This is real.

“You went chasing after your friend?” Garland’s hold on her wasn’t quite as tight now, but he wasn’t letting her go. Which was fine with her. She wasn’t letting him go, either. For the moment, all she wanted to do was lean against him and breathe.

I’m so glad to see you. Of course, she had absolutely no intention of ever saying that to him out loud.

Instead she said, “You didn’t see her?”

He shook his head. “No.”

She sagged a little with disappointment. “Holly. Her name is Holly. I was lost in a purple fog and I saw her.”

“That purple fog was Spookville, and it’s no place you want to be. Lucky I heard you screaming. How the hell did you manage to dream yourself in there?”

She’d been waiting for him. She’d fallen asleep. Charlie’s brows snapped together as she remembered. Her eyes jerked up to meet his.

“Probably because you’ve been filling my head with all kinds of horrible images of purple fog and scary monsters ever since you died,” she said tartly, and he smiled. Remembering the last time she had seen him—when she had been crying her eyes out over his grave—sent a rush of embarrassment shooting through her. Then she remembered more, remembered exactly why she had been thinking so hard about Spookville when sleep had finally claimed her, and that smile drove her around the bend. Flattening her hands against his chest, she pushed almost all the way out of his arms—she wasn’t about to pull completely free, just in case one or the other of them should go spinning off somewhere—then punched him not all that gently in the ribs. “Where have you been?”

“Ow.” He winced, grimacing. But the remnants of that infuriating smile remained as he looked down at her. “Been worried about me, Doc?”

She wasn’t about to answer that. Instead she glared at him. “Well?”

He shrugged. “I went up to the Ridge. Looked around. Nothing had changed. Ran across that piece of shit Nash—Johnson and one of the other guards were just getting him out of the hole. I was pissed off about being dead and … a lot of things … so I’m guessing I had a pretty good energy buzz going on. I didn’t realize anybody could see me until Nash screamed and Johnson whirled around and grabbed for his gun. Just about as soon as I figured out I was solid I got hit with what felt like an atomic blast that kicked me straight into Spookville. Only this time, I couldn’t find a way out. I thought maybe that was it. Then I heard you scream. I busted my ass to get to you before something else did. You stay out of Spookville, Doc. You don’t want to mess with what’s in there.”

“I didn’t go there on purpose, believe me,” Charlie said with feeling. “Anyway, I think it was just a nightmare. I don’t think anything could have actually hurt me.”

“Yeah, well, when I grabbed you, you felt real enough to me. As real as you feel right now. I don’t think you can count on being safe in there.”

“That place is horrible.” Charlie shuddered just thinking about the things she’d glimpsed in the fog. The most horrible was realizing that Spookville was where he inevitably was going to wind up, probably on his way to somewhere even worse. Remembering the epiphany she’d had about his imminent disappearance from her world, she no longer felt even remotely like punching him. Her hands clenched on his shirtfront as her heart swelled with sorrow. The muscles beneath the soft cotton felt taut and warm and real. He felt alive under her hands. But he wasn’t, and she was hideously, horribly afraid he couldn’t stay. Charlie suddenly had trouble catching her breath. “One of these days, you’re not going to be able to get out of there.”

“I know.” His eyes were dark and unreadable. But even through the shadows that lay all around, she could see the sudden grim set to his mouth. “Doc, look. When—if—that happens, I don’t want you to worry about me. I’ll be all right.”

Charlie felt a lump forming in her throat. They both knew it was probably when rather than if. Oh, God, until this afternoon I hadn’t cried in years and now I’m about to do it again. Then she swallowed hard. Get a grip. The last thing on earth she wanted was to let Garland know how confused her emotions were where he was concerned.

Like he doesn’t already have a pretty good idea. Well, she didn’t have to break down and spell it out for him.

She took a deep breath, and lifted her chin challengingly. “Why would I worry about you?”

That infuriating little smile was back. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe for the same reason you were crying your eyes out over my grave.”

Charlie stiffened. “If you’re implying that I …” She stumbled trying to find the appropriate term; they’d definitely gone way beyond like, “… care about you—”

“Care. Now, there’s a word, Doc,” he interjected softly. His eyes were intent on her face.

Charlie’s breathing sped up. They were heading into territory she had absolutely no wish to explore.

“I hate to burst your bubble, but it’s more like I feel responsible for you.”

“Oh, yeah? So what you’re telling me is, you were crying like that over me because you’ve got the whole save-a-life-and-you’re-responsible-for-it-forever thing going on?”

Charlie narrowed her eyes at him, and chose the safe route. “I didn’t save your life.”

“No, you didn’t.” His voice turned husky. “What you did was, you saved my soul.”

Charlie’s heart lurched. The lump in her throat swelled, making it almost impossible for her to speak. She looked at him, at his chiseled, handsome features, afraid of what he might read in her eyes, praying that it was too dark for him to see.

A piece of her heart was in there somewhere.

“I hated seeing you cry,” he said.

“Garland.” Her voice sounded choked to her own ears. His fingers dug into her waist in response. His eyes glinted down at her, watchful as a bird of prey’s, and she knew what he wanted to hear instead. She took a deep breath. “Michael.”

“Charlie.” Her name was the merest whisper of sound, uttered as he pulled her tight against him and his head bent toward hers. But that whisper wrapped itself around something deep inside her, and she knew, as she went up on tiptoe and slid her arms around his neck, that after this, after him, her life would never be the same.

She also knew that there would be an “after him.” She was alive and he was not. It was only by the most random of chances that they had connected at all. But she knew ghosts. Ghosts were ephemeral. Ghosts didn’t stay.

She kissed him anyway. Kissed him like she would die if she didn’t, like every dream of a happily ever after she’d had was right there in his arms, like there was no yesterday and no tomorrow and no world beyond that moment and the two of them.

She kissed him like she was crazy in love with him.

Just for tonight …

Drawing back, taking a breath, she looked up at him, only to discover that he was looking at her, too. For a moment, as his warm breath feathered her lips, their eyes met and held. Charlie absorbed every detail of his to-die-for good looks, of the sculpted planes and angles of his face, of his height and the width of his shoulders and the sensuous line of his mouth. His pupils had dilated until his eyes looked almost black. A dark flush rode high on his cheekbones.

“Tonight’s all we’re ever going to have, isn’t it?” Until the words were out of her mouth, Charlie hadn’t realized she was going to say them aloud.

His eyes flickered. His lips tightened and his jaw went hard.

“I want you.” His voice was low and gravelly.

Charlie went all soft and shivery inside. All her common sense, all her instincts for self-preservation, vanished in that instant. “I want you, too.”

He smiled at her, a slow, sexy smile that thrilled her clear down to her toes. Then he bent his head, and Charlie quit thinking entirely as his lips found hers again. Her eyes closed, her lips parted, and then she tightened her arms around his neck and put her tongue in his mouth and kissed him back like he was the embodiment of every erotic dream she’d ever had.