Page 9 of Capturing You
Ford stood on the opposite side of an island she guessed had been added long after the house was built.
“Milk and sugar, I assume.”
“No, thanks.” She dropped her backpack on the counter and sipped from the mug. Earl Gray, one of her favorites. “This is perfect.”
Maybe because she felt safe, everything that’d happened, and all that could have happened, suddenly turned her legs to jelly. “Mind if I…?” She didn’t finish the sentence, just made her way back into the eating area and practically fell into a chair.
Two sips of the tea made her stomach churn.
Ford settled across from her, his narrowed eyes expressing what she hoped was worry or concern, though it looked a lot like irritation.
“I think it’s all catching up to me.”
His only acknowledgment was a low grunt.
“Do you have a cracker or something?”
He went to the kitchen and returned a moment later with a loaf of wheat bread, which he plopped on the table.
Some people possessed the gift of hospitality. Ford wasnotone of those people.
She helped herself to a slice of bread and tore off a bite. When she’d swallowed it, she asked, “Who were those guys?”
He shrugged.
She’d known her rescuer for about twenty minutes. But something in his countenance gave her the impression he wasn’t being honest. “What were you doing out there?”
“What wereyoudoing out there?”
“I was trying to get a shot.”
“Of the people in the boat?”
“What? No. Of the sunrise.”
“Thirty-five hundred miles of coastline in Maine, and you just happened to be onthisproperty?”
“So did you.”
“I’m supposed to be here. I wasn’t the one trespassing.”
“This house has been abandoned for as long as I can remember. How was I supposed to know somebody was here?”
“So it’s okay to trespass as long as you don’t get caught?”
This conversation was so bizarre, her body so drained from the adrenaline, the chase, the escape, the whole…everything. She couldn’t help it.
She laughed.
He scowled. “You find thisfunny?”
“It’s just… All of it.” She gestured at the house, the windows, the ocean. “I should be home right now getting ready for work, and instead…” She giggled, sounding like a fool and not even caring. She often laughed when she was nervous or uncomfortable, and she was both right now—to the extreme. “I mean, you have to admit it’s a little funny.”
He didn’t even crack a smile. “Taking pictures. Then what?”
“I heard a noise.” Her amusement faded as she recounted the events. Crossing the narrow headland, seeing those men on the dock. Them seeing her. “They were chasing me, and I was sure they’d catch me. And then you saved me.” She held his eye contact. “Thank you.”
He nodded, lips pressed closed.
