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Ten had been relieved when Cope offered to have the kids spend the night with them. Jude promised to take them for donuts in the morning, which meant Ten could sleep in until around 10 A.M. A good night’s rest was just what the doctor ordered, if he could manage to keep that strange nightmare at bay.

Standing in front of his sink in the master bathroom, Ten brushed his teeth. He was so excited River and his family were coming up to spend time with them. It had only been a few weeks since the last time they’d seen each other for the holidays. Ten hadn’t spent as much time with his brother as he would have liked courtesy of a dead mall Santa who had been Ronan’s partner during his days with the Boston Police. Ten hoped this trip wouldn’t involve another grisly murder to solve and that he could just sit back and relax.

“Hey, babe.”

Ronan pressed a kiss to the back of his head, before grabbing his own toothbrush.

“Hey, yourself.”

Ten spat his toothpaste and washed out the sink. “Can you believe we have the whole night to ourselves?”

“I want you to tell me about this nightmare.”

Ronan wore a sympathetic look, but Ten could tell he wasn’t going to take any lip on the matter. Just the truth.

“Damn it, Ronan.”

Ten sighed. “Can’t we just get naked and screw?”

Ten always slept better after having sex with his husband. He only hoped he could stay awake until the end.

Ronan was all business, his worry for Ten obvious. “Ordinarily, I’d be the first person to jump all over that statement, and you, but I’m worried about you not sleeping. Talk to me.”

“Like I said last night when you woke me up, there isn’t really a lot to tell.”

Ten climbed into bed, settling the covers over his lap. He waited for Ronan to join him before continuing. “The first time I had the dream was last weekend. Saturday night, I think. We’d watched that spooky show with Everly and I just figured I was having a reaction to her being scared. I didn’t like seeing our little girl hiding behind her hands, even if the scene wasn’t really all that scary, you know?”

Ronan nodded. “I hear you, but I think it was good that she was afraid and we were able to show her an outcome that made her feel safe again. Now she’ll be better able to soothe herself the next time we let her watch something scary, you know, after she turns eighteen.”

Ronan snickered at his joke.

“Make that forty and you’ve got a deal.”

Ten reached for Ronan’s hand.

“I remember going to a friend’s house after school and watching a movie my parents never would have let me watch, when I was about eleven years old. It was one of those Friday, the 13 th movies, the one with the killer in the hockey mask. I was so scared during the movie that I almost peed my pants. After the movie ended, I had to walk home. I was dead scared. It was only two blocks or so, but it was getting dark and I was certain Jason was going to pop out from behind every bush with his machete ready to slice me up like a Thanksgiving turkey. I wanted to sleep with the lights out, but my father forced the issue and snapped my light off. I woke up screaming and when I told my frightened parents what frightened me, Dad said that I deserved to have nightmares because I’d broken one of the Ten Commandments.”

Ten rolled his eyes. “Nothing like Dad using his lord and savior to justify my being scared, instead of soothing my fears.”

“Your Dad was a prick. We’d never do anything like that to our kids.”

“Agreed, even if it means Everly sleeping in our bed for a week and kicking us nearly to death.”

Ten still had bruises on his shins from last week.

“That kid’s got sharp, bony toes, which she definitely gets from your side of the family.”

Ronan laughed. “Enough stalling, tell me more about the dream.”

Ten had hoped his little story about his childhood woes would get Ronan off the topic of his adult fears, but no such luck. “I don’t remember anything, not a sound or a smell or picture of anything. I just wake up with my heart thundering in my chest and feeling scared to death.”

Ronan shook his head. “It could be anything scaring you in a dream. Something as simple as a dandelion bloom or as terrifying as a mask wearing, machete wielding killer.”

“Yeah,”

Ten agreed. “That’s why I didn’t say anything to you.”

“Has it been the same each time?”

“Yes. I just wake up scared with no memory of what happened or why.”

To be honest, Ten hadn’t been anxious to delve any deeper. In this case he believed out of sight, out of mind was the way to go. There was no reason to be scared if he didn’t know what he was afraid of. “I didn’t really want to examine it more closely.”

“If you were just a regular guy, I’d agree with you. Let your psyche sort itself out. But since your dreams are often visions, I’d say now’s probably the time to probe a bit deeper. With the kids on school vacation a week from today and River’s family coming up here for the week, we need to figure out what’s going on sooner rather than later. You don’t want to have one of these dreams with all the kids sleeping over. The way you woke up screaming last night would have sent Aurora diving under the bed. Hell, you scared the shit out of me.”

Ten would never forget the frightened look on Ronan’s face when his husband shook him awake the night before. Ronan had said he’d thought someone was murdering him by the way he was shouting. “I definitely don’t want the kids to see me like that.”

As much as Ten hated to admit it, he was going to need to do some mental exercises to help him remember the dream.

“Whatever is causing your psyche distress, we’ll fix it together. I promise. You know I’d never let anything happen to you.”

Ten nodded. “Yes, I know that. Speaking of letting something happen to the other, what’s this thing about clowns?”

It might be a cheap shot, but Ten knew the question would take the heat off himself and put the bullseye squarely on Ronan.

Ronan grimaced. He looked as if he’d rather go swimming with man-eating sharks, than have this conversation. “I was thirteen years old and wanted to go to the circus. There was a parade of elephants in Boston and Mom took me to see it. A teenage girl was handing out invitations to the kids along the route to a special day of activities before opening night. Mom said we could do that too. Inside the building were food stands, carnival games and, of course, the clowns. They were all gathered in the same spot and were making balloon animals and laughing with the kids.”

“That sounds like fun.”

Ten had never been afraid of clowns. He’d been to the circus once when he was about twelve years old. They’d sat way in the back, in the last row of the bleachers. The clowns looked two inches tall from that distance. He’d been more afraid of the lions than the jolly jesters.

“It was, at first,”

Ronan agreed. “A lot of the clowns were dressed in bright colors with red noses and giant shoes, but there was one clown dressed in black and white. There was an edginess to him that the other clowns didn’t have, which I guess was why I was drawn to him. I’d say now he had this punk look to him, but wouldn’t have known what that was at the time. I got my balloon animal and then the girl who’d handed me the invitation showed up and asked if I wanted to see something special.”

He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“Ronan O’Mara!”

Ten playfully slapped his husband’s arm. “What was the something special? Or am I better off not knowing?”

Ronan offered a cat who ate the canary grin. “It was a baby tiger. I got to cuddle it. There are pictures around here somewhere of me, the tiger, Mom and the girl, Celestina,”

he said on a sigh.

Ten raised an eyebrow at his husband. “Celestina?”

“She was beautiful, Ten. With golden silky hair and blue eyes. She was a little older than me, probably fifteen or sixteen years old, so she had curves in all the right places. I wasn’t interested in any of that. What caught my attention was the sparkly red dress and feather boa she was wearing. I wanted to wear the boa in the worst way. Everly would have lost her mind over the outfit. You would have too, come to think of it.”

Ten snorted. “Be honest, you wanted to try on the dress too.”

“Totally!”

Ronan agreed. “Every time I see a sparkly dress I think of Celestina. I was so in love with the tigers and the costumes that I wanted to join the circus then and there.”

“What happened to derail that dream?”

Ten couldn’t imagine his husband flying high on a trapeze or wrangling elephants.

“Ying Yang the clown.”

Ronan grimaced, as if the clown’s name tasted bad.

“Ying Yang?”

Ten chuckled. “Cool name.”

“You wouldn’t think that if you’d met him in person. I mean, he was great when I was talking to him while he made my balloon snake, but then when Celestina asked me to come with her, he looked like he wanted to kill me. I didn’t pay him any mind until I’d finished holding the baby tiger. Celestina and her Mom brought the baby back to its mother and when I turned to leave, there was Ying Yang. He threatened to cut off my arm and beat me with it before he fed it to the tiger, if I ever touched his daughter again.”

“Holy shit! Did you tell Erin?”

“Mom was standing behind me. She was the one who caught me when Ying Yang pushed me. We got the hell away from him.”

“Did you ever see Ying Yang again?”

Ronan nodded his head. “We went to the opening night show. Celestina was there, riding the lead elephant like she had during the parade. Her dress that night was a vivid peacock blue. I was nervous when the clowns came out to do their act, but Ying Yang thankfully, didn’t see me sitting in the crowd. To be honest, after Mom and I went home that night, I slept with the lights on. I’ve been terrified of clowns since that night. I really wish Jace’s gala was another ball or a day at Fenway Park, or ice castles or something, anything other than a circus.”

“You heard Jace say he wants us to staff some of the positions. What are you going to do?”

Ten thought it would be fun to work with the trapeze artists and learn how to swing on the bar.

“I’ll just work security.”

Ronan cast his eyes down and wiggled under the blankets.

“You know,”

Ten began, resting his head on Ronan’s shoulder, “it would go a long way for Everly and Ezra to see you overcome one of your greatest fears. I think you might regret taking the easy way out. In all the years I’ve known you, there’s nothing you’ve faced that you’ve walked away from.”

“That’s different, Ten, we’re talking about doing my job and keeping people safe. No one is going to be in any danger at the circus. It’s not like Pennywise is going to show up with a bunch of red balloons and start munching on kids.”

Ronan shivered, pulling his husband closer.

Ten sighed. Ronan was the bravest man he’d ever known. It wasn’t like his tough as nails husband to want to hide under the bed. He’d faced down murderers, kidnappers, serial killers, and summer tourists without flinching. Who knew clowns would be his downfall.

First thing in the morning Ten was going to put his mind to figuring out how Ronan could be involved in the circus without constantly having to look over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t being stalked by Bozo.

Anything to keep his mind off his mysterious nightmare.