Dream On (2 page)

“Don’t be afraid, Kate. It’s me.”

She blinked, as if the act of doing so would cast a light over whoever was in the room.

“Baby, shhh, it’s okay.”

That voice. She knew that voice. But it couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. When he left she knew he was never coming back. And he hadn’t in five long years. It couldn’t be him.

She lifted her arm, ready to search the darkness, but dropped her hand to the sheets and shook her head, realizing that she’d completely lost her mind. “You’re not real.”

This was the weirdest dream she’d ever had.

But when a calloused hand caressed her cheek, she froze. Dammit, she
felt
that! It
was
real! She wasn’t asleep now, so it had to be real. Surely she wasn’t still dreaming.

“Don’t be afraid.”

Her eyes adjusted well enough to the darkness to make out a silhouette of a man sitting on the edge of her bed. “Who the hell are you?”

It’s not Jack. It couldn’t be him. He would never come back.
Yet the more she cast it aside, the more real it became.

“You know damn well who I am. Wake up, Kate. This isn’t a dream.”

11

Jaci Burton

It
had
to be a dream. No way in hell would Jack have come back to her. Not after…

This was ludicrous. And it wasn’t happening. If she reached for him, she’d grasp nothing but air. Lifting her hand, she stretched toward the apparition in the darkness and grabbed a fistful of…

…shirt. Shirt surrounding hard muscle of a man’s upper arm. Oh, God. This wasn’t happening. Jerking her hand away, she scooted toward the other edge of the bed and lunged for the lamp on her nightstand, afraid to turn the light on and too afraid not to. She sucked in a breath of courage and flicked the switch. Holding her breath, she turned around. Her heart tumbled over as she drank her fill of the man she both loved with all her heart and hated to the deepest recesses of her soul.

“Jack.”

12

Dream On

Chapter Two

It couldn’t be. He wouldn’t be here. How would he even know she was here? Why would he even
want
to find her? Not a word in five years. Nothing. No contact. Why now?

“I can explain,” he said, running his hand through his thick black hair. “If you want to hear it.”

He hadn’t changed at all in five years. She had aged like an old hag and blamed stress and misery as the reasons her appearance had changed so drastically. Apparently he’d not had that problem. His body was still all corded muscle, expansive chest, flat abs and sexy, muscular thighs encased in jeans that hugged his form like a second skin. She pulled the covers up to her chin, suddenly wishing she’d never turned that light on. How dare he look so goddamned sexy!

Drawing up the anger she lived with every day, she lifted her chin and said, “No explanations necessary. You left. There’s nothing else to say. Get out.”

He stood and walked around the other side of the bed to sit next to her. She tried to scoot away but he grasped her wrist. Heat surged through her body at his touch. She might hate him, but just the whisper of his skin against hers flamed her long-dead libido to life again.

“I have a lot to say. And I left for a good reason.”

She snorted. “Sure you did. There’s always a good reason to dump a twenty-year marriage just like that.” Okay, she sounded like a shrew. A bitter one at that. But she didn’t care. She’d spent five years wishing she could get him alone in a room and tell him exactly what she thought of him. Now was her chance. And no matter what her heart said, no matter the joy that wanted to spring up inside her at the sight of him, she held onto her anger like a comforting weapon to use against him. 13

Jaci Burton

“I never stopped loving you, Katie.”

Oh, now that wasn’t fair. Wasn’t fair at all. She’d been prepared for excuses, for apologies and explanations, but not this.

Pull that anger and feeling of betrayal out of their shell, Katherine. Tell him how it felt when
you woke up one morning and he was gone
.

“You never loved me. Hell, you barely even told me you loved me the last few years before you left.”
And if you really loved me, you’d never have left me
. Furrows creased his brow. She itched to trace every single line on his face, all the way down to the curve of his full lips. His gray eyes darkened like a thick cover of clouds in the night and he dropped his chin, looking at her through hooded eyes. “I’m sorry. You’re right. There’s a lot I have to atone for, if you’ll let me.”

She jumped out of bed and paced the room, brushing her hair away from her face, no longer caring that he could see her gray hair and flabby body. “Atone? Atone! How
dare
you show up here claiming ‘Gee babe, I’m sorry that I left you five years ago, but I’m back now so everything’s okay, right?’. How stupid do you think I am? Do you think I’ve sat around for five years mourning what we had, missing you so bad I couldn’t breathe and just wishing I had one more day with you?”

He didn’t smile, but he nodded. “Actually, I think you did just that. And that’s exactly how I felt, too. That’s why I’m back.”

Damn. Fury rocked her body and she trembled. She dropped into the chair next to the desk and bent her head down, refusing to let her ire completely overtake her. She clasped her hands tightly together to still the tremors. He wouldn’t hurt her again. She’d never allow it. Once was bad enough. Twice would be unbearable.

“Why are you here? What do you want from me?”

He didn’t answer and she refused to look up at him. But she heard him move off the bed and toward her. She couldn’t help but watch as he knelt on the floor in front of her. She squeezed her eyes shut so she didn’t have to look at him, afraid if she did she’d 14

Dream On

weaken, and all those years spent erecting the protective shell around her heart would have been wasted.

“Katie, I love you. And I made some serious mistakes with our marriage. I screwed up our lives and our future together. But I didn’t leave because I didn’t love you anymore. I left because I had to, because I had no control over certain events. It wasn’t until after I’d left that I realized there were things I needed to fix about myself.”

“And did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Did you fix them?”

“I don’t know. I hope so. Actually, I thought you could tell me, if you give me a chance to show you.”

His words filtered through her anger like honey into a comb. Her shell weakened at the husky plea in his voice and she remembered all those whispered promises in the dark, when his hard, thick cock had filled her, his hands stroking her to one whimpering orgasm after another. He’d played her body like an artist inspired to greatness, each brush of his hands and mouth on her like a masterpiece of rapture that made her cry out and beg for more of his genius.

The bad times had been all too frequent, but the good times were incredibly memorable.

“Let me prove it to you, Katie. Tell me what you want.”

How easy it would be to tell him to stay, to let him know that all she’d ever wanted was forever with the man she loved. But the last five years wouldn’t disappear so easily, even if her body was starved for attention and her heart felt empty and cold without him. She looked him in the eye, making sure he read every one of her emotions.

“What I want is for the last five years to have never happened. What I want is for the five years before that to have been more than fleeting glimpses of you while you stopped at home to unpack and repack in between business trips. What I want is to start 15

Jaci Burton

over again and this time have a husband who’d be there for me and the kids instead of focused only on his career.”

She refused to feel sympathy for the pain in his eyes. None of this was her fault.

“You’re right. About everything. I screwed up. But I can’t go back. I can only go forward. Let me show you that I’ve changed. Let me give you back what I took from you when I left.”

“You can never give me back what I’ve lost, Jack. Never.” And she didn’t care how much she hurt him by saying it. It was the truth.

Besides, she’d had this conversation with him almost every night for the past five years, when he appeared in her dreams. This time seemed real, but she knew better. She was still dreaming. She had to be.

She jerked when he swept his hand over her hair.

“Let me try.”

She pushed at him and stood, crossing over to the sliding glass doors and looking out at the moon. “I don’t want anything. I don’t want you here.” She turned fully away when he stepped behind her, determined not to let him touch her again. “You showing up out of the blue like this after no word for five years is ripping my heart out, Jack. Please leave me alone. I was doing fine without you.”

Because despite her anger, her misery, her desperate prayers to bring him back and then giving up when she knew her pleas fell on deaf ears, she’d never once stopped loving him. Standing here with him now opened up wounds that had taken years to close. This wasn’t fair!

“I’m not leaving this time, Katie, no matter what you say. I’m here to stay, for as long as it takes to show you I’ve changed. I’m staying until you realize that I love you, that I’ve always loved you and I never stopped.”

Then why did you leave me?!
The words dangled on the tip of her tongue, but she refused to give them voice. What difference would explanations make at this point?

16

Dream On

“Just go away, Jack. I don’t want or need you anymore.” She pushed past him and went into the bathroom and shut the door. She sat on the lid of the toilet and counted, hoping he’d get the hint and leave.

Twenty minutes later her butt was numb. Was he gone or had he stayed? It was quiet and he’d long ago stopped talking to her through the door, so maybe he’d finally given up and left. She unlocked the door and opened it, both relieved and disappointed that she didn’t find him waiting for her in her bedroom. Oh, sure. Just like that, in and out of her life once again. She tasted the bitterness, reveled in it, wrapped it around her like a shield of thick armor. Anger felt so much better than pain. It strengthened rather than weakened her, filling her with its lusty power like a weapon she could use against her enemies. Or enemy. The man she once loved had become her nemesis. Only this time she wasn’t going to come out the loser. She didn’t need him in her life again, didn’t love him anymore and he wasn’t welcome in her home.

Giving up on getting anymore sleep, she glanced at the clock. Five in the morning. Might as well fix some coffee, clear her head and try to get some writing done. Sleep would come later, after she thoroughly exhausted herself. She padded into the kitchen, stopping in the hallway as she picked up the scent of coffee. Wary, she peeked around the corner, her shoulders slumping in defeat as she spied Jack leaning against the counter, cup of steaming coffee in one hand, holding another out to her.

“How about some breakfast, babe? I’ll cook.”

Oh, God. She wanted to fall into a heap right there in the doorway, pound her head against the wood floor and scream out in rage, letting all the emotions she’d held in pour out of her. She wanted, no,
needed
an epic tantrum. Why was he doing this to her?

17

Jaci Burton

Chapter Three

Kate regarded Jack with a dubious expression. Okay, if this is the way he was going to play the game, so be it. She’d let him know that she had changed in the five years he’d been gone. That she was self-sufficient and didn’t really need him anymore. That she was impervious to his dark good looks, his steely body, his sexy smile and voice. Yeah, right. Now she just had to convince herself of it. True to his word, he fixed her breakfast. Didn’t let her do a thing except sit at the table, forcing her to watch the way he moved, the way his ass looked when he bent over to retrieve a pan from the lower cabinet, the way his muscles moved under his tight Tshirt. Even with bacon sizzling in the pan, the scent of Jack overpowered her. Crisp, clean, smelling like his favorite soap. She’d left his brand of soap in the shower long after he’d left, torturing herself by lifting it off the shelf and inhaling the smell that was so much a part of him it made her heart hurt.

Smelling it again and seeing him standing in their kitchen cooking for her made her hand shake. Fighting off the quiver in her fingers, she lifted the coffee cup to her lips and took a deep draw of the life-infusing caffeine, hoping it would jolt her out of the cloud of bittersweet memories.

Remember the bad stuff, Kate.

Bad stuff. Right. That she could do. Like a life preserver, she held tight to those memories. Jack had been all about work. Owning his own business was timeconsuming, he’d told her in the beginning. And it eventually consumed all of him. He never took the time to do the things she wanted. But she was always there for him, and for their kids, standing by Jack when things went badly at work, taking care of shuffling the kids back and forth when he had yet another out of town business meeting. And 18

Dream On

through it all, she’d loved him, lived for those fleeting moments when he gave her his attention. They were rare, but when they happened, they were unforgettable. She’d been such a fool. All those years she’d struggled as a writer, putting her own career on the back burner while she nurtured his and took care of the children because he was too busy to do anything but work.

Now she was poised on the verge of success. Her agent told her a sale of her latest book to one of the big publishers looked promising. Very promising. She allowed her first smile of the day.

“What are you grinning about?”

She jumped when Jack spoke, so immersed in her own thoughts she’d forgotten he stood nearby. He slid a plate in front of her and sat, occupying his usual chair that had stood empty for too many years. Now it was like the past five years had disappeared, as if they’d been some kind of dream and this was her reality now. A sense of comfort overcame her and she knew it was because Jack was here, smiling at her as if he’d never left.