He stood in front of us. Had I conjured him from my vision in the water?
I snorted. Conjured. Right. Mary’s witch talk was invading my head.
“Something funny?” he asked.
I reached out, my fingers trembling as they had in the vision, and he took my hand with a gentle smile. A spark flared where we touched, and I tried to pull away, but he held on, though his smile faded to a frown. From the zap of electricity? Or my odd behavior?
This could not be him. He wasn’t real. Even though he felt very much so.
I got to my feet, lifting my free hand toward his face. He was so tall I had to stretch. In my dreams of him I’d known he was big, strong. How else would he protect me from … whatever it was that he would?
He stilled, gaze on mine, but he didn’t stop me from touching him. I pushed aside his tangled hair. The tiny golden hoop in his ear made my eyes sting.
“It really is you,” I whispered.
Then I fainted.
* * *
Sebastian Frasier caught the girl before she hit the ground, swung her into his arms, then stood there uncertain what to do with her.
The other woman, older, wearing a tan jumpsuit, which seemed to have come from the In Custody Collection, beckoned. Sebastian followed her to a room halfway down the hall.
The Northern Wisconsin Mental Health Facility had been built to follow the Kirkbride Plan of asylums in the mid-19th century. Psychiatrist Thomas Kirkbride had the idea that the building itself could aid in a cure. With long, rambling wings that allowed for sunlight and air, the structures were massive enough to provide both privacy and treatment. Built of stone, they were set on equally large grounds, often former farmland where the inmates could work as a form of therapy. They were damn hard to escape from, which was why this one had been designated by the state as the go-to facility for the criminally insane.
Inside the room were two beds. Made. Two dressers—one with stuff on top, one empty of everything but dust. Two closets—one also with stuff, the second just dust.
“That one’s hers.” The woman jabbed a skinny finger at the bed next to the non-dusty dresser.
“Hers?”
The woman jabbed her finger again, and Sebastian laid his burden upon the mattress she’d indicated. He’d thought the girl an employee—nurse, orderly, maybe another doctor. She was dressed in scrub pants and a facility T-shirt. No ID tag, but he didn’t have one either. At least not yet.
Nevertheless, her lack of one, and this being her room, meant she was patient, not staff. She hadn’t looked crazy. But he should know by now that a lot of them didn’t. Her companion wasn’t one of them. Sebastian knew a lifer when he saw one.
“I should probably…” He glanced around for a button, a phone, some way to call a nurse, but he didn’t find one.
He stepped to the door, glanced into the hall. No nurse. Although he apparently wasn’t very good at spotting them.
There was only one name on the door. Willow Black.
“Is this Willow?” He returned to her bedside.
“Yes.”
“Has she been ill?”
Though Willow was tall, she was also very thin, her skin so pale he could see a fine trace of veins at her temple. Her hair was so light a blond it seemed silver, and her eyes before they’d fluttered closed had been such a vivid blue they’d seemed feverish.
He set his palm on her forehead, but he couldn’t tell if she had a fever that way. The only way he’d ever been able to discern one with his sister had been to press his lips to her forehead.
In this case … bad idea.
“Would you get…” Sebastian paused. “What’s your name?”
“Mary McAllister,” the woman said, but her gaze remained on Willow and not on him.
“Would you get a nurse, Mary?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“First time she sees you and her eyes roll up, she goes down. You think I’m leaving you alone with her. I might be crazy, but I’m not crazy.”
“I’m Dr. Frasier, the new administrator.”
Mary eyed him up and down. “Sure you are.”
At six-foot-five, two-fifty, Sebastian was huge, and his hands, feet, biceps reflected that. People often backpedaled the first time they saw him. He didn’t blame Mary for being leery, though she didn’t appear scared, just protective. Considering the fey frailty of Willow, he could understand that. Even if he did work here, that didn’t mean he wasn’t a creep.