Page 57 of Secrets Hidden In The Glass

She looked up at him. “Me too.” She kissed him. “Now get some sleep, Sheriff. You need your rest.”

“Good night.”

She settled her head on his shoulder and hooked her arm around his waist. “Night.”

He stroked his fingers along her arm and stared into the moonlight and shadows playing through his room long after Callie’s breathing grew deep. Lying here like this felt good. For years—first when he started on the force in Boston, then when he moved to Virginia—he’d led a life that had been wrong for him. He’d ignored his unhappiness, always trying to push his discontentment to the back of his mind. Now, for once, everything seemed exactly right. He worked the job he loved on the island he would never leave, and tonight he held the woman who filled up all of the empty spaces he never knew existed. They were moving fast, but whoever said there was a time frame when all of the pieces fit? In this moment, he had everything he needed. Now he just had to find a way to keep it.

~~~~

Callie’s eyes flew open in the dark as her heart stuttered in her chest. She blinked several times, staring at the oak dresser and mirror set across the room as she struggled to orient herself, but her foggy brain refused to cooperate. She knew she was traveling, but she had no idea where she was—the Four Seasons or The Ritz-Carlton? Was she in the States or overseas? Then the warm weight wrapped around her waist registered and she remembered that she was with Nate.

She took a steadying breath and rolled to her back, realizing that her body was slick with sweat. She frowned, knowing her dreams had woken her, but whatever her subconscious had conjured up in her sleep had already faded away. Sighing, she turned her head and studied Nate deeply asleep in the moonlight. Whether he liked it or not, he was beautiful. The man lying next to her was an excellent and attentive lover, and she was safe here with him. Her frown returned as she focused on her last thought. Why did she feel so unsettled?

Snuggling closer, she closed her eyes, hoping she would be able to fall back to sleep. There were still too many hours left until the sun rose again. She concentrated on Nate’s deep breathing and let her mind drift to her to-do list: she had her four-hour shift at the bakery; then she needed to cut the materials for the tea party and create a sample using both elements of glass; she was running low on cereal…

Her eyes flew open as she remembered a flash of gold. The image was there and gone again just as quickly. What was it? A coin or some sort of jewelry, and why was she seeing it? Mostly certain the golden piece had something to do with her dream, she grabbed Nate’s wrist, gently lifted his arm off her stomach, and got out of bed. She searched in the dark for her clothes, taking a step toward the heap on the floor, and stubbed her toe on the foot of the bed.

Clenching her fists against the pain, she looked to the ceiling, waiting for the sharp throbbing to stop, then grabbed the first shirt she found in the pile and pulled it on. Immediately she smelled Nate on the black polo she’d taken off him hours ago and hurried downstairs, blinking in the hallway light they’d forgotten to turn off. She wandered around the living room and kitchen, searching for a pen or pencil and a piece of paper, then found the office at the back of the house. After flipping on the light, she snatched a sheet of paper from the printer and a pencil from the desk, and sat down in the dark chocolate leather chair, immediately sketching what she’d seen, afraid she would forget again if she didn’t.

Drawing a simple oval, she took the time to give it dimension, then scrolled an ornate S in its center. She added several elegant squiggles and looping curls to the piece and jumped as she glanced up, realizing that Nate was standing in the doorway with his jeans pulled on.

“Hey,” he said as he yawned.

“Hey,” she said back.

“What are you doing?”

“I, um, I had to come down and draw this.” She focused on her work, adding a loop at the top before she set her pencil down.

He walked to her side and frowned as he studied her drawing. “What is it?”

She scrutinized the black-and-white image, seeing so clearly the way different hues and shades of golden glass would bring her picture to life. “I’m pretty sure it’s a locket.”

He rubbed at the back of his neck. “You drew it but you don’t know what it is?”

She felt her cheeks growing hot, well aware that what she was saying didn’t make a whole lot of sense—to either one of them. “It certainly looks like a locket.”

He glanced from the paper to her. “Do you do this a lot?”

“Sometimes ideas come to me in the middle of the night.” But never like this. Something about this was different.

“Huh.”

She tore her gaze away from her creation and looked at Nate’s spiky hair and sleepy eyes. “I’m sorry I woke you up. I had a weird dream. I still can’t tell if it was a nightmare—”

His frown was back. “You had a nightmare?”

She shrugged, instantly regretting that she hadn’t kept her mouth shut. “I don’t really remember.”

“I wish you would have told me.”

Never in a million years would she have woken Nate to tell him that when she’d opened her eyes in the dark, she’d had no idea where she was, or the dream she couldn’t remember had disturbed her somehow. Nor did she plan to mention that even now she couldn’t shake the lingering sense of unease. “I wanted you to sleep.” She stood and moved past him, starting toward the stairs. “I should go.”

He flipped off the light and followed her down the hall. “It’s two in the morning.”

She winced as guilt swamped her, and she hurried up the first few steps. “I know. I’m really sorry, Nate. I’ll just get my clothes—”

“I don’t want you to go,” he said as he snagged her by the wrist and stopped her two stairs from the top, so they stood eye level. “And I like what you’re wearing right now.”