The Truth About Toby

by Cheryl St. John

  She shrugged as if it were of little consequence.

  “I apologize.”

  “Might as well have it all out,” she replied, dried her hands and opened the dishwasher door.

  “Look, I haven’t apologized to anyone in the last decade. You may as well acknowledge it because it might be another ten years.”

  “I accept your apology.” She rinsed the plates and loaded them.

  He put the wine away and took Daisy outdoors to give her the steak bones. The sooner this woman was gone, the better. She was beyond his experience. She wasn’t a client or a one-night stand. He sensed the initial upheaval in his gut. She turned him on and had the ability to turn him inside out. She was trouble.

  He wasn’t going to let her open any old wounds or allow her to carve new ones. He’d desired a woman before. But not with this intensity nor with this chest-tightening longing that didn’t really feel like a physical ache that could be appeased. And if he’d been hurt by that past desire, he could only fathom the devastation that would come from this hot and dangerous hunger.

  Whatever happened and however he handled this time with her, he would either have to regret it or justify it forever.

  Chapter5

  He loomed above her, his face hidden by deep shadows. His warm breath gusted against her chin, and the bare skin across her chest and shoulders tingled He wanted her. As badly as she wanted him. In his arms she felt secure, desired, safe. His mouth came against hers, as eager and burning as she demanded. He urged her lips apart and his tongue invaded the recesses of her mouth, a welcome, rousing invasion.

  Shaine crushed her body against his, sinuously pressing closer, as close as possible. yet not close enough. She wanted to envelop him, to possess him She wanted to know passion with this man..

  His voice, soft and low, spoke against her lips, uttering words that drove her out of her mind with need. He pressed a chain of kisses across her chin, down the column of her neck to her shoulder.

  She writhed beneath him, her sensitized bare flesh eager for the touch of his hands. He didn’t disappoint her. He whisked his thumb across her nipple, bringing the bud to a peak, until she moaned, and then he took it between his lips. Heavenly.

  “Shaine, ” he whispered, his moist lips trailing from one breast to the other. “Shaine.”

  He touched and nibbled and suckled until she urged him fully against her.

  He angled himself above, his chest hair rasping across her breasts, his manhood hot and hard and probing between her thighs. She’d never wanted anything as badly as she wanted this. Wanted him. Inside her. Now.

  He kissed her throat, and she dug her nails into his hips, pulling him closer. Closer.

  Her breath came out in a shudder.

  From the other room a dog barked

  “No, no, don’t stop, ” she cried, but her shadow lover had already left her.

  A poignant emptiness ached deep inside her, and the unexpected night air chilled her heated flesh.

  The dog barked again.

  Heart pounding, Shaine leapt from the bed and raced to the railing, unable to see anything in the dark room below. Daisy’s agitated barking continued. Assuring herself she did indeed have her cotton nightshirt on, Shaine groped her way down the stairs, clinging to the banister.

  At the bottom, she ran solidly into a heated wall of flesh. “Oh!”

  Hands gripped her shoulders to steady her just as she brought her fingers up and met the warm skin and springy hair of Austin’s chest. She jerked her hand back like she’d touched fire. He released her.

  “Daisy, no!” he commanded.

  Immediately the dog quieted, and fur brushed against Shaine’s bare legs. The air down here was cold and she hugged herself, rubbing her upper arms for warmth. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “She sets up a racket if she hears an animal outside,” he said, his face hidden by the night shadows.

  “A bear?”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes a wolf or two. Could be only a raccoon.” He moved to the window and peered out into the night.

  “I’m glad you talked me out of sleeping in the tent.” She skirted the furniture and joined him.

  “It’s getting too cold at night for someone as inexperienced as you to camp outside.” Moonlight streaming through the window defined his handsome profile and the solid muscle of his shoulders.

  The sight provoked the memory of clutching those bare shoulders in passion in her dream. “Not to mention the bears.”

  “They wouldn’t bother you. Unless you had food.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll take my chances in here, thank you.”

  He turned to look at her, the angle of his jaw emphasizing the shadowy growth of his whiskers. She crossed her arms over her chest self-consciously, her body still tingling from the stimulating dream.

  “Come here. I’ll build up the fire so you can get warm.” He moved away, and Shaine followed. He hunkered down to the chore, and she couldn’t help but notice the masculine display of flesh above the pair of jogging pants he wore. The fire caught, and the golden light played across his muscled arms and shoulders.

  He turned back, giving her a view of his matted chest. Her breath caught. She knew exactly what he’d feel like if she reached out and touched him—sleek flesh over sinewy muscle, the dark hair crisp and curling around her fingertips. At her side, her palm tingled with the disturbing knowledge.

  A warmth pulsed at her feminine core, the arousing sensations shocking her. He hadn’t touched her in that way, hadn’t made a move except that innocent run-in at the bottom of the stairs. Why was her body responding in this inappropriate manner?

  Guiltily she pulled her attention from his chest and sat beside the fire.

  “Shaine.” His voice held the rich seductive timber of her dream lover. A tingle ran up her spine and pebbled the flesh of her breasts.

  She’d dreamed of him. Dreamed of making love with him.

  She squeezed her knees together, not even needing to catalog the dream or the type. It had been a “knowing” dream.

  Her skin burned hot. Her heart pounded. Her mind raced back over her recent dreams. The aproned woman. The boy. The dog. The diploma. If she walked into his office right now, she’d find a framed certificate on the wall.

  Her knowing dreams always came true.

  “Shaine?”

  She jumped as if caught at something forbidden. She’d only had that dream because of the kiss they’d shared, she tried to tell herself. He’d made her feel guilty about that, and now she was feeling guilty about this.

  “You warming up?”

  She was warming up, all right. He had no idea. She nodded.

  “I can stick that leftover hot chocolate in the microwave.”

  She shook her head and stood, grateful for something to occupy her mind and hands. “I’ll do it.”

  She returned with two mugs and placed his on the stones without handing it to him. If he noticed her avoidance, he didn’t let on.

  He had pulled on a sweatshirt, and .the sight eased her discomfort somewhat.

  “Are you awake enough to work a little?” he asked.

  She didn’t think she’d sleep anytime soon. Not after that dream. She nodded.

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have a hard time getting back to sleep if I wake up during the night,” he said.

  “No problem.” She settled on a sofa and pulled her feet up beneath her, trying to separate the reality of here and now from the equally convincing reality of her dream.

  “You already know how to tell which dreams are precognitive,” he said.

  She nodded. She knew the difference. And she couldn’t pawn off her last dream as anything other than what it was. The knowledge left her stunned—and a little ashamed. She barely knew him.

  “Have you ever gone anywhere without a map?”

  “Now that you’ve mentioned it, I guess so.”

  “There are things that you know in a p
art of your brain that has no language. You don’t have to tell me how you know them. It doesn’t matter. Just tell me the things you know. Don’t let your emotions interfere.”

  She couldn’t help a smile. “I know what you’re asking.”

  “Go ahead,” he urged, and reached over to switch on a table lamp. The warm light revealed his dark hair, attractively mussed. He sat across from her. Against her will, her attention dropped to his feet with their sprinkling of dark hair across the tops. “Elevators?” he prompted.

  Shaine stifled her physical reaction to the man, and concentrated on his thought-provoking questions. “Sometimes I find myself standing in front of one before it ever dings,” she replied. “Then it arrives and I get on, thinking that it was a coincidence.”

  He nodded.

  Caught up in that revelation, she went on. “Once I went to the library for a book I needed for some research, and I didn’t go to the catalogs first. I took the elevator to the right floor, got off and walked directly to the shelf. There was the book.” She paused briefly. “Sometimes it’s like I’m so preoccupied that I don’t take time to think how I arrived somewhere or found something, and I don’t give myself any time to think about it afterward.”

  “You’ve set up some self-preservation skills,” he said. “You’ll need to look at those and realize why you’ve done it. Then get rid of them.”

  “You’re talking like you’re teaching me how to use this so-called gift,” she said warily.

  “No. You have to understand it in order to not use it. How about parking places?”

  She stared at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you drive right up to a parking place close to a store?”

  “No. Can you?”

  “I could at one time.”

  “That’s incredible.”

  “And your library book isn’t?”

  She shrugged.

  “This is something you feel in kinesthetic form, a physical sensation somewhere in your body,” he said.

  “Yes.” She understood his explanation clearly. “It’s a feeling like when you drop something and you think it’ll hit your toe, so you move your foot instinctively. That sensation between the dropping and the landing is what it’s like.”

  He studied her with a new respect, she thought, though she couldn’t figure out why. And when he spoke, the single word came out as though he were in awe. “Exactly.”

  “Is that how you felt the victims, too?” she asked.

  He glanced down at his mug. “Sort of.”

  “Tell me. Tell me what you felt when you touched their things.”

  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 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. “Quanturn 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, their heated bare flesh straining together. 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 make love with Austin Allen—glorious, breathless, rapturous love.

  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 his touch inflamed her. She knew the taste and urgency of his kiss and what his body felt like cradled between her thighs.

  “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.

  Wrapping the blanket around her shoulders, she let her nose lead her to the coffee in the kitchen. It tasted a trifle stronger than she’d have preferred, but she added a little milk and sipped it.

  The whole time she showered and dressed, trying not to disturb Austin in case he was still sleeping, she went over the things they’d talked about the night before. He’d shown her things about herself—about her intuitive ability—that she’d never realized or admitted before.

  How long would it take her to control it? To zero in on Toby and find him? How long did they have?

  That afternoon and evening passed muc
h as the one before, except that both were tired from the previous night and retired early.

  Immediately, Shaine fell into exhausted slumber...and dreamed....

  She entered his office and glanced at the unfamiliar surroundings: a soft-looking leather sofa and two chairs, a gigantic wraparound desk with two separate computers and accessories, a phone and a neat stack of reference books. An oak filing cabinet and an enormous aquarium stood on either sides of the uncovered double window.

  The room was enormous and functional, yet possessed a prosperous air of comfort. Shaine stepped to the desk and studied the framed document on the wall behind it, trying to bring the words into focus.

  The room grew too dark for her to see, and she groped her way to the door, where a sliver of light shone beneath it.

  She reached for the knob and the door opened silently.

  Toby sat on a floor that hadn’t seen a vacuum for weeks--months maybe, his tiny fingers clumsily struggling over his shoelaces. A stale, sour smell assailed her senses.

  “I’m a big boy, ” he said, the tiny voice precious and familiar. “Beebee’s a big boy.”

  A loud slam sounded and struck alarm into his chest. She was coming.

  The door opened and she loomed in the doorway, tall and unkempt and reeking of the stuff she drank all the time. “What’re you doin‘?” she drawled.

  “I put my shoes on,” he said, inching backward toward the bed.

  “What the hell for? You’re not goin‘ anywhere? Stupid little boys with stinky pants don’t get to go anywhere.

  He cringed, knowing what was coming.

  “Stupid little stinky boys have to sit in the bathroom.”

  “No! I can’t want to! ” he cried.

  “Don’t you tell me no.” She shook her finger under his nose. “Don’t you ever tell me no.”

  He wouldn’t look at her.

  She jerked him upward by one arm, stripped his shorts off and sat him on the toilet. “And you stay there until I come and get you! If you get down I’ll turn the lights off and leave you in here in the dark tonight.”