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soft, lush bed. In the dream, this room doesn’t belong to my defense attorney. It’s a room in a resort hotel.
    The glass doors are open on the balcony, and the curtains flow in the cool ocean breeze passing between them. Light fills the room, and we can hear the rushing of waves over the white sands below.
    Josh slides an arm around my waist and pulls me closer to him, pressing me against him. “We’ve finally made it, baby,” he whispers into my ear. I hear his voice so clearly now. I reach back to touch him, to feel him again, to make sure he is really here with me.
    He is.
    I turn over in the bed to face him and run my hand over the stubble along his jawline. “I’ve missed you so much, Josh,” I tell him.
    “I’m right here,” he tells me. “You don’t have to worry now. I’m not going anywhere.” He tightens his hold on my waist, and my body responds with its own strong desire igniting.
    This is my Josh. This is the Josh Carter I married, not the man I shot.
    I run my hand over his bare chest. There aren’t any bullet wounds. My fingers linger over the spots where I shot him until one of his hands touches mine.
    I look into his face, searching for answers. “What happened?”
    “Nothing,” he answers with the gentle tone he used to always use with me. “You didn’t shoot me,” he adds as a smile spreads across his face. He pulls my hand away from his chest and kisses my fingers.
    “Who did I shoot?” I ask, pulling my hand away from his lips and pushing back from him so I can see his whole, unwounded chest, somehow still intact.
    “You shot one of them,” he claims.
    “One of who, Josh? Who are these people you keep talking about?”
    “Calm down, Rose,” he says gently. “You shot a man who was trying to take you away from me, or to take me away from you.”
    “Stop talking in riddles,” I beg him, still pushing against his grip on my waist.
    “It’s all pretty plain and clear” he says. Something in his tone has changed. It sounds like he has more to say, though he stares at me with a wild, paranoid look growing in his eyes again.
    “I knew about the gun. That’s why I let him come after you. I knew you would kill him so I could come home to you.”
    Even in my dreams, Josh has become a crazy man.
    “This is a dream,” I say. “Only a dream. This isn’t real. This isn’t real.”
    “Oh, it’s real, my dearest Rose,” he says, his voice taking on a threatening, sinister tone. “Or at least, it’s a dream you’re never going to wake from.”
    “No,” I shout. I start hitting him with my hands balled up into fists. He doesn’t fight back. Instead he pulls me against him. He wraps his arms around my back and tries to hold me to him so I can’t hit him anymore. I’m crying now, screaming at him, “Let me go! Let me go!”
    But he won’t let me go.
    Outside, the sound of the waves crashing on the beach has been replaced with the urban sounds of cars passing by on the city streets, loud music in the distance, and the sirens of emergency vehicles.
    “They’re still coming for you,” Josh says in his villainous voice. “They won’t stop until they get you,” he tells me. “Where is your gun?”
    “They kept it as evidence,” I tell him.
    “Dammit, Rose,” he says. “You need protection. They’re coming.”
    “I’ve got Slate,” I tell him.
    He leans away so he can look directly into my eyes. “Who the fuck is Slate?” he asks bluntly, a mixture of shock and anger brewing in those eyes.
    “He’s my attorney,” I tell him. “He’s defending me for shooting you.”
    “You didn’t shoot me, though. I told you. You didn’t,” he insists.
    “I did shoot you, Josh.” I look down at his chest, and the wounds have returned. “See, I shot you!”
    He touches his chest and holds two bloody fingers up between us. “Why the hell did you do that, Rose?” He shoves me away from him.
    It’s nighttime again. All the light of the morning in the resort hotel