Page 14 of Chasing Dreams
“I won’t do it anymore.”
“Why not?”
He perched on the stone hearth again. “Did you pick up on the Deets boy’s mother?” he asked.
She could still remember the sound of the woman’s voice and the expression in her eyes from the television broadcast. “No.”
“Be grateful. If you had, you would have felt her pain as if it had been your own, just like you did the boy’s. The families of the victims suffer as much or more than the victims themselves, and the suffering would have been yours. Did you feel what the boy felt?”
“Some of it. I don’t think I had a handle on it, though. It was like a radio channel not quite tuned in.”
“Be glad you didn’t have to experience either person’s suffering. You never want to have to go through that.”
Maybe she had a shred of understanding now. A faint glimpse of why he was so unwilling to talk with her, to help her, why he had placed the experiences in his past like a best forgotten memory.
“You can just shut it all off?”
Thunder clapped, but neither of them moved.
“It took years to perfect the ability to use the gift,” he said. “It took years to learn to turn it off, too.”
Compelled by the all-consuming need within her to understand and use her dreams, She moved to sit on the hearth only a few feet from him. The fire heated her back and the side of her face. “You said I don’t want to feel those things, but in a way I am... with Jack. I need someone to show me how to use the dreams. Will you teach me?”
“I’ll teach you,” he said calmly.
Her heart dared to lift on those promising words.
“I’ll teach you how to shut it out.”
Disappointment knifed through her chest. Shut it out. Shut it out? Slowly she stood.
From her position on a braided rug, Daisy raised her head and studied Shaine expectantly.
Austin pushed himself to his feet. “Wanna go out, girl?” After he and Daisy left the cabin, Shaine paced the floor, distractedly studying the masculine surroundings. Some sort of animal’s horns hung over the front door. A yawning bear’s head stared at her from a furry hide on the floor.
He wanted to show her how to shut out her dreams of Jack. Why on earth would she want to do that? She needed to learn how to access them, not turn them off. She was Jack’s only hope.
She stared without really seeing floor-to-ceiling bookcases shelving leather-bound classics and paperback fiction, all arranged with no attention to size or subject.
Austin returned. Daisy bounded in behind him and sat, her tail thumping the floor. Shaine stroked the dog’s furry neck, slightly damp from her hurried trip in the rain.
Austin’s idea was out of the question. She’d gotten this far, she’d just have to get him to change his mind.
“I’ll carry your things upstairs,” he offered.
“I can get them.” She found her bags where she’d left them in the hallway. She glanced up at the loft, suddenly embarrassed. All along in her imaginings, Austin Allen had been a gray-haired old man. Whether he’d been married or widowed, the situation wouldn’t have been as awkward as this.
He led the way up the log-banistered staircase set against the wall, and she followed. Reaching the loft, he flipped on muted track lighting above a massive oak headboard. The king-size bed occupied only a fourth of the room.
Shaine set her bags on the floor and moved to the open rail, peering at the room below. The pungent smell of the burning logs was strong up here.
The sound of rain drew her attention up to an enormous skylight. Water ran down the glass in silvery sheets.
With deft movements, Austin tugged a quilted hunter green comforter from the bed and stripped the sheets, then took a clean set from a huge oak armoire.
“You’re giving me your bed,” she said, and her face warmed.
He nodded and pointed for her to help with fitting the corners over the edges. “I have a sofa in my office. I sleep there half the time anyway.”
