“You were in the dream, and I was there. We were in bed.”
He’d had a naughty dream about me? Ugh. I should have known it. I pulled my wrist from his grasp, but when he didn’t seem to notice and just stood there staring like he’d been spirited away, I calmed down again.
“You looked at me in this amazing, soul-filling way, Sheridan.” Finally, he looked over at me, our gazes connecting, and his look infused me with a feeling I’d never known—pure adoration. “I’d never felt anything like it, and you were so beautiful, and I … felt something. It was like being home.” His chin wrinkled. “I’m not saying it right.”
No, I got the sense of what he meant. When I looked into his eyes, I felt it sometimes, too. “And?”
“And then I heard you singing. In the shower. You were really bad at it.”
Ha. A laugh escaped me, just a syllable. “I will never audition for a televised singing program unless they’re paying me millions to be a laughingstock. What did I sing in your dream?”
He named a rock ballad I knew by heart. One I’d sung in the shower numerous times.
“Oh.” Alternating hot and cold lights flashed in my stomach. “That’s a good guess?” My throat had shrunk to the diameter of a straw again.
“As were the bouquet of peonies, the Bluebird chocolates, the Dewing print?”
“Should I be getting scared, Luke?”
“Maybe.” He was still staring into the bedroom.
“What else was in your dream?”
He listed intricate details—things he shouldn’t have known about me, but which had all been breadcrumbs he’d left for me to follow over the past month—from the magnets on the refrigerator, to the stack of mail with Mom and Dad’s anniversary invitation, to the location of the drinking glasses.
“It took me ages to find that glass in my dream.”
“But you found it? And that’s how you knew where to find it at my house tonight?” And before. He’d found it before. Instead of frightened, I suddenly became fascinated. “Luke, I don’t know what to say. How could any of this happen?”
“Your grocery shopping list was probably the biggest set of clues I ended up drawing on—to impress you, or give you hints, or lead you toward caring for me so I could see that look in your eyes again.” He turned to me, searching my face. “Sorry for snooping, but the shopping list is how I learned your favorite flower and about the Bluebird chocolates.” He leaned against the frame of the bedroom door. We were both standing in it, just inches apart, our bodies filling the space, but the revelation coming forth filled the whole room. Maybe the whole earth.
“And I left off the key lime greek yogurt today.”
“Don’t do that again, Sheridan.”
I nodded, a good grocery-list soldier. “Was your dream why you offered to help me with the oil change and the garden?”
“Those were because Dr. Cook was supervising my healing and told me if I didn’t get a hobby, he wouldn’t let me return to work. I had to follow healing protocols.” He paused. “But it didn’t hurt that in the dream you’d given me a kiss that changed my life and figuring out how to get another hit of that drug was all I could think about.”
My eyes rolled. Men and their true motives.
We stood facing each other in the narrow doorway. He reached out and took my hand. “All this story is beyond belief. I realize that. It seemed too weird to be true even to me, but I chased the feeling. I couldn’t help myself. It’s why I showed up at your parents’ anniversary party. I wanted to prove to myself it wasn’t real, and that it was just a dream, or—”
“Or?”
“Or find out that I could make it my reality.”
Nothing in all my life-coaching certification courses had prepared me for this kind of a situation. “It wasn’t just a dream.”
“No, it wasn’t.” Luke’s gaze was steady, confident. “I think it was showing me something important. Something that could be.”
Without thinking, I nodded. Could it be? Could Luke and I …? But he wasn’t the rescuer, he wasn’t … “What about what Harvey Pooler said?”
“That’s why I came over.” Luke didn’t take his eyes off me. He stood up and placed a hand on the door frame above my head, and then he leaned over me, like he owned me. “At first, I thought he had to have it wrong. The most I could remember about the Great Quake was working at the beach, a bunch of lung-encrusting dust particles, and a bad night. Oh, and a horrible headache.” He ran a hand through his brown hair, messing it and making it look shaggy.
“But it happened in the day.”
“I know. But what I realized was that my vague memory of it as being night was due to being inside the library. It was dark in there.”