In My Dreams

All he wants is family...

Crawling on his belly through enemy fire is nothing compared to the murder that ripped Jack Palmer’s childhood apart. Now that he’s home from his tour of duty, the ex-soldier’s most critical mission lies ahead: finding his long-lost sisters. And Sarah Reed can help.

The compassionate former pediatric nurse awakens powerful feelings in Jack. Yet Sarah’s traumatic loss of a young patient prevents her from wanting a family of her own. Is Jack ready to risk his place in his adopted family for the chance to reunite with his biological one...and claim a childless future with the woman he loves?

“It’ll get better, Jack.”

Suddenly overwhelmed with empathy for what he was going through, she instinctively wrapped her arms around his neck.

“The bad memories will fade and you’ll find your sisters.”

They shared a moment of stillness, until she recognized the instant her embrace stopped being about comfort and became...something else.

“Sarah,” he whispered.

He pushed her slightly away, looking down into her face. She looked up. His mouth came down, and hers reached up. The kiss was a gentle communication.

For about a second...

Dear Reader,

Ideas for books usually fall on my head, as though there are helpful muses in the clouds attaching notes to bricks and letting them fly. That’s truly how it feels when I think I have a good idea. Before it arrives, I think and think, read all kinds of different things looking for plot possibilities or character inspiration, then it hits me!

This time inspiration came from across the street in the person of our young neighbor who did two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan and remains the nicest, dearest man. His parents are wonderful and my hero’s childhood experiences are not at all Sean’s, though their war experiences are very similar.

I love the beleaguered hero who is strong despite it all, and a heroine who can still find love to give when her own life is difficult. So I crossed Jack Palmer’s path with Sarah Reed’s and sort of tore up the roadway.

He’s plagued by dreams of all he’s seen in war, and his confused subconscious is mixing them up with memories of his childhood so that his mother is riding in the turret of his Humvee. He fears for his sanity.

Sarah wants to help him, but she has her own awful memories of a career as a pediatric nurse and the heartbreak of trying to help children with health problems for which there are no solutions.

Let’s raise our glasses and coffee mugs to people in pain who reach out with love anyway. People who try to make a better world when their own little corner of it has been awful. Let’s put them into office. Let’s pay them multimillion-dollar salaries.

That’s how you start to think when a brick hits you in the head.

I hope you enjoy the story it created.

Muriel

In My Dreams

Muriel Jensen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MURIEL JENSEN lives with her husband, Ron, in a simple old Victorian looking down on the Columbia River in Astoria, Oregon. They share the space with a loudmouthed husky mix and two eccentric tabbies. They have three children, eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Their neighborhood is charmed, populated with the kindest and most fun-to-be-around people. Who would have guessed that the eight-year-old who lived across the street and came to watch television and eat cookies after school when he’d misplaced his key would grow up to inspire a book and its hero?

No one is safe from the writer’s reach.

MILLS & BOON

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To Sgt. Sean M. Johnson

Apache Troop 3rd Squadron, 89th Cavalry Regiment

4th Brigade, 10th Mountain Division

This handsome young man, who has lived across the street from us since he was a child, has grown up to be a credit to his parents and his own sense of honor. When I told him I wanted to dedicate this book to him for all his help with the first chapter, and the psyche of my hero, he said, “Dedicate it to all those who’ve served and sacrificed their lives, and for all who still put their lives on the line.”

He is now Officer Sean Johnson with the Cannon Beach, Oregon, Police Department, and has a beautiful wife, Allison, and brand-new son, Odin Curtis-Wayne Johnson, born July 17.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

EPILOGUE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

THE AIR INSIDE the Humvee was thick with dust and heat. Under his camo jacket, Jack’s skin prickled with the threat of danger as he scanned the road ahead. The escort of Special Forces to a chicken farm in Southeastern Iraq where the farmer was dealing in rockets and missiles had been uneventful, but it was insurgent strategy to let them pass, plant IEDs when they were out of sight, then wait for the patrol to return and watch the jihad happen.

Sweat broke out along his spine. He had leave in a week and a half. He was just imagining trouble. He was going to be fine. The day was quiet. He was a cavalry scout, the best of the best, the baddest of the bad, able to take on the world—or so the scouts told each other. Ego could keep you alive.

“You feel that?” Bolton asked. He was a teacher from New Jersey and claimed to be “in tune with the universe.” He sat beside Jack.

“Yeah,” Jack said. It wasn’t anything audible, just hung in the air like a weight. “What is it?”

“I don’t know. But something.”

Everything inside Jack sharpened—his senses, his instincts and his primal sense of survival. This close to the end of his tour, fear no longer had meaning. He couldn’t function with it. Simple, steady common sense and remembering his training became the focus of every moment on the road.

The flash of light burst all around him like some personal supernova. Later, the other joes would talk about the deafening explosion, but he never heard it. There was only the light and the diffusion of everything beyond its circle.

When Jack came to, Bolton was slumped in his seat and the whole right side of the vehicle, which included the computer and a rifle, was gone. Above Jack’s head, Curry, the gunner, was praying urgently. “Help me. Please, God, help me.”

Jack forced himself to assess. He ran his hands up and down his arms, felt his thighs, his knees. He was okay. He pushed at Bolton’s shoulder. “You okay? Bolton?”

Bolton didn’t answer. There wasn’t a sound from the three other vehicles in the convoy. Jack’s heart beat fast enough to choke him.

He checked Bolton for injuries and found a lot of blood on his right side. But he had a pulse.

“Help me,” Curry continued to pray. “Please help me.”

Jack leaped out on his side and climbed into the turret. Curry’s face was white and his blood was everywhere. The explosion had blown away most of his right forearm, still held on by something stringy—a tendon, maybe. Swallowing the need to hurl, Jack pulled a tourniquet from pieces of the first-aid kit in his pocket. He tied it just above Curry’s elbow.

That’s when he saw the figure approaching from the west and drew his sidearm. It was a column of white walking out of the dry desert grass on the side of the road.

The caftan billowed in a whisper of breeze as the figure took a step forward. Jack aimed his weapon, widened his stance and shouted, “Stop!” The figure kept coming. Jack shouted again and held up his hand in the universal signal to halt. Still, the figure kept coming as though simply on a stroll. Jack fired above his head, but the figure didn’t stop.

Jack aimed for the chest, his finger on the trigger, but confusion made him hold back. Why wasn’t the attacker returning fire? He could see both his hands, scanned his body for a weapon and saw none—unless a bomb was strapped to his chest. Jack’s heartbeat accelerated and sweat ran into his eyes as the guy closed the distance between them.

Then he realized it was not a man. The walk was fluid and graceful. A woman. She could be as lethal as any man. He took aim again and then the pistol went slack in his hands as the woman raised her head to reveal a beautiful, wholesome face. The last time he’d seen that face, he’d been eight years old and the world as he knew it had ended.

“Mom?” He heard his astonished whisper.

The face’s soft beauty suggested the complete opposite of the drug-hungry woman who’d had three children she’d ignored while going through man after man in her attempt to stay high. Blue eyes met his and honey-blond hair ruffled as she pulled off the hijab.

“I’m going, Jack,” she said in the slightly slurred voice he remembered. She came to a stop near the vehicle. “You’ll be fine.”

Now two little girls who hadn’t been there a moment ago held her hands. One of them was dark featured and about four. The other was just a toddler with blond hair. Both pulled away from their mother and reached for him, crying his name. “Jack! Jackie!”

He felt a burning in his gut, as though she’d shot him.

He was Section 8. He’d been afraid this would happen. The guys who survived emotionally in this bubble of hell managed to somehow exist outside it. After living through an ugly childhood, he’d thought he was strong enough to get through anything, but apparently he wasn’t. After all he’d seen and done and survived, he was now hallucinating. His mother had been in jail for over twenty years, and he hadn’t seen his sisters in about as long.

His mother called his name, but it couldn’t be her; it was his brain playing tricks. He screamed for the image to go away or he’d shoot again. Now the girls were gone and his mother climbed the turret and took hold of his forearms.

“No!” he shouted and used every ounce of strength he had left to push her away. She screamed as she fell backward.

* * *

“JACK!” SARAH SHOUTED into his face, pushing at his chest with both hands. It was like trying to move a refrigerator. She wanted to think he wouldn’t harm her, but he was caught in one of his nightmares and in this one, she seemed to be a threat. Since he was a well-honed fighting machine, she had to wake him. “Jack! Stop! It’s me!”

Whatever was going on in his mind had twisted his handsome face into a mask of pain.

“Jack!” she said again. “Wake up!”

His eyes opened and he blinked, confusion, disorientation in his face. She took advantage of the moment to push harder against him and roll him over so that she knelt astride him and pinned him to the mattress. “Wake up!”

“Geez!” A strong male arm suddenly circled her waist and pulled her off Jack. “What happened?” Ben demanded, setting her on her feet and holding Jack down with his other hand.

Ben, a Beggar’s Bay, Oregon, police officer, was Jack’s brother and her boyfriend. She smiled feebly and indicated Jack, who was now clearly awake and trying to sit up but for the hand to his chest. “He was crying out. I was starting breakfast and came in to see if he was okay.”

Jack pushed Ben’s hand away and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He wore boxer shorts and a T-shirt, revealing bulging arm and thigh muscles. He smiled apologetically. “I was dreaming that she was going to make me eat oatmeal again today,” he said, his brown-eyed, bloodshot glance teasing. “I want bacon and eggs.”

“Funny man.” Sarah took a steadying breath and turned to give Ben a quick kiss. He looked stressed out. “Hi. My hero.” She put her hands on her hips and frowned good-naturedly at Jack. “You know, I’d like you better if you didn’t try to kill me when I come over to make your breakfast.”

She’d promised Jack and Ben’s parents that while they were at their winter place in Arizona, she’d prepare meals and keep an eye on Jack. She worked for Coast Care, a home health-care provider.

Neither brother had kitchen skills and the Palmers had been concerned about Jack’s nightmares. He’d been cleared of mental health issues upon discharge two weeks ago. He insisted he would be fine as soon as he put the past six years away and reclaimed his civilian life.

To ease his parents’ minds, Ben had assured them that he and Sarah would look out for his brother. To that end, he’d temporarily vacated his condo and moved into their childhood home. Sarah had been coming daily as promised. This was the second time Jack had mistaken her for an Iraqi insurgent.

“I’m fine,” Jack insisted. “Sarah doesn’t have to come anymore. I can make our breakfast.”

“Toaster waffles are not breakfast,” Sarah stated.

“Says who? They’re whole grain.”

She sighed. “You should start the day with fruit, protein and whole grain that aren’t processed into pastry.” She made a beckoning gesture. “Come on. I brought vegetarian sausage, cheese and veggies for an omelet, and grainy bread for toast.”

Jack shook his bed-head at Ben, wearing a weary grin. “She’s such a tyrant. I don’t know what you see in her, apart from beauty and brains.”

“She’s already paid off her student loans, so if I marry her, she can start on mine. I’ve got a sunny future sewed up.”

Sarah shook her head and looked from one brother to the other, then gave Ben a quick hug, loving the easy relationship between them. She’d met Ben when he’d stopped her doing fifty through town on her way to work five months ago. She’d been late and he’d been charming, even though he’d still given her a ticket! He had a degree in Business Administration, but loved police work. And she loved him because he cared about his family and his community.

“Come on, Jack,” she encouraged. “If you’re starting work today like you said, you need nutrition. I know you can’t recover overnight from all you’ve seen and been through, but a healthy breakfast would be a good start.” She glanced at her watch. “I’ve got an hour before Vinny.”

“Vinny?”

“Vinny Caruso, my first client of the day. He’s eighty-four, about five foot six and maybe a hundred and forty pounds. He was an insurance salesman and a musician on the side. He’s about as skilled in the kitchen as you two. But he lives across town, so let’s get moving.”

“All right, all right. I’m right behind you.”

Sarah was now very familiar with the Palmers’ large, comfortable kitchen. Twenty years ago, Gary Palmer, Ben and Jack’s father, had renovated the inside of the spacious Victorian home on the edge of town to suit his family’s purposes. The more recently updated kitchen looked out onto a wide lawn that sloped to the bay on the central Oregon coast. Four fat blue hydrangea bushes now turning green and purple in the September weather crowded a simple wooden gate at the edge of the slope. The gate served no purpose, but Gary had put it there, thinking it provided a pretty sight from the kitchen window.

The room was painted an herbal green and the cupboards and details were rustic with hinges and pulls Gary had salvaged from an old bakery. Sarah loved working in this room; it made her feel connected to past generations. As someone disconnected from her former life, she appreciated that.

Ben placed bread in the toaster while Sarah dropped the sausage into the frying pan. She pulled a bowl of fruit out of the refrigerator and spooned some into three bowls. She topped them with strawberry yogurt, then turned the sausage.

“You all right?” Ben asked, pushing the toaster lever down and moving closer to study her. He frowned at a bruise on her upper arm.

“I’m fine.”

“I warned you not to try to wake him.”

“Ben, he was screaming. I can’t hear someone cry out and not investigate. And, if you recall, when you came to my rescue, I had the upper hand.”

“Upper hand,” he repeated skeptically. “I hate to disillusion you, but the self-defense class you took at the college wouldn’t hold up against military combat training. Had he been a little deeper into that dream, you’d have been in three pieces.”

She rolled her eyes. “Next time he screams, I’ll ask what’s wrong from the doorway.”

She turned the sausage patties again and pointed to the toaster where browned bread had popped up. “I put a jar of strawberry jam in the fridge.”

“Do you have a night job tonight?” he asked, retrieving the jam.

“No. Just Vinny and Margaret. No Jasper today. He’s gone to Portland with a friend. But I do have a meeting with my boss after lunch.” They’d all been her daytime regulars for the past few months. Vinny loved her cooking, Margaret was a lady of the old school and loved Sarah because she was willing to iron her sheets, and Jasper Fletcher, a blind man in his late fifties, counted on Sarah to listen as he told her about what he’d learned from books on tape. Her goal was to make their diets nutritious, as well as to keep them active and social. “I’m done in the middle of the afternoon.”

“Good. I’m off to Eugene in the morning for a weekend cop conference. Want to have dinner tonight?”

“Sure. I’ll fix something for Jack.”

“He’s planning a Blue Bloods marathon.”

“Wouldn’t you rather stay with him? You’d probably love a Blue Bloods marathon. We can have dinner another time.”

He leaned over to kiss her gently. “We haven’t had an evening alone together in two weeks. Prime rib special at the Farmhouse tonight.”

“Okay, I’m in.”

“Seven o’clock.”

“It’s a date.”

“It is,” he said, a different note in his voice. “We have things to talk about. I’ll pick you up.”

“No, I’ll stop by to deliver something for Jack’s dinner. What do we have to talk about?”

He narrowed his gaze on her, as though looking for something in her eyes he wasn’t finding. “A lot,” he finally replied.

His tone put her on alert. So far, theirs had been just an easy, romantic friendship. Today, though, he looked very serious. She hoped he wasn’t thinking what she suspected he was thinking. He’d make a wonderful husband and father, but while she’d like to have the one, she didn’t intend to ever have the other.

* * *

JACK WALKED INTO the kitchen, doing his best to look well-adjusted despite his earlier freak-out. That was just a small indicator of his serious problem. Behaving in a normal way in the kitchen he’d grown up in since age eight, in the small-town life that had been all about fishing and building and girls, when just two weeks ago he’d carried an M4 carbine and jumped out of helicopters, was harder than it sounded. Bullets had whistled by his ear, people around him had died or suffered unspeakable injuries; he’d exchanged gunfire and felt a time or two as though he might die. And somehow he had to dial down the adrenaline that pulsed into his blood and figure out how to live again in this kitchen, in this life.

“A step at a time, Jack,” his shrink at Fort Polk used to say. “A step at a time.”

Sure. Easily said. But even if he managed to cope with old memories, what did he do about new ones? Like waking up with his brother’s girl straddling him? He could still feel her knees pressed against his hips, smell the floral-vanilla fragrance of her clinging to his T-shirt.

He shook off the sensory image and took the plate of buttered toast from Ben, put it in the middle of the table, then went to get utensils. He smiled reassuringly at his brother and Sarah as he passed them. He took the opportunity to keep thinking.

Why in God’s name had he seen his mother’s face in his dream? Images of his little sisters had haunted him for years, ever since they’d all been separated when their mother had gone to jail for manslaughter after murdering her boyfriend. He’d had nightmares since then of himself running away through a dark, blurry night, the girls screaming and footsteps right behind him, gaining on him. But he’d always been very much alone. What was his mother doing in his dreams? And in Iraq? He scowled fiercely.

“Jack?”

He looked up at the sound of his name and saw Sarah holding up an egg. “You okay?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“Good. Two or three eggs in your omelet?”

He smiled. “Two, please.”

Ben put the jam down in front of him. “You’re starting to scare me, bro. You sure you’re okay?”

Jack kept smiling. “Thanks, I’m good. You know how real dreams can be. I’m just having trouble putting it out of my head.”

“Afghanistan?”

“No, Iraq. For whatever reason, it was the Humvee explosion in the middle of my first tour that keeps coming back to me.”

“You can talk about any of that, you know. I’d be glad to listen. I know I wasn’t there, but I kind of understand war.”

“Thanks.” Jack knew cops saw ugly things all the time. But terrible memories of war entangled with ugly childhood memories made for an awful hybrid.

It would be hard to explain to Ben what was going on in his head. He and Ben had been friends as children, then brothers when the Department of Human Services had allowed Ben’s parents, Gary and Helen Palmer, to adopt Jack. At the same time, his younger half sisters had been sent to live with their respective fathers.

“I’m going to be fine,” Jack insisted. “I just have to get my head together.”

Ben looked him in the eye, clearly trying to read what Jack wasn’t saying. “You know it’s more than that. No one can survive such things without venting it to somebody.”

He’d been doing that to his shrink at the fort, and although being home again was gradually pulling him away from the past six years, the sharply revived memories of his childhood and the big-time return of his dreams were driving him toward the only solution he could think of to get his life on track again.

“Actually,” he said, “I have an idea about how to help myself.”

Ben put down his fork. “What’s that?”

Jack met his waiting gaze and said, as though it was going to be easy, “I’m going to find my sisters.”

CHAPTER TWO

BEN SHOOK HIS head and stabbed his fork into a bite of sausage. “Jack, it’s been too long. You have no idea where they are, and they have different names.”

“Yeah. But technology puts the world at my fingertips. I’m going to find them.”

Sarah saw the zealous light in Jack’s eyes and the defining caution in Ben’s. They were two very different men with one very strong connection. They weren’t brothers by birth but by the courage that brought them together as boys and now defined them as men—the soldier and the cop.

“I hate to see you get hurt, Jack. And you’re kind of...vulnerable right now, don’t you think? You’ve had about all the pain you can deal with.”