Total pages in book: 39
Estimated words: 35507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 178(@200wpm)___ 142(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 178(@200wpm)___ 142(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
I put my body between Oakley and the lot and keep walking.
"Don't look at it," I say. "Get in. Seatbelt."
"I wasn't going to photograph it."
"I didn't say you were. I said get in."
She gets in. I start the engine. The SUV doesn't move. I take the river road the long way, away from the lot, back toward the ugly driveway and the one-room house.
Oakley watches the mirror until the trees swallow the lot. Then she looks at me, voice even, hands tight on the camera bag. "Next time we picnic," she says, "you’re bringing sandwiches. I'm raising my standards."
"Next time we picnic, there isn't a dark SUV in the lot."
"Then you owe me sandwiches either way."
8
Oakley
The river road keeps throwing the falls in and out of the trees, white water flashing on my right every time the truck leans, and I watch Colt's hands on the wheel instead of the mirror because if I keep hunting that dark SUV I'm going to start shaking and I refuse to give the glass the satisfaction.
He takes the long way. I count the turns. Four. Then the ugly cut of gravel that switchbacks up toward the Equinox house, gate already filling the windshield, timber and narrow windows waiting at the top.
"Code," he says.
"I saw you punch it this morning."
"And you forgot it on purpose so I'd keep doing it. Type."
I type. The gate drags open. He waits until it shuts behind us before he even breathes out, and that single released breath does more to me than the entire picnic. He was holding it. The whole drive. For me.
Inside, the one room feels tighter than it did when muffins were the biggest argument we owned. Bed against the far wall. Hearth cold. Foil packet on the table where he drops it without looking. He locks the door, checks the deck latch, then stands in the middle of the floor with his jaw locked.
"The receipt," I say.
He pulls it from his pocket and sets it beside the foil. Northline Bonded. Last week. Same ugly little logo I already carry on a drive in my bag. Seeing it on paper he found in a rock makes my wrists go hot.
"Someone left it for a Hawthorne," I say.
"Or dropped it running. Either way it puts the landing and the dock on the same week." His eyes lift to mine. "You did good on the path. You stayed when I told you. You didn't shoot the lot."
"Don't compliment me for sitting when I was told."
"I'm complimenting you because you listened without making it a thing. That's rarer than you think."
I dump the camera bag on the chair and roll my shoulders until the hoodie loosens. "What happens when they don't stay thirty yards? What happens when it's a porch knob again and you're on the other side of the room?"
He goes still. I watch the answer move through him before he says it. "Then you don't wait for me to finish being a hero."
"That's a speech. I want a lesson."
"Oakley."
"You hauled me off a ridge, out a window, down a trail, and into a gated house. At some point the sunshine has to know how to get a hand off her arm without asking permission. Teach me."
The quiet that follows is thick enough to lean on. He looks at the open floor between the fireplace and the bed, then at my boots, then at my face, and I can see him wanting a reason to refuse. He doesn't find one that survives contact with the receipt on the table.
"Shoes off," he says. "You'll slip. Hoodie too."
I kick the boots under the table. The hoodie comes off over my head and leaves me in the Equinox shirt. His gaze snags on my throat and jumps to the far wall so fast I almost thank the timber.
"Come here."
I do as he says. The floor is cool under my socks. He's close enough that I have to tip my head back, close enough that the heat off his chest is a fact I can feel along my collarbones.
"First thing. You don't win a fight with your attacker. You make space and you run to a door. That's the whole assignment."
"Romantic."
"Effective. Wrist."
He takes my right wrist. His hand is huge and careful. My pulse kicks against his thumb. I hate that he can feel it. I hate more that I don't pull away.
"If somebody grabs you like this, you don't tug straight back. You go toward the thumb, turn, and drop your weight. Try."
I tug straight back first because I'm me. Nothing happens except my shoulder complains.
"I said toward the thumb."
"You said a lot of things. I'm prioritizing."
His mouth twitches. He resets the grip, slower this time, and the reset is worse than the grab. All that attention focused on one narrow band of skin. I turn into the thumb the way he showed me, drop, and my wrist slides free with a little shocked sound falling out of my mouth.