Free What Dreams May Come by Kay Hooper

slid her hands into the pockets of her jeans, shaken by what she'd seen in his intense gaze and by her own instant response. These strange sensations, heat and tightness and a wordless yearning . . . they unnerved her.
    "I usually don't eat breakfast," she murmured.
    He glanced back up at her, the intensity shuttered now, and where the old Mitch might have told her she was too thin and needed to eat more, this one merely said, with a faint smile, "Humor the cook."
    She nodded and went to pour juice and coffee while he transferred golden pancakes from the griddle to plates. Kelly couldn't think of anything casual to say as they began eating, but she couldn't stop glancing up at him. He seemed different this morning, at least after that first oddly naked, searing scrutiny of her. More . . . what? More withdrawn. As if his focus had turned inward.
    And she felt peculiar, unable to stop herself from remembering her surprising dreams. She rarely remembered dreams, yet she vividly recalled those of last night. Some had been stunningly erotic, filled with shapes and images and colors and throbbing feelings. But the dream she remembered most clearly had been different. It had been unnerving, threaded with tension that had built to a nightmare ending.
    She had dreamed of Mitch as he was now, quieter and yet more compelling than he had been all those years before. He had been wandering through the house and grounds, walking along the beach at the base of the cliffs, and she thought he waslooking for something he couldn't find. She'd wanted to tell him where it was, but hadn't been able to utter a word. Following him because she had to, because a misty bond connected them and it pulled at her irresistibly, she'd felt tense and restless, her heart thudding, needing to look over her shoulder but afraid to see what was behind her.
    She had known somehow that if she could only catch up to Mitch and talk to him, whatever was behind her would go away and stop troubling her. But there seemed to be a measured distance between them, pulling the bond taut without snapping it, and all she could do was try not to lose sight of him. She wanted to walk faster, and couldn't, yet she could hear what was behind her getting closer, like her own shadow at her heels.
    Breathless, troubled, longing, anxious for reasons she didn't understand, she had followed Mitch through the night, never able to close the distance between them. She'd heard quiet music that throbbed and a soft little chuckle that might have been the wind behind her, had seen the eerie shapes of trees bending and swaying, reaching out for her.
    Then, as the stark gray light of dawn spread heavily through the air, Mitch had stopped on the edge of the cliffs, gazing out on the ocean, and she'd felt a jarring sense of urgency. She had to get to him, reach him, it would be her last chance. Behind her, hot breath on her neck, no, just the wind, it had to be the wind, and as long as she didn't look she was safe. Hurrying toward Mitch, seeing him turn and smile and hold out his hand. The lean, hard face and black eye patch, so dangerous, but not like the other one, he couldn't be.
    She'd reached him at last, his hand touching hers, and then, behind her, the rushing of angry steps, the shadow overtaking, pushing.
    Kelly had awakened with a cry trapped in her throat, her heart pounding, remembering vividly the sickening feeling of slamming into Mitch, both of them falling, the jagged rocks below spinning crazily as she closed her eyes.
    "Does it bother you?" he asked suddenly, looking up from his plate.
    "What?" she asked, startled, trying to push the stark images out of her mind.
    Mitch made a slight gesture with his left hand toward the eye patch.
    She wondered if he'd felt her glances, if her own restless anxiety had somehow touched him. "No. I—I got used to it in the hospital. It must have been rough on you though. Waking up."
    "A shock at first." He shrugged. "It was the easiest thing to