I pick up the key. “She used to wear it all the time. Why would she leave it behind? Now you’re here, and I’m here. With that portrait under my bed and a journal full of dreams about your family’s past on my nightstand. I’m sorry, Jude, but I think it’s much easier to believe something supernatural is at play than to think this is all one insane coincidence after another.”
He shoves his hand into his hair and curls it into a fist, his eyes a storm.
“Why are you so angry?” I ask.
“Because I’m having dreams, too.”
His heated response leaves me speechless.
I sit there for awhile, blinking at him as a clock ticks in the hallway.
“What kind of dreams?” I finally ask.
“Bad ones.” His voice is clipped. “They started after that night at the quarry.”
When he asked me to the ball.
He drags his hand down his face. “They’re all alittle different, but there have been some common themes.” His knee begins to bounce. “The portrait always catches on fire, and you always die.”
I stare at him, not sure what to say.
When his eyes meet mine, they are haunted and pained. “It’s always me. I’m the one who kills you.”
Understanding dawns.
The shadows under his eyes. Not sleeping well. It’s been these dreams. He hasn’t regretted asking me to the ball. He’s worried he’s going to hurt me. “Jude, those dreams aren’t real.”
“You just said they mean something. According to you, these are all pieces of the same puzzle. So where do my dreams fit, Selah? You’re dreaming of the past, and I’m what—dreaming of the future?”
His knee is really going now—an agitated jackhammer. Without thinking, I place my hand on top of it, as if doing so might still his worries.
His tortured eyes meet mine.
And the air in my lungs goes hot and shaky. “You’re not going to hurt me, Jude. You’re not?—”
Rafe.
But I stop myself before I say it.
“I’m not worried about your dreams. Not even a little.”
My words pull at some invisible thread. They unravel his anger, showing it for what it’s always been. Fear. Because for all his bluster about logic, heisworried about his dreams. More than a little.
His gaze drops to my hand.
“You’re not afraid?” he asks, his voice low.
My heart gallops. It pounds in my ears, in my throat, in my knees. I can feel it pulsing in my neck. I swallow. “It’s not fear I’m feeling right now.”
He sits there, leaning back against the settee, as still as a statue except for his hand, sliding closer to mine.
Our fingers touch.
It’s barely a graze, but heat pools deep in my abdomen. His attention dips to my mouth, then lifts again to my eyes. His are dark and fathomless. And I’m drawn like a moth to flame.
I lean closer, closer …
A chime clangs through the room.
