Although she was regularly invited out on dates by male members of the staff she never accepted. Helena had warned her gently that she was in danger of allowing her dream lover to blind her to the reality of real live potential mates, but Annie was quietly aware that there was more to her reluctance to accept dates than merely a romantic figment of her own idealistic dreams.

It was almost as though, in some way, something deep within her told her that it would be wrong for her to start seeing someone. Quite why she should think this she was at a loss to know, and, indeed, her feelings were so nebulous, so inexplicable, that she felt too foolish to even confide them to Helena. All she did know was that for some reason it was necessary for her to wait…but to wait for what? For whom? She had no idea. She just knew it was something she had to do!

CHAPTER TWO

‘OH, WE didn’t order champagne,’ Annie began as the waiter suddenly appeared with a bottle and three glasses, and then stopped as she saw the look of smiling complicity Helena and Bob were exchanging.

‘This was supposed to be my treat,’ she reproached them as the waiter filled their champagne flutes.

‘Yes, I know, but it is our celebration,’ Bob reminded her fondly.

Annie agreed quietly, her eyes large and dark with the emotional intensity of her thoughts, tears just beginning to film them as she turned to Helena and told her huskily, ‘If it hadn’t been for you…’ She stopped, unable to go on, and the three of them sat in silence as they each shared the others’ emotions.

It was Bob who broke the emotional intensity of the moment, picking up his glass and lifting it, announcing in a firm voice, ‘To you, Annie…’

‘Yes, my love. To you,’ Helena joined in the toast.

As she looked at Annie’s flushed face Helena marvelled at the recuperative powers of the human body and its capacity for endurance. Looking at Annie, it was hard to equate the healthy young woman she was now with the comatose, badly injured accident victim she had seen lying inert on the hospital trolley as she’d hurried through the Accident and Emergency unit.

Later, whilst they were waiting for their pudding course, Annie excused herself to the other two.

‘I’m just going to the loo,’ she announced, getting up and walking towards the cloakrooms in the foyer. She was just about to walk past the entrance to the conservatory when the door opened and a party of four men came out. Two of them Annie recognised as executives from the company she worked for, the third she didn’t know, and the fourth…

Her heart gave a stunned leap inside her chest wall, shock rooting her to the floor where she stood as she stared open-mouthed at the fourth member of the quartet in total disbelief.

It was him! He…The man…From her dreams…So exactly identical to him that she could only stand and stare in silent shock. Her dream lover come to life! But how could that be possible when he was only a figment of her own imagination, a creature she had conjured up within her own mind? No, it wasn’t possible. She must be imagining it…hallucinating…She had drunk too much champagne she decided dizzily.

Quickly she closed her eyes and counted to ten, and then she opened them. He was still there, and what was more he was looking at her. She felt as though her blood was quite literally draining from her veins, leaving her empty, her body cold and in danger. Panic filled her. She tried to move and couldn’t. She tried to speak but no sound emerged from her paralysed throat…A hideous, horrible sensation of fear invaded her. She wanted to move. She wanted to speak. But she couldn’t. With horrible certainty Annie knew that she was going to faint.

When she came round she was in Liz’s private quarters and Bob and Helena were hovering anxiously over her.

‘Darling, what is it…what happened?’ Helena was asking her worriedly as she chafed her hand. Helen’s fingers were on her pulse, Annie recognised shakily, and she could see the professional beginning to take over from the concerned friend. Determinedly she forced herself to sit up.

‘I’m all right,’ she insisted. ‘I just felt faint, that’s all,’ she whispered, still too much in shock to be able to tell Helena what had actually happened.

‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised to Liz as she ignored Helena’s protests and swung her feet to the floor, gritting her teeth against her giddiness as she made herself stand up. ‘I don’t really have much of a head for vintage champagne,’ she excused herself, giving the other woman a brief smile.

Of course there was no question of either Helena or Bob allowing her to drive home, nor of her being allowed to return home on her own. Instead she was put to bed in the bedroom which had been hers whilst she was recuperating, with Helena fussing round her and announcing that she felt it might be a good idea if she were to have a full check-up.

‘There’s nothing wrong with me,’ Annie insisted. ‘I just had a bit of a shock, that’s all.’

‘A shock? What kind of shock?’ Helena demanded anxiously.

‘I…I thought I saw someone I…’ Annie paused and shook her head, her mouth dry as she told her, ‘I must have made a mistake, imagined it. I know, because it just isn’t possible that…’

‘Who was it? Who did you think you saw, Annie?’ Helena probed.

‘It…it wasn’t anyone. It was…just…just a mistake,’ Annie repeated stubbornly, but as she reached for the cup of tea Bob had brought her she started to tremble so violently that she had to put it down again.

Covering her face with her hands she admitted shakily, ‘Oh, Helena…it was so…so surreal. I don’t…I saw him…the man…from my dreams…He was…’ She stopped and shook her head. ‘I know that I can’t have done, that he just doesn’t exist, but…’

‘You’re getting yourself all worked up,’ Helena told her firmly. ‘I’ll give you something to help you relax and go to sleep, and then in the morning we can talk about it properly.’

As she lay back against the pillows Annie gave her a small weak smile. She knew that her friend was right, of course.

Several minutes later Helena, who had left the room, came back with a glass of water and two tablets for her to take. She watched with maternal tenderness as Annie dutifully swallowed them down.

‘I’m sorry if I spoiled your evening,’ she whispered drowsily to Helena as the tablets started to work.

Now that she was beginning to feel calmer she couldn’t understand why she had overreacted so foolishly, just because of some minor and no doubt imagined similarity between the man she had seen in the restaurant and her own fantasy lover. And anyway, now that she really thought about it, there was no way her dream lover would ever have looked at her the way the man in the restaurant had, with that look of implacable cold hostility in his dense, darkly blue eyes, that blanked-out look of icy contempt and banked-down anger.

Wearily Annie felt her eyes starting to close, and ten minutes later, when Helena quietly shut the bedroom door behind herself, Annie was deeply and completely asleep.

‘I suspect that the emotion of the evening and the memories it stirred up are the root cause of what happened,’ Helena announced to her husband Bob as she went back downstairs to join him.

‘Mmm…There’s no way the man she saw could be someone she knew, is there?’ Bob asked her curiously.

‘Well, it is a possibility I suppose,’ Helena agreed. ‘After all, as you know, there are still some missing pieces from her memory. She can remember arriving here in Wryminster, but she can’t remember when she arrived. It’s difficult to imagine that anyone who was involved with her to the extent they would have had to be involved with her to be responsible for dreams of the intensity of those that Annie has been having could ever be cold-hearted enough, uncaring enough, not to get in touch after the accident. After all, it was reported in the local papers.’

‘No, it does seem improbable,’ Bob agreed.

Upstairs in her sleep Annie started to smile, her body quivering with a mixture of nervousness and excitement.

‘God, but you feel so good…Will you let me look at you as well as hold you, little Annie? I want to so much…’

Annie tensed a little as the warm, knowing male hands began to gently undress her, nervous at first, her heart thumping anxiously, but then, as pleasure and excitement took over from her initial apprehension, her tension started to fade, her body beginning to relax as she started to respond to the soft verbal praise of her lover whilst he, oh, so slowly and carefully, laid her body bare to his gaze, peeling back the protective layers of her clothing, freeing her flesh to the warmth of his hands, their warmth, like their strength, a benediction as well as a nerve-thrilling wonderful new sensation.

He knew that this was her first real experience of a man’s love, her first time, and he had told her, reassured her, that the choice, the decision was to be hers, that he would, if she asked him to do so, stop and allow her to change her mind. But she didn’t want to change her mind, nor did she want him to stop. She wanted…

She gave a small gasp of delight as his touch set fire to her desires, igniting all the passion she had somehow known she was capable of feeling but which hitherto had been locked up inside her, hidden away in a secret place to which only he had the key.

She loved him so much…wanted him so much…What had been unthinkable with anyone else was not just ‘thinkable’ with him, but desirable…must-haveable…Her whole body shook with the force of what she was feeling…with her longing for him…her love for him. He only had to look at her and she melted.

Just the way he said her name was a form of poetry greater than even the greatest love sonnets. Just the way he looked at her more beautiful than any love song ever sung. The way he made her feel was so intense it was scary…He thrilled her, excited her, made her want to laugh and cry at the same time, filled her with such happiness that it made her feel afraid. He made her feel almost immortal, and yet, at the same time, he filled her with such a sense of her fragile vulnerability, her own frightening dependence on him and his love, that she was consumed with terror at the thought of losing him.

He stroked her breasts, watching her as she quivered in instant response, her eyes darkening, her lips parting.

‘Has anyone ever told you that you have the sexiest mouth in the whole world?’ he asked her softly, rimming it with his fingertip and smiling as she made an instinctive movement to catch hold of it.

‘Not like that,’ he whispered to her. ‘Like this…’ And then he slid his fingertip into her mouth, coaxing her to fasten her lips around it and slowly suck on it.

In her dream Annie moaned out loud in shocked delight, her body moving restlessly as it sought the intimacy of its lover’s embrace.

The evening sun slanted through the wide windows. Beyond them, if she opened her eyes, Annie knew she would see the purple haze of the distant hills, and if she stood close to them she could look down on the mellow wash of the river. Even at this distance she could hear its soft rhythmic whisper, almost feel the insidious pull of its tide, just as she could feel the urgent tug of the female tide within her own body. She drew a sharp breath as she felt the male hunger in the hands that caressed her.

‘Tell me now if you want me to stop,’ he was whispering huskily, insistently, to her. ‘Tell me now, Annie, otherwise it will be too late.’

But she knew she would say nothing, that she wanted him too much, loved him too much, even though the things he was doing to her, with her, were a world away from her own childish experience, limited to a few fumbled kisses.

‘I’m much, much too old for you,’ he had already told her, but somehow, instead of putting her off, his bold confession had only heightened and intensified her desire for him, imbuing him with a magical, almost mystical worldliness, a male knowledge and awareness that galvanised her body into excited little shivers.

And now it was nearly here, the moment of supreme revelation, the moment when…

Annie gave a sharp, piercing cry and she suddenly woke up, her body drenched in perspiration, her mind racing. As she sat up in her bed she covered her face with trembling hands.

Her dream had been so strong, so real, and the man in it, her dream lover, had been so—so scarily alive.

Shakily she tried to draw a calming breath of air into her lungs, and then she closed her eyes, reliving the moment when she had traced with her lips the shape of the tiny scar she had seen on her lover’s temple, the same scar in exactly the same spot that the man in the restaurant had had. How many times had she dreamed of that scar and not really known it?

She didn’t know. She only knew that a small fierce stillness had gripped him as she touched it. It was as familiar to her as her own reflection. But how could that be? What was happening to her? Was she experiencing some kind of sixth sense, some kind of special awareness, some kind of inexplicable glimpse into the future? Were they perhaps fated to meet, and was this—these dreams—fate’s way of warning her of what was to come, of what was to be? Her whole body started to tremble.

She had been so very close to death, and, although she was extremely loath to acknowledge it, never mind discuss it openly, had experienced the sensation she had read avidly and secretly about that was reportedly so common to people who shared her near-death experience: that feeling of rushing towards a wonderful welcoming place, being propelled through darkness into an indescribable sense of awesome light, then that sudden awareness of being turned back, pulled back, that voice that was not actually a voice announcing that it was not yet her time.

Had that experience somehow or other, illogical and implausible though it might sound, given her the ability to sense, to feel, to experience a special, wonderful event in her life that had yet to take place?

Had the secret yearning she had carried all her life, to share it with someone who loved her, affected her to such an extent that she was already living in her dreams what she had yet to live in reality? Was her dream lover, in fact, not so much a figment of her imagination as a very factual and real figure from her future?

Impossible, implausible…Yes, maybe, but then there were many mysteries that defied logical explanation and analysis.

The fear she had felt earlier in the evening, the sense of shock and panic, had given way to an excitement that was almost euphoric. Her dream lover wasn’t just a dream. He was real. He was…Ecstatically Annie closed her eyes, hugging her thoughts, her love, to her heart just as tightly as she yearned for him to hug and hold her.

It was a long time before she finally got back to sleep, and when she did finally succumb her exalted state had convinced her that the evening’s meeting with the real-life physical embodiment of her dream man had been an act of fate for which her dreams had been preparing her.

‘Annie, how are you feeling this morning, my love?’

A little groggily Annie focused on Helena as she walked into the bedroom carrying a fragrant mug of coffee.

‘I’m not sure,’ Annie admitted. ‘Those pills you gave me really knocked me out.

‘Helena,’ she demanded, her voice changing as she sat up in her bed and looked at her friend and mentor with fixed determination. ‘Helena, do you believe in…fate?’ she asked solemnly.

‘I’m not sure just what you mean,’ Helena responded cautiously.

‘The man—the one I saw in the restaurant last night,’ Annie told her in a low voice. ‘At first I thought I must be imagining it, that he couldn’t possibly be the same man I’ve been dreaming about…But then, last night, I dreamed about him again, and I knew…’

She took a deep breath and told Helena huskily, ‘I think that we must have been destined to meet somehow, Helena, and that he and I…’ She paused and shook her head, responding to her friend’s silence with a wry, ‘Oh, I know how far-fetched this must sound, but what other explanation can there be? I don’t pretend to know why I should have dreamed about him or why I should feel as though I already know him. I just do. Please don’t tell me that you think I’m being silly,’ she pleaded.

‘I won’t,’ Helena promised her quietly, pausing to sit on the bed and stroke the soft tumbled hair back off Annie’s face with one hand as she placed the mug of coffee on the bedside table with the other.

Annie was so very dear to her, very precious, so much the daughter, the child she herself had never had, but she was also, in Helena’s opinion, a very vulnerable young woman. The gravity of her accident and her injuries had meant that the energy that other young women of her age would naturally give to the process of maturing had in Annie’s case had to be given to her physical recovery, recuperating her health.

It wasn’t that Annie in any way lacked intelligence—far from it. She had obtained her degree and she had a concern for the world and the people in it which made her, in many ways, older and wiser than her peers. But it was a fact that because of the length of time she had spent recovering from the accident Annie had not had the opportunity to mature as a woman, to experiment sexually, to make mistakes, errors of judgement, to indulge in all the youthful follies that people normally did on their journey through the turbulent years that led from one’s late teens to one’s mid-twenties.

Now it seemed that she preferred the fantasy of her dream lover rather than dating a real live man, that she was stubbornly determined to believe in fate rather than reality.

‘You do think I’m being silly, don’t you?’ Annie accused Helena flatly as she saw the hesitation in her friend’s eyes.

‘Not silly,’ Helena corrected quietly. ‘But perhaps…’ She stopped speaking, and then smiled ruefully at Annie before asking her gently, ‘Has it occurred to you that this man may have been so familiar to you simply because he is familiar?’

‘From my dreams, you mean?’ Annie checked, nonplussed.

‘No. Not from your dreams,’ Helena stopped, and then said quietly, ‘Annie, he may have been familiar to you because you do actually know him.’

‘Know him?’ Annie looked perplexed. ‘No, that’s impossible.’

Helena waited before reminding her softly, ‘There are still some gaps in your memory, my dear. The weeks leading up to the accident as well as the event itself, and those weeks after, when you were in a coma.’

‘Yes, I know.’ Annie’s forehead creased in a small frown of distress. ‘But I couldn’t have known him…not the way I feel about him…the way we are…If I had he would have…’ She stopped, shaking her head. ‘No. It isn’t possible,’ she told Helena immediately and positively. ‘I would have known if he…If I…If we…No,’ she reaffirmed.

‘Well, I must admit it does seem unlikely,’ Helena acknowledged slowly. ‘But I felt I ought to mention the possibility to you.’

‘I understand,’ Annie assured her, giving her a warm hug. ‘But if he had known me he would have come forward when you advertised, wouldn’t he? And besides…’ A small secret smile curled her mouth, her eyes suddenly glowing with private happiness. ‘I know that if he…if we…’ She stopped and shook her head again. ‘No. I would have known,’ she told Helena calmly. ‘I’m sorry I gave you such a shock by fainting like that last night,’ she added more prosaically. ‘I think it must have been the effect of seeing him so unexpectedly on top of the champagne.’

‘Well, it was a very emotional evening,’ Helena responded.

‘You’ve been so good to me,’ Annie told her, lovingly reaching out to cover the older woman’s hands with her own.

‘Everything I’ve given to you you’ve given me back a thousandfold, Annie,’ Helena told her lovingly. ‘And you are going to give Bob and me our grandchildren,’ Helena teased her, deliberately lightening the atmosphere before giving a small exclamation. ‘Heavens! Bob! I promised I’d help him with our packing for this conference we’re flying out to attend tomorrow. Never mind,’ she added with a naughty grin. ‘He’s so much better at it than I am!’

Annie laughed. ‘Four days in Rio de Janeiro…How wonderful.’

‘Not as wonderful as you’d think,’ Helena countered ruefully. ‘The conference goes on for three days, and when you’ve taken time out for recovering from jet lag and for being dragged all over the place by Bob to see the local ruins…’

‘Stop complaining,’ Annie teased. ‘You know you love it. When the three of us went to Rome last year I was the one who had to go back to the hotel for a rest!’

‘Yes, that was wonderful, wasn’t it?’ Helena agreed, getting up off the bed as she told Annie tenderly, ‘Don’t rush to get up. You might feel fine but your body’s still in shock.’

‘It was just a faint, Helena, that’s all,’ Annie assured her friend, but she wasn’t totally surprised when, later in the day, Helena insisted on driving her to the hospital so that she could be checked over.

‘Mothers!’ the junior house doctor wisecracked after he had given Annie the all-clear. ‘They do love to fuss.’

‘Don’t they just?’ Annie said with a grin, then blushed a little at the admiring looks the young man was giving her.

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