Is It Real or Just a Dream, an Excerpt from Finding My Escape

I've posted the prologue, now here's another taste of Finding My Escape.  I want to give a shout out to Tammie Clark Gibbs for hosting today's excerpt page.  And fans of the book don't have long to wait for not one, but TWO sequels which I hope to have ready this year.  Look for My Way Out this summer.

My nose itched.  Well, it wasn’t exactly an itch, more of a tickle.

“Leave me alone Matt, I’m trying to sleep.”

I brushed my hand across my face.  If Matt didn’t leave me alone, I was going to clobber him.

The tickling continued.

“Matt, I’m warning you!”

I felt the tickle again, which had now become more than just a little irritating.

“That’s it!”  I sat up and looked around.

I was definitely not in my room any more.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the brightness of the sun, but my other senses were exploding with sensation.  The combination of salt with something floral assaulted my nose.  Simultaneously, my ears were filled with a familiar roar.  The ocean?  My eyes finally caught up with the rest of me, and my breath came out in a rush.  Josh!

“Hello, beautiful.  About time you woke up.”  Josh leaned back against a rock, a white flower in his hand.

“Were you tickling me with that flower?”

“Guilty.”

“You’re lucky you stopped when you did.  I thought you were someone else.”

“Speaking of which,” he began, “should I be jealous of this ‘Matt’ guy?” His eyes sparkled as if he had some private joke.  He didn’t really seem jealous.

“For your information, Matt is a friend.  A good-but-annoying friend.  Tickling my nose while I try to sleep would be just like him.  You, however, are either just a dream or a figment of my imagination, anyway, so why should it matter?”  I shrugged and looked out at the ocean.  I plastered a pout on my face which I hoped screamed Hayden Panetierre.

“Ouch.  You really know how to hurt a guy.  And after I brought you to one of my favorite places, too," said Josh, holding the flower out as a peace offering.  I pretended to ignore it.

“Okay, so where are we, anyway?” I asked as I took in my surroundings.

Josh leaned over to brush a strand of hair off my face, his hand lingered on my cheek for a second.

“Hmm, so beautiful,” his eyes bore into mine, “but I digress.”  He spread his arms wide.  “This is paradise, or at least the nearest thing to it in this place.  It’s a replica of one of the smaller, less known of the Hawaiian Islands.  Welcome to my world.”

I looked around, and it was amazingly, achingly beautiful.  The water was the clearest blue I’d ever seen, not like some of the Gulf beaches I’d been to.  Part of the beach was shaded by draping palms.  To the left of the beach area was a steep cliff and to the right what appeared to be giant lava rocks.

How could a dream be this vivid?  Maybe there was something to this other world stuff after all.