LITMIR.BIZ

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      Smiling at the nickname the pint-sized Laura had given her in college, she started to tell her about her crazy fascination with Murdock, only to choke back the words before they escaped. What could she say? I’ve met a man who might be old enough to be my father and I think we were meant to be together? Talk about being a few doughnuts short of a dozen! Laura would think she’d flipped out.

      “It’s nothing,” she hedged, forcing a grimace of a smile. “I was just thinking about work.”

      Familiar with her problems with Bruce James, Laura immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion. “I knew it! Your boss has been giving you fits again, hasn’t he?”

      Pru’s eyes turned rueful. “I think he lies awake at night dreaming up ways to make me miserable.”

      Always ready to jump to the defense of a friend, Laura scowled like a ruffled hen. “So what are you going to do about it? There are laws against harassment, you know. Old Brucie baby may not like you, and he probably resents like hell that someone else hired you, but that doesn’t mean he can take his frustration out on you. Turn him in.”

      “He’s not an idiot, Shorty. He’s made sure he hasn’t treated me any differently than anyone else.”

      Laura nearly strangled on her drink. “You mean he treats everyone like dirt?”

      “Just about.”

      Pru started to tell her about how Eric Thompson was fired, but she’d hardly begun when a tall, blond man appeared at her side and grinned down at her as if she’d been put on this earth just for him. “Hi, sugar. How ‘bout a dance?”

      Pru almost rolled her eyes and sent him packing with the rest. But Laura gave her a pointed look and, with a resigned shrug, she rose to her feet. “Sure. Why not?”

      For the next three hours she danced just about every dance and really did have a good time. Refusing to take any of her partners too seriously, she laughed at their jokes, shrugged off their flattery and graciously turned down all dates. And when she finally went home, she went alone, just as she always did.

      It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested in dating or finding a man of her own, she admitted as she let herself into her silent apartment and got ready for bed. She would love to have a husband and a real, honest-to-God home of her own with the man she adored. And children.

      Something shifted deep inside her, something soft and tender and sweet, at the thought of a child. Her child. She could almost see it, a beautiful baby, its tiny features a fascinating combination of hers and its daddy’s, a treasured symbol of their love for each other. And if she closed her eyes and totally emptied her mind, she was sure it was only a matter of time before she caught a glimpse of him, the man who was going to give her that child.

      But when she climbed into bed and closed her eyes, the only man she saw was Zebadiah Murdock.

      She groaned, the defeated sound loud in the dark, quiet stillness of her lonely bedroom. She would not do this! she promised herself. The infuriating man had dominated her thoughts enough for one evening. It had to stop!

      Flopping over onto her stomach, she punched her pillow into just the right shape and closed her eyes with a tired sigh. Exhaustion from a long, tense day of work and then hours of dancing came out of nowhere to swamp her senses. Her breathing slow and regular, she never knew when sleep overtook her.

      Or when Murdock walked into her dreams.

      Her defenses down, she never thought to question his presence there. He was just there, where he’d always belonged. Her lover throughout eternity, her soul mate, the man she was meant to go through time with, as much a part of her being as the familiar beating of her heart.

      Entranced, she watched in fascination as a white mist swirled around him, obliterating him from view before suddenly parting to reveal the two of them together. Her breath caught in her throat, longing swelling in her as she watched herself move into his arms and gracefully dance to the faint strains of a melody that was hauntingly familiar.

      Murmuring his name, she reached for the sensuous image, needing, just for one heart-stopping moment, to hold on to it. But her fingers encountered nothing but the empty space beside her in the bed and she came awake abruptly, the sensuous dream swept away on a devastating tidal wave of loss.

      You’ve been waiting for him more lifetimes than you can remember, an unknown voice echoed in her head. Don’t let him get away.

      Her heart thundering as if she’d just run a mile, Pru rolled onto her back and found herself blinking back hot, ridiculous tears. Stunned, she lifted her fingers to her cheeks and stared at the moisture that clung to them. Tears, she thought dazedly. She was crying for Murdock!

      And hearing voices. Dear God, what was happening to her? she thought in growing hysteria. Murdock didn’t even like her! And she wasn’t actually crazy about him, either. So how could she dream about him, ache for him, picture a future with him?

       You’ve been waiting for him for more lifetimes than you can remember.

      The softly spoken words whispered through her consciousness, sounding so familiar she would have sworn she’d heard them before. But where? When? Agitated, her stomach churning, she got out of bed. Without bothering to turn on a light, she started to pace restlessly in the dark. It was just a bad case of lust at first sight, she reasoned. An experienced woman would have recognized that immediately, but then again, she was hardly what anyone with even a smidgen of brains would call experienced. Up until now the men in her life had just been friends, pals, big brothers. Not a one of them had so much as raised her temper, let alone her temperature. So how could she have possibly known that physical attraction could be as volatile as a charge of lightning in an unstable sky? No wonder she couldn’t handle it.

      But lust didn’t explain the mysterious voice in her head. Sweet, loving, sure, it spoke with a conviction she couldn’t shake. And that, more than anything, was what scared her. She wasn’t one of those imaginative, daydreaming women with her head in the clouds all the time. She was practical right down to her white cotton underwear, and she didn’t believe in fairy tales, reincarnation, or voices that spoke to her in the middle of the night. So why was her heart knocking like crazy in her breast?

      Feeling as if she was losing it, she threw herself across the bed, reached for the phone on the nightstand and quickly dialed Kansas City. It wasn’t until she heard her mother’s sleepy voice on the other end of the line that she glanced at the bedside clock. “Oh, God, Mom, I’m sorry! I didn’t realize the time—”

      “Prudence?” Cynthia Sullivan gasped in alarm. “It’s after two! What’s wrong? Are you all right? You never call this late.”

      Already hearing the panic in her mother’s voice, Pru wanted to kick herself for not checking the time before picking up the phone. “It’s nothing,” she assured her quickly. “I’ll call you back in the morning.”

      Her mother only clicked her tongue at that nonsense and said dryly, “This is your mother you’re talking to, honey. I know when something’s wrong—I can hear it in your voice. Why don’t you tell me what it is?”

      In the background, Pru could hear the grandfather clock down the hall from her parents’ bedroom striking the hour. Suddenly homesick, she could do nothing to stop the sudden tears that stung her eyes. “This is so screwy.” She laughed shakily, swallowing the lump in her throat. “I don’t even know where to start.”

      Like a dam that had suddenly cracked open, the words came pouring out in a jumbled rush, unedited and flustered. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said after describing the dream and her working relationship with Murdock. “I hardly know the man, and he definitely doesn’t like me. And then that voice...I tell you, Mom, I think I’m losing it.”

      Cynthia Sullivan laughed gaily. “Honey, you’re not losing anything! Didn’t I ever tell you about the first time I saw your father? I knew right then he was the man for me.”

      “But

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