Page 21 of Chasing Dreams
She turned her attention back, and an expression of discovery crossed her features. “I had dreams like these before... a long time ago.”
He studied her in silence.
“When I was very small.” She ran a hand through her hair in a nervous gesture. “What had I done with those memories?”
“Saved them until you could deal with them, maybe,” he replied.
She nodded thoughtfully. “Sometimes I didn’t even have to be asleep to have one. One time I had an awake dream about my aunt Jackie being in a car accident. I cried and told my mother.
“A little while later, my mother answered the phone. She turned around and stared at me with this look on her face. I’ll never forget it. I found out later that my aunt was in an accident. The next time something similar happened, my mother sent me to my room and told me never to speak of those dreams again. She said they used to hang women, burn them alive for having dreams like mine.”
“She was afraid of your sight, and made you think it was wrong,” he said softly.
“More than wrong. She and my grandparents prayed and prayed over me. I didn’t want them to think I was wicked, and I didn’t want to be burned alive, so I let them think their prayers worked.”
“Maybe they did.”
“Maybe. I stopped having the dreams.”
“You learned to tune them out.”
“Is that what I did?”
He nodded. “Until your sister and nephew died. Something there triggered them again.”
Shaine attempted to sip her coffee, but her hands shook, and hot coffee spilled over the side of the cup. That long-forgotten, well-hidden, slip of memory had come vividly into focus, and she wondered how she could have forgotten something so momentous. She blinked back moisture she didn’t want him to see.
Austin took the mug from her and set it on the low table; then he took her hands, one at a time, and brushed her palms dry with his callused fingers.
She closed her eyelids against the gentleness in that touch and held her breath so she wouldn’t cry or groan or shame herself. He released her hands and reached to take a strand of her hair and rub the tress between his fingers. She’d opened her eyes and was breathing again, but her heart forgot a couple of beats and then had to thump double-time to catch up.
He was so close, she could see the millions of tiny dark dots along his chin and jaw where he’d recently shaved. She wondered what it would feel like if she drew her hand along his jaw. Her palm burned with the temptation.
“First, Shaine, you have to learn to trust your instincts, your intuition.” He released her hair.
She met his dark gaze, and without thinking about it, reached for his wrist. Her fingers wrapped around his warm flesh, the dusting of hair a pleasant sensation against her skin. “I trust the instinct that tells me Jack is alive.”
Against his cream-colored sweater, his hair and skin were dark. His eyes closed for a brief moment, and when they opened again, they were grim. “All I can tell you is that in all the years I connected with victims, I rarely found anyone alive.”
“But you did find some of them alive.”
He was not a hard man by nature. Experience had driven him to protect himself. “The odds are not favorable,” he warned. “Each time you open yourself to the possibilities, you take the almost inevitable chance of seeing and feeling things you don’t want to experience. It’s an unlucky crapshoot. And anticipating what you’re about to unleash is almost the worst part of it.”
His intensity would have convinced her if her reasons had been different. But this was Jack she was looking for. Her sister’s precious fair-haired child.
He stared at her, giving Shaine an unexpected view into the pain-dimmed depths of his eyes, and for that instant, she shared his suffering. Thinking of his pain, her chest hurt.
Slowly his expression changed. That intense dark gaze roved over her face and dropped to her lips, warming her with its eloquence.
Her heart hammered against her ribs, and heat rose in her limbs. Beneath her fingers, his pulse quickened. His fierce expression didn’t frighten her. Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and she saw his throat move as he swallowed. She barely knew him. But she understood him in some elemental way. And she wanted to kiss him. Oh, how she wanted to kiss him.
Her entire body prepared for the experience. If he leaned forward and touched his lips to hers she would explode in a million pieces. And if he didn’t...she would die.
His mouth came down over hers, his lips firm and warm and tasting of coffee, and the kiss seemed too beautiful and too fragile to bear. He tilted his head, aligning their mouths more perfectly, and her eager heart responded with a tumultuous pace. More than ever, the welling desire to cry rose up in her chest. Not from grief or empathy, but from the sheer joy of this man’s touch.
He wasn’t pushy. Or demanding. The ardent kiss was slow and easy, as though he wanted it to last. As if letting her know this was the possibility she didn’t know she’d been missing. The thorough kiss gave her senses time to appreciate the nuances of tenderness and heat. His kiss awakened every imagining she’d ever had, and she didn’t want it to ever end.
But of course, it did.
