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freaking out."
    Wes arched an eyebrow at her before
crossing to the employee refrigerator and examining its contents. It
held the usual collection of Tupperware containing leftovers of
questionable freshness, along with a selection of soft drinks and a
few containers of yogurt. "Why, does your head spin around, or
something?" he asked absently as he examined a delicious-looking
slice of pie. A note on the top of the plastic container threatened
death to anyone who touched it.
    "You have to be careful,"
she warned. "If you touch me before I'm awake... I broke my
boyfriend's nose in college. Even if it seems like I'm awake, I might
not be."
    Addie was in pretty good shape, but
the thought of her being able to get that decent a hit in on him was
downright depressing. "I'll be careful.” He pulled a soda
from the refrigerator and waved it at her. "You want one?"
    She eyed him in consternation.
"You're not at all concerned?"
    "About you? Yes." He
grabbed another soda and handed her one anyway. "About you hurting me?
Nope."
    "Maybe I just hate the idea of
looking like an idiot in front of you," she admitted ruefully.
She cradled the soda between her hands, but made no move to open it.
"It's not always pretty. I sweat and scream and cry and kick all
the blankets off and pretty much act like a crazy person."
    He flashed her a grin and teased
gently, "What's wrong with that? I do the same thing when the
Bulldogs lose a bowl game."
    For a second he thought she was
going to throw the soda at him, but she finally gave him a grudging
smile. "Fine. But don't say I didn't warn you."
    "I have been more than adequately warned, Addie Jo." Wes opened his soda and took
a big gulp then stretched. "It's still early, but damn ,
I'm tired."
    "Don't call me Addie Jo."
She wrinkled her nose at him and shifted on the couch, but her eyes
were anything but annoyed. Warmth had crept back into them, and the
slightest bit of something a whole lot hotter. "You going to
curl up with me?"
    "Not if you're going to punch
me in the nose," he retorted as he sat down and unlaced his
boots. "Scoot over and give me some of the covers, Addie Jo."

Chapter Four

    It started the way it always did.
The dream she was having began to fade and rising horror took its
place. She struggled in her sleep, clinging desperately to the hazy
image of Wes and a beach and the sun glinting off his hair as he
laughed about something silly. It was a good dream, warm and
comfortable and slipping through her fingers like so much sand.
    With the fear came darkness, and for
several seconds there was nothing but the sound of her own heart
beating frantically in her chest. She fought, desperate to wake up
before the vision claimed her.
    It didn't work. It never worked. And between one heartbeat and the next, she was thrown into
terror.
    Fire.
    It surrounded her, crawling up the
walls and writhing like a living thing. The curtains had turned into
monstrous billowing sheets of flame, and Addie could feel the young woman's terror as she shook her husband again. "Wake
up, baby. God, wake up, Mark—"
    She couldn't have been much older
than twenty-five, roundly pregnant and sobbing as she tried to rouse
the man next to her on the bed.
    Addie knew he was dead, knew it
before the firefighter crashed through the door and dragged the young
woman away from her husband's body. Knew it before the firefighter's
partner moved to heft the man's dead weight.
    The girl struggled, fought as the
firefighter lifted her bodily to pull her from the room. She screamed
her husband's name over and over in a broken voice, hoarse from tears
and smoke inhalation. She screamed until her words dissolved into
sick, wracking coughs.
    Addie could see the future, and the
future was death. The building would collapse on everyone inside. An
unforeseen catastrophe, seven dead. Panic throbbed through her as she
fought back a scream and tried to remind herself that she wasn't inside. This wasn't happening to her, and she would wake