Before I Wake by Kathryn Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

armchair-shrink lingo.
    He blinked and rubbed his jaw with long, paint-stained fingers. “It sounds crazy, I know that.” He also sounded perfectly sane, which scared me—and not for the reasons it should have as a doctor.
    This was the point in the conversation where I was supposed to tell him that he was wrong, or that I didn’t like “that word.” “But you believe it.”
    This time he didn’t blink. He just held my gaze with the unflinching darkness of his own. “You think I’m crazy?”
    “No.” There was no hesitation on my part. There was something going on though. For a man who was normally so in control of his dreams to make such a claim, something had to have happened. I wasn’t ready to assume it was something from The Dreaming and Noah’s own mind. Not yet.
    “Generally such dreams stem from a deeper issue—a fear or conflict that the subconscious is trying to sort out. In your case it might be something from your childhood.” He never discussed his life before his parents’ divorce—only the years after he and his mother went out on their own. And he never, ever mentioned his father.
    He laughed—a sharp, harsh bark that startled me. “It’s nothing from my childhood.”
    A little voice in my head spoke up. Something in his dreams might really be trying to kill him. Why did I have to know that was possible? It’s rough trying to be clinical and analytical when you knew there were things out there that defied science—when you were one of them. But for now I had to approach this in a professional manner.
    Noah believed what he was telling me, and what I believed didn’t matter. For the moment, I wasn’t going to entertain that there might be something in the night trying to harm him and treat this situation like a therapist should. Because that’s what he expected me to do. I only thought otherwise because of my own recent experiences, and I should have known better than to bring anything personal into a session.
    “What’s happened that has you believing that your dreams are trying to harm you?”
    “What’s happened?” Disbelief and anger lit his features. He didn’t like how I was handling this. Neither did I. “My dream tried to kill me.”
    I pressed on. There had to be a rational explanation. Please God, let there be a rational explanation. “Have you recently suffered an upheaval? Or a significant change in your life? It could be that your subconscious is reacting to this change in a way that leads your mind to believe you are in some kind of physical danger.”
    He eyed me for a moment. “Don’t go all clinical on me, Doc. I came here because you’re the only person I could think to turn to, not because I can’t deal with reality.”
    His words humbled me. “I’m sorry, Noah. I’ve never encountered this kind of…problem before.”
    A slight smile curved lips the color of a juicy peach. “And you have a patient waiting.” I’d fantasized a couple of times about kissing those lips, laughed more than a hundred times at the words that came from between them. Now the sight of them just made me feel sad—and more guilty than I was willing to admit.

    I didn’t question the stability of his mind. I didn’t wonder if he needed more help than I could give. But even if something in his dreams was trying to kill him, I wasn’t the person to help him.
    “He wants you to be,” that little voice whispered.
    “I do have a patient waiting, yes, but—” He cut me off by standing.
    “It’s okay, Doc. I’ll see Bonnie about an appointment.” Stuffing his hands into the pockets of his battered leather coat, he started for the door.
    After the mess I’d made of this, he was still going to come back?
    “Noah.” I couldn’t stand the idea of him walking out that door thinking I didn’t believe in him.
    Still wearing that blank, but somehow disappointed, expression, he turned.
    And said nothing.
    I took a breath and pushed back my chair. “I’ll be going to dinner