Page 29 of Chasing Dreams
“Don’t worry about that. Tell Craig to pay her out of my account. I’m the one who’s not there to work.”
“But what will you do? You can’t afford that for long.”
“I’ll figure something out, Maya. And I’ll be there when you have the baby. I promise.”
Shaine said goodbye and hung up. Hiring someone still didn’t assuage the guilt she experienced over deserting Maya at this crucial time, but what choice did she have? She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jack needed her more than Maya ever would. And in order to help him, she had to be here.
She rubbed the nagging pain in her ankle, remembering the strange dream she’d had before waking this morning. The vision hadn’t been of anyone she knew, and it had been an odd blend of sights and sounds. She’d had the impression of stumbling through the nearby woods searching for something. She’d eaten a filling breakfast, but her stomach felt oddly empty.
Shaking off the strange feeling, she wandered out to watch Austin splitting wood. He’d taken off his sweatshirt and, dressed in jeans, a form-fitting black T-shirt and supple-looking leather work gloves, he swung the sledgehammer, hitting the wedge and splitting the logs apart. A fine sheen of perspiration glistened on his skin. The muscles in his back and shoulders corded and flexed with each swing, and as he leaned into the action.
She needed to think about something else.
His phone lay on the porch step, playing either a radio station or a playlist, and Elton John sang Candle in the Wind.
“Aren’t there gadgets that do that?” she asked.
He paused, catching his breath, and looked over at her. “Sure. Have one in the garage.”
“Why don’t you use it?”
“What? And waste the opportunity for all this exercise? I’m a computer geek, remember? I need the workout.”
She lowered herself to the top step and stretched her legs out in front of her. “Somehow you’re not what I imagine when I picture a computer geek.”
His mild gaze raked the length of her legs before he met her eyes. “Really? And what do all the other computer geeks you know look like?”
“Well, I don’t know any others.”
“Then I’m flattered to be your first.”
The rare smile at the corner of his lips wasn’t entirely suggestive, but his words brought a tingle of embarrassment to her cheeks and added a strange warmth to the feeling already pooled in her chest. Sometime between her arrival and now, the atmosphere had changed.
She couldn’t say it had been that kiss, because he’d been so quick to accuse her of trying to seduce him. But maybe it had been. Maybe as much as he wished that was how it had been, he knew that the kiss had been as spontaneous and as welcome on his part as it had on hers. Maybe he was just into deluding himself.
The same way he denied his gift.
But things had changed. It wasn’t in anything they said...or necessarily did...but in the things that went unsaid and undone between them.
They were in that formative stage where each was wondering about the other. Wondering about past loves. Wondering about things only someone close would know.
He bent to stack several chunks of wood before securing his grip on the wooden handle of the sledgehammer. He leaned into the task, his muscles bunching with each lift and swing. Lift and swing. Shaine watched with a mix of fascination and frustration.
The song ended, followed by a commercial, and then a news update followed. “....students from WSC in Gunnison....reported missing since last night....sometime around six....last seen wearing...”
Shaine drew her legs up and straightened. The hazy dream image of the night before encompassed her thoughts, blocking out everything else. A young man in a red plaid flannel shirt, a dark green backpack on his shoulders, lay on a pile of dry leaves. His ankle throbbed inside his high-topped boots. The pain blotted out most of his thoughts, but he was afraid. She sensed fear and pain. And guilt.
She stood.
All those frightening forest sounds came to life. The young man shivered with the cold and rubbed his hands together, afraid to start a fire for fear of the wind coming up and fanning the blaze out of control. Bone-tired weariness stole his energy. Merciless pain throbbed in his ankle until he wanted to cry aloud. But he didn’t. He was keeping up a brave front for someone.
“Shaine?”
She heard Austin’s voice and glanced over at him.
“What are you looking at?” He squinted into the woods.
“That guy.”
