Before I Wake by Kathryn Smith Read Free Book Online

you.” There was no inflection in his tone either.
    I might have thought him totally vacant if I hadn’t known how good Noah Clarke was at hiding his emotions. In my experience, the blanker Noah looked, the more there was wrong. This did not bode well.
    “Come into my office.” I glanced sideways at Bonnie. “If Mrs. Kinney arrives, give her a cup of coffee and the latest issue of Cosmo.”
    Bonnie saluted me, the diamonds on her fingers glittering under the bright lights. “You betcha.”
    Noah didn’t follow me down the corridor like so many of my patients. He walked beside me. Being a doctor often made people treat me with a certain degree of deference. Noah never did.
    “Pumpkin?”

    I jerked, shocked at his attempt at conversation. “Excuse me?”
    He nodded at my cup. “Your coffee.”
    “Oh.” My cheeks warmed a little. Not a come-on then. “Yeah, it is.”
    “Mmm,” he agreed as he took a drink. “My mother used to make pumpkin pie. Why do you look so bad?”
    I was startled—and yeah, offended. “It’s nothing, but thanks for the concern.”
    He must have heard the sarcasm in my voice—he’d have to be stupid to miss it. “Sorry. It’s just…you usually look nice.” His frank gaze met mine. “Real nice.”
    That warmed me. “I had a bad dream,” I admitted, meeting his fathomless eyes for a second longer than I was comfortable with.
    “A nightmare.”
    He seemed surprised—sort of how I imagine you’d look at a mechanic who didn’t have his driver’s license, or an oncologist who had a tumor. Wonder and irony combined.
    I opened the door to my office and gestured for him to step inside. He brushed past me with a whiff of warm vanilla and clove, and stood in the middle of the carpet, staring at his cup for a few seconds before meeting my gaze.
    “Thanks for seeing me, Doc.”
    I sat down behind my desk, tucking my coat around me as I crossed my legs. “I get the feeling you want to talk about something important.” And by important, I meant anything other than my dreams.
    He looked at the cluster of photos on the wall by my desk. He didn’t seem so eager now. “Is that your mother?”
    He’d seen that picture before and never commented on it. It wasn’t his fault, but his doing so now, on the heels of Ivy’s phone call, brought a new rush of familial guilt.
    “Yes.” The photo had been taken when she was pregnant with me. She looked so happy—almost as happy as she did now, sound asleep. “In the Arms of Morpheus” the doctors called it. How appropriate. She wasn’t a morphine addict, as the term sometimes implied. Rather, my mother had fallen into a deep sleep and couldn’t be roused. There seemed to be nothing else wrong with her, and her brain patterns were normal.
    The bitch was just asleep.
    “She’s pretty.” He glanced at me. “You look like her a bit.”
    Was that a compliment or an insult? I was either almost as pretty as she or nowhere near it. “I don’t think you came down here to talk about my mother.”
    He drew a breath, long fingers wrapping around his paper cup. “No.”
    Oh frig, what if he was going to tell me he didn’t want to work with me anymore? Noah was one of the highlights of my job. It was pathetic but true. His ability to shape dream matter amazed me. I didn’t want to lose that.
    I didn’t want to lose him.
    But I couldn’t just sit here in silence. “Noah, why are you here?”
    He looked me dead in the eye. “I think my dreams are trying to kill me.”

Chapter Four
    “You what?” Not my most witty response, but I was thinking on my feet—and my balance wasn’t that good at the best of times.
    Noah shifted in his chair, leaning forward to rest his forearms on his thighs. The denim there looked thin enough to start shredding.
    “I know how it sounds…”
    “I’m not here to judge.” I winced. God, I hadn’t just said that, had I? Most times I had trouble remembering I was a doctor, and now I was resorting to