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  Truth of a Dream

  Shari J Ryan

  Contents

  Newsletter

  About the Author

  Also by Shari J. Ryan

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Epilogue

  I. A Taste of another one of Shari’s books…

  Preview of Last Words

  PROLOGUE

  1. CHAPTER ONE

  Copyright © 2018 by Shari J. Ryan

  * * *

  Truth of a Dream

  * * *

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under US Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  * * *

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  About the Author

  Shari J. Ryan is an International Bestselling Author of heartbreakers and mind-benders. Shari was once told she tends to exaggerate often and sometimes talks too much, which would make a great foundation for fictional books. Four years later, Shari has written eleven novels that often leave readers in tears, either from laughing, or crying.

  With her loud Boston girl attitude, Shari isn’t shy about her love for writing or the publishing industry. Along with writing several International Bestsellers, Shari splits her time between writing and her longstanding passion for graphic design. In 2014, she started an indie-publishing resource company, MadHat Books, to help fellow authors with their book cover designs, as well as providing assistance with the self-publishing process.

  While Shari may not find many hours to sleep, she still manages to make time for her family. She is a devoted wife to a great guy, and a mother to two little boys who remind her daily why she was put on this earth.

  Make sure you join Shari’s Twisted Drifters Reader Group at: http://bit.ly/2e17FsX

  Also by Shari J. Ryan

  Darkest Perception

  Man Handler

  Man Flu

  Last Words

  Manservant

  Raine’s Haven

  Spiked Lemonade

  Queen of the Throne

  A Heart of Time

  A Missing Heart

  A Change of Heart

  No Way Out

  Ravel

  House of Tinder

  TAG

  The Schasm Series

  Chapter One

  Why must my day always start with so much traffic? It's like no one knows which is the gas and which is the brake. I should stand along the side of the road some morning with a sign, offering free driving lessons. It's honestly one of the easiest tasks in life, but by the looks of it, you would think it's the hardest. I take in a long, deep breath, trying to calm myself so I'm not a walking lit fuse by the time I step into the office. No one likes a stressed out hygienist. I've been told. I pull down my visor and glance in the mirror at the familiar black shadows lining the underneath of my eyes. No amount of concealer can cover the truth of my insomnia anymore.

  Slapping the visor back up, annoyed with my reflection, I glance at the radio clock to confirm my lateness again. Shit! I'm going to be later than normal.

  "Incoming call from Mary Oler," my car informs me. Shut up, car!

  I press the talk button on my steering wheel and wait for the call to connect. "I'm three minutes away. There must be an accident or something," I say before she has a chance to ask where I am.

  "Haley, every morning, there is an accident somewhere along your ten-minute commute to the office. Our first patient is already here and he's new, so..."

  "I can see the office!" I say, flying down the breakdown lane, speeding along at fifty. All I need right now is to get pulled over too."

  "Just get here," she says before disconnecting the call.

  Managing to pull into the lot within a minute, I thankfully find a tight spot between two large vehicles, up in front of the building.

  I race past the elevator, watching as the metal doors scream and squeal as they slowly close, confining five people inside. Even more of a reason to take the stairs, which I do, two at a time to the eight floor and fly into the office, completely breathless. I tear the zipper of my coat down, flinging it off my shoulders. "Did you already set him up?" I ask Mary. "What's his name?"

  Mary runs around the front desk and snatches my coat from my arms. "He said he has an appointment at ten-thirty in Red Springs and he can't be late. You can't keep doing this to the patients," she scolds me. "Where were you, anyway?"

  "Home?" I question.

  "Do you need a new alarm clock?"

  "I just lost track of time, that's all," I tell her.

  "You lose track of time every day," she reminds me. "What's going on with you?"

  "Look, we all have our things okay. Mine is...I'm always late. Even if I try to get here early, something will cause me to be late. I know it's not okay and I'm sorry, please don't let Sonia write me up again."

  "She isn't here this morning, so, as long as the patient doesn't complain to anyone, you're safe."

  She slips my white lab jacket over my shoulders and hands me a mask. "What does this patient need today? Just a cleaning?" I ask.

  "A cleaning and he has a pain in one of his molars."

  "Okay," I say, taking another deep breath.

  Mary places her perfectly plum-colored manicured finger under my chin, forcing me to look at her. "You need to get control of yourself. Relax before you go in there. No one likes a nervous hygienist, remember?"

  It's not that I'm nervous, it's that I'm always in a rush and it may come across as anxiousness. "I'm fine," I assure her.

  "Well...so his this man. I figured I should warn you before you go in there. He's of dating quality," she says, the corner of her lip quirking—an almost perfect imitation of the arch in her brow.

  "Mary!" I scold. She doesn't typically mention a person's looks in the office. She's very vanilla and motherly, which I sometimes need.

  "I wouldn't feel right sending you in there without a proper warning, Haley, forgive me," she says like I offended her.

  "You could have gone without the warning," I say with laughter as I grab the man's file from her hand.

  My long one minute walk down the hall gives me enough time to question how good looking this man must be if Mary of all people felt the need to mention it to me. Not that I get nervous around good-looking men in my chair, but, I don't actually remember the last good-looking man who was in my chair.

  I glance down at his file in search of his name and enter the dusty-rose colored room abundantly filled with an overflow of sunlight. Taking a minute to calm myself once more before addressing the man, I take in the sight of what I can see of him. He has a dark head of wavy hair, highlighted with strands of copper that can only be seen due to the excessive am
ount of light shining through the window.

  "Mr. Carter," I address him while readjusting the blinds to redirect some of the light. "How are you doing today?" I haven't glanced at the front side of him yet as I conduct my normal ritual of cleaning my hands and stretching medical gloves over each finger.

  With the last of my pre-checkup to do list, I grab a blue bib and walk around to the side of him, finding Mary's brief description to be incredibly false. This man isn't just "fine" as she said. He has dimples and tan skin, frosty blue eyes, and perfect teeth. He's clean-shaven and well manicured, something I don't see very often anymore. Maybe it's the places and people I surround myself with, but men like him don't cross my path often.

  "I'm a bit nervous," he says, laughing awkwardly. "I know this may seem absurd for a twenty-seven-year-old man, but I've never had a cavity and there's an awful pain in my back tooth."

  Oh God, was he just talking? I was too busy staring at his lips while he was saying whatever he was saying. I close my eyes briefly, trying my best to recall the words that seeped into my ears but didn't make it into my cloudy mind. He said he was nervous. Mary said he had a toothache. "Can you show me which tooth it is?" I ask, smiling my own nerves away. He points to one of his molars with the tip of his tongue and I admire the cleanliness of his teeth. Maybe it's the hygienist in me, but there's something about a man with good hygiene. "Okay, can you open a little wider?" He does and I take the probe to test the firmness of the tooth.

  The second the metal makes contact with the enamel, he flinches in pain, groaning silently beneath his breath. "I'm sorry," I tell him. "It looks like you do have a cavity in there, but I'll want to take an x-ray to confirm."

  Removing the probe from his mouth, I sit down on my stool and wait for him to open his eyes. "Do I need it filled?" That's right, he said he hadn't had a cavity before. That would explain his concern.

  My head slightly falls to the side and I sigh as I place my hand on his arm...wow, that's a hard arm. "If we confirm it's a cavity, which I'm certain it is, yes, you will, but it's not so bad, I promise."

  "Is that something we can do today? I'd rather get it over with," he says, finishing his question by clearing his throat.

  "Oh, I don't think Dr. Alice has any openings today. Unfortunately, I'm not able to fill your cavity. That's something she will have to handle."

  "Great," he sighs, placing his head back down against the small, paper-covered pillow.

  "I'll get your cleaning done today and then we'll find a place in the schedule for you to come in as soon as possible, okay?"

  He nods, clearly frustrated. "Your teeth are very healthy other than the one, so you're quite lucky," I tell him while checking out the others. "So, what do you do for a living?"

  Knowing how much people dislike the questions while instruments are in their mouths, I try to ask the questions as I'm switching tools.

  "I'm in my last year of the doctorates program at Berkley but I'm here working on my dissertation at Mass General. I'm a psych major, graduating in two months, God willing."

  "Wow, that's impressive," I tell him. It is. "I went to school for five years and that was about as much as I could handle."

  "I'm passionate about what I do," he replies without much humor, not matching the way I responded to him.

  "Clearly," I say while cleaning around some of his gums.

  "What type of psychology are you most interested in?" Can you read my mind right now? I think my thoughts are funny, but I'm guessing with his declining mood, he might not. I remove the instrument from his mouth. "Go ahead and rinse for me."

  As he lies back down into the chair, he says, "I'm going to be opening up my own practice, but I specialize in hypnosis—to help people with post-trauma, fears, and phobias."

  He closes his eyes and pulls in a deep breath before reopening his mouth. "That's fascinating, I've always been curious about how hypnosis works. Though, my curiosity ended when I watch an x-rated hypnotist at the comedy club in the city. I was a little frightened by it after watching."

  I realize he can't respond now that I'm polishing his teeth, but the rise in his eyebrows tells me he has something to say. Finishing the top row of his teeth, I pull my hands away so he can rinse again. "That is not hypnosis," he says sternly.

  "Oh, I didn't mean to be offensive," I reply quickly.

  "It's okay, there's just a misconception about hypnosis and...sometimes I get..."

  "Passionate," I repeat his earlier response, offering a gentle smile to settle him down again. For someone who wants to be a psychologist or psychiatrist, not sure which, but I would think he'd control his moods a bit more.

  "Yes," he says.

  I make the brilliant decision to quit while I'm ahead, even though I don't think I'm ahead, but the silence helps speed up the cleaning process so I can move this beautiful man out of my chair. "You are all set with the cleaning, Mr. Carter. A Technician will be in for your x-rays and if we confirm the cavity, you can make an appointment to get your cavity taken care of."

  He sits up and swings his legs down from the chair, adjusting his jeans over his knees. "You sure you can't be the one to fill it?"

  "As much as I would love to help you, I don't have the skills to do so, Mr. Carter." Why are you looking at me like a sad puppy? And why does that make you look even more gorgeous? He has these deep-set eyes that almost reach the bottom of his dark brows, making it appear as if he's studying me. Maybe he is studying me, while also making me feel awful for not being able to help him.

  “I’m sorry for being snippy about the hypnosis discussion."

  I place my hand on his shoulder like I might with any other patient, except I immediately regret doing so since I can only focus on the warmth radiating from the skin beneath his thin, white button-down shirt. Yanking my hand away as if I burnt it, I tuck it into my pocket. "There's no reason to be sorry, Mr. Carter. We all have things we are passionate about." That word again. I feel's inappropriate—I need to stop saying it, like now.

  "My name is Dale, not Mr. Carter, and out of curiosity, what is your passion?"

  I huff a quiet laugh at his question, knowing how corny it will sound when I answer, but it's the truth. "Making smiles a little brighter."

  While recognizing the cheese oozing from my mouth, I'm not regretting my answer, since I have made him smile, as well. "That makes sense," he says. "Did it work on me?"

  He's flirting with me. Abort! I'm his hygienist. Can't do this. "You—ah, yeah—your teeth are nice and shiny, white, Mr. Carter." That was lame, but...time to leave now.

  He chuckles under his breath and reaches across the small space to grab his phone from the side table. I take the opportunity to turn my back to him and type his notes into my computer. "Well, someone will be with you in just a moment, Mr. Carter. Thank you," I say, walking out of the room.

  I greet Mary with the folder. "Here you go. He's likely going to need an appointment to fill his cavity?"

  "I will take care of it," she says, grinning as she reaches for the file.

  Making my way into the next exam room and moving through the motions of setting up for my next cleaning, my mind feels lost in a blur as I over analyze everything I said to Mr. Carter that maybe I shouldn't have said. Something evoked the flirtatious comment, even though I tried my best to remain even and professional. Was it the way I looked at him? Did I spend too long gazing into his eyes? Wouldn't I have been aware of it if I did?

  With a need to forget about the last half hour, I access the next patient's records, going through it to familiarize myself with her history. Though, my focus seems to glaze over as I reach the halfway mark on the list of issues she has had over the last five years. What could have provoked him to smile at me? He's in pain and I look like a zombie. I can't help but feel like I'm missing something.

  I hear the bell on the front door chime, informing me that either Mr. Carter has left or the next patient has arrived. Either way, I need to come out of hiding now.


  As I approach the front desk, Mary is giving me an odd glance. "What's the look for?"

  "What look?" She pinches her lips together and walks to the back wall where the filing cabinets are.

  "Mary?"

  "Your next patient is running a few minutes late. She must have had whatever you had for breakfast this morning," she giggles in her unique high-pitch “I have a secret" laugh.

  "Mary," I affirm.

  "He asked what time you take lunch and made an appointment an hour before that. I bet he wants to take you out," she says, bitting down on the tip of her thumbnail.

  "Okay so, that's ridiculous. I spoke with him for five minutes while I was scraping plaque from his teeth. I highly doubt that would be the case and we have a no-dating-the-patient policy here," I remind her.

  "Oh please, we've all been guilty of breaking that rule."

  "We have?" Mary, who has been married for thirty years. I'm thinking she hasn't broken this rule.

  "Well, some of us have."

  "Okay, well, regardless, it's not happening. He's a little strange, anyway."

  "Who cares, with dimples like those, he could be speaking a different language and I'd still have to wipe up my drool."

  "Yeah, this has gone too far now, Mary. Thank you for your thoughts on the matter, but Mr. Carter is simply having a tooth filled and moving on with his happy little life."

  Mary takes a seat at the desk and keeps her eyes wide as she aimlessly moves her mouse around. "Whatever you say, Haley."

  "Thank you," I tell her.

  "He'll be back tomorrow at eleven for his filling," she finishes with.