Lisa Kleypas: Give Me Tonight

THE DREAM NEVER CHANGED, ONLY BECAME MORE vivid each time it happened. She could recall every detail even in her waking moments. The strangeness of the images never failed to alarm her. It wasn't like Addie to think of such things… no, she was practical and sensible, never given to the kinds of reckless adventures her friends tried to involve her in. What would they think if they knew about the dream that returned to plague her so many nights? She would never tell a soul about it. It was a moment of madness, too personal to confide in anyone.

Her body was relaxed in slumber. Gradually she seemed to awaken, realizing that someone else was in the room, circling the bed with quiet steps. She kept her eyes closed, but her heart started to beat fast and strong. Then there was no movement in the silence, and she held her breath as she waited for a touch, a sound, a whisper. Gently the mattress depressed with the heavy weight of a man's body-a phantom lover, faceless and nameless, bent on possessing her as no one ever had. She tried to roll away from him, but he stopped her, pressing her back into the pillows. A heady masculine scent filled her nostrils, and she was gathered in hard-muscled arms, pinned underneath him, filled with his warmth.

His hands swept over her skin, circling her breasts, slipping between her thighs, and as he touched her she writhed, burning with pleasure. She begged him to stop, but he laughed softly and kept tormenting her. His mouth was hot on her neck, her breasts, her stomach. Then blinding desire coursed through her, and she wrapped her arms around him, drawing him closer, wanting him desperately. No words were exchanged between them as he made love to her, his body surging over hers like a slow, pounding surf.

Then the dream changed. Suddenly she found herself on the front porch, and the sky was heavy with the ripe darkness of midnight, and someone was standing in the street, staring at her. It was an old man, his face concealed by the shadows. She didn't know who he was or what he wanted, but he knew her. He even knew her name.

"Adeline. Adeline, where have you been?"

She was frozen with fear. She wanted him to leave, but her throat was locked and she couldn't speak. It was then that Addie always woke up, perspiring and breathless. It was so vivid… it had seemed real. It always did. She didn't have the nightmare too often, but sometimes the dread of it was enough to make her afraid to sleep.

Sitting up slowly, Addie wiped her forehead with the corner of the sheet and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her head was spinning. Although she was quiet, she must have awakened Leah, who was a light sleeper.

"Addie?" came a voice from the next room. "I need my medicine."

"Be right there." She stood up and took a deep breath, feeling as if she'd run a long distance. After she administered the medicine and Leah's pain began to fade, Addie sat down on the bed and looked at her aunt with a disturbed expression. "Leah, have you ever dreamed about people you've never met, things you've never done, but somehow it all seems familiar?"

"I can't say I have. I only dream about things I know." Leah yawned widely. "But I don't have your imagination, Addie."

"But when it seems like it's really happening-"

"Let's talk about it in the morning. I'm tired, honey."

Reluctantly Addie nodded, giving her a brief smile before going back to her own room, knowing they wouldn't talk about it tomorrow.

Addie walked into the bedroom and set down her purse, humming along with the radio as it played "I'd Be Lost Without You." Her arrival was a welcome relief to Leah, who was permanently confined to the bed, an invalid for the past five years. Aside from the radio in the comer and the woman they had hired to stay with her occasionally, Addie was her only connection to the world outside.

They made an odd pair, a maiden aunt and her twenty-year-old niece. There were few similarities between them. Leah was from a time when women had been fussed over, protected and sheltered, kept in ignorance about matters pertaining to the intimate relationship of a husband and wife. Addie was a modem young woman who could drive an automobile and bring home a paycheck. Unlike the Gibson girls of Leah's generation, she hadn't been sheltered from hardship or knowledge. Addie knew what it was like to work. And she knew, as her friends did, not to trust in the future. They had all been taught that only here and now mattered.

To wait, save, and hope for better things was naive. To believe in nothing was the only way to be safe from disillusionment. They overdosed on sex and sophistication, until the novelty of their outrageous behavior wore off and it was commonplace. Women smoked as much as they pleased in public, and passed around flasks of strong drink under the table. They kicked their legs high as they danced the Charleston, and used rough language that once would have caused any man to blush. It was fun to be young and frivolous, fun to go to movies, listen to jazz, park in their shiny black Fords and flirt and tease their boyfriends long past midnight.

They were a hard-bitten lot, but Leah took comfort in the fact that her niece was less brittle than the rest of her friends. Addie had an understanding of responsibility, and innate compassion for others. She hadn't always been that way. As a child Addie had been willful, intractably selfish, disrespectful of Leah's authority. But a hard life had taught Addie bitter lessons that had softened her pride and gentled her spirit, turning her willfulness into an inner core of steel. Now many others drew constantly from Addie's strength: the patients she nursed at the hospital, the friends who called for her help when they needed her, and most of all Leah herself. Leah needed her more than anyone else.

The tune on the radio changed to "Blue Skies," and Addie sang along with the chorus.

"You're off-key," Leah observed, sitting up in bed, and Addie bent over to place a smacking kiss on her forehead.

"I'm always off-key."

"How is everything in town?"

"The same," Addie said matter-of-factly, shrugging. "No work. People standing on street corners with nothing to do except chin-wag. This afternoon the line at the unemployment relief station is all the way down to the barbershop."

Leah clicked her tongue. "Goodness gracious."

"Nothing interesting to tell you today. No new gossip, nothing going on. Except there's the strangest old man wandering around town." Addie walked over to the nightstand and picked up a spoon, flipping the bowl of it against her palm as she spoke. "I saw him outside the apothecary shop after I picked up your medicine. He looks like one of those old drovers-heavy beard, long hair, and kind of a weather-beaten face."

A tired smile crossed Leah's face. She was paler than usual and strangely listless. During the past few months her perfectly white hair had lost its brilliance, her dark-eyed liveliness had all but vanished, leaving behind a mixture of resignation and peace.

"Lots of old cowboys wandering around nowadays. Nothing strange about that."

"Yes, but he was standing outside the shop as if he was waiting for me to come out. He looked at me so hard, just staring and staring, and he didn't stop until I reached the end of the street. It gave me the strangest feeling, all creepy inside. And he must have been around seventy or eighty years old!"