The Truth About Toby Read online

  At that, the animal’s tail brushed the leaf-strewn ground, and he crouched, laying his chin on his forepaws, luminous brown eyes imploring.

  “Do you live there?” she asked.

  That must have been enough of an introduction, because he bolted forward and sat at her feet.

  He sniffed her palm, gave her wrist a lick, and she scratched his whiskered chin.

  Shaine chuckled. “You’re a lot friendlier than the last fella I met up here. I’ll probably get about as much information out of you, though.”

  He made himself comfortable against her legs, and she brushed through his coat with her fingers, removing bits of twigs and leaves he’d picked up in the woods. After several minutes, he roused, gave her hand a parting lick and bounded toward the house and around the side out of sight.

  . Shaine missed his warmth. And his company. She turned back to the flexible poles and bright blue nylon fabric. Surely she was smarter than this tent. Too bad she’d thrown the box with the color picture away; seeing the finished product would probably have helped.

  It would be completely dark before long; she didn’t have much time left to get in out of the night. Glancing toward the house, a movement at the window caught her attention. The dog grinned at her from behind the glass, and by the movement of his head and shoulders, she could tell his tail wagged. Though it felt a little silly, she waved.

  A shiver rolled up her spine, and she scrounged through her duffel bag for a hooded sweatshirt to pull on beneath her jacket.

  Okay, what was the worst thing that could happen?

  She’d never get the blasted tent together, a bear would ramble down from the hills and devour her. Worse than that? That this Allen fellow didn’t really live here after all. That she’d have to go back home no closer to finding any answers.

  That unfriendly fellow in there had been willing—make that eager—to take her back.

  Why was he so opposed to merely answering her questions about the old man? The simple courtesy of a conversation would have gone a long way. His behavior struck her as curious.

  A flash of light illuminated the fabric she slipped over the flexible aluminum poles, and the distant rumble of thunder followed.

  Okay, rain would be a pretty depressing possibility, too. She blew on her cold fingers, staring at the tent she hadn’t made any progress on in the last twenty minutes.

  Maybe the guy knew more than he wanted to tell. Maybe the old man was in there and this man was...was what? His nurse? She chuckled to herself. More likely his bodyguard. Or...his son?

  Most likely.

  Shaine glanced up at the house, but the dog was gone. A warm glow shined through the window, leaving her with the same lonely ache she’d fought for the last year. She was alone. Completely, entirely, totally alone.

  Her hands dropped to her sides and she stared off into the dark foliage. If a bear thundered out of those woods and ate her right now, the only person who’d eventually notice would be Audrey Pruitt when the time came for her to have that baby, and Shaine wasn’t there to work the inn.

  That jerk inside certainly wouldn’t care.

  Oh, right. Feel sorry for yourself. She shook off the self-pitying thoughts and glanced around. Looking on the bright side, it would be too cold out here for her to sleep sound enough to dream. And if she did dream, it would be about grizzly bears or Bigfoot or the like. Something safe.

  Digging through the other bag, she found her flashlight, shone it on her watch and remembered she had some cereal bars that she could eat without any work. She dug one out and ate it. A big glass of milk would go good with it. No, she corrected the thought, a steaming mug of hot chocolate.

  She was feeling a little light-headed. Out of breath, too. She hoped the snack would help.

  A smattering of drops smacked against the fabric pooled on the ground. She had the poles all through the pockets; now all she had to do was figure out how to make the blasted thing stand up. Was she supposed to have brought a hammer to get those stakes in the ground?

  Austin stood in the darkened living room, away from the window, and watched the blue tent fluttering and flailing in the flashlight’s beam. What was the fool woman doing now?

  Thunder rumbled overhead. Served her right. He resented any invasion of his privacy, and it took a lot of guts to camp out on a guy’s property. Or attempt to camp out, that is.

  She had definitely lost her Girl Scout manual somewhere on her way to the mountains. Granted, those five-man dome tents were tricky to assemble, but why hadn’t she practiced a couple of times? And the place where she’d chosen to set it up was unprotected from the wind. A good gust would flatten it in a heartbeat.

  Not to mention the water that would probably wash across that spot in a torrent.

  Let her figure it out the hard way. He turned to adjust the log he’d placed on the fire earlier. The heat drew his skin tight across his cheekbones. He watched the flames lick up the sides of the slab of ash.

  A clap of thunder startled him. Rain pelted the metal flue in the chimney. Memories of her slender vulnerable woman’s body and her troubled, yet proud, expression came to him more as a feeling than as pictures, a feeling like a vague ache in his chest. Against his will, he was drawn to the window once more.

  Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it, his levelheaded conscience cried out to him. She’s a woman, alone and unprotected , his victorious mind argued.

  Besides, it was pouring rain and the temperature was dropping. He wouldn’t be much of a human being if he left her out there.

  Shaine had the tent standing and was trying to use the cooler to keep one side propped up, when she caught sight of a bright beam of light coming near. She looked up and saw the inhospitable man storming toward her in a hooded orange slicker.

  “Grab your clothes,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Get your bag and come with me.”

  “I was doing all right,” she said defensively.

  “I can see that.” He shone the flashlight inside the wobbling tent, its light glaring off muddy puddles shaped like the soles of her boots.

  “I can dry it out.”

  “What about you?”

  Her clothes were nearly soaked, and her hair was probably plastered to her head by now. She had packed a couple of towels. Somewhere.

  He grabbed the duffel and firmly took her arm. Shaine picked up the other bag, unwilling to admit she was a little relieved at his support. She accompanied him to the house, where the dog waited on the porch, tail wagging. “What’s his name?”

  “His name’s Daisy.”

  “Oh.” She stopped to pat the animal’s head and receive a few licks.

  “Notice she’s smart enough to stay out of the rain,” he said, and opened the door. The dog bounded in ahead of them.

  He removed the dripping slicker and left it on the porch, revealing a deep green sweater over a broad chest, and snug jeans encasing legs she knew were muscled and dusted with dark hair. The thought combined with his woodsy scent as she passed him, created an odd feeling in her already trembling limbs.

  She stepped away and followed the dog into the warmth of the enormous firelit room. Two Navajo-patterned sofas faced one another before the stone fireplace. A welcoming fire crackled.

  A counter sectioned off a kitchen area, and above, a log rail separated a loft area. He led her into a hall. “The bathroom’s here. The washer and dryer are in the closet. Throw your clothes in. Hair dryer’s on the wall there.”

  Shaine entered a room bigger than her bedroom at home, with cedar walls and a long, tiled counter with two sinks. One corner held a shower, and the other a sunken tub with whirlpool jets.

  He left, pulling the door shut.

  She glanced around. A rumpled towel lay on one end of the vanity. A black-bristled hair brush with a wooden handle lay beside it.

  Shivering, Shaine peeled off her wet clothing, opened the double oak doors and indeed found stacked appliances.

&n
bsp; The steaming water felt wonderful. The soap in the dish had the identical fresh woodsy smell the man did, and standing naked in the same spot he had earlier was innocently erotic. Shaine washed her hair, and enjoyed the tingling warmth of the spray over her scalp and body as she rinsed.

  She dried her hair quickly, dressed in clean jeans, her Husker sweatshirt and warm socks. She wiped the vanity, hung her towels up, as well as his, and flipped off the light.

  The table between the sofas, a long low slab of varnished pine, had been set with plates, cups and a platter of sandwiches.

  “Sit.”

  Shaine turned, uncertain if the command was for her or the dog. The man motioned her to the sofa, and she lowered herself, keeping an eye on him as he sat across from her. She glanced from the food to his sober expression. “Why did you do this?”

  He handed her a plate. “Couldn’t let you stay out there and catch pneumonia.”

  She selected a sandwich and took a bite, trying to concentrate on the chicken salad. “I’m a little dizzy.”

  “It’s the altitude.”

  “Oh, sure.” The steam rising from the mugs on the table met her nostrils, and she reached for one. Hot chocolate. She inhaled, blew across the surface and sipped.

  They ate, the mannerly Daisy dozing on the carpeted floor.

  “How’d you find this place?” he asked.

  “Tom Stempson.”

  He stopped chewing for a moment, but didn’t look up.

  After Shaine had appeased her hunger, she sat back with her mug between her palms.

  “Where are you from?” he asked.

  She looked up. “Omaha.”

  He gave a half nod.

  “Have you been there?”

  “I’ve been through is all.”

  “I’ve never been much of anywhere else. This is the first time I’ve been to Colorado. It’s beautiful.”

  “It’s prettier the later in the season it gets. The aspens turn first, like they’re starting to do now. For weeks all you see are shades of yellow.” He clamped his mouth shut and looked away as though realizing he’d been chatting with an unwelcome visitor.

  “Please. Tell me, are you Mr. Allen’s son?”

  His gaze came back and didn’t waver. “Yes.”

  She leaned forward, not wishing to dampen the few friendly words they’d finally exchanged, but unwilling to wait any longer. “If he won’t see me, will you talk to him for me? I know I’ve imposed on you, coming here like this. I wouldn’t have done it if I wasn’t desperate.”

  “Who do you want to find?”

  How many hundreds of people had sought out Austin Allen for his extraordinary ability to help them find their loved ones? Why would she seem any different? But she didn’t want him to find Toby for her...did she? She wanted him to help her understand her dreams. “My nephew was—”

  “Ah,” he said with a curt nod, interrupting as if she’d just explained it all, and it wasn’t worth his attention. He reached for the empty plates.

  “No. Wait a minute.” Shaine leaned forward and reached toward him.

  Pausing, he stared at her palm.

  “I don’t want your father to find my nephew.” She waited for him to look up at her.

  Finally he did.

  Sighing, she brought her hand to the side of her face, her fingertips touching her temple. “I want his help with something personal. Something I’m going through.”

  Several seconds passed. A burning log snapped and hissed in the grate. “How personal?”

  She lowered her hand and met his penetrating dark stare. Nothing transparent about this guy. Had he learned to guard every thought and emotion from a father with extrasensory capabilities? She shrugged halfheartedly. “Personal enough that I think he might be the only one who’d understand.”

  “Try me.”

  She studied him. “If I do...if I tell you...will you pass it along to your father?”

  “I promise he’ll hear it just the way you tell me.”

  “Well...” She glanced around the interior of the log house, not really taking note of the rough-hewn walls or the masculine furnishings. She couldn’t help glancing to the loft above, where the light from the fire and the table lamps didn’t penetrate. “A year ago my sister’s car was found in the Missouri River. Her body was in it.”

  He said nothing, showing no reaction while waiting for her to continue.

  “My eighteen-month-old nephew was never found.”

  “You want his body found?”

  She turned her gaze back to his. “A few months back I started having dreams.”

  He listened, waiting without expression, without encouragement or assessment.

  “The dreams have continued.”

  “What are the dreams about?”

  “I dream that he’s alive. That he’s frightened and lonely and that he needs me.” She described the dreams, ending with the one of Jimmy Deets and how she’d known where the police could find him.

  “He was dead, wasn’t he?” he said, his tone flat.

  She gave him a grim nod.

  “They’re nearly always dead.”

  She assessed his face quickly, and for a moment she almost thought she saw something there, some obscurely familiar emotion too painful to express, but a second later she realized she must have imagined it. “What do you mean?”

  Ignoring her question, he picked up the plates and the platter of remaining sandwiches and carried them behind the counter.

  Shaine traced the rim of her cup with her forefinger.

  “Want a refill on that?”

  She nodded.

  He filled both their mugs.

  “How did you know I wanted hot chocolate?” she asked.

  He took his cup and sat on the stone hearth. “Fall evenings in the mountains get pretty chilly,” he said. “You don’t have to be clairvoyant to know a cup of hot chocolate would hit the spot.”

  She studied his face, lit on only one side by the fire, and the familiarity of the scene unnerved her.

  “What brought them on?”

  “What?”

  “The dreams.”

  Unconsciously, she frowned. “I don’t know.”

  “A bump on the head? A mental trauma?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing like that.”

  “Had you ever had dreams like them before?”

  She hesitated a moment. “Sometimes. When I was a kid. It spooked my mom, so I quit telling her about them. After a while I quit having them.”

  They sat in silence for a long moment. Finally she tried once again to convince him. “I’m not here to get your father to find Toby for me. I’ve found him. I just can’t get to him—yet.”

  “Toby being your nephew.”

  “Yes. My dreams have convinced me that he’s alive. If I could learn how to...” She stumbled for the right words to express what she knew was possible. “Connect,” she said for lack of a better word. “How to understand what’s going on with me and do it myself, I think I can find him. I hope I can.”

  “I wouldn’t be doing you any favors if I didn’t warn you not to hold out false hope,” he said. “I can’t encourage you.”

  “It’s not false hope. I just know...somehow...that he’s alive.”

  “Was the Deets boy alive?”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “It’s exactly the same. Who are you kidding here? You hoped against hope that that child was alive at the bottom of that hole. You felt every minute of his fear and his pain. You knew when the pain ended that it was over, but you hoped. You prayed his parents wouldn’t have to get the awful news. You hoped he was waiting for someone to find him, hanging in there until you could tell the police where he was.”

  She stared at him, her heart pounding, the protracted torment of those hours painted afresh in her mind.

  He stood abruptly and moved around the sofas toward the kitchen area.

  Shaine followed, not caring that he hadn’t invited her.r />
  He opened a drawer, plucked out a couple of self-sealing bags and efficiently placed a sandwich in each.

  He had described her feelings in exact detail. “How do you know what I hoped?” she asked softly.

  “Was I wrong?”

  “No.”

  “Then you’re going to have to trust me.”

  “Okay, I hoped they would find that boy in time. But Toby is different. It’s been a year since he disappeared, but in my dreams he’s older, just as he would be today. I know he’s alive.”

  “That’s your hope speaking. You want it to be true so badly that even when there’s no basis for your belief, you’re clinging to it, inventing reasons why it should be so.”

  “I’m not inventing anything,” she said, less calmly, her frustration already at a dangerous level. “Or do you think I’m crazy?”

  His head snapped up and he met her eyes. “I don’t think you’re crazy.”

  “Then help me.” The words came out more pleadingly than she’d intended. She quickly looked down at her hands while she composed herself. “All I want is a chance to talk to Mr. Allen about my dreams. If he’s busy, I’ll make it quick. If he’s not well, I won’t upset him. I’d hoped...”

  “What had you hoped?”

  She gazed at a tin baking soda sign on the wall behind the counter. “I’d hoped he was a lonely old man who’d welcome a little company.”

  He released a reproachful little grunt. “There you go with your groundless hope again.”

  She returned her gaze to his face. “He’s not lonely?”

  Something moved behind those flint-colored eyes, something less callous and mocking than his unsympathetic face would have her believe. “He’s not old.”

  A gnawing suspicion that she’d refused to entertain, now blotted out all of Shaine’s reasoning thoughts. “You can’t be him. You’re not old enough.”

  His uncompromising expression softened. “Old is relative.”

  “But all the cases solved were in the late sixties, early seventies.” What was he telling her?

  He nodded, uneasily.

  “But you would’ve been only—” The realization rocked her senses. “Oh my goodness! You were only a boy!”

  “Youth is subjective, too.” He opened the refrigerator and stacked the bagged sandwiches on a shelf.