk?”
“No, I’m not drunk!” It was illegal to drink on the job.
“Sick?” He stepped closer, pressing the backs of his fingers to her brow to test her temperature. His nose twitched.
“Do I have a fever?” Maybe she should go to the ER. Too many weird things were going on with her. It might be a severe case of dehydration or maybe a spider did bite her.
He cleared his throat and stepped back, closer to the wall than he’d been before. “Did you reapply perfume?”
She frowned. “I told you, I don’t wear perfume.”
He gave her a disbelieving look. “That smell...”
She threw up her hands. That’s it! “I’m leaving.”
“Wait.” He grabbed her arm and quickly released her, covering his mouth and nose. “Oh, wow. It’s making my eyes water.”
“Well, that’s just great! I’m leaving. Sarah can handle the rest of the tables for the night.” She pushed past him and made a beeline to her purse.
“Hey, Anna, can I get another beer?”
“Talk to Sarah. I’m off the clock.” Head down, she cut through the kitchen, mumbled a quick goodbye to Karen, and shoved through the back door.
Were she and Kyle over? They were just starting. But after the spectacle she had put on and her new eau de dumpster perfume...
She dug out her keys and unlocked the Steaming Turd. She didn’t bother to lower the windows as she jammed the key into the ignition—click, click, click, click.
“Oh, come on.” She tried again only to get the same lifeless click.
Rage boiled up inside of her and she silently counted to ten. She turned the key again and—click, click, click.
“Motherfucker! Cock sucking, shit bag, piece of crap car!” Her palms beat at the steering wheel as she battered the sweltering air with a slew of profanities.
Sweating, she brushed the hair away from her eyes and panted. She could call an Uber. And there was always the bus. Or she could just shut her eyes and suffocate in the heat. Maybe that’s what the universe wanted. After all, it seemed like some cosmic power was hell bent on fucking up her life lately.
God, she was exhausted. And thirsty. And crying didn’t seem like such a horrible solution at the moment.
Dropping her head back, she shut her eyes and blew out a hot breath. Gah, I can’t breathe. Her fingers blindly felt around and lowered the window.
“Is there something wrong with your vehicle?”
“Jesus fucking Christ!” She jumped high enough her head hit the ceiling. “How long have you been standing there?”
Adam cocked his head to the side. “You’re upset.”
She couldn’t deal with any more weirdness. Grabbing her bag and keys, she got out of the car. “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”
“Who is Captain Obvious?”
“I know. You’re Adam. Just Adam. Amish Adam who shows up out of nowhere and acts like he knows me but couldn’t possibly know me.” She marched in the general direction of the bus stop. “And I—because of sleep deprivation and what’s probably some radioactive spider bite—let you derail my relationship, with a man who actually might want to date me, in two minutes flat. Oh, and I smell like shit.”
He fell into step beside her. “You shouldn’t swear. And I like the way you smell.”
She jerked to a stop and faced him. “Look, I don’t know who you are, Adam, or what Amish farm you came from, but you need to find someone else to follow. I’m having a really bad week and dancing with you in the middle of my place of work is the topper on a list of behaviors that aren’t in my usual wheelhouse. And now my car’s dead—possibly forever. I’m sorry if my cursing offends you, but I’m about to fucking lose my mind. So you can either suck it up or get back on your fucking buggy and leave me the hell alone!”
“The car is unfixable?”
Out of all that, the only thing he took away was the state of her car? “Yes, Adam, the car’s probably shot.”
“Shot?”
“Dead.”
“You hold great affection for the car? How does a non-living thing die?”
Was this a joke? Did the guys set this up? Someone had to be messing with her. “Are you kidding me? What are you doing here? Why are you following me?”
“I wanted to speak to you.”
“About what? Did someone send you here?” Who would do that? She didn’t know any—
Her breath hitched. “Did my father...”
He frowned. “I’m not associated with your family.”
Right. She was really reaching. Her jaw trembled because she didn’t like feeling this out of sorts. “I have to go.”
“You’re upset. I can help you, Annalise.”
She scoffed and started walking, but not fast enough to lose him. “Really? How? You got a horse around back?”
“Very funny. Give me your hands.”
She eyed him skeptically. “Why?”
Rather than answer, he stepped closer and held out his hands, palms up. Then he waited for her. Letting out a frustrated breath, she dropped her hands in his.
“Close your eyes.”
She rolled her eyes. “Why?”
“Just close them. Trust me.”
“I don’t know you,” she grumbled but closed her eyes anyway, the entire time berating herself for being so reckless and allowing a stranger to get so close.
“Imagine somewhere peaceful. Go there in your mind.”
None of this made sense. She had the patience of a saint when it came to Kyle. Where was her willpower with this guy?
“Anna, you’re not focusing.”
She huffed. “That’s because I’m not myself right now.”
“You can trust me.”
“Sounds like something Ted Bundy would say...”
“I don’t care about this Ted and neither should you. Humor me for a few seconds. Please.”
She huffed and pursed her lips. Her mind cleared and an image of tall, green grass filled her mind. In the distance, beneath an old tree, lay a patchwork quilt. She rested on the quilt, her back flat to the earth as the sun warmed her face. A cool breeze teased her skin, as if blowing over her now, and her pulse slowed.
“Your heart rate’s slowing down. You’ve been there before. It’s familiar.”
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
She drew in a slow breath. “In a meadow, under a tree. It’s an hour before sunset and the sky is bursting with pink.”
“I see you there. Do you see me?”
In her mind, she opened her eyes and searched the horizon. “No. I’m alone.”
“Look again.”
In the vision, where insects buzzed low to the ground and the sky wavered against the heat of her earth, a dark form took shape. At first it was only a smear against the golden sky, but then it stretched into the silhouette of a man.
She squinted as the form took long, purposeful steps up the hill and the wide brim of a felt hat came into view. Then his torso and arms. The smudge of black against the fading sun washed away and Adam’s face was there.
She yanked her hands free. “How did you do that?”
“You have no reason to fear me.”
“I saw you. Just now. You got in my head, but...” It was like a visitor more than an implored thought. “Are you a hypnotist or something?”
“I’m Amish.”
She glanced at his clothes. No jeans today. The Amish garb lent an honest implication, but they probably sold that stuff on Amazon nowadays. Anyone could dress like that and call themselves Amish. If she bought a pointed hat, did that make her a witch?
“Why don’t you have a beard? And why are you hanging out at a bar?”
“I’m on a mission.”
“From God?” That sounded very Blues Brothers.
He smiled. “Yes, that’s correct.”
“I was being sarcastic.”
“I was being serious.”
Right. “Well, I gotta get moving. I have a bus to catch.”
He glanced over her shoulder. “You like coffee?”
“I’d be dead without it.”
“May I buy you a cup of coffee then?”
She hesitated and eyed him from head to toe. He didn’t seem to be hiding any weapons. How dangerous could an Amish guy be? “Don’t you have your mission to get back to?”
“I’m exactly where I want to be.”
“I guess I could stay a little longer.”
“Good.”
He slid her hand over the crook of his arm—so very Victorian of him—and led her into the coffee shop. She was grabbing coffee with an Amish stranger on a mission from God. Totally normal.
The café was a monopoly knock off, hardly capturing the ambiance of Central Perk, but they served a damn good cup of jo. The barista worked the machine as a guy waited in front of them in line. She glanced at Adam, who watched her, and she smiled nervously.
There was an Amish market in Bristol. They made amazing pies. “Are you friends with the Amish in Bristol?”
“Bristol?”
“It’s a town a few exits down.”
“No. Our order is very old and private.”
Harrison Ford hung out on an Amish farm in the movie Witness. That painted a pretty clear image in her head, but Adam’s farm probably wasn’t as Hollywood.
There had been that big underground cocaine bust in Amish country a few years back. Maybe he was a part of the Amish mob. A kingpin on a mission to do a drug deal. “What does your farm grow?”
“Everything needed to sustain our way of life. Our agriculture is basic. And we have livestock.”
“Dairy?”
“Yes, but we aren’t a dairy farm. We do not harvest for profit. Only for sustenance.”
She twisted her lips. No mention of cocaine or crime. “So, you live completely off the land?”
“You’re suspicious of my background.”
“I just don’t know many Amish people.” And if they didn’t farm for money how could he afford a hundred-dollar tip?
“It’s a much simpler way of life where I’m from.” He stepped to the counter and ordered two cups of coffee. When he reached in his satchel to pay, her eyes widened at the flash of money tucked within an envelope.
She followed him to a table. “What do you do on the farm?”
“Work from dusk to dawn. Sometimes longer, depending on the season.”
She slid into a chair and studied him. “Are there women on the farm?”
“Of course, though they work in the home.”
How archaic. “What do you guys do for fun?”
“We play games. I like checkers and Scrabble. If the weather’s nice, we play yard games or fish or explore.”
“Oh.” His words were thick and accented, his voice smooth as heated honey. When he spoke, he lulled her into a calm state. He could read the phone book and make it sound sexy.
“What do you do for fun, Annalise?”
She chuckled. “Sleep. Between school and work, I don’t have much of a social life.”
She cupped her hands around the paper cup holding her coffee. The air conditioning was working overtime and the heat of her beverage felt nice. The quiet of the café calmed her and she could finally think.
“Why did you play that song?”
“You have lovely hands,” he said at the same time she asked about the song.
Her attention jumped to his face. He stared as if he were trying to tell her something. His expression appeared gentle, but there was something hard about his focus, a sort of resolute, unbreakable concentration.
She frowned. “What?”
“I was just noticing your hands. They’re lovely. Delicate.”
She glanced at her fingers. Was that an actual compliment? Or was it like, Hello, you have nice hands. I’d like to keep them in a jar of formaldehyde next to my pickled pig's feet and ball of human hair...?
“Um ... thanks?”
“Do men not often compliment you?”
She got them all the time, but normal ones. “You’re sort of weird,” she told him in the kindest way possible.
His smile disappeared. “This place is weird for me.”
She instantly regretted teasing him. “You’re the first man to ever compliment my hands. Thank you.”
Golden lashes lifted, revealing eyes as blue as the glaciers. They reminded her of ice, yet his stare filled her with warmth as he smiled at her. “I played that song because I knew it was your favorite.”
“But how did you know that?”
He straightened his shoulders. He hadn’t sipped his coffee yet. She was halfway through hers.
“Do you believe in God, Annalise?”
“I believe in science.”
“Science?”
“Yeah, the study of the physical and natural world through experiments and proof. If a religion can accompany science without interfering, I don’t have a problem with it.”
“I didn’t ask if you believed in religion. I asked if you believed in God, a higher power.”
“You mean, do I think there is something connecting us to the universe, greater purpose, like destiny?”
“Yes.”
The hair on her arms lifted. She’d been playing with those ideas lately, searching for some sort of explanation for her sorrow. She wished she could explain away the hurt of losing her mom and find some sort of vindication in life’s cruelty, but nothing stuck. She wished finding faith was as simple as reading about it, but it wasn’t. Not for her.
Mary was just a woman in need of a place to have a baby, and Buddha was just a little round philosopher. No matter the deity, creation always came back to the foolproof but complicated explanation of expanding matter under high-density temperature. Her brain only worked in terms of science, because other explanations left her wondering why she deserved to have her only family ripped away from her before she even had a full grasp on adulthood.
She didn’t want there to be a God because she didn’t want to think she might have done something deserving of the losses she’d suffered. And if she believed in one part of destiny, she had to believe in all of it.
What sort of screwed up God permits the cruelty of this world to carry on, but involved Himself in matchmaking of mere mortals? No way was some Supreme Being up there assisting this guy with his game. She smelled bullshit.
But she didn’t want to crush the guy. Amish people were known to be God fearing. “I guess I believe in some of it.”
“Do you believe in signs?”
She shrugged. “I’m not superstitious, but I also wouldn’t purposely break a mirror or walk under a ladder.” Maybe she was a little superstitious. The thought of shoes on a table made her twitchy.
“You know me from your dreams. That’s why I’m familiar and that’s how I knew The Red Album was your favorite. You sang that song to me.”
She stilled. “Shut the front door.”
He glanced at the entrance of the café and frowned. “I know, if you clear your mind of distraction, you’ll remember the dream.”
She didn’t have to clear her mind. She could see it as if they were there, on the field, his fingers twirling in her hair. “What the fuck is happening?”
“Such an ugly word from such a beautiful mouth.”
She scowled at him. “Tell me where we were then. If you know my dreams tell me what we were doing.”
“Lazing on a quilt.”
“Where?”
“In a field. The quilt had a blue hex symbol on it. Your head filled my lap and my fingers combed through your hair. You played with a red string and a gray barn cat chased it. And when you laughed, my soul caught fire and I knew I needed to find you. You see, Annalise, my heart’s been burning ever sense.”
“That’s impossible.” When she pushed her coffee away her hand shook so violently, she nearly knocked it over. Adam steadied the half empty cup and reached for her hand.
She pulled her hands into her lap and he said, “It only seems impossible because of what you know. Think of all the things you still don’t know.”
Her gaze dropped to her trembling fingers. “I’ve been under a lot of pressure with school and finals.”
“Why did you choose to study medicine?”
Her body pressed back in her chair. “How do you know that?”
“Because you’ve told me.”
“When? She remembered singing in the field, but never any conversation about her schooling.” Her frown deepened. He screwed up. She knew she didn’t tell him what she went to school for—in person or in a dream. “You’re lying.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you, Annalise. I’ve seen your dreams. Sometimes you’re listening to heartbeats or examining patients.”
She had a dream the other night like that. It didn’t have the feel of her other dreams. Just a regular old, boring dream. How could he possibly know about those things? People couldn’t share dreams. And if they could and he was eavesdropping on all of hers...
“Are you causing the nightmares?”
“Nightmares?”
“Wooded forests crawling with screaming bugs, dark ponds full of bloodsucking fish, and then there were the butterflies that tried to eat me alive. Were you there for them?”
His brow creased. “I’ve had no such dreams.”
“But I felt ... someone else present.”
His frown deepened. “It wasn’t me. How long ago did you have this nightmare?”
“Nightmares. And I have one or two a night. It’s why I haven’t been sleeping well.”
“I don’t understand. If you had a dream I’d know.”
“And why is that?” There was normal crazy and then a whole new level of bat shit crazy where people actually believed they were magic.
His gaze cut to hers, his eyes sharp and shrewd as he studied her. “Do not fear me.”
She glanced at the barista who had her nose buried in her phone. She was going to have to go back to the bar and ask someone to drive her home, because she wasn’t chancing this guy following her.
“I’m done my coffee,” she announced.
“But we’re not finished our conversation.”
“Aren’t we? It feels finished.” She pushed her chair back from the table, and he caught her hand.
“Tell me about the nightmares.”
“Let go of my hand.”
“Tell me.”
He wasn’t hurting her, but if she pulled away, she sensed he could. “It doesn’t matter. They’re just dreams.”
“It matters.”
She rolled her eyes. This was exactly why girls shouldn’t grab coffee with men they meet in dark parking lots. “There’s nothing to tell. They just had a feeling. And they were scary. Someone was there, but I never saw him.”
“You’re certain it was a male?”
For the love of God. “Yes. I heard him.”
“He spoke to you?”
“Only once. I was trying to wake up and struggling. He said, I like watching you grex and rootsh, whatever that means.”
“The voice spoke Deutsch?”
“I guess. It sounded just like...” The blood rushed from her face. “You.”
His nostrils flared. “I would never say such a thing.”
But five minutes ago he claimed to know all sorts of things about her dreams. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t believe any of this. Maybe I ate some bad shrimp. Or maybe I’m dehydrated. It could be a bunch of things waking me up at night. But I’m pretty sure it’s got nothing to do with you.” It couldn’t, because anything else would be crazy.
“I need you to know I’d never take pleasure in watching you struggle. I would never say those words to you, Annalise.”
“Why? Because we’re dream buddies?” She stood and he released her hand without a fight. Just the thought of those nightmares gave her chills. “I gotta go. Good luck with your mission.”
As she walked to the door, he watched her. The concentrated sharpness of his stare had turned to something else. He almost looked ... shocked. Either way, she was glad he didn’t follow her.
She pushed out the door and went straight to Jimbo’s a few doors down. She sensed him watching her and refused to look through the glass storefront. But at the last second, she glanced back and sucked in a breath.
Nothing but empty tables filled the café. The barista still had her face in her phone. Annalise’s head jerked, scanning the parking lot. No one was out there.
Shaken, as if she’d just spent the last thirty minutes having coffee with a ghost, she rushed into Jimbo’s. The smoke and music hit her like a bucket of water, thrusting her back into the familiar reality she loathed and loved.
She approached the bar. “I need a shot.”
Kyle frowned. “I thought you went home.”
“My car won’t start.”
He grabbed a clear bottle and filled a small glass. “Lemon?”
“No thanks.” She tossed it back and winced at the burn.
“I can take a look at your car, missy,” Gus offered, overhearing her.
“I doubt it’s fixable, but if you don’t mind taking a peek—”
“Say no more.” He stood, a little off balance, and waved a hand. “Lead the way.”
In the parking lot, Gus poked around under the hood instructing her when to turn the key and when to pump the pedals. He couldn’t find anything wrong, but after a good twenty minutes of sweet talking the Steaming Turd and some gentle petting on Gus’s end, they coaxed the old girl back to life.
Gus appeared as surprised as she was. “I ain’t never seen a car do that before.” He rubbed his eyes. “Maybe I should head home, too.”
“Are you all right to drive?”
“Huh?” He glanced back at her, his feet already carrying him back to the bar. “Oh, yeah, I’m fine. You be careful getting home, now, missy. And do yourself a favor and back in when you park. I could have sworn it was the battery, but what the hell do I know?”
“Thanks, Gus. I will.”
The Steaming Turd rumbled onto the road and she couldn’t help but smile. She stroked the dusty dashboard. “See, you’re not dead yet. I knew we’d save you.”
She backed in, just as Gus had suggested. That way, if she needed a jump in the morning, it would be easy to get under the hood. After a long shower that she hoped removed any lingering unpleasant scents, she took a hefty dose of nighttime cold medicine.
She was determined to get a sound night’s sleep. And by the time her head hit the pillow her eyes were already closing.