A Coral Kiss by Jayne Ann Krentz Read Free Book Online Page B

the bed in an instinctive movement that sent a shaft of pain through his ribs. Then he was through the bedroom door and into the living room, prepared for anything from an intruder to a manifestation of one of the creative horrors that abounded in Amy's books.
    What he found was Amy huddled on her knees on the couch, her arms wrapped protectively around herself as she stared blindly at the red glow of the dying fire. Her fading scream was still echoing eerily in the room.

Chapter Three
    She knew she was drowning; she also knew she couldn't be drowning because she could still breathe.

    Air flowed into her lungs on command. How much more proof did she need? She longed to claw her way back to fresh air, but that was impossible. There was something important that had to be done first.
    So she continued to swim forward into the darkness, clutching her unwieldy burden.
    The dark walls of the watery grave closed in around her, threatening to trap her forever. The water seemed to thicken and grow opaque, defying the frail beam of her light. Evidence of an old underwater slide of gravel and mud flashed into view as she swam past the hideously black entrance of a tunnel.
    It would be all too easy to touch off another such slide, one that would seal the passage through which she was swimming. Then she would never get back out. She would be trapped forever with the body and the locked box.
    Trapped forever in an endless underwater labyrinth...
    Amy awoke with the scream fading on her lips, jerking to her knees in an instinctive effort to rise to the surface of the flooded cave. She fought desperately to free herself of the burden that threatened to drag her down to the depths, but she knew she couldn't let go of the box.
    Even as her mind latched onto reality she was aware of Jed appearing in the doorway. For an instant she couldn't speak. The effort to separate the dream from reality was too demanding. It took every ounce of her strength. But she was getting good at that part, even if she wasn't having much success stopping the dreams themselves. The tense silence didn't last long.
    "Amy?" His voice was rough with concern.
    "I'm sorry, Jed." She barely heard her own voice. It was just a thin whisper of sound. She shook her head, trying to inject some energy into her words. "A bad dream. An occupational hazard of writing science fiction and fantasy." Amy managed a weak smile as she turned to glance at him.
    He looked very large and reassuring standing there in the shadows. He hadn't taken time to grab his cane and he was bracing himself with one large, strong hand on the doorframe. In the dim light she could see the speculative, assessing quality of his expression. There was a primitive, vibrating alertness in him that some part of her identified instinctively: Jed had appeared in the doorway ready to do battle.
    Even as she watched, Jed seemed to quietly sink back into himself. It was as though he turned a key somewhere inside that switched off the battle-ready tension. Slowly he moved toward her, walking a little awkwardly without the cane.
    "That's quite a mouth you've got, lady." As he neared the couch, the glow from the hearth briefly caught and highlighted the wry amusement in his eyes. "Must have been some dream."
    Amy huddled on the couch, drawing her knees up under the flannel nightgown and wrapping her arms around them. "It was."
    "Want to talk about it?"
    She shook her head. "No, I just want to forget it."
    He nodded understandingly as he sat down beside her. His weight put a large dent in the cushions.
    "I know what you mean. Better to let that kind of thing fade. Talking about it only makes it worse, somehow. More real."

    Maybe he was right, Amy thought fleetingly. Maybe talking about it would make it worse. She wondered how he knew that. She'd been thinking lately that talking might help, but that was probably because she knew she couldn't talk about it. Perhaps she would just go silently crazy.
    "I'm sorry I disturbed