Soul Dreams (6 page)

Booklady:
No, I’m home. Warm in front of my fireplace. I wanted to be sure the books were what you wanted.

Blake tapped a finger on the desk. He should tell her the books were fine and sign off. Let it go. What possible good could come of prolonging this conversation? But apparently his brain had disconnected from his fingers.

Blake:
Do you live alone?

What kind of stupid question was that to ask? What did he care, anyway?

She took longer to answer this time, probably speculating if he was a madman planning to attack her.

Booklady:
I have a very large, vicious dog as my companion.

Blake almost laughed out loud.
Way to go, Booklady. Good way to scare people off
.

Blake:
How large and how vicious?

In seconds, a new message appeared with a picture of a huge snarling dog.

Booklady:
This is Brutus.

He actually laughed.

Blake:
Seems friendly enough to me.

He added the icon for a grin then shook himself. What the fuck was he doing? He was actually being sociable. But it was so much easier when she couldn’t see him.

What if he asked her something personal? Kind of casually
.

Blake:
Must be hell on dates.

There was a longer pause this time. Had he scared her off? Whether she went out or not was really none of his business. He rubbed his hand on the edge of the desk while he waited. His scarred palm often itched. When the IM bell dinged, he startled.

Booklady:
I don’t date.

What was he supposed to say to that? Before he could stop himself he typed.

Blake:
I don’t either.

What a damn fool he was. Why should she even care?

Booklady:
Not even Internet dating?

Her answer completely surprised him.

Blake:
You mean the places where you post a picture, someone picks you, and you start having conversations? Not my thing. I don’t do any kind of dating.

He almost hit SEND but changed his mind.

Blake:
What about you?

Booklady:
No. No dating at all. I’m faithful to Brutus.

He was trying to figure out what to say next when the IM bell dinged again.

Booklady:
So what about the books?

Blake:
They were fine. I’ll need more next week.

Booklady:
Next week? Don’t you do anything except read?

If she only knew
.

Blake:
Not really, since I’m not dating.

Booklady:
Why don’t you come into the store? We could talk about the books you like.

He grimaced.

Blake:
We’re talking about them now.

Booklady:

Booklady:
But in the store, we could have a cup of coffee. And I make killer cookies.

He had to grin.

Blake:
The cookies could almost tempt me, but no, it’s not possible.

He waited almost a full minute before she answered again.

Booklady:
Okay. Next week.

He was about to reply when her next message beeped in.

Booklady:
Good night.

He answered her, but nothing came back. Obviously she’d signed off.

Blake idly scratched his palm again. So, the very sexy Miss Foster didn’t date. There had to be a story in there somewhere. He knew what
his
reason was, but what was hers? His curiosity piqued, he typed Nina Foster Books and More Freewill Wyoming into the search engine. He got a lot of hits, but they all led back to the bookstore. He found the article in the local paper from five years ago welcoming her to Freewill as the new owner of the store. Nothing about where she’d come from, though.

More snippets of news. It quickly became obvious she supported the Chamber of Commerce, had a Saturday reading hour for kids, an adult book club that met once a month at the store, and baked cookies for everyone. But not one scrap of personal information. It appeared at six o’clock she rolled up the store and disappeared into her house. Period.

Blake knew what his own problem was, but what made a woman like Nina Foster retreat from the world? She was worming her way into his curiosity. Would she answer him if he tried to initiate the IM himself? Like tomorrow night?

He was still staring at the blank computer screen when Grange clumped up the stairs.

“I don’t know why in the damn hell you insisted we buy a house with stairs in it,” he complained, stopping in Blake’s doorway.

Blake answered without looking at the man. “Because it was the cheapest one isolated from town. Satisfied?”

“Nothing will satisfy me until you get off your ass and stop feeling sorry for yourself.” His tone softened. “Please let me make an appointment with the plastic surgeon, the one who wanted to operate on you. At least get his assessment of what he can do. It may be a lot more than you think.”

Blake swiveled his chair so he faced Grange. “And exactly how would I get there? On a plane with the whole world staring at me?”

“We don’t have to fly. We could drive.”

“Are you crazy? Do you know how far it is from here to Phoenix, Arizona?”

Grange shrugged. “It’s worth it to get you back to the surgeon.”

Blake had been competing at a rodeo in Arizona when the fire happened. He’d been airlifted to the Arizona Burn Center in Phoenix where he’d spent seven painful months. The team of plastic surgeons had talked to him in vain, even showing him computer-generated pictures of the extent to which they could repair the damage. But he’d been so depressed he hadn’t wanted to consider it.

“Anyway,” the other man continued, “they’ve got good plastic surgeons in Laramie and Cheyenne. Damn it, Blake, I won’t let you rot away in this house until there’s nothing left to do but stick you in the ground.”

“I’ll think about it.” He said the words but only to get the old man off his back.

“I guess that’s something. See you in the morning.”

Blake sat in the chair for a long time after Grange had stomped down the hallway. Maybe if Booklady was up for another Internet chat, he wouldn’t rot away just yet.

Chapter Three

Will he like the books I have for him this week
?

As Nina started the coffeepot and plated some of the fresh cookies she’d baked, she couldn’t seem to get Blake Massie out of her mind. After the night she’d sent him the first message on a whim, they’d “talked” nightly. Now two weeks had passed, weeks in which she’d created every kind of fantasy about him. She’d hardly been able to think of anything else.

What did he look like? She envisioned him as tall, like Hawk Blackwater, with a muscular build. Dark hair, maybe long enough to brush his shirt collar. A face not handsome but square-jawed and rawboned. As she sipped her first mug of coffee, her mind wandered to her dream from the night before.

She was flushed and warm from her bath, droplets of scented water clinging to her naked body. She reached for the big bath towel on the counter behind her, only to feel someone wrapping it around her. Someone with strong fingers and a hard male body. Someone whose distinctive scent of sandalwood surrounded her. She tried to turn around to see him, but he held her in place.

“Not without the blindfold,” he reminded her, as he tied a folded silk scarf over her eyes.

“Why won’t you ever let me see you?” she asked. “I want more than my imagination.”

“Isn’t it better this way? Then you can imagine me as anyone you want.”

“I want you,” she insisted. “After all this time can’t you reveal yourself to me?”

“Not yet.” He lifted her in his strong arms and carried her into the bedroom, seating her gently on the mattress.

The towel slipped from her body, leaving her exposed to his eyes. She bit her lip, wanting to demand she have the same privilege, insisting she see his body, too, but it was an argument she never won. She wanted to ask him why he was only naked from the waist down, why he always wore a T-shirt made of baby-soft material. But then, in the next moment, she didn’t care. His large rough hands cupped her breasts, and his lips closed around one nipple. She felt the pull all the way to her cunt and clenched her inner muscles to still the throbbing. By now, his touch alone could set her off.

She loved the rough surface of his palms on her skin. What kind of work made his skin so coarse? Every time he touched her every nerve popped to life. As his hands skimmed down her ribcage to her hips and thighs, he sucked on first one nipple then the other. She was so wet the scent of her own musk drifted up to her. She was sure Blake could smell it, too.

He slipped a hand between her thighs and dipped a finger into the folds of her slit. Slowly, he painted her lips with the liquid from his finger.

“Taste yourself,” he told her in his husky voice. “See how good you taste.”

She ran the tip of her tongue over her lower lip, catching the salty/sweet flavor.

“I want you to blend my taste with yours. My cock weeps for you.”

Again he rubbed his fingertip slowly over her lower lip, and again she let the flavor sizzle on her tongue.

“See how much we taste alike? How we blend together?”

He pushed her back so she lay on the bed with her feet touching the floor. She pictured him kneeling as his shoulders touched her thighs, wedging them farther apart. She held her breath, waiting for the first lap of his tongue on her clit, the tiny nip with his teeth that would feed the fire burning inside her. The texture of his beard was a pleasant sensation on her skin, making her
—

Hot coffee sloshing over the rim of the mug startled her out of her erotic reverie. Good Lord! It was bad enough she indulged in these dream fantasies at home. What if she did this when there were people in the store? Daydreaming about her phantom as she read his messages, she’d managed to weave an image of him into her mind. Did he really have a beard? Was he really tall? Why, like her dream lover, wouldn’t he let her see him? And why on earth was she having erotic dreams about a man she’d never met except electronically?

Heat crept up her cheeks, as if she’d already been caught out, and she set about getting ready to open.

Since the dreams had begun plaguing her, she’d tried to do some research. Originally, she’d thought maybe she would find some ancient legends from the Arapaho or Cheyenne, who’d populated the area. The only one she’d found was from the Abenaki, about a man and woman who dream each other’s dreams and are meant to be together. Could this be happening to her? Had her life deteriorated so much she needed a man in her dreams to have sex? Or was the legend real, and the gods were sending her messages? She shook herself and got back to work rearranging the special display table at the front of the store.

Tomorrow was Thanksgiving, so the cookies she’d baked were in the shape of turkeys and pumpkins for today’s customers. Tonight, as soon as she closed, she would put out the Christmas decorations. Five years after her emotional disaster, the holidays were still so painful for her. Tom had made Thanksgiving so special, all the while telling her the lies he knew she wanted to hear. And Christmas would always be her moment of greatest humiliation. Any holiday spirit she’d ever possessed had been erased. Disappeared. But she needed to be cheerful for her customers, and her time with Forrester had trained her to put on a public face, one people would believe.

After she locked up the store, she would go home to Brutus and try to get through one more painful, solitary holiday. But first came the delivery of Blake’s latest order of books. Lord, the man must read night and day and have an unlimited bank account.

She wished desperately she knew more about him. She’d even Googled him, but the only Blake Massie she could find was one listed in the white pages somewhere in Texas. There was little information about him other than he owned a ranch with his family.
Impossible
, she thought to herself. Why would someone who ranched in Texas hole up in an isolated house in Freewill, Wyoming? The lack of information frustrated her.

But she did feel they were getting to know each other. Sort of. Kind of like dating, without the actual dates. They talked about movies, books, television, sports. He asked a lot of questions about Freewill, which seemed a little strange since he’d chosen to rent a house here. She would have expected him to know more about the town before choosing it as the place to hide himself away.

He’d managed to dodge all her questions about his choice of residence, both the house and the town. Of course, she’d told him nothing about her past life, either, so she couldn’t complain much there.

She did need to IM him and let him know his delivery would be later than usual. And she ought to do it before she opened the store.

Sitting on the stool at the counter, she pulled up her Instant Messenger on the computer, highlighted his screen name, and opened a message box.

Booklady:
Good morning.