Dreamscape by Rose Anderson Read Free Book Online Page B

Why would she dream of that time? And what about that fact he’d known her then? He thought long and hard. No, at least twenty-five years had passed from the time he’d seen her as a girl to seeing her as a grown woman. Jason shook his head. Her dream had left him feeling alive again, and he momentarily forgot he’d been dead for more than a century. It hadn’t been twenty-five years. Roughly one-hundred-fifty years had passed since the pretty little black-haired girl came to his house with her father. Again he had to wonder at the meaning of living his time in her dream. It made no sense. Her conversation pulled him from his reverie.
    “Okay…sure…dinner at seven. I’ll meet you there, but listen, I won’t be staying late.” She laughed. “You know I appreciate your blind dates, but I don’t have time for a relationship right now. Yes, honestly. Lexie, I’m serious. Of course. Okay. I’ll meet you three for dinner. Did Pete tell him it’s going to be an early night for me? Good. No, don’t pick me up. If I drive I can leave when I need to without impacting your evening. Not a problem, I prefer it that way. See you later. Love you, too. Bye.”
    Lanie set the cell phone on the night stand and grumbled, “I love you, Lex but God damn it, you woke me right in the middle of it. Stop trying to find me ‘the perfect man’.” Her eyes opened wide when she suddenly remembered an important piece of her dream. The nameless man she’d been dreaming about for years had a name now. He was Dr. Jason Bowen and this was Bowen house. “I already found one.”
    Only it wasn’t empty. The man the local legend called a ghost still lay beside her.
    * * * *
    Lanie sat on the stairs, pulling old carpet tacks from the bunching old runner and talking on the phone to Lexie about their dinner plans. She had no idea Jason sat on the stair above carefully contemplating how he might reveal himself without frightening her. Discovering her tack hammer misplaced for the third time, she gave up on the frustrating task and went to get ready for her blind date.
    Her bath had the same effect on him as it had the other times he watched her bathe. She stood wrapping hair and body in thick towels, looking for all the world like she’d just emerged from the Turkish baths. Over her shoulder, in the mirror, he watched her fascinating application of tints and lash color, though, in his opinion, she was just as beautiful with as without. His cock grew soft once she began to dry her hair with a gadget he had never seen before. Margaret certainly didn’t have one of these noisy electrical hot air blowers. His body roused again when she put her undergarments on. Her pantalets were nothing more than a Y-shaped piece of material that accented her adorable rounded backside. Her brassiere was crafted from very feminine black lace, low enough that the rosy hue of her areolas slightly peeked above the edge. A French milliner couldn’t have chosen better. She dabbed perfume behind her ears, on the inside of her wrists and at the spot above her heart. Although the fragrance was faint, he was surprised he could smell the familiar floral scent on her as she passed. That sense had been dead as long as he. Holding this piece of clothing or that before her, she appraised her reflection in the mirror with each. After four considerations, the dress she settled on was black and short— too short. He found himself frowning.
    The frown persisted as the mantle clock stuck ten o’clock and deepened when it struck eleven. By eleven-thirty-two, he was in a fine pique.
    Hearing Lanie’s automobile roll onto the gravel drive, he invisibly materialized downstairs to meet her at the door with his arms folded across his chest in irritation. Leaning against the wall, looking her over from head to toe as she came in talking on her telephone, he thought her lips were a little chafed, a little too swollen. She’d kissed the man she’d just met that night, no doubt more