Dream A Little Dream

2

"Wake up."

Something wet splashed on Rachel's face. Her eyes flickered open, and she saw bars of blue-white light shining above her. She tried to blink them away, then panicked. "Edward?"

"Mommy?"

Everything came back to her. The car. The drive-in. She forced her eyes to focus. The bars of light were coming from the fluorescent fixture in the snack bar. She was lying on the concrete floor.

Gabe Bonner crouched on one knee at her side, and Edward stood just behind him, his little boy's face old with worry. "Oh, baby, I'm sorry…" She tried to struggle into a sitting position. Her stomach heaved, and she knew she was going to throw up.

Bonner pushed a plastic cup against her lips, and water trickled over her tongue. Fighting the nausea, she tried to turn away from it, but he wouldn't let her. The water splashed over her chin and ran down her neck. She swallowed some of it, and her stomach steadied. She swallowed more and noticed a faint aftertaste of stale coffee.

She barely managed to sit up the rest of the way, and her hands shook as she tried to take the thermos cup from his hand. He let go the moment their fingers touched.

"How long since you've had anything to eat?" He uttered the question without much show of interest and rose to his feet.

Several more swallows of water and a few deep breaths let her recuperate enough to manage a smart-ass response. "Prime rib just last night."

Without comment, he thrust some kind of snack cake into her hand, chocolate with a creamy-white center. She took a bite, then automatically held it out toward Edward. "You eat the rest, honey. I'm not hungry."

"Eat it." An order. Curt, flat, impossible to disobey.

She wanted to shove the snack cake in his face, but she didn't have the strength. Instead, she forced it down between sips of water and found that she felt better. "This'll teach me not to stay out dancing all night," she managed. "That last tango must have done me in."

He wasn't buying her act for a minute. "Why are you still here?"

She hated having him loom over her and forced herself to her feet, only to realize her legs weren't working all that well. She settled into a paint-splattered metal folding chair. "Did you happen to notice… how much work I got done before my… unfortunate lapse of consciousness?"

"I noticed. And I told you I wouldn't hire you."

"But I want to work here."

"Too bad." With no particular haste, he ripped open a snack-sized bag of tortilla chips and handed it to her.

"I have to work here."

"I doubt that."

"No, it's true. I'm a disciple of Joseph Campbell. I'm following my bliss." She pushed a tortilla chip into her mouth, then winced as the salt stung the cuts on her fingers.

Bonner didn't miss a thing. He caught her by the wrists, then turned her dirty hands upward to study her thorn-slashed palms and the long, bloody scratches on the undersides of her arms. The wounds didn't seem to bother him much. "I'm surprised a smart-ass like you doesn't know enough to wear gloves."

"I left them at my beach house." She rose. "I'll just slip into the ladies' room and wash off some of this dirt."

She wasn't surprised when he didn't try to stop her. Edward followed her to the back of the building where she found the ladies' room locked, but the door to the men's room open. The plumbing was old and unsightly, but she spotted a pile of paper towels and a fresh bar of Dial soap.

She washed as much of herself as she could reach, and, between the cold water and the food, felt better. But she still looked like a train wreck. Her dress was filthy, her face ashen. She combed the snarls out of her hair with her fingers and pinched her cheeks while she tried to figure out how she could possibly recover from this latest disaster. The Impala wasn't going anywhere, and she couldn't give up.

By the time she returned to the snack bar, Bonner had finished putting the plastic cover over the fluorescent light. She summoned a bright smile as she watched him lean the folded ladder against the wall.

"How about if I start scraping these walls down so I can paint them. This place won't look half bad when I'm done."

Her heart sank as he turned to her with his flat, empty expression. "Give it up, Rachel. I'm not going to hire you. Since you wouldn't leave with the tow truck, I've called somebody to come get you. Go wait by the road."

Fighting despair, she gave a saucy toss to her head. "Can't do it, Bonner. You forgot about the bliss thing. Drive-ins are my destiny."

"Not this one."

He didn't care that she was desperate. He wasn't even human.

Edward stood at her side with her skirt crumpled in his fist and that old-man worried look on his face. Something inside her felt as if it were breaking. She would sacrifice anything, everything, to keep him safe.

Her voice sounded as old and rusty as her Impala. "Please, Bonner. I need a break." She paused, hating herself for begging. "I'll do anything."

He slowly lifted his head, and as those pale-silver eyes flicked over her, she was conscious of her wild hair and dirty dress. She experienced something else-an intense awareness of him as a man. She felt as if she'd come full circle right back to the Dominion Motel. Right back to six days ago.

His voice was low-pitched, almost inaudible. "I seriously doubt that."

He was a man who cared about nothing, yet something hot and dangerous filled the air. There was no lechery in his gaze as he studied her, but at the same time, a primal alertness in the way he was watching her told her she was wrong. There was, indeed, at least one thing that he cared about.

A feeling of inevitability came over her, a sense that all the battles she had fought had led to this moment. Her heart slammed into her ribs, and her mouth felt like cotton. She had fought destiny long enough. It was time she gave up the struggle.

She drew her tongue over her dry lips and kept her eyes nailed to Gabriel Bonner. "Edward, sweetie, I have to talk to Mr. Bonner in private. You go over and play on that turtle."

"Don't want to."

"No arguments." She turned away from Bonner long enough to lead Edward toward the door. When he was outside, she gave him a shaky smile. "Go on, pug. I'll be over to get you before long."

He moved away reluctantly. Her eyes began to sting with tears, but she wouldn't let a single one fall. No time. No point.

She drew the doors of the snack shop closed, twisted the lock, and turned to face Bonner. She forced her chin high. Fierce. Haughty. Let him know she wasn't anybody's victim. "I need a regular paycheck, and I'll do whatever it takes to get it."

The sound he made might have been a laugh, except it was as devoid of amusement as a scream. "You don't mean that."

"Oh, I mean it." Her voice cracked. "Scout's honor."

She lifted her fingers to the buttons on the front of her dress, even though she had nothing on beneath but a pair of blue nylon panties. Her small breasts didn't justify the expense of a bra.

One by one, she opened the buttons while he watched.

She wondered if he was married. Considering his age and overwhelming masculinity, the odds were strong. She could only breathe a silent apology to the faceless woman she was injuring.

Although he'd been working, there were no dark rings under his fingernails, no half-moons Of sweat staining his shirt, and she tried to feel grateful that he was clean. His breath wouldn't reek of greasy onions and bad teeth. Still, an inner alarm warned her she would have been safer with Clyde Rorsch.

His lips barely moved. "Where's your pride?"

"I'm fresh out." The last of the buttons gave way. She slipped the soft blue chambray dress from her shoulders. With a soft whish, it dropped around her ankles.

His empty silver eyes took in her small, high breasts and the ribs that showed so plainly beneath. Her low-cut panties didn't conceal either the sharpness of her hipbones or the faint stretch marks that showed above the elastic.

"Put your clothes back on."

She stepped out of the dress and made herself walk toward him, clad only in her panties and sandals. She held her head high, determined to keep her dignity intact.

"I'm willing to work a double shift, Bonner. Days and nights. No man you hire is going to do that."

With grim resolve, she reached out and cupped his arm.

"Don't touch me!"

He jerked away as if she'd struck him, and his eyes were no longer empty. Instead, they darkened with a rage so profound that she took a quick step backward.

He snatched up her dress and shoved it at her. "Put it on."

Defeat curled her shoulders. She had lost. As her hand caught the soft blue fabric, her eyes found the photo of G. Dwayne Snopes staring at her from the purple flyer curling on the wall.

Sinner! Harlot!

She slipped into her dress while Bonner made his way to the doors and unlocked them. But he didn't push them open. Instead, he planted his hands on his hips and bent his head. His shoulders rose and fell as if he were breathing hard.

Her stiff, cumbersome fingers had just managed to fasten the last button when the snack shop's doors swung open.

"Hey, Gabe, I got your call. Where-"

The Reverend Ethan Bonner froze in place as he saw her. He was blond and breathtakingly handsome, with finely shaped features and gentle eyes; he was the complete opposite of his brother.

She saw the exact moment when he recognized her. His soft mouth thinned and those gentle eyes glazed with contempt. "Well, well. If it isn't the Widow Snopes come back to haunt us."