Dreamwalker (Stormwalker #5) - Allyson James Page 0,15

containing five slices of pie, two apple, three cherry.

I remembered the rows of wooden tables with captain’s chairs and the menus waiting on stands in the middle of the tables with the ketchup and salt and pepper. The older couple wearing thick jackets, who’d come in via the RV in the parking lot. The two Indian men I’d glanced at in curiosity, wondering which tribe they were from. The poster on the wall listing the hundred omelets and what they had in them. I stopped in shock, and Mick ran into the back of me.

“Janet?” He leaned down, his breath warm on my cheek. “What is it?”

He’d braced for danger, ready to fight whatever I’d sensed. The two Indian guys glanced up. They kept their expressions neutral, though I’m sure they weren’t thrilled with my bad manners.

“Nothing,” I said quickly.

I continued to the table the pink-skirted waitress had waved me to and sat down. Mick did another scan of the restaurant until he took a seat opposite me. He didn’t put his back to the wall, as fighting men do in the movies, but he did position the napkin dispenser to reflect what was behind him.

“I just remembered this place,” I said.

“Remembered?” Mick had his blue gaze on me again.

“Yeah.”

The déjà vu feeling made me crazy, but it wasn’t strictly déjà vu, because I had been here before. With Mick. I remembered watching him order a dozen of the omelets after bantering with the waitress about whether there were truly a hundred of them, not just variations on the first twelve.

“When was this?” Mick’s amused look was in place, but the way he watched me ... Black flickered through his eyes, the dragon filling the space. “I thought you said you’d never left the Southwest before you met me.”

“I hadn’t.” That was true. The first time I’d climbed on my bike and hit the road by myself, I’d made it only as far as Nevada before I’d found big trouble. Mick had taken me out of that trouble, and the rest was history. “I don’t mean I came here without you. I mean ...”

His eyes were definitely blacker. Mick tried to hide it, which was weird. I knew he was a dragon underneath it all, had been born one in the heart of a volcano somewhere near Hawaii.

Then again, when I’d been here with him the first time, I hadn’t known that.

Dear gods and goddesses. This wasn’t déjà vu, this was me actually living it over again. Some kind of time travel? Time warp? Time bending? I had no freaking clue. Science fiction stuff left me baffled.

Or a spell? I remembered, though the memory was fading, the flash of Emmett Smith’s eyes before all had gone dark. What the hell had that dickwad done to me?

I also remembered Emmett standing outside my hotel after Mick had flamed his limo, the man calmly brushing off his suit. He’d smiled at me and said, “Sweet dreams, Janet.”

Dreams.

Oh holy fucking shit. This wasn’t me reliving this event, down to the last detail. This was my memory, from the road trip Mick and I had taken together after we’d met, when he’d showed me the vastness of the country I lived in. I was dredging up this day from the depths of my mind, replaying it but squarely inside it, as though living it the first time. That was why I couldn’t find my ring—Mick wouldn’t give it to me until five and a half years in our future.

Except, Mick was reacting to the me as I was now, to the Janet looking around in stunned surprise. He hadn’t done that the first time.

So, maybe I was reliving it. Maybe Emmett had plucked the scene from my brain somehow and sent me back in time. Or he’d sent me into some kind of sleep where my dreams segued with reality and became one.

I had no idea—complicated magic was beyond me. I knew how to ride storms and create a few simple spells. Messing with people’s minds was not in my scope.

Whatever was going on, I knew two things—first, that Emmett was behind it. Second, I needed to wake up.

I returned my attention to Mick, who was still contemplating me in wariness. The spark in his eyes told me he was about to grab me, haul me outside, and shake me upside down until the demon that possessed me fell out.

I eased out my breath, forcing myself to relax. If this was a dream, then