Page 88 of Chasing Dreams
“I’ll take care of him,” he promised.
Shaine awoke, the oppressive silence of her apartment closing in on her. The dream’s gloominess weighed on her heart. The beginning of the dream had been familiar, but the rest had confused her. Selfishly, she wished Austin had been there to wake her. Usually he heard, even from the other room, and came to gently rouse her.
An odd intuition pulled insistently until she got up and tiptoed to the other room. The streetlight filtering through the blinds striped the empty sofa.
Shaine switched on the lamp.
He was gone.
Chapter 18
Austin called as she prepared breakfast for the two couples from Minneapolis. At his voice, Shaine’s heart jolted.
“Ken called,” he explained. “He wanted me to join him down here in New Mexico.”
“I thought you said there wasn’t anything at the farm that would be valuable.”
He didn’t reply right away.
After thinking, she said, “You were protecting me, weren’t you?”
“Yeah. That, and the hunch I had about Samantha.”
“Damn you, Austin! How could you go off without telling me?”
“I knew you’d want to come.”
“Darn right I would have. This is more my concern than it is yours.”
“In case you’ve forgotten, you made it my concern.”
She didn’t have a reply for that. He was right. She bit her lower lip.
“Besides, you have to take care of things there for a few days, don’t you?”
Disappointment washed through her, easing her initial anger. “You know I do.”
“Trust me to take care of things and to look out for Jack’s best interests.”
Instantly his words brought her recent dream to mind. I’ll take care of him, he’d promised. “But I’m the one who saw where to find Amy,” she argued reasonably.
“You were. If there’s anything I think can be better solved using you, I’ll tell Ken and we’ll work around it until you can get here.”
She released a breath and held her hair back. “That will be at least a day or two. Maya will probably come home tomorrow. Her mother is arriving this afternoon, and she’ll help with the baby. Craig has the rest of the week off. He and Marge can handle the inn.”
“You have my number and I’ll text you Ken’s. Call if you need anything.”
“Call me,” she said, and then hated herself for sounding so needy. She was not like her sister, and she would not make a fool of herself over a man.
“I’ll call you tonight,” he promised.
Shaine hung up and blinked back tears. This was only the beginning of missing him.
* *
That night he called as promised. Shaine had been reading in bed, and picked up her phone.
“What were you doing?” he asked.
