Page 27 of Burn Bag

“You’ve never done anything impulsive in your life.”

“I know, and I was trying to be less like me!”

I snorted at that, but continued to rub her back. “You know, most people do that by getting a new hobby or taking up sword fighting.”

“Who takes up sword fighting?” she practically shouted. “Certainly not me! And do you know why?” she asked, shoving to her feet. She spun around, jabbing a finger in my face. “Because I don’t like change. I hate it, in fact! If there is one thing that will be listed on my gravestone, it’s that I despise change! And here I am, agreeing to marry a man who lives halfway around the world!”

“Wow, that far?”

She shook her head irritatedly. “It’s only Kansas, but it might as well be the end of the universe!”

“Right, I can see that,” I frowned, trying to figure out how Kansas was really that bad. We literally lived on the border in Kansas City, Missouri.

“I just don’t know how I got myself into this mess. I wanted to be like you. I wanted to be adventurous and live a little!”

“Uh…I hate to point out that I’ve never beenthatadventurous.”

She glared at me, obviously not approving of me talking at the moment. “What am I going to do?”

She flopped down on the couch, bent over as she buried her face in her hands again. I rubbed her back soothingly, trying to help her find a solution.

“Well, you could always just back out. Tell him you’ve changed your mind.”

“But then I’m doing what I always do.”

“Making sane, logical choices,” I nodded in understanding.

“Don’t you see how bad this is? The one time I try to do something rash, I go way too far and make things so much worse!”

Yeah, she wasn’t exactly taking the baby steps we had discussed in the past. In fact, she basically got in a Ferrari and went from zero to sixty in four seconds.

“When’s the wedding?”

“Tomorrow.”

My eyebrows shot up in surprise. “And you’re still here?”

Her head snapped to face me and she shot me a withering glare that had me checking my tone. “I’m procrastinating!”

“Right, of course,” I nodded, going back to rubbing her back.

As much as I wanted to sit here and talk this out with her, I had the tiny issue of kittens running around and begging for food. Plus, I still had to hide my tracks as best I could, which meant getting on my computer and wiping out any trace of myself on those cameras. If they had them online, which I hadn’t had time to check before my break-in. Time was of the essence, as it was now.

But I sat here and commiserated with Emily because I had no idea what else to do. With every second that passed, I knew I was giving the man at the clinic too much time to catch me. Any minute, he would be pounding on my door, demanding his cats back, and I couldn’t allow that to happen.

“I can’t do this,” she groaned. “I don’t know what I was thinking! There is absolutely no way I can marry a man I met for all of five minutes!”

“But you already have the dress, right?”

“Yes,” she waved me off. “I can’t believe I spent money on it. What was I thinking?”

“That you wanted to be happy?”

She groaned, tossing her body back into the couch. “This is what I get for trying to be impulsive. Why couldn’t I just be like you and get a cat?”

I looked at the multiple kittens at my feet and cringed. “I’m not sure that’s what you really want.”

She shoved to her feet and paced the living room. “I have to call it off.”

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