Ready&Willing






Twelve

CECILIA WAS DREAMING. SHE KNEW SHE WAS dreaming, even before she looked down at the strange outfit she was wearing—a dark red satin dress trimmed in gold whose overly frilly straps fell from both shoulders. It was, she was almost positive, the same dress she’d seen on one of the dancing girls in the movie Show Boat when she was a kid. Likewise from Show Boat was the dancehall scenery she’d conjured for the backdrop of her dream—all crystal chandeliers and red brocade wallpaper and polished hardwood floors—not to mention the Dixieland jazz band playing in the corner of the room. Though they played with infinitely less verve and fewer tambourines than they had in Show Boat. Thank God.
What she hadn’t borrowed from Show Boat for her dream was Silas Summerfield, since she distinctly remembered Cap’n Andy Hawks being played by Joe E. Brown, and he’d worn some ridiculous Hollywood getup that had been even more embellished than the dancing girls’ dresses. Silas had way more in common with charming gambler Howard Keel, though he didn’t look like the type to break into song. His captain’s uniform, she was sure, was the actual one he’d worn on his own riverboat, since somehow she knew he was in her dream as himself, and not some Tinseltown-generated idea she’d dredged up from the back of her brain. He was dressed almost completely in black, from the toes of his black boots to the cap tilted jauntily—because what else would a nineteenth-century riverboat captain be but jaunty?—on his head. The only things that weren’t black were his crisp white shirt—bound at the collar with a black string tie—the double row of brass buttons on his jacket, and the tidy gold trim of his epaulets.
He stood in the doorway of the dance hall, his gaze fixed on hers, the night behind him as black as his clothes, splashed with stars that twinkled like his buttons. When he entered, he immediately swept his cap from his head and tucked it under one arm, and strode leisurely—but purposefully—toward the table where she sat. Except for the band, the room was empty, but even the musicians seemed to fade to the background as Silas drew nearer. The song they were playing became muted and mellow, the perfect accompaniment for the frosty bottle of champagne that suddenly appeared on the table, chilling in a sweaty silver ice bucket beside two elegant long-stemmed flutes.
Silas said not a word when he joined her, only tilted his head forward in acknowledgement and reached for the champagne, to open it. The cork left the bottle with a wet, crisp pop, then he tilted the bottle over each glass until they were both filled with sparkling, pale gold wine. After tucking the bottle back into its nest of ice, he handed one glass to Cecilia, then lifted the other into the air.
“To you, my dear,” he said. “The most beautiful woman aboard.”
Cecilia sipped the wine, savoring the clean, bracing taste of it, relishing the way it cooled her throat on the way down. Wow. She never got this kind of detail in her dreams. This was really, really . . . cool.
“Well, this is different,” she said as she lowered the glass to the table again. “Usually I only have anxiety dreams. I can’t find my car in the parking garage or can’t find my room in a hotel. Or I have fifteen minutes to bake a hundred wedding cakes. That kind of thing. I can safely say I’ve never dreamed I was a dancehall girl.”
He smiled at that. “You’re not a dancehall girl in this dream, either,” he told her.
“I’m not?”
He shook his head, still smiling.
“Then what am I?”
He inhaled a deep breath and released it slowly. “Well, to put it in the crassest of terms, Cecilia, you’re my . . . woman.”
A thrill of something hot and not altogether unpleasant rolled through her midsection at hearing him say what he had, the way he had said it—so knowingly, so confidently, so possessively. Hearing any other man say something like that in the same way would have terrified Cecilia. Hearing it from Silas, though, wasn’t scary at all. In fact, hearing Silas say it somehow made her feel oddly safe. Safe in a way she’d never felt before. As if she didn’t have to look over her shoulder all the time anymore. As if she didn’t have to worry about Vincent anymore. Because if Vincent dared to show his face, Silas, her man—Wow, that felt really good to say that—would protect her completely.
She told herself she should be ashamed of herself, liking the idea of a man’s protection. She was a twenty-first-century woman. She’d been taking care of herself since she was a teenager. Yeah, well, okay, except for those years with Vincent. But even then, her sense of self-preservation had kicked in at some point, and she’d gotten herself away. She’d rescued herself from her abuser. She didn’t need anyone else’s protection.
Except that, for some reason, the idea of someone else protecting her suddenly felt kind of nice. It was hard taking care of yourself all the time when you were by yourself. It was scary. It was lonely. What was so terrible about wanting—maybe even needing—a little extra help?
“There’s nothing wrong with that, Cecilia,” Silas said. “It doesn’t matter what century a man is born in. Any man who doesn’t feel a fundamental compulsion to take care of the people he loves isn’t fit to call himself a man.”
She lifted her chin. “And any woman who doesn’t feel compelled to do the same thing isn’t fit to call herself a woman.”
He grinned again, and nodded. “I dare say I’m beginning to like this stronger, more independent version of American womanhood. Provided you don’t grow so strong and independent that we men become unnecessary.”
She started to tell him that twenty-first-century society had already made men pretty much unnecessary in a lot of ways, thanks to sex toys, sperm banks, and cloning. Then she decided he probably wasn’t ready for that aspect of twenty-first-century life, and it might be better to protect him for as long as she could. Besides, men did still come in handy when there was heavy lifting to be done. And even the most ingenious vibrator left a lot to be desired when it came to unclogging a drain.
“You’ll never be unnecessary,” she assured him. Because any man as beautiful and decent as Silas was would always, always, be needed.
He pulled out the chair beside hers—not the one opposite, she noted—and folded himself into it, setting his cap carefully on the other side of the table. He looked at her hands, cupped one on top of the other, and, after only a small hesitation, covered them with one of his. She braced herself for the staggering shock wave that had shuddered through her when they’d come into contact with each other before, but all she felt this time was the warmth of his bare fingers curling gently over hers. When their gazes met again, she saw that he was as surprised—and delighted—as she by the discovery. But what was truly surprising, not to mention delightful, was Cecilia’s reaction to that touch. Because she had become convinced over the past year that she would never welcome a man’s touch again.
It was the reason she’d had trouble keeping a job until the one at Finery. Thanks to what she had suffered during her time with Vincent, she couldn’t bear the touch of masculine flesh against her own. She didn’t fare much better just being in the same room with a man. Finn and Stephen had been the only exceptions, and only then because of their orientation. No matter how nice the man, or how gentle his disposition, or how unthreatening his demeanor, he made Cecilia feel, at best, uncomfortable, and, at worst, petrified.
Until now. Until Silas.
Of course, it was only because this was a dream, she thought, and everything around her, including Silas, was lacking in substance. He couldn’t threaten her, because he didn’t exist. Not the way other men did. He was a ghost. A fantasy. A dream.
He twined his fingers with hers, and a thrill of something warm and liquid rushed through her. Funny, but her dreams had never been tactile before.
“This is just a dream, right?” she asked him, just to be sure.
He nodded, his expression saddening some. “Alas, yes. But I had some success conversing with Audrey by entering one of her dreams that first night. I thought perhaps, since you haven’t been able to see me before, it might work with you, too.”
“How do you do it?” she said.
“I don’t,” he told her. “You do. By thinking of me during the day, it opens a door in your subconscious I’m able to enter once you’re asleep. Which means, Cecilia . . .” He lifted her hand to his mouth and brushed his lips lightly over the backs of her fingers, his warm breath caressing her flesh and making her heart rate triple. “. . . that you were thinking about me today.”
She started to deny it, then smiled. What would be the point? “Well, it’s kind of hard not to think about you when I feel you brooding behind me all day.”
He had started to kiss her hand again, but let it drop a little. She tried not to feel too bereft. “I do not brood,” he stated.
She lifted her hand to his mouth again, silently inviting another kiss. Which was extraordinary, because even if Cecilia might have thought she could eventually touch a man without flinching, she’d never thought she would want one to kiss her again. Even more amazing, she found herself wanting to kiss him, too. “Well, you’re certainly not brooding now,” she said a little breathlessly.
He turned her hand over so that her palm was facing up, then bent his head to place a chaste kiss in its center. “I am not,” he agreed. “At the moment, I am trying to convince my lovely Cecilia to dance with me.”
She had begun to feel dreamily mellow—and not a little aroused—by the warm brush of his mouth over her flesh, but his announcement that he wanted to dance with her doused every wonderful sensation she’d experienced up to that point. Holding hands with a man, even allowing him to kiss her hand, was one thing. Dancing, especially the way they danced in Silas’s time, all up close and personal, was something else entirely. Sitting down, he was much less threatening—never mind that this was a dream and all that stuff was relative anyway. Standing up, and virtually surrounding her, as he would be in a dance, was unthinkable.
“Come, Cecilia, you know me better than that,” he said softly, once again reading her mind.
Which he of course was going to be able to do, since he was currently wandering around in her brain, being privy to all kinds of things. A lot of which, she couldn’t help musing further, she probably didn’t want him to be privy to.
“You know I would never hurt you,” he added softly.
Her mouth dropped open at that, and the warmth that had seeped into her began to quickly recede, replaced with the sort of chill that swept in on the most brutal winter days. Because Vincent had uttered those very words to her more than once, and in the same cajoling way. C’mon, Georgia, he’d say to her old self whenever she told him to stop doing whatever he was doing because it hurt her—be it yelling at her or telling her she looked like a whore in that dress or sleeping with the new hostess at the restaurant. You know I’d never hurt you.
And then he had. Every single day. Even before he’d raised a fist to her, he’d hurt her with his words. His actions. His incessant need to dominate. He’d hurt her for years. Deliberately. Almost gleefully. And Cecilia had promised herself she would never let anyone hurt her like that again.
And now Silas was telling her he would never hurt her. How could she be expected to trust him?
“You can trust me, my dear,” he said softly, “because I’m not whoever it was who made you feel this way.”
She arrowed her brows downward, wondering just how much access Silas had to her thoughts. She didn’t think she could bear it if he knew what kind of person she’d been with Vincent. How weak and uncertain, how timid and frightened. “How much do you know about him?” she asked softly.
His dark gaze held hers, so intent that he seemed to be trying to peer right into her soul. Finally, he said, “You have buried him very deeply, Cecilia. I know nothing of him in particular. I know only what you feel for him. Anger. Resentment. Fear.”
She said nothing in response to that, but she didn’t look away. He turned her hand in his again and wove their fingers together, returning both to the table.
“I only hope,” he said softly, “that, in time, you will tell me about him. About you. About that part of your life.”
“I don’t talk about that,” she replied swiftly. “Ever. I just want to forget it happened.”
He nodded slowly. “I understand. Unfortunately, though, our memories have a bad habit of not leaving us. Particularly the ones we most wish would go.”
There wasn’t a whole lot to say in response to that, and indeed Silas didn’t seem to expect a reply. Because, still holding her hand, he stood, giving her arm a gentle tug. “Dance with me,” he said.
As if cued by his words, the band in the corner of the room segued into a slow, moody number, one Cecilia couldn’t recall ever hearing before. And in spite of her earlier feelings about not wanting to dance with him, she reminded herself that this was a dream, not real, so everything was going to be just be fine.
She followed him to the center of the floor, and before she even came to a stop, he was sweeping her into his arms and spinning her around and around. Her steps never faltered, even though she had no idea how to dance this way. Silas held her hand in his and roped his arm around her waist, and she settled her other hand on his broad shoulder. The wool of his jacket was rough beneath her fingertips, and his palm against hers was calloused and strong. His body was hard in all the places hers was soft, angled where hers was curved, yet somehow, they fit together perfectly. The mellow music filled her ears, Silas’s masculine scent filled her nose, and utter happiness filled her heart.
She really must be dreaming, she thought, because nothing in life had ever felt this good. But—
“Just whose dream is this, anyway?” she asked him. “I’ve been thinking all this time it’s mine, but I don’t know how to dance like this. And I’ve never heard this song before.”
He had started to smile as soon as she asked that first question, in a way that told her he’d had this discussion before, with someone else. “I told you earlier how I’d discovered this was an effective means of communication with Audrey that first day,” he said. “But what I discovered after the fact was that, when she dreamed of me, and I entered her subconscious, I brought my subconscious with me. So that her dream became mine, and my dream became hers, so there were elements of both of our experiences to be enjoyed.”
“I’m not sure I follow you,” Cecilia said. “Do ghosts sleep? Do they dream?”
“No, I don’t sleep,” he said in a way that told her he and Audrey had already talked about that, too. “But I still carry with me the dreams I had in life, and they mingle with the dreams of those with whom I . . . connect,” he finally concluded. “Now that you have dreamed of me once, Cecilia, you may again. And whenever you do, a part of me will become a part of you. And a part of you will become part of me.”
She still wasn’t sure she understood. But she decided that, ultimately, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that they could touch in her dreams without sparking that strange shock. More important, in her dreams, she welcomed his touch. It had been a long time since she’d touched a man intimately. A long time since she’d wanted to touch a man that way. Now, as she pressed her body to Silas’s, she remembered what it was like to enjoy this sensation with someone who truly cared about her. She had forgotten how nice it could be between two people, but as he opened his hand over the small of her back and pushed her closer still, she began to remember. When she tilted her head back to smile at him, he bent and brushed his lips lightly over hers before nuzzling her temple and kissing her there, too. The fire inside her leapt higher, moving into her chest and between her legs, making her feel things—and want things—she hadn’t felt or wanted in a very long time.
“Good thing this is only a dream,” she said softly. “Otherwise, I might be tempted to do something tonight I’d regret in the morning.”
She heard him chuckle softly, the sound rumbling in his chest and making her laugh, too.
“What could possibly be regrettable about anything that might happen tonight?” he asked.
“Oh, please,” she replied. “Sex complicates everything between a man and a woman.”
“My darling Cecilia, sex is the only thing between a man and a woman that isn’t complicated. Don’t be such a Victorian.”
She did laugh at that, feeling whatever tension was left inside her evaporate. For a long time, the two of them only danced, to a long slow number that seemed to last forever. Which would have been fine with her. The way she felt in her dream, she never wanted to wake up again. In fact, the way she felt in her dream, she wanted to stay with Silas for—
With a gasp and a start, Cecilia awoke, rearing backward in a chair, feeling utterly disoriented, and trying to remember where she was and what she had been doing. Dancing, she recalled. With Silas. No, wait. That had been in the dream. Before that, she she’d been . . .
She opened her eyes and saw that she was sitting in Audrey’s office, and her memory came flooding back. She’d been tallying the day’s receipts for Finery, sitting at Audrey’s desk in Audrey’s office, filling out the final paperwork before going home. She’d been so exhausted, she’d laid her head down for just a moment, but she must have nodded off to sleep. Nodded off and dreamed of Silas.
Wow, and it had been one of those weird, realistic dreams, too. The kind you woke up from and it took a few minutes to get acclimated to actual reality. It truly had felt like she was back in time, on a paddle wheeler somewhere on the Ohio, and Silas was there kissing her. No, not a kiss. Not quite. Just a soft brush of his mouth over her lips and temple. Only a breathy, searing hint of what might have come if she’d slept a little longer. The dream had ended before he’d gotten around to really kissing her.
Dammit.
And then she remembered something else about the dream. She remembered she’d been able to experience sensually everything going on around her. She’d tasted the champagne. She’d heard the music. She’d felt the scratchy fabric of his jacket. She’d . . . touched Silas. Really touched him. As if he were flesh and blood. He’d felt like flesh and blood. She’d felt the warmth of his bare hand over her own, heard the beating of his heart beneath her ear when they danced, and she’d gotten goose bumps when he brushed his lips so tenderly over hers. It had felt so real. He had felt so real. And she had genuinely enjoyed touching him.
But now he was gone. She was alone again. Only this time, somehow, she felt even more alone than she had before. And where before, solitude had brought her comfort, now, suddenly, solitude felt so . . . solitary.
She made herself forget about the dream—for now, at least, since it wasn’t the kind of dream that was easily forgotten—and finished tallying the receipts and filling out the bank deposit slip. Then she put everything in the safe so Audrey could take care of it in the morning. She called up to the third floor to her employer and neighbor—and, she couldn’t help thinking, friend—that she was finished for the day and would be going home. Audrey called back her thanks and said she would see Cecilia tomorrow.
After gathering her purse and jacket, Cecilia headed down to the first floor, pausing, as she always did, at Silas’s portrait to whisper a soft good-bye to him, as well. This time, though, she also lifted her hand to stroke his oil-on-canvas fingers. “Good night, Silas,” she said. And then, still warm from the aftereffects of her dream, she kissed her fingertips and lifted her hand to press it against his heart.
“Good night, Cecilia,” she heard him say from behind her. But when she spun around to reply to him, her breath caught in her throat. Because standing in the hallway, as if he’d followed her right out of her dream, was Silas. He was dressed more casually than he’d been in her dream—gone was the jacket and string tie—but was otherwise exactly as he had been when she danced with him, right down to the mischievous, affectionate twinkle in his eyes.
“Silas,” she said, smiling, something warm and happy effervescing inside her. “I can see you.”