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“He’s gone over the cliff!” she told him frantically. “We have to help him!”
“Catherine.” Jason’s voice was firm. “There’s nobody here. It was just a dream. Just a dream, baby girl. Nobody is hurt. Come on, come back to bed.”
“No!” Catherine yelled, horrified. “No, you don’t understand! I saw him! Just now! He was searching for someone, he buried something out the back of the hut under the tree, he was drinking whisky out of the bottle right there on the porch. Then he threw himself off the cliff. He just ran right over the edge. We have to help him, Jason. He’s probably fallen to his death!”
Jason grasped her shoulders and shook her gently. “Hey baby, calm down. There’s nobody else here, but if it’s important to you, we’ll go and have a look.”
“Yes! Yes, it’s important! Quickly!” Catherine urged. Putting most of her weight on her good leg, she reached for her dressing gown and hurriedly wrapped it around herself. “Come on!”
She was pretty sure that she heard Jason groan as his feet hit the cold floor, but she didn’t care. All she could think of was the man at the bottom of the cliff. She waited impatiently while he pulled on jeans and a t-shirt and grabbed a torch from the kitchen.
“Come on!” she said, her voice shrill. “You’re going to need to help me, my knee still hurts.”
Jason rounded the bed and stood beside her, taking most of her weight.
“Lead the way.”
As fast as she could move on one leg, Catherine hobbled outside, letting Jason support her. He stopped at the doorstep to put on sandals, but Catherine didn’t. She was in too much of a rush to bother with shoes, and she was hopping on one foot anyway. She could barely put any weight at all on the leg she’d injured in the fall.
Still leaning on Jason, Catherine hurried up the hill, away from the hut, as fast as she could. Which wasn’t very fast with her sore knee. With the light of the torch and the full moon to guide their way, she followed the exact same path the man had traversed, directly to the edge of the cliff.
Jason didn’t say anything, but she could see him looking at the ground and she was waiting for him to point out the obvious: nobody had been here. There were no footprints. The grass wasn’t trampled, as it would have been, had someone walked on it recently. There was no evidence whatsoever that anyone had been anywhere near the clifftop. A lopsided, wobbly fence edged the cliff.
“When did this fence get here? It wasn’t, before. He just ran straight over the edge. Nothing was in his way.”
Jason looked at her funny, like she wasn’t quite right in the head. He shone the torch directly on the fence, back and forth along the wires, up and down the posts, highlighting it. “It looks like it’s been there for quite a long time, Catherine. There’s lichen growing on the battens. I’m quite sure it didn’t just pop up overnight.”
The sarcasm in his tone pissed her off royally and she shot him a fierce glare. His sarcastic quips had annoyed her back then, years ago, too. But back then, she’d always had a witty comeback in return. But that was then. Before. Now, after so many years of abuse, his comment just seemed cruel. Ignoring him, she hurried toward the edge. She had to see. She had to know. Was she dreaming, or had the man really gone over the edge?
“It was a dream, Catherine.” Jason sounded distinctly annoyed now.
Just like Steve.She shuddered, remembering.No, not like Steve,she corrected herself.Steve wouldn’t have come out here with me to check, he would have stayed in bed and mocked me. Told me I was insane. Told me I needed psychological help. That I should be locked up.
“It was just a dream, baby.” He hugged her closer, his voice gentler now. Softer. Patient. Not patronising, but understanding. “There’s nobody here. Nobody needs rescuing.”
Although her brain told her it was true, and Jason was right, her heart couldn’t let it go. It had been so real. The emotions the man had evoked in her had been heart-wrenching. The way he had run straight over the edge of the cliff… it was a sight she didn’t think she would ever forget.
Time had changed the cliff face. Erosion, avalanches, rock slides. Nothing looked the same as it had done in her dream. Tentatively, she leaned over the side. The body she was half expecting to see wasn’t there. Nothing was below them except grass. Rocks. And far below, the river. There was no sign of a fall. No scrabbling down the bank, no broken grasses, no dislodged stones. No evidence of anyone having been there at all. She’d obviously dreamed the entire thing.
She stood there in disbelief. “It was so real,” she whispered.
Jason didn’t say anything, but his presence was a comfort. He switched off the torch and stuffed it into the waistband of his pants so he could cuddle her properly. He stood there beside her in the glow of the moonlight, his strong arms around her, both supporting her weight and supporting her emotions as she wrestled with fiction and reality.
“I’m crazy, aren’t I?” she whispered. “Steve was right.”
“No, he was not right,” Jason growled in her ear, squeezing her tight. “He wasn’t right at all. Having vivid dreams doesn’t make you crazy, sweetheart.”
Catherine smiled as she leaned in closer to him. Despite it being the height of summer there was a chill in the pre-dawn alpine air and she shivered.
“Running through the wilderness in the middle of the night does though, doesn’t it?” she said cynically, only half joking.
“No.” Jason bent his face to hers and kissed her, his lips a gentle caress that touched hers just briefly. “You’re not crazy, and it’s not the middle of the night. It’s early in the morning. The sun is going to be up soon. You need to stop running yourself down,” he growled. “Or I’ll be forced to pull you across my knee and tan your ass until you can’t sit down.”
His words sent a pulse of desire straight to her pussy, and despite the chill in the air, heat shot through her core. Every muscle in her body tensed as Jason slowly eased the back of her dressing gown up and over her hips, slipping his hand underneath the thick, fluffy fabric and squeezing her sore, bare bottom. She squeaked in pain and anticipation as his rough fingers kneaded her flesh.
“Does this bottom need more smacks, little girl?”
“No!” she replied in a high-pitched voice, scandalised. “No more smacks!”
