were barely visible under it. Perched on the edge of the lake. It was a travesty to see, really.
Because in the other reality, this place had been lovely. She stood there, remembering. Because all of those dreams, all those echoes of memory . . . they’d been real.
It was hot. Oppressively so, and she hated it. But she couldn’t make herself pull away from the dream. She could make herself stop it . . . if she had the will. She recognized that it was just a dream . . . a powerful one. And yes, there were bits and pieces of something that was more.
Yet it was simply a dream and she couldn’t be held captive in this, not if she didn’t allow it.
When he appeared behind her, she sighed and shoved her sticky, sweaty hair back from her face. “You know . . . since this is my dream, it seems that I should have a little bit of control. I don’t want to see you. So you should just go poof . . . and disappear.”
Big, muscled arms wrapped around her waist.
“Yeah? How is that theory working for you?”
Scowling, she twisted away from him, breaking his hold. Putting a few feet between them didn’t help. Turning around to glare at him didn’t help, either. It was just another strike to her already battered heart. She was relieved, though, to see that he looked like he should. Like Joss. That harsh, craggy face; short, dark hair; and those near-black eyes that stared at her like he could see right through her. So if he looked like he should . . . she dared a look down and saw her meager breasts, the long, familiar lines of her body.
Good. Very good, indeed. She had enough on her mind without having to deal with the body of the woman she’d been.
Shooting him a dark look, she said tiredly, “Well, you haven’t gone poof, so clearly the theory isn’t working at all.”
Plucking her shirt away from her sweaty chest, she turned back to the lake.
“Do you know this place?” she asked quietly.
“Vaguely.” He moved once more to stand behind her. But this time, he didn’t touch her. “You’re sad, Dru. Why are you sad?”
Why . . . oh, why, indeed . . .
Lifting a hand, she pointed to the loading dock, just a few yards away. In the strange, shifting realities, she could see it as it had been. Then, it had been green. Impossibly green. Until the ground ran wet with blood. “He killed you there.”
A harsh breath gusted out of him.
“Amelie . . .”
Dru shook her head. “Don’t call me that name,” she said. “That’s not who I am. Whoever she was, whoever I might have been, that’s not who I am now.”
She turned her head and stared at him. “I thought you remembered all of this.”
His eyes glittered as he stared at her.
“I remember you,” he rasped. “More than anything, I remember you. Everything else was just dust in the wind. Then it was all gone.”
“Dust in the wind,” she murmured. “Apt, I suppose.” She eased around him, careful not to touch. The words he’d spoken to her were still a broken, jagged wound on her heart and she just couldn’t handle it.
“You remember more.”
“Just now.” She continued toward that spot, the ache inside growing. Spreading. “He killed you. I don’t remember what it was about. I guess it doesn’t matter after all of this time . . . although . . .”
She stopped and spun to look at him, head cocked. “Do you know who he is?”
A muscle jerked in his jaw, throbbing.
“I guess you do,” she murmured. Absently, she reached up, touched the back of her hand to her cheek. Remembered the few times he’d hit her. All the times he’d hurt her. Whether it was one of the rapes, or the way he had of grabbing her wrist and squeezing, just hard enough to make the bones grind together.
And how often she’d yearned to make him stop. She could have. So many times. In so many ways. She’d had reasons, she knew that. But now . . .
It was so much harder to take now.
“I always had trouble sleeping,” she said, giving him her back and continuing on her walk to the place where he’d died. Where Thom had died. All those years ago. “Nightmares I couldn’t remember. Awful dreams. Waking up with fits of choking. Or just crying. But none of it made sense.