Page 11 of Chasing Dreams
“I don’t want your father to find my nephew.” She waited for him to look up at her.
Finally, he did.
Sighing, she brought her hand to the side of her face, her fingertips touching her temple. “I want his help with something personal. Something I’m going through.”
Several seconds passed. A burning log snapped and hissed in the grate. “How personal?”
She lowered her hand and met his penetrating dark stare. Nothing transparent about this guy. Had he learned to guard every thought and emotion from a father with extrasensory capabilities? She shrugged halfheartedly. “Personal enough that I think he might be the only one who’d understand.”
“Try me.”
She studied him. “If I do...if I tell you...will you pass it along to your father?”
“I promise he’ll hear it exactly the way you tell me.”
“Well...” She glanced around the interior of the log house, not really taking note of the rough-hewn walls or the masculine furnishings. She couldn’t help glancing to the loft above, where the light from the fire and the table lamps didn’t penetrate. “A year ago my sister’s car was found in the Missouri River. Her body was in it.”
He said nothing, showing no reaction while waiting for her to continue.
“My eighteen-month-old nephew was never found.”
“You want his body found?”
She turned her gaze back to his. “A few months back I started having dreams.”
He listened, waiting without expression, without encouragement or assessment.
“The dreams have continued.”
“What are the dreams about?”
“I dream that he’s alive. That he’s frightened and lonely and that he needs me.” She described the dreams, ending with the one of Jimmy Deets and how she’d known where the police could find him.
“He was dead, wasn’t he?” he said, his tone flat.
She gave him a grim nod.
“They’re nearly always dead.”
She assessed his face quickly, and for a moment she almost thought she saw something there, some obscurely familiar emotion too painful to express, but a second later rationalized she must have imagined it. “What do you mean?”
Ignoring her question, he picked up the plates and the platter of remaining sandwiches and carried them behind the counter.
Shaine traced the rim of her cup with her forefinger.
“Want a refill on that?”
She nodded.
He filled both their mugs.
“How did you know I wanted hot chocolate?” she asked.
He took his cup and sat on the stone hearth. “Fall evenings in the mountains get pretty chilly,” he said. “You don’t have to be clairvoyant to know a cup of hot chocolate would hit the spot.”
She studied his face, lit on only one side by the fire, and the familiarity of the scene unnerved her.
“What brought them on?”
