Page 1 of Dare to Love Again

Chapter 1

STARTLING, SHRILL SCREAMSjolted Esmerelda Burton awake in her bed. The pitch-blackness that greeted her when she opened her eyes only added to her fear and confusion. Covering her ears didn’t block out the piercing noise.

It never did.

Nothing could obliterate the sounds coming from her own throat, not tonight or the countless nights before this one when the never-changing nightmare invaded her sleep.

Esme grabbed her pillow, clutching it to her chest. While she shivered in her sweat-drenched nightgown, tendrils of hair clinging to her face and neck, her tortured cries became muffled sobs as she vented her frustration into the damp linen.

Why wouldn’t the awful dreams stop? It was going on four years now.

More than subconscious images from her sleeping brain, they were vivid mental pictures that took her back in time, forcing her to relive a moment she tried her best to suppress by day. But while lying in her lonely bed every night, they haunted her tormented mind.

Something soft and warm rubbed her leg. When her face came out of her rumpled pillow, she met a watchful green gaze. If Phineas weren’t a cat, she would have called the look he gave her concern. Reaching out with shaky hands, Esme scooped him up and hugged him to her chest. Any other time he would have protested, but when she woke like this, he seemed to know she needed his comfort and allowed it, if only briefly.

Several long moments passed as she focused simply on breathing. When it returned to normal, the pounding in her ears subsided and her racing heart slowed. Her hands weren’t trembling quite so badly as she rolled on her hip and grabbed her phone off the nightstand. She scrolled through her contacts, hit the wrong one twice, before the name she needed appeared on the screen as the call connected.

While she listened to the ring, she silently calculated the time difference between Baltimore and LA. “Call anytime, night or day,” he always said, but she hated to interrupt his sleep, too. He had to work in the morning just like she did.

It wasn’t yet midnight on the West Coast. Pax didn’t sleep much, either. He’d still be up, so she didn’t feel quite so needy and pathetic.

“Esme, sweetheart,” he said in greeting, his voice conveying sympathy but never annoyance.

Ryan Paxton knew what she was going through and had never once been put out with her even though this same call happened at least twice a week. She didn’t call him every time the nightmare reoccurred; only when the screams woke her, which meant the vision had played through to the end and the very worst part.

“Pax,” she breathed unsteadily.

“You had the dream again.”

“I hate bothering you.”

“You’re not a bother. How many times do I need to tell you that?”

Pax was her husband’s best friend and partner. They’d met in college, went through the academy together, served on the same unit for the Baltimore Police Department, and they both applied for and became special agents with the FBI. During this time, she’d met and fallen in love with Andrew Burton, and Pax had become like a brother to her.

She thanked God for him every day because after she lost Andrew, she couldn’t have made it without his strength to rely on, and through their shared grief, their bond had grown stronger. They supported one another, Esme being there for him when things got bad, too. But as time passed, the give-and-take became largely one-sided as he moved on, but she remained stagnant.

Pax worried about her even more after transferring cross country to the LA field office a few months ago. He’d tried to get her to make the move with him, saying a change would do her good, but she simply couldn’t do it, not yet.

“Did you take your Ambien?” he asked, breaking into her thoughts.

“No, I got home late and got busy. When I remembered, I didn’t have a full eight hours left, so I had to skip it.”

“You know you need to plan for this,” he scolded gently.

“I hate being so weak. I should be able to sleep without being drugged.”

“You’re not weak, Esme, you’ve dealt with this better than most people would. But it’s worse when you don’t sleep. What’s your therapist always telling you?”

“Everyone grieves at different speeds.” But she was going at a snail’s pace. The dreams, if nothing else, should have decreased by this stage. “She thinks I should take you up on your offer.”

“Of course she does. Two great minds, as they say.”

“Right,” she drawled, and he chuckled.

“Seriously, sweetheart, it helped me just getting away from the city.”

“To an even bigger one like LA? Is it any different?”

---