Page 71 of Chasing Dreams
She’d finished showering and was towel drying her hair when there was a tap on the door. “Shaine?”
She opened the door. “Yeah?”
“I’m going to head down to the gym.”
“Okay.”
“This smell drove me crazy the first couple of times you used my shower,” he said, his smile surprising her. He stepped across the threshold to hug her towel-clad body.
“I’ve never known anything like this,” she said, her cheek against his chest. “Like what we have together.”
“Neither have I,” he admitted.
She pulled away enough to look at him. “Have you ever been in love, Austin?”
The question caught him off guard. He touched a tress of her wet hair. “Once.”
“What happened?”
“I was young. Twenty maybe. She was doing a thesis on extrasensory phenomenon. She found out a little more about me than she was comfortable with. After a while she was afraid of me. I confronted her with it. She got defensive, called me a freak, and that was that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“It hurt you.”
“I got over it.”
“Did you?”
“Yeah.”
She pulled back and looked up at him. “Then why did you run away?”
“I didn’t run away from her. Or from that one experience. I ran away from all of it. The researchers. The institute. Tom. The cases.”
She nodded. “The victims and their families.”
“Especially them.”
“I understand.”
“I know you do.” And he did.
“Go on. There might be hotties in Yoga pants.”
With a grin, he headed for the gym. For the first time in his life, someone shared and understood the nightmares this ability brought with it.
But as with Tom and even Ken, he was providing something for her that she still couldn’t do herself. She’d needed him. And he’d been just lonely enough to become entangled, regardless of what would happen.
Her whole objective had been to find her nephew. He didn’t believe she’d used him or bribed him in any way. What they’d shared and her responses were too genuine to be anything other than mutual attraction.
But whether she found Jack or not, she had a life to go back to. A life filled with people and objects and things he wasn’t willing to deal with day after day. Just these few days in crowds and motel rooms had been enough for him. He was ready to go home.
This was why he’d protected himself for so long.
But Shaine Richards, with her hopeful search, her quirky smile and deeply held convictions that Jack was alive had broken through years of self-protection and unlocked that place of need deep inside.
