Carol Grace - His Sleeping Beauty

She was slender, this vision, but had curves in all the right places. He tilted his head and watched as she moved a little closer. Who was this ghostly creature? As he stood there, she bent over and picked up a handful of eucalyptus nuts.

“Hello?” he said.

She murmured something and looked past him as if he wasn’t there. It couldn’t be Mary’s niece, the woman who had to be coaxed outside, could it? Maybe she was sleepwalking and didn’t know she was outside. Thank God he’d put a fence around the pool.

He’d seen a picture of her and this woman looked nothing like Mary’s neice. In the photograph a serious bespectacled woman in cap and gown posed with fellow graduates on a college campus. This lovely creature was the complete opposite—so mysterious and romantic that he couldn’t keep his eyes off of her.

He took her arm. She frowned and shook it off. He wasn’t discouraged. He put his arm firmly around her shoulder and gently turned her toward her house. She continued to clutch the nuts in her hand, but she didn’t resist. He murmured what he hoped were soothing words, but she didn’t appear to be listening.

So he guided her into the house and up the stairs, clumsily bumping against the polished railing on one side and her hip on the other. The first bedroom door was open and a bed was so rumpled, it looked as if it had been slept in by someone who’d been tossing and turning.

“Is this it?” he said more to himself than to her. She didn’t answer. He didn’t expect her to, but she headed straight for the bed, as if on autopilot, put the eucalyptus nuts on the bedside table, then lay down, put her head on the pillow and closed her eyes.

He stood there for a long moment wondering what to do. Did sleepwalkers walk more than once a night? If so, should he lock her in or post himself at the door downstairs? He stared down at her pale, heart-shaped face, at the dark hair that was spread out on the pillow and felt totally bewildered. It didn’t make sense. How could the shy, introverted woman he’d heard about have turned into an enchantress? He should really leave. Go out and lock the door behind him and check on her tomorrow.

Instead he just stood there, wondering if, like Sleeping Beauty, it would take a kiss to wake her. If it did, and she was startled, she might jump up and whack him over the head with that vase of flowers on the dresser. What did he have to lose? A lump on the head. An embarrassing explanation. He’d always been a risk-taker. So he leaned over and brushed his lips against hers. Soft, full lips. Tempting lips.

Instead of claiming another kiss, which was what he wanted to do, he decided not to press his luck and reluctantly drew back. She didn’t wake up. She didn’t leap up and smack him. She smiled. That was it. Just a smile. But what a sleepy, sexy smile it was.

Was she dreaming? Or was he? Did she know what had happened? Would she remember this tomorrow? Should he inform her? Was he crazy? He pulled a blanket up to her shoulders and ran his fingers over her bare shoulder where her nightgown had slipped down.

Tomorrow he’d have to alert Sleeping Beauty that, in case she didn’t know it, she had a problem. Or rather, if she kept coming to his place in the middle of the night, they had a problem.

He had no intention of getting involved with a woman, any woman, no matter how beautiful or romantic. Especially if she really was Mary’s niece. He could foresee acres of complications around the corner. But there could be nothing wrong with making a neighborly call on her. In fact, that’s what he’d intended to do all along. It’s what Mary had asked him to do.

But as he walked quietly down the carpeted stairs, he knew he wasn’t fooling anyone. There was something about the woman that intrigued him. That made him want to find out what made her tick. Or to be more precise, what made her walk into his yard at night and collect eucalyptus nuts while sound asleep. It could be just her looks that attracted him, but he’d met dozens of beautiful women and had carefully kept them at arm’s length—at least emotionally—which was where they belonged. He usually didn’t pursue women, figuring they weren’t worth the time and effort. And when they pursued him, he’d eventually ended things. Which was exactly what he’d probably do with this one, if…if it came to that. Which it wouldn’t, because in the morning the mystery would be over. Tonight she’d stepped out of a dream and into his backyard. But tomorrow, he’d find out she was an ordinary woman and that would be the end of it. Wouldn’t it?

At eight o’clock the next morning a loud roaring sound woke Sarah with a start. She sat bolt upright in bed and blinked. She’d been dreaming. She was wandering through a forest in the moonlight, dressed in a long white gown, lost and alone until she saw a dark, mysterious man through the trees. He took her arm and they strolled farther into the trees until…he kissed her. A most amazing kiss that made her tingle all over. That made her want to kiss him back. But before she could, he was gone and it was too late. He’d disappeared, leaving behind only the memory of his shadowy face and the way he tasted, of wine and cigar smoke and coffee.

She was surprised she was able to taste and smell in a dream. That was a first. Also a first to wake up and find her heart pounding and shivers running up and down her spine. Not only that, she’d awakened with her lips still tingling, but with a feeling of disappointment, disorientation and unfulfillment. Where was she? Who was he? What was wrong with her?

One good thing. She hadn’t had an asthma attack in the middle of the night. She hadn’t had one for a long time, but the memories of gasping for breath, staggering into a steam-filled bathroom and the ever-present inhaler she kept at hand even now, just in case, would always be there.

The sun was shining on unfamiliar, faux-finished, pale yellow walls. The air coming through the open window was perfumed with roses—instead of the traffic fumes she was used to. Considering her black thumb, the roses couldn’t possibly be hers. The antique armoire in the corner was smoothly finished in an aged patina and not hers, either.

Then it all came back to her. Instead of sleeping in her own bed in her tiny apartment in crowded, foggy San Francisco, she was house-sitting at Aunt Mary’s sprawling home some thirty miles south in Portola Valley, a suburb of the City by the Bay. And that buzzing sound? That was the man next door cutting down Aunt Mary’s three-hundred-year-old oak tree! She’d been warned he might take advantage of her aunt’s absence and attack the tree just because it was shading his swimming pool. Not on her watch he wouldn’t. That was her primary job while she was there, to protect and preserve one defenseless tree.

She bounded out of bed, tore off her white cotton nightgown and tugged on a pair of drawstring pants, a comfortable faded T-shirt, and her large glasses, and ran on the filed floor through the house and out the back door.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” she shouted across the fence. She was wasting her breath. He didn’t see her. He didn’t hear her. But she saw him, all six-foot-something of muscular man, naked to the waist of his low-slung jeans.

She blinked. And stared. It was him. The man in her dreams. Then she shook her head. No, it couldn’t be, because the man in her dreams lived in a forest, loved trees and would never hurt one. He didn’t hear her, this tree killer, but she heard him, the whole neighborhood heard him.

Finally he turned off the chain saw, wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked over the fence.

“Hello,” he said with a dazzling smile on his tanned face that she supposed charmed every woman he encountered. And made them forget he was doing something he shouldn’t. But not her aunt. Not her, either, unless he put that chain saw down and swore never to use it again. “Did I wake you?”