2
On the moviescreen of her sleeping mind, Courtney’s dreams flashed and thundered, replaying a montage of clips from the past eight months of her life and mixing fact with fiction until nothing made any sense.
Images of Oliver Redman, the father of her child, melted into photograph images of her own father, Steven Austin, a man she’d never met and who died when she was no more than a toddler.
Images of Courtney’s swelling stomach and her stunned discovery that she was pregnant shuffled amongst images of Oliver turning his back on her and leaving her to deal with parenthood alone.
Images of her mother, Sharon, laughing as she cooked dinner in their tiny kitchen in the compact terrace house where they’d lived in Southampton, melted into images of Sharon unconscious in hospital following the massive stroke that cut her down and from which she never recovered.
Images from Sharon’s funeral, held on a dark, wet January afternoon, merged with images of Courtney leaving the home they’d shared after the landlord evicted her in order to squeeze more rent from the property with new tenants.
Images of the bedsit where Courtney ended up living spliced with dark memories of the mentally ill resident at the facility who’d broken into her room the previous morning and almost scared her half to death, grabbing her and yanking her and attacking her and…
Courtney woke with a gasp, soaked in sweat, to find Rosie leaning over her and shaking her arm, the expression on her face one of undisguised alarm.
“Courtney! Are you okay?”
Gulping air into her lungs, Courtney blinked fully awake as the remnants of the nightmare scuttled back into the recesses of her mind. A long moment passed as she yet again found herself wondering where she was.
It wasn’t the guest room upstairs in which she’d woken this time. Instead, she was sprawled on the living room sofa while the television murmured in the corner and her cousin peered into her face with mounting concern.
This was Rosie’s house on Foxglove Street, Courtney grasped at last as her surroundings clicked into place. She’d fallen asleep on the sofa of her sweet new cousin’s house on Foxglove Street in the pretty little town of Hamblehurst. She’d fallen asleep after dinner. She hadn’t meant to sleep again, but had been helpless to resist succumbing to oblivion.
And now she was awake and staring up at her cousin, who looked more alarmed with every passing second.
“Courtney! Are you okay?”
Rosie was crouched down beside her now, holding her hand in hers, her brow furrowed with worry.
“I’m fine,” Courtney croaked, then cleared her throat to get rid of the sleepiness. “I fell asleep again. I can’t seem to keep my eyes open.”
“You were crying when I came in. Crying and shouting, and you’re soaked in sweat.”
“I was crying?” Courtney touched her fingers to her cheeks and found them wet with tears. And sure enough, when she ran her hands over her forehead, she realised her skin was damp there too, clammy with cold sweat.
“Do you feel sick?” Rosie asked, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead. “Do you have a fever? Maybe we should phone the doctor?”
“No, I’m fine, I don’t feel ill. I think…” A flash of images inside her mind reminded her of her nightmares. “I just had a bad dream, that’s all.”
“You were shouting something when I came through the front door,” Rosie said. “I rushed in, thinking you’d fallen over or hurt yourself. When I saw you lying here on the sofa, I realised you were asleep, but it must have been a nasty dream to make you shout like that and make you cry, too. Are you sure you don’t feel like you’re coming down with something?”
Courtney shook her head. Now that she was coming fully awake, she knew she wasn’t ill and wasn’t coming down with some virus or other that would make her sweat and appear feverish.
It was the nightmare that had done those things.
So far, since arriving at Rosie’s house, her sleep had been dreamless. Bone-deep exhaustion had made sure of that. Now, though, the rest she’d enjoyed over the last twenty-four hours had allowed her brain to start revisiting everything that had hurt her so badly over these last months.
“I feel fine, honestly,” Courtney said, offering her concerned cousin a smile. “It was just a nasty dream, that’s all.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She shook her head. “The bad dream is already disappearing,” she lied. “I can hardly remember it already.”
Rosie didn’t look convinced, but Courtney wasn’t about to start unearthing her traumas yet again. Poor Rosie had alreadyheard enough about those to last a lifetime since Courtney had landed on her doorstep.
Instead, she offered a bright smile. “How was your date? I can’t wait to hear all about it.”
A beat passed as Rosie debated pursuing the matter further, her concern still obvious in her expression. Courtney was relieved when she instead squeezed her hand and let the matter drop.
