Page 85 of Say You Will

“A cabin about a two-hour drive from here. I’ll have someone bring your luggage. Is there anything else you need?”

“You’re not actually kidnapping me,” she says in disbelief.

“Just for tonight.” I bounce my head back and forth. “Maybe a week. It depends on how long it takes me to grovel effectively.”

“Stealing me away is the opposite of groveling.”

“I’m going to be honest, I know a lot more about kidnapping than I do apologizing. I’m following my instincts.”

She scowls and pokes a finger into my thigh. “You’re the most frustrating man I have ever known.”

“I hear that a lot,” I say.

She pulls out her phone, and with a contemplative expression, taps the side of it for a moment. “You’re not a very good kidnapper. You didn’t even take my phone. I could call the police right now. Or your sister.”

The word “sister” has a distinctly sinister bent to it. I know a threat when I hear one.

I glance at her out of the corner of my eye and hide my smile. “You’re a special case. I’m usually less friendly about my abductions. Of course, they’re terrible people, as a rule.”

I reach into the backseat and pull a green and blue plaid blanket from the back. “This is for you. It’s heated. I figured if the seat warmer feels good on your joints, this might work too. It’ll warm up your knees.”

She spreads the blanket over her lap, and I hand her the attached thermostat controller.

“Thank you.” She leans back and turns only her head toward me with an expression I can’t read. “Make sure when someone brings my suitcase that they don’t forget my meds. They’re in a blue case on the top shelf of the linen closet in my bathroom. I didn’t want to leave them anywhere the baby might find them. I’m due for my injection tonight.”

“You give yourself a shot?”

“Only once a week. It’s not a big deal.” Her words are in direct contrast to the tense set of her shoulders and tightness in her voice.

“It bothers you, though.”

She shrugs. “It’s hard to do it myself. My hands . . .” She flexes her left hand then shakes her head. “My insurance wouldn’t cover an auto-injector.”

“Did your mother give you the shot when you lived with her?”

She laughs, but the sound subsides quickly, and her expression becomes the bland, placid one I know hides something else. It’s her“Sometimes dads don’t want to be dad”face. The one she’s used since early childhood when she’s trying to convince herself that the things that hurt her don’t.

“Caretaking isn’t exactly in her wheelhouse,” she says at last.

She watches the scenery pass, and I make a phone call to make arrangements for Garrett to meet us at the cabin with her things.

When I hang up, I glance her way. “I’m sorry for rejecting you at breakfast.”

Her mouth tightens. “Why did you do it?”

“I misunderstood your note. I was trying to give you the space I thought you were asking for. You said relationships make you claustrophobic, then you offered me friendship instead of a wedding ring. In the note, you said you were afraid to tell me. I thought what you said in the kitchen was you slipping up.”

“I’m not an idiot, Henry.”

I scowl. “I know that, but social subtext does not always . . . come easily to me, particularly when my emotions are engaged. I don’t have much recent experience allowing myself tofeelthings. My brain, apparently, goes offline around you far too often.”

Her chin wobbles. I shouldn’t have done this while we were driving. I want to hold her, and there’s nowhere safe to pull off the road at the moment. I lift her hand to my mouth and kiss her knuckles, instead. “Please forgive me.”

She squeezes back. “I wasn’t asking for space. The bracelet was meant to show you I cared. I was hesitant to give it to you because it was something my friends and I used to do as teenagers. I worried you’d think I was strange. People think I am. If I act like myself, anyway. My friends don’t. But . . . other people.”

“You’re not strange. You’re wonderful.”

Her frown dissolves, and her lips curve. “That’s a nice thing to say.”

---