Page 25 of Chasing Dreams
For a minute she thought he wouldn’t answer, but then he spoke, his voice soft. “I’d get a warm feeling in my chest, and I’d see a picture out of focus. Then I’d zero in on it, like turning a satellite dish or tuning in a radio station.”
The mere thought of his incredible gift was beyond her reasoning. “Your talent is amazing,” she said. “Did the doctors and scientists have any explanations after all that testing?”
He got up and used the poker to adjust the log. “Quantum physics and neuroscience have been trying to explain people like us away, to finds logical answers to this ‘gift’ of ours for years. Some think they can explain the ability or understand it with theories of electrons and upward causation and biophilosophy and mind and matter links. A lot of mumbo jumbo, but when they’re all finished testing and theorizing, they don’t really know why we can and others can’t and what makes the difference.”
“And what do you think?”
He studied her for a moment. “Just so you know, I wasn’t the ideal subject, either.”
“You weren’t? But those researchers at the institute have spent their lives looking for people like you.”
“Oh, I could do it all,” he said. “I just didn’t feel the need to explain it or qualify and analyze everything like they did.”
He got up, moved to the bookcases Shaine had thought without order and promptly plucked out a worn leather-bound book. He opened it.
“The prophet Joel said, ‘....your sons and daughters will proclaim my message; your old men will have dreams and your young men will see visions.’” He looked up. “All through the Bible men had dreams. Remember the story about how Joseph interpreted dreams for the prisoners and for the king? There’s nothing new about precognitive dreams.” He closed the book, laid it on the table and returned to his seat.
Daisy padded over and laid her chin on his knees. He stroked her head. “Why do we need to analyze everything? Why not just accept it or reject it?”
Shaine wondered the same thing. But then her experiences at the institute had been unfruitful. “So, why do you think some people can do this and others can’t?”
“I think all people are intuitive. Studies show over fifty percent of children depend on instincts. But by the time they’re adults, only twenty-five percent rely on instincts. The older people get, the more logical they get, and they talk themselves out of believing.”
“That’s not your case.”
“No.”
“How did you talk yourself out of believing?”
“I didn’t. I believe.”
“Then why don’t you use it?”
He studied her face for a moment, as though deliberating his words. Had she pushed too hard? “Did you want to stop what happened to that boy back home?” he asked. “Did it eat at you that there was nothing you could do?”
He’d spoken of this before. She didn’t want to go there, but he was being candid with her, and she owed him the courtesy of returning his honesty. “I hated knowing and not being able to do anything about it,” she said finally.
“There’s some kind of scientific law in the universe,” he said, stroking the dog’s ears. “You can see these things and know them, and you want to reach out and change them. But you can’t.” His voice dropped off to a hoarse whisper that sent a shiver up her spine. “You can’t.”
“Maybe you can,” she said.
He sat forward and leveled a stare at her. “If that were possible, don’t you think I’d have done it?”
“You would have if you had known how,” she agreed.
“Everything you see...happens,” he said.
Her thoughts jolted to the scene of her in his arms, his lips trailing along her jaw, kissing her neck. Shaine’s face and body flushed with heat, her throat filling with mute expectancy. He was right. Everything she saw in her dreams happened. And that’s how she knew without a sliver of a doubt, that she would and Austin Allen would mean something to each other—something glorious and fulfilling.
She surveyed his dark hair, his golden skin and long-fingered hands, and embarrassment clawed its way to the surface of her mind, reminding her she barely knew him. She barely knew him, but she knew he had the ability to inflame her. She knew the taste and urgency of his kiss.
Was it possible he knew too? “Yes,” she whispered. She didn’t know whether to feel giddy or guilty to possess this disconcerting knowledge. “Everything I see happens.”
And right now, she didn’t know whether or not she would change it if she did have the ability.
* *
Shaine awoke to the sensation of Daisy’s tongue licking her hand. She opened her eyes and found herself lying on Austin’s sofa, a soft blanket tucked around her. They’d talked into the early hours of morning, and she must have fallen asleep.
