She always made the passage as swiftly as possible because it was a dangerous place, a scary place with unseen depths. Each time she made the treacherous passage, part of her was afraid that if she did not reach the safety of the opposite shore quickly, she would be swept over the falls into a cauldron of churning energy from which there would be no escape.
But she’d had a lot of practice making the crossing.
She took a deep steadying breath, pulled on her talent and hauled herself up out of the treacherous currents. She lowered her talent and allowed the real world to coalesce around her.
The first thing that struck her was that she was not alone. Judson was there. She had forgotten to lock the connecting door.
She had a rule about deep dream trances. She never went into them unless she could be sure that she would be alone and undisturbed. She had learned long ago that her self-imposed lucid dreams, like her habit of talking to ghosts, unnerved others.
She was propped up against the pillows on the bed, dressed in her nightgown and the white terry cloth bathrobe and slippers provided by the inn.
Max meowed again and butted his head against her shoulder. Automatically she reached out to stroke him.
She looked at Judson. With her senses lowered, he no longer appeared enveloped in hot ultra-light. In the deep shadows, she could tell that he was wearing the crewneck T-shirt and the khakis he’d had on earlier.
“Oh, crap,” she said. “Sorry about that. I should have locked the door. Didn’t mean to alarm you.”
Judson did not let go of her hand. “It was just a dream.”
“No, it wasn’t just a dream. It was a trance dream, and you don’t have to act like it fell into the category of normal. People are always freaked out by the way I dream. I told you, my talent is a serious problem when it comes to relationships.”
“Oh, yeah, right. You send men screaming from your bed. You know, I have to tell you, that sounds interesting.”
“Okay, maybe not screaming. But there were some extremely awkward partings back in the days when I was trying to fall in love and pretend that I was normal.”
“I know where you’re coming from,” he said. “I told you, my talent gets in the way of relationships, too.”
She was very conscious of the feel of his strong hand wrapped around hers. His eyes still burned.
She knew that she was out of the dream, but there was a familiar, dreamlike quality in the atmosphere. An effervescent energy swirled around her, teasing and arousing her senses. A liquid heat built inside her lower body.
High wire, she reminded herself. No net.
“Do you always talk out loud to the ghosts in your trance dreams?” Judson asked.
He didn’t sound worried. He sounded curious.
Bored by the proceedings, Max jumped down to the floor and wandered off toward the other room, tail high.
“Not always,” she said. But in this case, I was talking to Evelyn again. I deliberately put myself into the dream to see if I could understand what she was trying to tell me with the map. It has to be important. Otherwise she wouldn’t have hidden it inside the mirror engine. And she wouldn’t have left that message on the back of the photo for me to find.”
Judson looked at the map unfolded across her thighs. “Get any ideas from your dream?”
“Nothing concrete.” She ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it loosely back behind her ears while she struggled to pull facts from her visions. “In my dream, I set out on a road trip. I was walking from one circled town to the next. Evelyn’s ghost told me that the names she wrote on that map and the six circled towns were important. But she also told me that I should go back to the beginning.”
“Back to Wilby?”
“That’s just it—I’m not sure what it all means. I went into the dream assuming that the places she marked were sites of paranormal activity that she had researched online, places that she planned to check out as potential Dead of Night episodes. I thought one of them might be a clue to whatever is going on here in Wilby.” She stabbed a finger at Reno. “I got this far before Evelyn appeared and told me I have to go back to the beginning.”
“Wilby.”
“I suppose so, one way or another.” She tightened her hand into a frustrated fist. “Sometimes my talent is so damn frustrating.”
“It’s been a long day,” Judson said. “You need rest.”
“Probably.” She sank back against the pillows. “So do you. Sorry I woke you.”
“I wasn’t asleep, at least not very soundly.”
She gave a small sniff. “I’m not surprised, given all that psychic noise you’ve got going on in your aura.”
He tensed. “Don’t start with the therapy talk. I am not in the mood.”
“Okay, okay, you’ve made that clear. But for the record, if you ever do decide that you’d like help getting a good night’s sleep, let me know. I’m the only psychic counselor in town, and it just so happens I specialize in dream therapy. What with you being a Coppersmith and all, I’m sure you can afford me.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Now, about our mutual issues with bed partners.”
She stilled. “What about them?”
“I’m willing to discuss possible therapeutic solutions to that problem.”
She was suddenly a little breathless. Her pulse was kicking up again but not from the rush of adrenaline and anxiety that always accompanied the crossing of the dream river. This new, unfamiliar exhilaration was a good kind of rush. There was certainly risk here, but at the moment she could not find a reason to care about the potential downside.
No net.
“Are you absolutely sure it doesn’t bother you that I talk to ghosts?” she said.
“It’s no big deal.”
“You don’t think I’m maybe borderline crazy?”
“I’ve met crazy. I know crazy. Trust me, you don’t qualify as crazy.”
“What makes you so sure of that?”
He smiled slowly, deliberately. “I’m psychic, remember?”
“Oh, yeah, right.” She smiled. “I almost forgot.”
He pulled her into his arms, giving her time to change her mind. But changing her mind was the last thing she planned to do.
When his mouth closed over hers, a sweeping tide of certainty crashed through her, the same kind of certainty that she got when she reached the shores of the surface world after a harrowing journey to the underworld of dreams. This was solid. This was real.
At least for tonight.
She sank her fingers into Judson’s shoulders, finding the rock-hard muscle beneath warm skin. He responded with a low, husky growl that conveyed male hunger and need in the most elemental language of all. He deepened the kiss. She opened her mouth for him.
He pushed her back down onto the bed and covered her body with his own. A raging thrill flashed across her senses. She curled her leg around his thigh. The fabric of his trousers was rough against her skin. When she thrust one hand beneath his T-shirt, she discovered that his back was already damp with sweat.
She knew that he had heightened his talent. He wasn’t focusing his psychic senses, she realized. He had simply opened them wide to savor all of the raw energy of the passion they were generating. She was doing the same thing.
“Judson.” She twisted beneath him, threaded her fingers in his hair. “Oh my goodness, Judson.”
She kissed him with a ferocity that he took as a challenge, returning the embrace with the same passionate intensity. It was as if both of them had been waiting for this to happen for a very long time, and now that the moment was upon them, they were each determined to seize the opportunity.
Locked in sensual battle, they rolled together across the bed. For an exhilarating time, she was on top, glorying in her power. And then he was pinning her beneath him, and she was relishing the sensual assault he waged on her body.
He wrenched his mouth away from hers and caught her wrists on either side of her head. He was breathing hard now. There was a hot, dark energy about him that radiated across the spectrum. His ring burned in the shadows.