note: thanks so much for the comments! they're literally like oxygen. idk why I'm so deeply invested in this fic, but I am, so...thanks :)

Also I hope the quote du jour isn't too on the nose.

Chapter 3: Blank Page

lead me to the truth and i will follow you with my whole life
Mumford and Sons, "White Blank Page"

She spun toward him, her eyes huge, and raised shaking hands to cup her face.

He was real. He was tall and lanky with curly black hair and skin a few shades darker than hers and a bruised and battered face. The thing last night with the pain—that had been because of him. That must've been when the guys jumped him. No wonder he'd needed her to come to him.

"Holy shit!" she breathed, for lack of anything better. She was so overwhelmed that coherent sentences seemed beyond her.

His mouth, full and wide and surrounded by a short, scruffy beard, quirked in agreement.

"So you're real," she said.

He lifted his hands to indicated that he was, indeed, real.

Her eyes narrowed as she studied him. She remembered how carefully he'd watched faces during the conversation outside. The notes he'd written the Sheriff. When she spoke next, she signed along with it. "Do you sign?" she said.

He blinked at her. A feeling of such profound surprise washed through him that he had to lean back against the Sheriff's desk. "How did you know?" he signed, shock written in every gesture.

"My parents were deaf." She hesitated. There was a whole lot more to that explanation, but sharing wasn't in her nature. Then, "It was you in the dreams, wasn't it?"

He ruffled his hair with a long-fingered hand, tugging it back off his forehead and tumbling the curls in wild directions. "Yes. If you're going to ask how I called out to you, I have no idea. Or how I heard you calling me. Mother Abagail said"—he gave a soundless sigh—"that it was God's way of making sure we could understand each other."

Her brows rose. "I see."

He made a face. "Didn't say I believe that! That's just what she told me when I asked."

She chewed her lower lip and paced away a moment. Turned back. "I met her in my dream last night. The first time you weren't there. She said you'd be here, in Shoyo, and that you needed me to find you. Also—later—I woke up…this sounds so crazy. I woke up in pain, major, serious pain, and somehow I knew it was you."

"I guess it would sound crazy if I hadn't dreamt of her too. She told me to wait for you." He indicated his battered face. "I guess it probably was me. You should see what I look like under my shirt."

She blushed and her eyes darted away. Was he—was he flirting with her? No. Of course not. He literally just meant he was covered in bruises everywhere. God she needed to calm the fuck down. Her brain felt like a scrambled egg.

Whoops. She thought he was flirting with her…which maybe he was a tiny bit, but not really on purpose. More like when she fixed him with those clear, startling eyes it caused a lag between his brain and his hands. A skip in the relay. "I didn't mean it like that," he said. "Sorry."

A quick laugh and a shake of her head. "No, I know you didn't. I'm sorry. I just—what is the proper etiquette in this situation? Hi, I'm—Kai, I guess you call me—and I dreamt about you. Nice to meet you!"

She spelled it out—K-A-I—and he replied in kind, but it felt strange. He preferred the water sign like he'd used in his dream. "Hi, Kai. I'm Nick. I dreamt about you too. Glad to finally—find you, I guess. Mother Abagail called you Eden."

"That's my first name. Like I told the Sheriff, Kai's my middle name, but—it's what my mother always called me. It's Hawaiian. So was she."

Was, he thought. So she'd lost her mother too. He got the sense she wasn't really the sharing type, but he wasn't either, so that seemed all right. He frowned and glanced over his shoulder, back toward the door. "The Sheriff's pretty sick. The Doc said he should go home, and since he doesn't have a deputy right now, I guess…I guess I'll be in charge for a little while. Which is weird. But he's in a bind, and I owe him."

She nodded thoughtfully. "Sick." She tugged at a loose string on her cutoffs. "Seems to be a lot of that lately."

He let out a long breath. "Have you seen the news? We were watching it earlier. There's some kind of flu, I guess. A lot of rumors, but…seems like nearly everyone's sneezing and sniffling these days."

"It's not a rumor." She stepped closer and stopped speaking aloud as she signed; she didn't want to risk being overheard. "My boyfriend came home from a road trip a few days ago sick as a dog. I've never seen anyone that sick in my life." She recounted the events of that morning as quickly as she could, and then told him about the man on the phone day before yesterday.

"Holy shit. Military?"

"I don't know. Someone official. Whatever's going on, it's bad. And clearly these dreams have something to do with it somehow."

He gave a slow nod. Her eyes jumped from him to the door behind him, and he turned to see Doc Soames poking his head in the room.

"Sorry to interrupt," he said, "but John needs to be getting home. If you aren't ready to go, ma'am, I can point you the right way once you are."

She cast Nick a look before she smiled at the doctor. "No, it's fine. I'll follow him home, and maybe come back after I get settled in." She brushed past Nick and squeezed his arm as she went. "I'll be back," she signed one-handed. Her gaze flicked down to her hand on his arm and when she looked up at him again her expression was…not troubled, exactly, but certainly confused.

He gave her as reassuring a smile as he could. "I'll be here," he said.

She left, shutting the door behind her, and he took a moment to rub the spot she'd touched. She'd felt it too, then. When her fingers brushed his bare forearm there had been something like a static shock, but…softer. Warmer. Not quite a tingle, but close.

He wondered if they touched in the dark, would it glow. He decided that line of thought wasn't productive and shut it off as soon as it emerged.

So she was real. A real person named Kai who'd dreamt of him, too, and also the old woman in Nebraska. She'd clearly been just as shocked to see him as he'd been to see her. He wondered if she'd felt that same…thing. Recognition, but like recognizing the source of a sweet, elusive scent that had been haunting you, or the taste of a food you'd been craving without even knowing it.

He was glad their first meeting had been so short, because he needed time. Time to think about the dreams and the old woman and Kai herself. What she'd told him would have made him worry for her sanity only a few days ago, but now he believed her without question. Though…maybe…he would've believed her anyway.

The office door opened and Sheriff Baker's bulk filled the doorway. He frowned at Nick. "You in here stewin'?"

Nick frowned back and scribbled out a note: "I thought you were going home. Dr's orders."

"I am, I am. I sent Am on his way and gave your girl directions to my place. Somethin' I needed to talk to you about."

"She's not my girl. Deputizing me?"

He read this and cocked a brow at Nick. "Whatever you say, babalugah. Yeah, that, and…her, while we're here." He lumbered past Nick and lowered himself into the chair behind his desk. Pulled the computer's keyboard closer and typed something. "While you two were in here catchin' up, I ran her name real quick."

Nick's heart sped up and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Whatever he'd found, it probably wasn't good. He started writing even as the Sheriff typed, and he finally glanced up from the paper to find stern dark eyes fixed on him. Baker pointed at the computer screen, and Nick read it, blinked, and read it again.

He ripped off the note he'd written, balled it up, and stuffed it in his pocket. In its place he wrote, "I don't think that's true, Sheriff. I know you don't have any reason to believe me, or her, but she said when she left her boyfriend was sick." He passed that one over and his mind raced to think of something else. "He was abusive. Hit her a lot. When he got sick she saw a chance to run and took it. But she didn't kill him. She wouldn't. And if she had, she would've told me."
Baker studied both these notes with all the care of a priest reading the gospel. He let out a long sigh and rubbed a big hand over his face. "You known her a long time?"

Nick hesitated. He didn't want to lie. Sheriff Baker was a good man who'd treated him, a random vagabond drifter, like he might an actual townie. He didn't have to go after his own brother-in-law like he had. He could've thrown Nick in jail and left him there to rot, but he hadn't. Nick owed him the truth, if nothing else.

"No," he wrote. "Not very. But I know her." He underlined know three times in bold, dark strokes. "She didn't kill her boyfriend. I'd bet my life on it."

Baker read this last note and folded it crisply in half. Tucked it into his shirt pocket. "If I thought she had I wouldn'ta sent her home to my Janey, you can bet your skinny ass on that. I wanted your take on the situation. I been a law man a long time, and I know murders, and I know people on the run—that girl looked a bit like the latter, but not at all like the former. And this number." He tapped the computer screen. "That ain't no phone number I recognize. Ain't for the state police, though I guess it wouldn't be since this happened in Louisiana. Ain't no FBI number I know either. This whole bulletin don't smell right. Girl's runnin' all right, but it ain't from no murder charge."

Nick's brow furrowed as he read the bulletin again. He didn't know enough about it to say either way, but he trusted the Sheriff's word. That number must be some military thing, the same people who'd answered Remy's phone when she'd called it yesterday.

"You say this boyfriend beat her?"

That…maybe wasn't a lie, but she hadn't given him any indication of abuse, and in fact had seemed upset at having abandoned him on his probably deathbed. But what other explanation could he give for her doing it? Well no not exactly you see the voice of a really old Black lady told her to go….

Obviously not an option.

Instead he gave a slow nod and kept his eyes steady on the Sheriff's. He mimed being punched, then tapped his broken nose and swollen eye. "He's probably looking for her," he wrote. "Maybe he has buddies somewhere in law enforcement. She didn't tell me much about him, so I don't know."

"That thin blue line bullshit," Baker said with a scowl. "A wife-beater's a wife-beater, don't care what he does for a livin'. I support other cops, sure, but not at the expense of innocent people. Fucker." He heaved a deep sigh that turned into a chest-rattling cough and waved off Nick's concern.

"It's fine, I'm fine. Let's get you deputized so I can head home 'fore Am Soames has my head." He hit a few buttons on the keyboard and the screen went black. "I'm gonna forget I ran her name, but if anything changes, you let me know. I'm trustin' her because I trust my gut, but also because I trust you. Don't let me down, Nick."

Nick felt a swell of pride in his chest, warm and bright and unfamiliar. He managed a smile and wrote, in his neatest handwriting, "I won't, Sheriff, and neither will she. You have my word."

He gave a satisfied nod and pocketed that note, too. "All right, then. That's good enough for me."

Jane, the Sheriff's wife, was all Midwest kindness and hospitality. She helped the doctor get her husband tucked into bed, then showed Edie her room and the bathroom, and put out some clean towels. She offered to make her a sandwich or some soup, then insisted when Edie's own Southern politeness made her decline.

"Doc Soames said John didn't eat a speck of the lunch I took down to the station. I've gotta get some food into that man come hell or high water, so I'm makin' it anyway. Might as well make enough for two."

"That's very kind, ma'am, thank you." She hesitated. "If you'd rather sit with him, you can show me what's what and I could do it. I really don't mind. I feed people for a living."

"Do you now?" She studied Edie with a shrewd, assessing eye. "Not often John brings home strays, but seems to be a theme of late." She sighed. "That poor boy. What my idiot brother and his idiot goons did to him—!" She broke off with a frustrated shake of her head.

"Family," Edie said. "What can you do?"

"Knock some sense into him is what I'd like to do, but that ship sailed a long time ago." She glanced back toward the bedroom with a frown. "I hate puttin' a guest to work, but I don't think I should leave John alone, and the Doc has other patients. All right, follow me. I imagine you know your way around a kitchen."

Jane showed her where to find everything, and she put together a couple bowls of tomato soup and a grilled cheese for herself. When Jane brought the bowl back to the kitchen later, it was nearly as full as when it had left. Her face was drawn and pale, and as she turned away she sneezed.

"Well don't that just beat all," she said.

"Go lie down," Edie told her. "You should rest before you get just as sick as your husband. Do you mind if I use your kitchen some more? I thought I might make some bread, or maybe muffins."

"Bless you, ma'am," Jane said. "My mama used to make fresh bread every Sunday and it was the best part of our week. Myself, I never caught the hang of it. If you need anything, just head on down to the market and tell 'em it's for me. They'll put it on the tab."

The tab? What was this, Mayberry? "Your cabinets are well-stocked, but I'll do that if I need to. Thank you. Go! Rest! I'll bring you both some tea with honey once you're settled."

Jane patted her arm, a maternal gesture that surprised and touched Edie almost to tears, and shuffled down the hall. Edie watched her go with her arms wrapped tight around her middle. Remy was dead, of that she had no doubt, and now Sheriff Baker and his wife were sick.

Maybe she'd been wrong earlier, with what she'd told Nick. Maybe it wasn't the same thing at all, or maybe it wasn't always fatal, and Remy had just gotten a really big dose of it. Tiny, kind Jane and her big, gruff husband would surely recover. None of this could be as bad as it seemed.

That evening Nick was sitting at the main desk flipping through a romance novel he'd found in one of the drawers when the door opened. He sat up fast, his feet hitting the floor with a thud he could feel even if he couldn't hear it. He stashed the book in the drawer and shoved it closed with his hip as he stood.

Kai watched him from the doorway, her mouth tilted in amusement. He wore a burgundy button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal leanly muscled forearms. Worn black trousers, rolled up a bit at the ankles, and black suspenders. Part hipster, part farm boy. Something about it worked. She wondered if his hair was as soft as it looked, then killed that thought dead only half-formed.

Oblivious to her study, caught up in his own distracting notice of her incongruous eyes and endless legs, he rushed forward to take the large box she carried and set it on the desk. Whatever was in there smelled amazing, and he took a moment to savor it, and pull himself together, before he smiled at her.

"Hi again," he signed. A scintillating conversationalist he was turning into. He scrubbed a hand through his hair in frustration.

She grinned. "Hey. Mrs. Baker is sick now, too, so she asked me to bring you and your buddies some supper. It's pot roast and mashed potatoes. She already had the roast going in the crockpot when I got there."

"How's Sheriff Baker?" he signed with one hand as he unloaded the box.

She sighed and shook her head. "Not great. His cough's worse, and he's running a fever." Her gaze drifted toward the hallway that led back to the cells. "Kinda like some of the boys you have here."

Nick shifted his weight and frowned down at the plates. "I checked on them earlier. Two of them are sneezing up a storm, but the other one seems fine. I don't know what to do. The doctor is busy, and these guys are my responsibility."

"Let's just get them fed for now. Come on, I'll help you."

They carried the plates back to the cells, and she paused at the sight of strawberry milkshake smeared all over the wall. Tilted her head toward it in a what happened here? gesture.

He slid one of the plates into the nearest cell and nodded at the guy sprawled out on the bunk. His breathing sounded almost as bad as Sheriff Baker's. "He wasn't happy with his lunch, or the establishment's service."

"Hmm," she said. "Some people just gotta act out."

"Thank you, ma'am," one of them said as he took his plate. "This looks real good." He sniffled. "Ma'am, I'm not feelin' so good. No good a'tall. Do you think I could maybe see the doc? Get somethin' for this headache?"

Nick had turned his back and missed what the guy said, but she didn't have to consult with him to know his answer. "That's up to Sheriff Baker, and he's indisposed at the moment." She turned to walk away, but his voice stopped her.

"We're real sorry 'bout what we did! It was all Ray's idea. We didn't know he was a dummy."

She spun on her heel and charged toward the cell. "What did you call him?"

The sudden movement caught Nick's attention, and he turned toward her in alarm. She stood gripping the bars with one hand and Vince Hogan's shirt with the other. She'd hauled him so close Nick couldn't see her lips, but whatever she was saying, the color drained from Hogan's face and he nodded like his head was on a spring.

"Yes, ma'am! Yes'm! I'm sorry!"

She shoved him away, not hard, but enough to make him stumble a little. "Apologize to him, not to me."

He glanced at Nick, face contrite. "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean no insult. And I'm sorry I listened to Ray; we shouldn'ta done what we did to you. Weren't right."

Nick gave her an astounded look, but she just blinked at him. Finally, knowing she would translate, he signed, "I'll try to get the Doc in here to check you out. Eat your dinner."

"Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

All Midwestern-aw-shucks good ol' boy now. Edie rolled her eyes and stomped away, and after a moment Nick followed her.

"What did he say? Something about me, or something about you?" he said.

She dragged a chair from the other desk and sat down. Crossed one leg over the other and grabbed a fork and a plate. She stabbed at her pot roast so hard he winced, and for a long time she just sat, fuming and chewing.

He ate more slowly, waiting her out. The food was good, tender meat and gravy with carrots and those little pearl onions, all poured over real mashed potatoes, not that instant kind from the box. Jane Baker was a fantastic cook and a really nice lady, and he hated that she was sick too. Like everyone else, except himself and Kai.

He studied her between bites and decided no, whatever Hogan had said to set her off, it hadn't been about her. She looked like the type of woman who could handle a stupid catcall, and frankly Nick didn't think he'd have the courage to make one. The other guys, sure, but not weak little Vince Hogan.

Nick set down his fork and pushed back from the desk a little. "Called me a dummy, huh?"

She scowled down at her food.

"It's not like it's the first time someone's said it. Gets boring after a while."

Her fork hit the plate with a clatter and she glared at him. "That doesn't make it okay," she signed one-handed. Her fury was obvious in every vehement gesture. "You have to call people out on their bullshit or they never learn. Besides, I fucking hate bullies."

He shrugged and poured a cup of iced tea from the pitcher she'd brought. "He's not much of a bully, really. More the bullied. But it was pretty funny watching him almost piss himself when you got up in his face like that. What did you say to him?"

She put her plate on the desk and wiped her mouth with a napkin. He tilted the pitcher toward her and she nodded, so he filled a cup for her and set it near her elbow. "I told him if he couldn't act right I'd tell Mrs. Baker what he'd been up to and let her deal with him."

"Seriously?"

She shrugged. "Their ringleader is his sister, right? He might be able to knock her around, but I doubt anyone else is. If that kid's afraid of the one, I imagine he's afraid of the other. Seems like I was right."

He huffed out a silent chuckle. "Seems so."

They sat in silence for a time, watching each other with guarded, wary eyes. He'd decided that hers were the color of the bright blue Gulf of Mexico during a storm, darkened and tossed by wind and rain.

"You said your mom was Hawaiian?" he said, apropos of nothing but his own inner musings. He asked it tentatively, the signs a little unsure and his brows lifted not just in a question, but also as if seeking permission to even ask.

She nodded. Fiddled with her cup before setting it on the table. "Native," she signed. "We call ourselves kama'aina, people of the land." She spelled it out first, then used a sign he'd never seen, before explaining the meaning.

"My dad was part Creole, but only part, so I guess a light-eyed gene was in there somewhere. That's what everyone wants to know: how a light brown girl ended up with gray-blue eyes. What about you? What's your story, Nick Andros?"

He shrugged and signed it almost tiredly, like he didn't mind telling her, but he wasn't sure why she'd want to know. "My dad was Argentinian and my mom was Indian. India Indian, not Native American, but she was, you know. British. My parents came over from England when she was pregnant with me. They'd been here a month when they got into a car accident. My dad had a heart attack, died. I was born three months later. My mom never really said…" Another shrug. "I don't really know my family history."

She wasn't going to ask, because she didn't want him asking her, but her curiosity overcame her reluctance to share. "You talk about her in the past tense."

He smoothed his hands down his thighs before meeting her eyes again. "She died when I was eight. Hit by a motorcycle. His brakes failed. Stupid, freak accident." This last was jerky and heated.

She flinched in sympathy. "Jesus that's awful. Who took you in, after?"

"Group home. She was my only family in the US."

He signed it defiantly, chin raised and eyes hard. He was daring her to pity him.

She didn't accept. Sympathy, yes. Pity, no. There was a difference, and an important one.

He relaxed a little then, and his face softened. "I was a pissed off kid. My mom had taught me a little bit of sign and how to write my name, but that was it. I couldn't communicate with anyone there, so I acted like a little shit."

"You were a kid," she said.

"A little shit of a kid. Anyway, one of the counselors there was a deaf-mute too. He…got me straight. Taught me to sign, and how to read and write. Gave me my name sign. The minute I turned eighteen I got the hell out. Been wandering around ever since, picking up odd jobs all over. I like to keep moving."

She nodded. That was a sentiment she could understand. "How old are you?" she said.

"Twenty-six."

"Twenty-seven," she said, tapping her chest. She hesitated. "Not sure I should ask, but what's your name sign?"

He scowled a little. "It started out as Little Shit," he signed, sheepishly. "But when I was sixteen, before he left to go work for the Peace Corps, he changed it."

He paused. He'd never told anyone his name sign before, but that was at least partly because he'd kept himself removed from the Deaf community for most of his adult life. Rudy had gotten him into it, helped him become part of it, but he'd been so furious when Rudy left he'd turned his back on the entire culture. It wasn't that he resented being deaf or wished he were hearing; he just tended to run when he got pissed.

"Your parents were deaf," he finally signed, not a question.

"Yes. Mine is Water." She signed it just as he had in his dream, and his lips quirked in a sardonic smile.

"Yeah," he signed. "I knew that." He blew out a breath. Then, "Blank Page."

Her head tilted in a question, but he shook his head. "Long story. I'll…tell you sometime. If you're interested."

It was an unusual name sign, but obviously very personal to him. She decided to let it lie. It was her turn to spill some dirt. "My mom and dad met when she was young, like seventeen. He took off not long after she got pregnant, but honestly I think it was the best thing he could've done. She went back to school." She pointed at her shirt. "LSU. She met my stepdad there and they got married when I was two."

"So which parents…?"

"My mom and my stepdad. I kind of got the idea my biological dad…I don't know. That part of the reason he took off was because he didn't want to be stuck with a deaf kid. He was attracted to my mom because he saw her as vulnerable, and I guess she kinda was, all alone so far from home. Louisiana, from Hawai'i. But she was a lot tougher than he ever gave her credit for."

He gave a slow nod and ate a few more bites of pot roast. She referred to her parents in the past tense, too, like he'd noticed earlier. He felt like she wanted to tell him without him asking her, so he listened and waited.

"Anyway, I was fourteen when they died. Katrina. I was sent to live with my father, who was an abusive alcoholic asshole. He died two weeks before my eighteenth birthday, and like you, when that day dawned I got the fuck out."

"Wow, three parents dead. Guess you beat me by one." He grinned to soften it, and she couldn't help but smile back. He had crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiled like that, even through the bruises and the swelling, and dimples on one side. She liked the slow laziness of that smile, like warm molasses poured onto hot johnnycake.

"Guess so," she said, once her brain kicked back into gear. "I wandered for a while, like you. Finally ended up in New York. Culinary school." She gave a little laugh. "But I hated the structure of it, all the goddamn rules about cooking. It was stupid. So I dropped out. Got married. Moved back to Louisiana and we opened a restaurant."

He blinked. Married? What about her boyfriend? Did she have both? Why wasn't she worried about running out on her husband, then?

"We've been separated about six months," she said in answer to his silent question. "The last time we talked we fought about signing the goddamn divorce papers." She paused. Chewed her lower lip as she remembered that last, stupid fight with Sarah, the night before everything in her life changed.

He watched her expression change, the darkening of her eyes and slight slump of her shoulders. She played with her hair when she felt unsure of herself, and the light picked out shades of red and gold among the dark brown. What did it look like in the sun, he wondered.

He shifted in his chair and focused on the conversation. "What happened?" he said. "Did he cheat?"

Her full mouth quirked. "I cheated on her, actually. But not until…not until things were basically over anyway. She…" She trailed off with a sigh and looked away. This was getting much deeper than she wanted to go, but what the hell.

"We'd been married five years or so, talking about kids for a while. We both wanted them, so that wasn't the problem. It had come down to how. Adoption, in vitro, surrogate. And if we went with either of the latter two, whose egg would we use?"

He sat back a little. He had a feeling he knew where this was going.

"Yeah," she said at his expression. "I don't think she meant…honestly, I don't think she meant it as bad as it sounded. But she said—" She broke off with a rough laugh. "If she'd stopped at your dad was an alcoholic I would've been fine, and agreed with her, but then she said, and your mom was deaf, and that was…"

He gave a slow nod. She didn't have to explain, not really. "She didn't want to be stuck with a deaf kid," he said.

"More or less." She threw her hair behind her shoulder and lifted her hands in a brief, rueful shrug. "I slept with Remy—our chef—for the first time a few months later. She and I had been fighting almost nonstop since that conversation, but she kept trying to…talk me back. Apologize and say she didn't mean it and all of that. But it was one of those things you say, you know? Like, she's not a bigoted person, and if we'd had a deaf kid I know she would've loved them just as much as a hearing one, but…I couldn't forget it. Apparently couldn't forgive, either. So I slept with Remy because I knew it would piss her off enough to finally give up and just let me go."

She waved a hand. "Remy isn't exactly my boyfriend. We weren't that formal or anything. But he crashed at my place sometimes and we were fucking, so…whatever. It's shorthand, I guess."

"Must've been awkward," he said after a moment, "owning a business with your ex."

Their eyes met, and her mouth moved in a small, grateful smile. Just as she hadn't offered him pity, he didn't offer judgment. It seemed they understood each other well.

"Yeah, sort of," she said. "But Sarah ran the business side of things and I mostly hid out in the bakery, so it was easy to avoid each other. The awkward part was when I started banging the cook."

He snorted a laugh. "Oops."

Her brow quirked at the wry glint in his dark eyes. "I didn't know that many eligible people. It's a small town, and like I said—I hide out in the bakery. Up at three AM, work till one or three, then in bed by seven or eight. It doesn't exactly lend itself to a thriving social life."

"Shit. I worked as a line cook at a diner one time. Some of the hardest work I've ever done in my life, and I've spent a lot of time on farms. You mean you baked for ten or twelve hours a day?"

"Five days a week," she said. She flexed her arms to show off the muscles there. "Look at that! Kneading bread and lifting heavy trays. Got some abs, too, but they don't really show."

He ignored the direction his brain wanted to go and instead offered a grin that she returned, though hers faded as she glanced toward the cells and back at him. "And now I'm here, after running out on Remy probably on his deathbed thanks to a disembodied voice telling me to. I came here because a woman in a dream told me you're here, and I've been dreaming about you for days. And you've been dreaming about me. And you dreamed about Mother Abagail. So, basically—what the fuck is going on?!"

He picked up his fork. Set it down again. Scrubbed a hand through his dark curls and slumped back in the chair. "I don't believe in any of this. Precognitive dreams and—disembodied voices and whatever that old woman is supposed to be."

"You think I do?" She frowned. "I mean, okay, I'm from New Orleans, so I believe in some things. My Grandmère taught me the basics. Brick dust across your door and salt over your shoulder. Ghosts, of course. But this?! I heard her, Nick! The same voice. It was her voice that morning, and she was right, because if I'd stayed…"

She trailed off with a shudder.

"I know," he said. "I believe you. I stood in a cornfield and called your name and heard you call mine, and I never saw your face, but how many women with the same dream as me named Eden Kai could there be in the world?"

Her mouth quirked. "Hopefully just me."

"Hopefully."

"D'Arnaud," she signed, spelling it out.

He blinked. "What?"

"That's my last name. In case you were wondering."

"Good to know," he said.

She stifled a yawn and rubbed a hand across her eyes. "Ugh. Not to be a cheap date, but I've been up since four and on the road for, like, four days. I'm beat, and sleeping somewhere without worrying about cockroaches sounds amazing."

He grimaced. Bakers kept even worse hours than farmers, and hay lofts rarely had roaches. "You should go. Check on the Sheriff and Mrs. Baker. Hang on, let me get you my number so you can text if you need to." He grabbed his notepad off the table and scribbled it for her. "You can call if you want," he said. "But I don't usually answer."

She cut him a look. "You know that phone has RTT software built in, right? Plus closed captioning and sound recognition. Like sirens or a doorbell."

He frowned down at it. "Seriously?"

"It's all in the accessibility features. You never used them?"

He shrugged. "I don't have anyone to call. I just use it for GPS and Google."

"What, no porn?"

"Only on Sundays. I like to blaspheme."

It surprised a laugh from her. "I'll make sure to give you some private time on Sunday."

"Thanks," he said. "I'll need it, after the week I'm having." He paused. "I should—let me walk you out. I can lock up behind you."

She nodded and he followed her to the door. "I'll text you with an update."

"Tell the Sheriff I've got this. He just needs to worry about feeling better."

"I'll tell him," she said with a brief, warm smile. "Be careful, and I'll see you tomorrow."

He stood in the doorway and watched until she backed out of the parking place and drove away, then he stepped back inside and locked the door behind him. A check on his prisoners and he resumed his position back at the desk. He made sure his phone was on vibrate (it was always on vibrate) before he fished the romance novel out of the drawer and leaned back in the chair to read.

Long one today because I edited ch2 so oddly. Love the comments, guys! Keep them coming. :)