Prologue

Los Angeles, California She was losing her mind. There was
no other explanation. She hadn't slept more than thirty
minutes at a stretch for the past three days. How could she,
when the dreams were so vivid and came so quickly, one after
the other, startling her awake every time her name was
called? Some of the details were murky, but two things she
always remembered very clearly: the man, and the way he
called to her.

It wasn't fair. She was twenty-three years old, healthy,
unattached--at the moment--and living in the bustling and
exciting city of Los Angeles, far from the family she'd left
behind in Missouri. She should be having the time of her
life, the way she had been just a few days ago, and not
dragging herself around in a stupor of fatigue. Normally she
wouldn't complain about vivid dreams of a very large and
muscular, mostly naked, dark-haired hunk who felt so real
there were moments she actually forgot he was the product of
a dream, but she needed her sleep.

Now it was getting worse; he was invading her waking hours,
too, though, to be fair, for the past three nights it seemed
as if most of her hours had been spent awake. She'd started
hearing him at different times, and the way he called her
name was getting more and more urgent. Hearing him! Really,
truly hearing him. It might be a whisper of her name
as she walked down the hall, or a very faint yearning call
as she stepped into the shower. She wasn't imagining the
voice. It was real. Only it couldn't be real. She didn't do
drugs, so that meant she was losing her mind. It was the
only explanation. Fine. The mind could go, so long as she
could get some sleep.

She'd been sitting slumped at the table, picking at an
ordered-in meal, but she was too tired to eat and finally
she gave up on the effort. Dragging herself to her feet, she
cleaned off the table and tossed what was left of her supper
into the garbage can. As soon as she lifted the lid, the
strong, sour odor of several uneaten meals hit her right in
the nose. Shit, she should've taken the garbage out before
it got dark. Not that she was afraid of the dark, and the
Dumpster for the apartment complex was in a well-lit area
just a few yards from the end of the stairwell, but she'd
already changed into her at-home grubbies, she was barefoot,
and if she dared leave the apartment looking like this the
odds were she'd bump into some really hot guy who'd take one
look at her and decide she was about as attractive as her
garbage. That was the way life worked. On the other hand,
did meeting at the complex Dumpster qualify as "meeting cute"?

She could wait until tomorrow to take out the trash, but
that would mean waking up to that smell. And that was
assuming she actually got some sleep tonight. She was so
tired, she didn't think anything could keep her awake, not
even a naked dark-haired hunk.

She tugged the plastic trash bag out of the can and tied
the top, tested the knot to be certain it would hold, then
trudged out the door, down the flight of stairs just outside
her apartment door, and around the corner. "Johanna!"

Her hair stood on end as her name echoed both in her head
and from somewhere around her. It was spooky, the way the
sound seemed to come from everywhere at once. It made her
want to run home like a scared little kid, to hide her face
in her mother's lap. And that was the last thing she wanted
to do, considering how dead set her mother had been against
her moving away. Things hadn't changed since then, either.
Her mother was always...