[This post is from J.T.’s point of view.]
J.T. woke with a jerk, breathing hard and shaking from head to toe.
He was alone, the bed cold next to him. Carolyn hadn’t come. He hadn’t expected her to, but he’d hoped. Things had been awkward between them since he’d asked her to marry him. She still hadn’t given him a straight answer. They’d stopped spending their nights together—she’d started staying with Jacqueline, not that the healer had been sleeping in her own bed, anyway.
At least Carolyn said that she still loved him. That had to mean something, at least.
J.T. squeezed his eyes shut for a few long moments, trying to catch his breath and settle down.
Who the hell was that?
He pressed a hand over his eyes. He was still shaking.
Just can’t catch a break, can we?
His breathing calmed after a few moments and once it had, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, intending to get up. Instead he perched on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall for a long moment in the shadows.
Get up. You need to have something to eat and then you need to check on Hecate and make sure infection hasn’t set in on that wound of hers like it seems to with everyone else.
The fact that Matt had trusted him with Hecate’s care—even given him the key to their room—had surprised J.T., but perhaps not as much as it should have. After all, Matt had long been aware of his communication with Ériu, and while he hadn’t confirmed that he remembered Cíar ever telling the girl about Hecate, J.T. was willing to guess that he did.
Why else would he have trusted J.T. the way he was?
Still, he didn’t move. He turned the dream over in his brain again. The face, the voice—both had been familiar, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on why, and that annoyed him more than he was willing to admit.
It wasn’t just a dream.
He wished it had been. Life would have been easier if it had been.
With a sigh, he got up and got dressed, trying to mentally prepare himself for his day.
The dream, he decided, would have to wait until it started to make sense. Maybe if he stopped thinking about it, something would fall into place.
He was almost afraid that it would.
