Sleep No More Read online

  Bryce said, “Um, I really need to get home. I have plans.”

  Jason shot Bryce that same glare she’d seen in the hospital lobby.

  The boy turned wordlessly and walked to the driver’s door of Jason’s car.

  “Really, Jason,” Abby said, trying to put a little space between them. “I’m fine now. I just got a little dizzy.”

  “We’re going inside.” Jason’s voice took on a take-no-prisoners alpha-male tone, a tone Abby normally wouldn’t tolerate. But the way Jason used it, it made her feel safe, looked after.

  Bryce slammed the door on Jason’s car—hard. Abby felt the slightest tightening of Jason’s muscles in response.

  Once they were inside the house and Abby and her purse were seated on the loveseat in the living room, Jason went to get them something to drink. He disappeared through an old-fashioned swinging door between the dining room—which was across the entry hall from the living room—and the kitchen.

  Brenna sat on the sofa with her arms crossed over her chest, looking at Abby with curious eyes. “Are you a friend of my Daddy’s?”

  Abby thought of the evening at Jeter’s, and the possibilities that had hung in the air between them—before her life went completely out of orbit. “Yes, I guess I am.”

  “You guess?” She wrinkled her brow.

  “Yes. We’re friends, your dad and I.”

  “Oh,” she sounded disappointed. “I thought maybe you were here because you’re sick. Daddy’s a doctor, you know.”

  The sound of the back door slamming was followed by harsh whispers coming from the kitchen. Glasses clinked, masking the words.

  “Yes,” Abby said. “A very good doctor.”

  Jason came into the room with a tray. On it were two glasses of iced tea, a juice box, a can of Coke, and a sugar bowl. He held it in front of Abby. “Take your pick.”

  Brenna’s gaze was on the juice box. She looked a little nervous, but she didn’t say a word.

  Abby lifted a glass of iced tea from the tray. “Thank you.”

  “As un-Southern as it may be, it’s unsweet,” Jason said, nodding at the sugar bowl.

  “I’ll keep your secret. You might be run out of town.” She knew he’d been living in Savannah before moving to Preston, but before that? “You’re not a Yankee, are you?”

  “Half, but only by blood,” he said. “My father was from Michigan.”

  “Grandpa died before I was born,” Brenna said.

  Abby looked at the little girl, who immediately looked away. “I’m sorry to hear that,” Abby said. “One of my grandpas died before I was born, too.”

  Brenna kept her eyes averted and started fidgeting with one of the toss pillows on the sofa.

  When Jason offered the beverages to Brenna, she looked adoringly at him and took the juice box. Abby remembered being that age and thinking that her father could fix anything, like he was super-dad.

  “Peanut, would you mind taking this Coke back into the kitchen? Have Bryce get you some graham crackers to go with your juice.”

  Brenna shot a mistrustful glance toward Abby. “It’s almost time for us to be home. Mother doesn’t like us to be late.”

  “Please. I need to talk to Abby for a minute.”

  Brenna slipped off the sofa and picked up the Coke can from the tray. She turned down the hallway instead of going through the dining room as Jason had.

  Jason took the other glass of tea and sat on the sofa.

  Abby set her iced tea on a coaster on the table next to her. She wasn’t going to drag this out any longer. “I came to see you because I need help, and I can’t wait until next week for office hours.”

  A slight shadow flickered across his face. Disappointment? “Help with whatever caused you to collapse out there on the street?”

  “Yes, sort of. Remember when I asked if you had experience with hypnosis?”

  He nodded, leaning forward and holding the glass in his hands between his knees.

  “It wasn’t for Dad. It was for me. I’ve been,” she paused, hating even uttering the word, “sleepwalking. I read that sometimes it can be helped with hypnosis.” She left it there, waiting for his reaction before she revealed the entire hideous truth.

  “Abby—”

  “Please don’t say no. I’m desperate, or I wouldn’t be here right now.”

  He took a deep breath. “What I was going to say is that I don’t feel comfortable treating you. Not when we’re… friends. I can refer you—”

  “I don’t have time to wait for referrals! I need help. Now. I’m doing things….” She couldn’t quite bring herself to list them out loud.

  “I know sleepwalking is frightening,” he said. “But treatments aren’t—”

  “My sleepwalking,” she thumped her palm against her chest, “is more than frightening—” She sucked in a breath that came back out as a sob.

  That sob was followed by another.

  Jason moved to sit on the arm of the loveseat and put an arm around her.

  She allowed him to pull her close, turning her face into his chest. Within seconds she was mortified by, yet unable to halt, the break in the dam of her tears.

  Bryce left Bren in the kitchen watching some stupid show on the Family Channel. He walked down the hallway toward the living room. He was tired of sitting around here waiting. He was supposed to meet Toby in forty minutes.

  This wasn’t Bren’s weekend with Jason, so she’d be going home, too. Bryce wanted to make sure he had time to assess his mom’s “mood” before he left Bren with her. He’d been pretty sure there was something more than orange juice in her glass this morning.

  He stopped cold just outside the living room. Holyfuckingshit. They were on the love seat. Jason’s arms were around her. His head was bent over hers.

  Bryce flashed hot.

  Stupid bitch. She was going to fuck everything up.

  “Jason!” He was gratified by the way Jason jerked upright, looking guilty as hell. “I need to get home.”

  Jason got up and walked over to him. Abby turned away and started rummaging in her purse. Bryce heard her sniffle. Just like a girl to manipulate with tears.

  “Listen,” Jason said quietly, “I need to stick with Abby for a while. You go ahead and take your sister home. Use my car. I’ll have Abby drop me by to pick it up later.”

  So not what I had in mind.

  “What do you want me to tell Mom?”

  Jason looked at him as if he was speaking a foreign language. “That I’m helping someone with an emergency.”

  Bryce glared into Jason’s eyes. “Like a doctor emergency?” It sure hadn’t looked like it.

  Jason huffed. “Whatever it is, it’s private. Which means you don’t say anything to anyone about it—except to your mom that I’m dealing with an emergency.”

  Bryce wanted to say that his mom had cried buckets of tears and Jason had never treated it as an emergency.

  He spun around and stalked into the kitchen. “Come on, Bren. Dad’s done with us.”

  Bren looked up at him, confused.

  “I am not done with you.” Jason was right on his heels. He gave Bryce the stink-eye. “Either of you.”

  Bryce grabbed the keys off the kitchen counter and stood by the door.

  Jason knelt in front of Bren and said, “Your brother is going to drive you home, so you’re not late. I need to stay here and help Abby for a while. Okay?”

  As if she said no you’d change your mind—big freakin’ hypocrite.

  Bren got up and hugged him. “I guess so.”

  Bryce wanted to yell at her. But she didn’t know that Jason was in there hooking up and had decided it was more important to stay with that woman than to take his own kid home. What if Bryce hadn’t been here; would Jason have stuck Bren in a taxi and sent her off by herself?

  “Come on, Bren.”

  “I appreciate you doing this, Bryce,” Jason said, as if Bryce was taking out the trash.

  Bryce put a hand on Bren�
�s shoulder and opened the back door.

  “I’ll call you before bed, Peanut.”

  “ ’K, Daddy.”

  They got into Jason’s car. “Put your seatbelt on,” Bryce said over his shoulder, as he started the engine.

  “I am. Holy moly, give me a second. Why are you being such a jerk?”

  He didn’t say anything. Bren didn’t need to know the truth.

  By the time Jason came back into the living room, Abby looked like she had herself back under control. He was ashamed that a little piece of him wished she still needed his arms around her.

  He wanted to help her, but he did not want to be her doctor. He knew through Constance that, even though her family had kept it quiet, Abby had set the fire that burned her family’s home while she’d been sleepwalking. This was an issue that wouldn’t be easily resolved. The roots went deep. It would take a very long time to unearth all of them.

  He sat down on the sofa, a safe distance from the temptation to touch her.

  “I sent the kids home,” he said. He wanted her to feel at ease and not have to censor her words because of young ears.

  “I feel terrible for interrupting—”

  “You didn’t cut anything short,” he said. “It was time for them to be home. You’ll drop me by to pick up my car later?”

  “Of course.” She dabbed her nose with a tissue and cleared her throat. “I’m really sorry—” she flipped her hand with the tissue in the air “—about all that. I’m not really like that.”

  “Like what?” he asked.

  “Hysterical. Dramatic.” She kept her gaze on her hands, now in her lap twisting that tissue the way he’d seen her twist her dismissal papers. “A basket case.”

  “I didn’t see any of those things. I saw a woman who’s been pushed to the breaking point. We all have one, you know.”

  “Well, I prefer to reach mine less publicly. Not…” She shook her head dismissively.

  “Where you can’t hide it.”

  She stiffened and sat up straighter. “Where I can’t keep it private. There’s a difference.”

  He gave a half-chuckle when he remembered what she’d said in the parking lot at Jeter’s. He repeated it to her, “You’re a cast iron belle who rings solo.”

  Her chin came up. “You make it sound like a shortcoming.”

  “Maybe if you’d let yourself lean on someone, that breaking point would come later rather than sooner.”

  “Hey, we don’t all have that option. I have good reasons for living the way I do.” She crossed her arms over her chest and fixed her gaze somewhere outside his front window.

  He sighed. “I didn’t mean to sound like I’m criticizing. I’m offering to help. Let me be the person you lean on.”

  Her guarded gaze snapped back to him. Oh, how he wanted to move across this room and hold her. If only he could take away some of the pain in her eyes. But he kept himself planted where he was. He wouldn’t get anywhere by pushing her.

  “I’m hoping you came here because you trust me,” he said. “Let me help you, Abby. At least until you get past all of this upheaval.” He couldn’t offer more; he was in no position to make promises, and he didn’t think Abby was in the mood to accept them.

  She bit her bottom lip for a moment, looking at him with indecision in her eyes. He tore his gaze away from the sensual pose of her mouth, and concentrated on her eyes.

  Finally, she said, “I do trust you.”

  A shimmer of gladness glowed in his chest. He was certain Abby didn’t trust many people, and having her admit it aloud was a coup. It amazed him how edgy he’d been sitting here, waiting for her response.

  He held her gaze when he said, “I want you to trust me completely. Without reservation.”

  She nodded. “You’re the only one I know who can help. You’re a psychiatrist….”

  The hopeful luminosity in his chest flickered out like a candle flame starved for oxygen. “Abby, I can’t treat you.”

  She shot to her feet. “I thought you wanted to help me!”

  “I do. I want to support you while you deal with all of this crap that’s landed in your lap. But as a friend, Abby, not as a doctor.”

  Being her doctor would prevent any chance that they could ever be more. Now wasn’t the time for them, he knew that. But he wasn’t willing to cast out the possibility forever.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m coming apart at the seams.” She paced back and forth in front of the fireplace. “You don’t even know the extent of my problem. Maybe I need you as a doctor more than I need you as a friend.”

  He shook his head. He had to make her understand. “I don’t do good work when I’m emotionally involved.” Lucy had proven that.

  She scoffed. “You can only treat people you don’t give a rat’s ass about, is that it?”

  “You’re twisting my words. What I’m saying is, once we establish a doctor-patient relationship, there won’t be any starting over once things settle down for you. We can’t go back to that night at Jeter’s.”

  For an instant her face softened and she looked at him the way she had when she’d admitted she’d like to have dinner with him again.

  Then her fear returned. It was so obvious it might as well be a vaporous cloud that shrouded her body and obscured the light in her eyes.

  “I said I’d take you as a doctor—and forfeit the friend.” Her voice was trembling and he hated that veil of fear with everything he had in him.

  He got up and went to her. Taking her hands, he pulled her squarely in front of him. “Abby, for me there’s no choice. I’ve already crossed that line with you. I’m already emotionally invested.”

  This time her face didn’t soften. She looked at him with cold reserve. “You won’t think that after I tell you what I’ve done.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Abby pulled her hands from Jason’s and moved back to the safety of the corner of the love seat. He’d said he was emotionally invested. She couldn’t dismiss the cascade of sparks that admission set off inside her.

  But it would come to nothing. It didn’t matter that his presence quieted the spinning, tense fear in her core. It didn’t matter that while he’d held her in his arms it had taken an act of conscious will to prevent herself from clinging desperately to him, from engaging in something inappropriate and ill-timed; simply because he had the ability to take the pain away.

  Jason had shown himself to be a caring man—with his children, with her father… certainly with her. But there was something more between them than caring and comfort. Even throughout these past days’ ordeals, in the odd quiet moments, the memories of that moment in Jeter’s parking lot stirred secret desires. Jason had danced on the edge of her fatigued mind, flirting with fantasies she didn’t have the energy to suppress.

  He was a man whose every breath was an unconscious announcement of his masculinity. There was something carnal in the way he moved, the curve of his mouth, and certainly in the way he looked at her. But he buried it beneath a stringently controlled exterior. She recognized it simply because she’d constructed the same sort of defense against sexuality in herself.

  Of course, her defense was for an entirely different reason. And it served a very important purpose. Even if they somehow found themselves in a relationship, it wouldn’t be the kind that Jason deserved. It would be a relationship of halves; for she could never leave herself unguarded, never indulge in a twenty-four-hour-a-day commitment.

  He stood there looking down at her for a long minute. Even his gaze could arouse things in her body that had been dormant for a very long time.

  She looked away, knowing that if he sat next to her, her will would dissolve; she would bury those dark truths about herself. She would be weak. Selfish. She would take what she could for the moment and reality be damned.

  Finally, he returned to the sofa across the room. His face showed confidence. Confidence that said whatever she was about to tell him, he would not be shocked, he would not turn awa
y from her.

  That look would not last. And once she revealed the whole truth, he would never look at her the way he was now, or the way he had at Jeter’s.

  Jason deserved someone worthy of that look of confidence.

  So he had to know it all.

  She began, starting her tale at the moment she came to in the swamp. Then she led him through everything that happened afterward, step by horrid step. Her breath came short as she told of the deputy saying there had to be someone else out there in the darkness. She lost her battle with tears when she described seeing the motorcycle—and Kyle Robard.

  That was the only time Jason moved throughout her telling. He leaned forward in his seat. Abby noticed his hands were locked together and his knuckles blanched white, but he didn’t move closer or interrupt.

  A little part of her wanted him to stop respecting her wishes and haul her off to bed, erase her reality entirely before she revealed the truth. She waited.

  He stayed where he was.

  She pressed on, knowing it would change the way he looked at her forever. “I think the reason I don’t remember anything before I came to in the swamp is because I was sleepwalking… sleep-driving, that is.”

  “Abby, it’s not uncommon to not recall an accident after it happens. Especially if you’ve lost consciousness.”

  “But it’s not only that I can’t recall the accident,” she said. “I don’t remember anything after I left you at Jeter’s. When I got home from the hospital, it was obvious I’d gone to bed… to sleep.”

  “Again, not uncommon. It happens.” His tone was not in the least argumentative or mocking. “Have you had problems with sleepwalking recently?”

  “I think it started after Mom died. The only time I know for certain was the night before the accident. I only know that because I left the hose running and a trail of muddy footprints when I came back inside.”

  She closed her eyes. She’d thought the image of those muddy footprints had been haunting. Now there was something so much worse emblazoned on her memory. “You have no idea what it’s like to do things you’re unaware of, things that are entirely out of your control, things that can hurt someone else.”