What Dreams May Come (Berkley Sensation) Read online

  No. She shied away from that thought. Raising her head, she looked toward the bright reds, blues, and yellows of camping tents that beckoned her forward.

  Thank God! She had been frightened and confused for a few minutes. Now she knew where she was—at a camping site she loved. She had led many wilderness expeditions here. Probably the rest of the group was waiting for her. And they’d be really happy to see her.

  Her brow wrinkled. The rest of the group? Were others with her? She hoped so, because then she wouldn’t be so alone.

  Her mind made another leap. Maybe when she got to the campsite, she’d find Caleb. He’d been here—hadn’t he? She remembered sensing him with her.

  Where had he gone?

  Suddenly her head was throbbing. What would Caleb be doing out in the woods with her? She hadn’t seen him in a long time. Not since the awful day she’d sent him away.

  He was no longer part of her life, she told herself firmly. But she’d kept up with his career. She was so proud of him. She’d gone to galleries and public buildings and parks where his huge metal or stone sculptures were displayed. She’d seen him in a documentary on television about talented young artists. She’d read articles about him. And she had collected pictures of some of his major works.

  “Caleb?” she said aloud.

  He didn’t answer. Should she be expecting him? A few minutes ago she’d thought he was here.

  She tried to make her thoughts come clear, but her head hurt too much. The pain made it hard to think, hard to see, hard to breathe. She’d go back to camp, take some headache medication, and lie down. The others would leave her alone, but Caleb would crawl into her tent with her and hold her in his arms.

  More than hold. A shiver of sensation went through her as she imagined being close to him again, kissing him, touching him. The hardest thing she’d ever done was walk away from him. She’d thought it was over between them—forever. But she sensed that he was back—even though she hadn’t seen him yet.

  She smiled to herself and let her thoughts drift, calling up wonderful images from the past. His hands and lips on her body had been magic, setting her senses on fire.

  She had missed him. So much.

  An aching longing pierced her. She needed him with her. She needed all the things she had denied them both. Quickly she set out toward the camp.

  Need and reality warred within Caleb.

  He ached to go to Miranda. Even if she was unconscious, he wanted to be close to her. He’d stop pacing the living room and start to pick up the phone so he could find out what hospital she’d been taken to. Then he’d tell himself not to be a damn fool—and to stay home.

  But someone had run her off the road. Someone who wanted to hurt her? Would they try again?

  Panic surged through him. Struggling to hold his hands steady, he started calling the hospitals in Monterey. The second one he reached, Monterey-Carmel General, had a patient named Miranda Grove. She was in intensive care, her condition was guarded, and he knew that he had to go to her. Whether she wanted him there or not.

  Preparing to camp out in the parking lot if necessary, he threw some clothing and toilet articles into an overnight bag. As he was about to walk out the door, the phone rang, and he muttered a curse.

  He didn’t want to stop and answer, but he sensed the call would be important.

  So he want back to the kitchen and snatched up the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  “Caleb. I’m glad I reached you.”

  It was his aunt Edith, and his mind conjured up a picture of a sixty-year-old woman with dyed red hair, wearing an emerald green dress, three or four sparkling necklaces, half a dozen rings, and a fringed shawl. When she and his mother had worked as fortune-tellers, they had both dressed flamboyantly as part of their image. Somehow Aunt Edith had always managed to look a bit more outrageous.

  He hadn’t spoken to her in weeks. This evening the tone of her voice made him instantly alert. “Aunt Edith, is there something wrong? Is it my mom?”

  “Loretta is fine, living it up in that retirement community she loves so much. I’m calling about something else. Don’t go up to Monterey.”

  “How did you know I was?” Anger made his voice gruff, because he wondered if she had been eavesdropping on his thoughts.

  To his relief, she gave him a plausible reason for her call. “I saw on the evening news that Miranda Grove had been in a one-truck accident. And I knew that if you found out about it, you’d go flying to her like a moth to a flame.”

  “I wouldn’t put it that way.”

  “Stay away from the Grove family.”

  “Are you giving me your professional opinion?”

  “I’m retired. I’m speaking as your aunt—as someone who cares about you. It’s our fault you met that girl. I’m sorry about that. Don’t let her hurt you again.”

  “Did Mom put you up to calling?” he asked.

  His aunt made a frustrated noise. “What does it matter whose idea it was?”

  “Well, I’m old enough to make my own decisions. I’ll talk to you later,” he said, his voice firm.

  She tried to hold him on the phone. “Caleb, don’t hang up. . . .”

  Before she could finish the sentence, he put down the receiver, picked up his carry bag again, and strode out of the house.

  Frederick Grove’s slate blue eyes had turned dark. He had gone past angry to enraged, but somehow he kept himself from picking up tables and chairs and dashing them against the wall. He needed information. And he needed to talk to his daughter, because he had a lot of questions to ask her.

  Every time someone in a white coat walked out of the intensive care unit, his head jerked to the right in expectation of some news.

  Finally Dr. Donovan, the neurological consultant, came out, looked around, and focused on him.

  Striding forward, Frederick demanded, “What can you tell me about my daughter? I mean besides what the doc fed me in the emergency room?”

  The dumb shit repeated what Frederick already knew. “There are no internal injuries, and she escaped without broken bones. We stitched the cut on her forehead. We’ve done skull X-rays and a CAT scan. At this time, there is no bleeding inside the brain. No swelling. And she’s breathing on her own.”

  “I want to talk to her.”

  The doctor’s expression became more serious. “Unfortunately, she’s still unconscious.”

  “Why?”

  “It could be a reaction to trauma.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “She needs time to recover from the head injury,” the doctor said slowly.

  Frederick didn’t like the sound of that. “In other words, you don’t know squat,” he guessed, his tone accusing.

  “Since there is no obvious reason for her failure to wake up, we’re hoping for a full recovery.” He smiled reassuringly. “When you’re dealing with the brain, sometimes it’s impossible to predict how fast a patient will recover.”

  “I want to see her.”

  “You can have ten minutes with her every hour.”

  “Ten minutes!”

  “I’m sorry. As soon as we transfer her to a room on the neurological floor, you can spend more time with her.”

  The doctor retreated behind the door again. Frederick was thinking about marching into the unit after him, when he felt someone’s gaze drilling into his back. Turning on his heel, he saw a man staring at him, a man with dark hair, angry dark eyes, broad shoulders, and the muscles of a day laborer.

  “Caleb Mancuso. What the hell are you doing here?” Frederick challenged.

  The big-deal sculptor shoved his large hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I found out Miranda was in an accident. I came to see her.”

  “You can’t. She’s unconscious,” Frederick answered.

  “Why?”

  Because he was in a hospital, Frederick kept his language relatively mild. “They don’t effing know!” he snapped, then was immediately sorry that
he’d given away any insight into his own fears.

  Mancuso shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I’m sorry to hear it,” he said.

  “Yeah, well, we don’t need you here.”

  “Do you know anyone who would want to hurt Miranda?”

  “No!”

  Mancuso opened his mouth, then closed it again. After several charged seconds, he backed away.

  Frederick breathed out a sigh, hoping he had seen the last of the low-life son of a Gypsy fortune-teller. Yet he couldn’t help focusing on one of the questions the guy had asked.

  Do you know anyone who would want to hurt Miranda?

  Caleb had learned to pick his fights. He wanted to punch out Colonel Grove. But getting them both thrown out of the hospital wasn’t going to help Miranda.

  Instead, he went in search of the hospital chapel room. He’d gone there before to pray—when his mother had been rushed to M-C General for intestinal surgery. Once again he slipped inside, thankful that he had the place to himself.

  Dropping onto a hard wooden pew, he sat staring at the stained-glass window above a small altar. He remembered thinking on his previous visit that the window was magnificent, a symphony of color and pattern, with no obvious picture from religion or nature. Today the artwork barely registered. He was too worried about Miranda. Her father said she was unconscious, and the doctors didn’t know why. That confirmed the information Caleb had gotten from the front desk. As he’d rushed upstairs, he’d hoped against hope that she’d improved.

  The expression on the colonel’s face had informed him otherwise. Miranda’s father was scared shitless. So he couldn’t have been the one to try and force her off the road! Right?

  Caleb couldn’t be sure. But he did know that as he’d driven to the hospital, one scene kept coming back to him over and over. Miranda out in the wilderness, in a place where she felt safe.

  Where did the mind go when a person was unconscious? Was she dreaming? And what if the dream stayed fixed in one setting? Like an alternate reality.

  Had her sleeping mind taken her into a secret forest setting where she knew her way around, where she felt sheltered from the pain of the real world? Had she gone there on purpose—to heal herself?

  Or was she stuck there against her will?

  Either way, could he make direct contact with her there? Like when she’d been driving the truck. Or could he only watch her—the way he had done after the crash?

  Fear turned his skin icy. Fear that she would never wake up—unless he went into her mind and brought her back to the world.

  Was that pure, male arrogance on his part?

  No. Deep in his heart he sensed that she was in trouble. Bad trouble.

  Without realizing what he was doing, he reached into his pocket and wrapped his hand around the opal ring. It was warm from the contact with his body. Almost like a living thing.

  He pulled it out, flattening his palm and looking at the lights sparkling in the blue-white stone. And he was snared by an achingly sharp memory. His most vivid sexual encounter—even if it was hardly his most mature experience.

  He was seventeen and home for Christmas vacation from the Academy of Art in San Francisco.

  He was back with Miranda at their fortress. And he was gripped by all the tender, urgent, arousing feelings that swamped him every time he thought of her.

  Only now they were together again, and she was staring at him with eyes so large and green that he thought he might drown in them.

  “You’ve changed,” she murmured.

  “No.”

  “Yes.” She gulped. “Did you sleep with other girls while you were away at that fancy art school?”

  He felt his cheeks heat, thought of lying. Instead, he managed to say, “Yes.”

  “So the things we did together . . . won’t satisfy you anymore.”

  “Of course they will,” he answered automatically. He’d been hoping they could go farther—if she wanted it as much as he did. Now he made an instant revision.

  Ignoring the quick assurance, she asked, “You think I’m . . . old-fashioned, don’t you?”

  “I think you were raised with strict morals. So was I, believe it or not, even if my mom does tell fortunes for a living.”

  Moral values or not, the ache she set off inside him was intolerable. So he folded her close, pressing her body against his.

  He kissed her, stroked his hands up and down her ribs, feeling her shiver of reaction.

  “I want to . . . be with you. But I promise we won’t go any farther than we already have.”

  “Girls at school talk about boys who get carried away and force you to do it.”

  “Have I ever forced you into anything?”

  “No,” she admitted in a small voice.

  “Well, nothing has changed. If I do anything you don’t like, just tell me to stop, and I will.”

  She answered with a shaky laugh. “The problem is . . . I like what you do . . . too much. And we’re . . . out here alone. Private.”

  “Yeah, but I would never do anything to hurt you,” he murmured, then stepped away from her and picked up the blanket he’d brought, spreading it out on the bed of brush that he’d already gathered.

  “Let’s sit and talk,” he said and sat down like he was sure she was going to join him.

  She did—but she left a foot of space between them. Instead of reaching for her, he made himself start a conversation—about school, his hopes for the future, and what she’d been doing since he left. And as the words buzzed in his brain, he maneuvered her back into his arms, where he could touch her and kiss her.

  When the pressure inside himself reached boiling point, he slid his hand under her top, stroking the silky skin of her back, then unhooked her bra and pushed it out of the way.

  They both sighed as he took her wonderful breasts in his hands, and he marveled again at the contrast between their soft weight and the hardened tips.

  “Can I take off your top?” he asked, then waited with his pulse pounding in his ears for her consent.

  When she gave a little nod, he slowly pushed the top up, then helped her discard it.

  The sight of the dappled sunlight shimmering on her breasts took his breath away.

  “Lord, you are so beautiful,” he whispered, then pulled off his own shirt and took her in his arms, moving her breasts against his naked chest, overcome with desire for her.

  With a needy sound low in his throat, he angled his head so that he could kiss her deeply. And she opened her lips, giving him her trust.

  “Miranda, I would never do anything to hurt you,” he said again. “Never.”

  The hitch in her breath told him she was still nervous. Holding his own needs in check, he kissed the line of her jaw, the side of her neck, the hollow at the base of her throat.

  His head was spinning—with desire and with all the words of love he wasn’t free to say. But he could show her what he felt.

  They had gone pretty far together. But he knew this was different. Because he was sexually experienced now. He had wanted to find out if other women had the same effect on him. He had enjoyed the experiences, although nothing else had come close to what he felt with Miranda. Still, he understood exactly what he was doing with each touch, each kiss.

  Slowly he lifted his hand again, drawing circles around her swollen nipples before catching them between his thumbs and fingers, squeezing slightly, wringing a small sob from her.

  “That’s so good,” she breathed.

  “Would you do the same thing for me?” he asked.

  This was something new. Something he hoped would make her feel more comfortable.

  Her eyes focused on his chest, at the sprinkling of hair that hadn’t yet thickened out and at his small, flat nipples.

  Raising her hand, she stroked him, smiling when his breath caught. He had thought her touch would be merely pleasant. It was much, much more.

  “In case you can’t tell, this is making me dizzy,” he whisp
ered.

  “Me, too.”

  “Then maybe we should lie down.”

  A small shadow crossed her face.

  “Unless you don’t trust me,” he said, looking up at her as he stretched out on the blanket.

  Heart-stopping seconds passed before she eased to his side, closing her eyes as she pressed her head against his shoulder.

  He let out a deep sigh as he cradled her in his arms, relieved to have brought her this far. Yet he forced himself to keep the pace slow, kissing her and caressing her before he opened the snap at the top of her jeans. Watching her face, he slowly lowered the zipper, then reached into the opening, slipping his hand into her panties, pressing his palm against the springy hair at the top of her legs before sliding his fingers lower to dip into her silky folds.

  She was aroused, her sex slick and swollen for him. He wanted to make her come then, just to watch pleasure shimmer through her.

  He longed to strip off her jeans and his, too. But they had never been completely naked together, so he left her half dressed while he kissed her face, her lips, the beautiful column of her neck as he stroked her most sensitive flesh. At first she lay still. But when she arched into his touch, he brought his lips to her ear, telling her he wanted her to feel all the pleasure her body could give her.

  She tensed when he slipped his finger inside her. He kissed her as he let her adjust to the feel of that intimate caress before he stroked up to her clit and down again, watching sweet ecstasy gather on her face.

  He caressed her breasts at the same time, knowing the sensations would reinforce each other, building her arousal, loving her response to him.

  “Caleb, Caleb,” she cried out, her hips rising and falling as he brought her higher and higher.

  She sobbed his name as she came, clinging to him. He felt aftershocks shudder through her body, then she lay quiet and boneless in his arms.

  “That was beautiful,” he murmured. When he brushed his lips against her cheek, her eyes came slowly open.

  His own need was like a raging forest fire eating its way through his brain and body. Somehow he kept his voice even as he asked, “Would you do that for me?”