“I didn’t say that,” she said, resting her hand on his thigh. Afraid she’d overstepped, she pulled her hand away.
“Do you want me to take you back downstairs?” he asked.
“Will you go back to sleep?”
“Not a chance, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t.”
“I’ll stay with you.”
“Really?”
“But not if you don’t want me to.”
He looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. She fought the urge to pat her hair into place or tug her nightgown over her shoulder. She had to look almost as scary as he’d sounded, but that wasn’t what she saw in his eyes. He looked at her with gratitude and an almost heartbreaking relief.
She crawled across the bed and fluffed a pillow before lying down on it. “What’s your scariest dream?”
“You don’t want to know,” he told her as he lay down on the opposite side of the bed. “What’s yours?”
“Well, there’s always the one where I’m back in school and the teacher is handing out a test I haven’t studied for.”
“That’s your scariest dream?” Incredulousness made his voice rise.
She didn’t mention any of the dreams where she was naked in church or in front of a crowd. “Once I had a dream I was standing at a podium in front of a giant auditorium and a gust of wind came along and blew my hair off and did a Marilyn Monroe thing to my skirt.”
His laughter made the bed shake.
“Your dreams are way tamer than mine.”
“Well, obviously. Before I woke you, before I came in the room, it crossed my mind that maybe an intruder had broken in and was pulling out your toenails.”
“Denailing. It’s not uncommon in the Orient.”
“It’s scary that you know that.”
“I actually know a lot of scary things.”
“Why’s that?”
She felt more than saw him shrug. “I don’t want to talk about me. Tell me more about your dreams.”
“Okay, once before a big trial, I dreamed that everyone else in the courtroom was an animal. The judge was a lion, the prosecuting attorney was a jackal, and my defendant was a goat. That’s how I knew my defendant didn’t have a chance.”
“How did your case go?”
“Oh, we lost…we lost big.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. I did my best, but I…” She swallowed. “I was ready to quit after that.”
“Is that when you quit?”
“No. I’d worked for so hard and for so long to get where I was, I couldn’t just walk away from it.”
“Until you did.”
“I still practice, but it’s small-fry stuff.” She thought over the legal disputes she’d handled in the past six months. Mrs. Jenkins and her will. The controversial trailer park association. The claims against the town and the historical society. “I like it.” She heard the wonder in her own voice. “It sounds silly, but I actually prefer it.”
