Free Kiss by Ted Dekker Page B

wrist and held it to the ground.
    She cried out and opened her eyes. She saw stars . . . through a window. A window over . . . the head of a bed. Her bed. Wayne was sitting on her bed, leaning over her, holding her wrists down on the mattress.
    Khai rushed in and turned on a lamp on an old oak dresser. The room burst into warm yellow form. Dresser, bed table, overstuffed chair. Three card-board boxes. Woodblock prints on the walls. A historic map of Austin, Texas. Wayne, in a T-shirt and flannel lounge pants. Khai in a terry robe. She cinched the belt and held it closed at her throat.
    Shauna’s breathing settled, and Wayne released her arms.
    “You okay?” He rubbed his eyes and shifted to the edge of the bed.
    She could only nod.
    “That must have been a doozy,” he said.
    She covered her face with her hands. “It was so real. I’m sorry. That’s never happened to me before. Not that I remember anyway.”
    “Want to talk about it?”
    How to talk about a nightmare like that? Did it even qualify as a night-mare? Her, playing football? Closer to a comedy.
    “I should make tea,” Khai said, and she left the room as quickly as she’d come in.
    “I wasn’t afraid,” she started. “In fact, I was playing football for some college team. I don’t know a thing about football. How could I have a dream that was so vivid?”
    “Tell me what happened.”
    Shauna told him, as best she could recall. To her surprise, the details of the dream hadn’t faded as they often did when she awoke. As she relayed the scene, Wayne did not interrupt her once.
    When she finished, he said, “The coach called you Spade ?”
    “Can you explain it?”
    “Sounds like a dream I would have had.”
    Shauna had thought she was dreaming of being Wayne, but dreaming his dreams? That was a knotty idea.
    “I used to play football,” he said.
    “Really?”
    He cleared his throat. “A little. Not really built for it. I was fast but got sick of getting nailed. I took a hit in college and called it quits. Not too unlike your dream there.” He stood and ran a hand through his hair.
    “That’s weird.” She shivered. “It was one of the most realistic dreams I’ve ever had. I can’t see the appeal of that sport, from the inside I mean. I’ve never felt pain like that.”
    Wayne nodded slowly and folded his arms. He looked at the floor. “Good thing it was only a dream.”
    “Yeah,” she murmured. “Good thing.” But though her shivering had stopped, her hands were still shaking under the covers, and a quiet, irrational voice at the back of her mind wondered if the whole episode was something far greater than a figment of her imagination.

8
    The sounds of heavy Suburban tires grinding down gravel woke Shauna in the predawn hours of Friday morning. Landon’s entourage was putting him back on the campaign trail.
    At six, unable to go back to sleep, she stumbled out of bed.
    The five pill bottles on the nightstand suggested that she should put some-thing in her empty stomach. Shauna tapped out each pill into her hand and, cupping them, went into the kitchen.
    Khai was already working, chopping vegetables. Shauna set her medicine on the table, then found a loaf of sourdough bread and dropped a slice in the toaster. Khai’s wide ceramic knife click click clicked through an eggplant on a plastic mat. When she finished cubing the vegetable, Khai set down the knife and pulled a mug out of the cabinet in front of her. Without asking, she filled it with tea from a pot resting on the back of the stove, then set the cup in front of Shauna on the counter.
    “Thank you,” Shauna said. She sipped and closed her eyes. Jasmine. Mild and barely sweet.
    Khai put the eggplant in a bowl and resumed her work, crushing several garlic cloves with the broad side of her knife.
    The toast popped up, and Shauna balanced it on top of her mug as she went to stand by the window. Outside, at the bottom of a long hill, the river rushed toward town. She tried to