Agent Bride. Beverly Long

had a bad dream,” she said.

      “You think?” he asked, his tone tense. His big body hovered over her, his weight off her but his presence immense.

      While bedcovers and layers of clothes separated them, their closeness was suddenly intensely intimate. And disconcerting as hell to go from something horrible, like her dream, to something that offered a promise of being good, very good.

      Breathe, she told herself.

      “I think you scared ten years off my life,” he said, his tone a little easier now.

      “Sorry,” she murmured.

      He moved fast, swinging one leg over so that he was kneeling beside her. His hazel eyes looked troubled. “Want to talk about it?”

      Could she? Could she go back to that dark place? Could she pretend that it had just been an oddly disturbing dream?

      Could she trust this man who had barged into her room and taken up more than his share of the bed?

      He’d saved her life.

      Had doubled back to let her know about the men looking for her. She looked at him closer. He had a red mark on his face. He hadn’t had it the night before. “What happened there?” she asked, already suspecting the truth.

      “You’ve got a strong right hook,” he said nonchalantly. “Unfortunately, you popped me one at about the same time you started screaming. It was a bit disconcerting for a minute.”

      Someone with less control might have killed her by mistake in response.

      “I was lying on a bed,” she said. “It was narrow, more like a cot.”

      He nodded.

      “I wanted to get up, knew I needed to get away. But my wrists were tied to the bed frame. I pulled and pulled but it was no use.”

      “Who tied you there?” he asked.

      She shook her head. “I don’t know. It...it looked like a ghost. All white.”

      He didn’t say anything.

      “I know, crazy, right?” she said.

      “Nope. Did the ghost talk to you?”

      She thought for a minute. He had. She knew that. Couldn’t remember what he’d said. “I’m not sure.”

      “What else do you remember?”

      She pointed to the garbage can in the corner. “That was hanging in the corner of the room.”

      “The wedding dress?” he asked.

      “Yes.” She’d been scared of the dress but she could hardly admit that. There was something else and she tried desperately to recall it but it was out of her reach.

      “Do you remember anything else?”

      “I was sick. The ghost made me so sick.”

      He seemed to consider that. “You were screaming when you woke up. Why?”

      “The ghost had come in and something bad was going to happen.”

      “What?”

      “I don’t know. But it was bad. I started screaming. And then...I guess I woke up.”

      He seemed to consider his words. “You have marks on your wrists,” he said. “Like you’ve been restrained.”

      He was pointing out the obvious. She could ignore it, dismiss it. Or she could take the risk, leave herself absolutely exposed. If she didn’t, she’d be all alone. “So you’re saying that maybe it wasn’t just a dream?”

      “You tell me,” he said, his voice intense.

      She took a deep breath. “I’m not sure where to start.”

      “Maybe at the beginning.”

      Wouldn’t that be nice? “Well, that was sometime before I met you. How long before, I’m not quite sure.”

      “That’s a little confusing,” he said.

      She sat up in bed and pushed a hand through her tangled hair. “I’m in trouble. I don’t know why but I am. The problem is, I don’t think I can get myself out of it.”

      “Because?”

      “Because I don’t know what went wrong. I don’t know who else is involved. I don’t know how big this is but something tells me it’s big. Really big. And that terrifies me. I don’t know who the bad guys are. I don’t know what they want.” She took a breath.

      “Okay. Anything else you don’t know?”

      She nodded. This was the hardest part. “When I looked in the mirror yesterday, I didn’t recognize myself. Not because my hair was different or anything dumb like that. I didn’t know who the woman in the mirror was.” She swallowed hard. “I don’t even know who I am.”