The nightmare hit again.

The bitch of it was that I wasn’t a kid this time, but I was still helpless. Trapped inside that trailer, holding something small and frail and even more helpless than I’d once been. I was helpless now to fix it—couldn’t fix anything and it burned inside me like dragon breathing fire.

Just a dream, man…ain’t nothing you can do about it now.

A noise caught my ears, one that didn’t fit with the dream.

A woman’s voice.

Carefully, cradling the bundle against my chest, I stood and looked around.

The door at the far end of the trailer didn’t fit, either.

There were two doors, but one of them had been so closed off by clutter, nobody would’ve been able to open it, not unless they had a backhoe and time to kill.

The other one, the front door, was at my back and if I was smart, I’d go out that door and let this dream end. Even though I knew how it would end, I wanted it over.

But that noise…the woman’s voice…it called to me. She might as well have been a siren, singing my name.

For all I knew, she was.

Because I recognized the voice. It was Emmy.

I edged closer to the door, avoiding piles of trash and the dirty clothes strewn on the floor, sidestepping pizza boxes and bowls with food still left in them. The mess would’ve disgusted most people, but I’d lived in this. Disgusting it might be, but I’d come from it.

A man’s shout behind me made me pause, but I didn’t turn back to look. There wasn’t any point. He was dead, had been for years. A fat slob of a bastard who hadn’t known his ass from his elbow or the difference between a bath and a hole in the ground.

The memory of big hands grabbing me was one I fought hard to forget but it wasn’t always easy.

Tonight, though, I heard her calling me.

Fuck, no.

She didn’t belong here.

Didn’t belong in the waste of memory, this waste of brain cells.

I finally reached the door that didn’t fit and opened it. Outside the door lay something else that didn’t fit—because I sure as hell hadn’t grown up on the edge of a pretty mountain, right next to a house that…

“Fuck,” I muttered, recognizing the house. Emmy called me again and I knew she was calling me from inside the house.

Her house.

The house had exploded with her inside it.

The small bundle in my hands made a squalling little cry and I looked down.

I swore, dropping her as the tiny baby exploded into flames in my hands.

A moment later, the house did, too.

* * *

The dream still lay like ashes on the back of my tongue nine hours later when I let myself into the practice theater.

It was dark and I was alone and I was glad for it.

I’d already run almost ten miles on the treadmill and lifted weights until my muscles felt like jelly.

Now I needed to work my brain equally as hard and only one thing did that.

I’d been at work nearly two hours when the door opened and I heard LeVan’s voice drift through the room. “Damn, man. You ever slow down? Even for a minute?”

I didn’t have to ask how he knew I’d been at it for a while.

While I was, by nature, fastidious—it had been almost a tic after how I’d lived the first few years of my life—when I was working, I got so involved in what I was doing, the word neat didn’t enter my mind—or my mannerisms. All around me were crushed pieces of paper, half-baked ideas that I’d realized weren’t going to work.

Some magicians used others to build their illusions and while we’d hire out the grunt work, when it came to actually creating new pieces to add to our act, all of us did our own.

Well, except LeVan. He didn’t do much in the way of real illusions, except for his Sleeping Beauty piece and that had been designed mostly by Mac. Most of LeVan’s show was based on mentalism or sleight of hand, which really just required a willing audience. Well, and skill, too. Which LeVan had, in spades.

I shot him a quick look before focusing back on my work, not wanting to risk him seeing anything I didn’t want him seeing.

But it was too late.

He’d already seen something, even in that fraction of a look.

“Bad night?” he asked, empathy in his weird golden eyes.

Shit, it had been a perfect night. Up until I’d fallen asleep.

I guess I just needed to be glad I’d woken up before Emmy had. I hadn’t woken up screaming in a long time.

In response to LeVan’s question, I answered, “I woke up, didn’t I?”

“If that’s your idea of not having a bad night…” LeVan shrugged, but I knew he’d let it go.

Sometimes I needed to get it out of my system.

But this wasn’t one of those times.

“You know, when you’re ready to talk…”

I gave him a short nod. Then, ready to change the subject, I flipped the massive sketchpad I had around and showed him. “What do you think?”

LeVan took one look and his eyes started to gleam.

* * *

“So…” LeVan joined me in our private lounge that night after my show.

I brooded over a glass of scotch, not looking away from the one-way glass that let us look into the main part of the bar. There were more than a dozen freestanding bars in the casino, but this one was a favorite. It was more laid back, more relaxed, and where we came to unwind after a performance.

There wasn’t a lot of unwinding going on at my end.

I was wound up tighter than I’d been in a long time, which logically made no sense because I’d had the best fucking sex of my life less than twenty-four hours ago.

Between the nightmare I’d had, the nightmare she was living, and all the twisted emotions I was dealing with after sleeping with her, I didn’t know if I wanted to kick my own ass or just go find her and get lost inside that hot, sexy body again so I didn’t have to think.

“I don’t know how he locked in on me, or why. But he started sending me these crazy letters at work, telling me we were meant to me, I belonged with him…”

The fear I’d seen in her eyes was enough to gut me. I wanted to make it all go away, but I couldn’t. I wanted to make him go away, but as of yet, he couldn’t even be found.

Come looking for her here, you piece of shit bastard. I’ll show you a thing or two.

“You awake over there?”

At the sound of LeVan’s voice, I craned my head around and met his eyes. He’d poured himself some bourbon and was staring at me over the rim of his glass. “I’m awake,” I said mildly.

“Good, because I figure it’s best you have your wits about you when I ask. See, I heard something about last night…and if I heard it, Mac’s going to hear it.” LeVan’s eyes lasered in on me.

I already knew what he was going to ask, too.

It wasn’t like either of us had been attempting to be subtle when we were wrapped around each other out on the dance floor. “How about you just come out with it?” I suggested.

“Well, I would’ve done that this morning, but it was pretty obvious you’d had a shitty night. Which doesn’t add up with what I’m hearing, you know.”

“And what did you hear?” I tossed back the rest of the scotch in my glass and hissed out a breath as it burned a pathway down.

“Thea saw you and Emmy getting rather…closely acquainted out on the balcony.” LeVan cocked a brow at me. “And I saw you two leaving together.”

“And your point?” I grabbed the bottle of bourbon he’d opened and made a face. Anyone who thought scotch, whiskey, and bourbon were all interchangeable was out of their mind. Still, it was alcohol and I was going to need it to numb my brain so I could sleep.

“Mac’s going to kill you when he finds out you slept with Angel’s cousin.”

“Her name is Emmy, not Angel’s cousin,” I said, lifting my glass and pointing a finger at him. “And we’re both adults.”

“You could’ve found plenty of adult females to fuck around with—”

“Watch it,” I warned him. I took another healthy swallow of alcohol, decided to just get it over with, and emptied the glass. I’d head on up to my room because unwinding wasn’t going to happen if LeVan wanted to play mother hen. “Watch where you step.”

He stopped, head cocked as he studied me appraisingly. “You know, I had this impression you two didn’t like each other.”

“She’s…” A week ago, the word annoying would’ve come to mind. But that wasn’t what I was thinking now. I actually couldn’t quite put my finger on what I was thinking or feeling, but Emmy was tangled up in all of it. “A grown woman.”

Rising, I check the glass, saw that there was no bourbon left, and put the glass down again. “I’ll deal with Mac.”

“I don’t plan on rushing off to tell him or anything.” LeVan continued to watch me with speculation.

I turned my back on him. I didn’t need him trying to look inside the mess that was my head, especially not right now. On my way out, I grabbed a full bottle from the bar.

If I was smart, I’d just go to my room, get wasted, and sleep for the next twelve hours.

But self-preservation had never been my strong suit.

I veered by the front desk, mostly quiet this time of night. Slipping behind the counter, I gave the two employees who weren’t busy a quick smile and hoped they wouldn’t ask any questions.

I wasn’t that lucky.

The girl kept to her computer, but the guy, a tall, skinny black kid who barely looked old enough to be working this job, came over. “Ah, hi. I mean, good evening, Mr. O’Malley. Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Nope.” My hands flew over the keyboard. I’d been involved with as much of the hotel as I could be, all things considered, mostly because I had serious control issues and if I didn’t know a little bit about everything, I didn’t feel like I was in control. That was why it was easy enough for me to pull up the information for the room that had been given to Emmy for the next couple of months. Mac and Angel were renovating for her, but Mac had asked if either LeVan or I would mind if he took a room for Angel’s cousin after the wedding.

We’d razzed him about it, but we hadn’t minded. It wasn’t like we didn’t have plenty of rooms and suites in the place.

And now I had the information I needed for Emmy’s suite of rooms.

Looking up, I found the kid still watching me.

Giving him what I hoped was a reassuring smile, I said, “Just checking on something for one of the customers I met at the after-party. No big deal.”

I doubted he’d buy it, but at least he wouldn’t worry that he was in trouble—I hoped.

Everybody who worked for us thought I was a weird son of a bitch. This kid was probably no different and he could think up any number of reasons why I’d been messing with the computer at the check-in desk.

Taking my bottle of bourbon, I left the desk, tucking my head low and pasting my best ‘Don’t talk to me’ scowl onto my face.

I’d been told I had one hell of a resting asshole face—I took that to assume my general air told people to leave me the hell alone. Since generally, that was how I preferred it, I hadn’t taken offense.

Tonight, that resting asshole face allowed me to make it to a main elevator and slip inside alone. Someone went to join me and I looked up, met the man’s eyes and he backed away. “I’ll wait for the next one, bro,” he said, shooting me a quick smile.

Good call.

I hit the button for Emmy’s floor and told myself I was getting ready to do something really stupid.

“She’s a grown woman,” I told myself, repeating what I’d said to LeVan.

It was nothing more than the truth.

Still, I wasn’t reassuring myself.

I also didn’t talk myself out of it.