Page 14 of Breathless
“You did?”
She held up her empty rack. “See.”
He looked at her empty rack and then at the board and back at her. “Well. That is impressive. Good for you. That’s fifty, plus the extra word count. Be sure to add that to your score.”
She wrote it on their scoresheet.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to space out on you. It’s nothing. Hank called me back with information I’d asked about your case. I guess my mind was still back in that conversation.”
This piqued her interest and she wanted to ask him about it, but did she dare? If it was something she was allowed to know, wouldn’t he have come out and told her? Instead, she asked, “Do you want to stop playing now?”
“I’d come off as a sore loser if I said that when you just made that awesome move,” he replied.
“I can see you have loads on your mind and your head isn’t in the game,” she said. “We can pick up again with your play later. Maybe after dinner?”
“Would you mind?” he asked. “I’d like to go for a walk. You could come with me? We could do a loop around the neighborhood.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” she agreed, going to get her keys to lock the place up.
They walked along in silence, passing several houses on both sides of the street for several blocks until they came to the community park for children. Several moms were there with their children. The moms were sitting on benches talking with one another while their children were running around yelling and screaming, climbing on the monkey bars or the jungle gym, and sliding down the slide.
“Want to swing?” Chaney asked, point at the empty row. “No one is using them.”
Rawlins shrugged and followed her.
They each sat down in the belted seats and held onto the heavy-duty chains, using their feet to kick off a push to get the swing going.
“I loved doing this as a kid,” Chaney said.
“Looks like you still do,” he said.
“Maybe,” she replied, pumping her legs to make herself faster until she was swinging higher and higher like she did when she was a child.
“Whoa, slow down,” Rawlins cautioned. “You’re going a little too high, don’t you think?”
“Never,” she called as she swung back and forth, letting her head back, smiling. “My parents wouldn’t let me go this high when I was a kid.”
“What didn’t they try to control about you?” he asked.
She noted the sadness in his voice, and it made her heart hurt. “Do you want to talk about what Hank told you?”
“Not really. Sorry,” Rawlins said.
“I can tell it is really bothering you,” she said.
“Yeah, and it shouldn’t. Which is what is bothering me.”
That piqued her interest even more. He’d said Hank called back about her case. So, it was about her and now Rawlins saidthat whatever it was, is bothering him, which it shouldn’t. Why was that? She knew it was too much to hope for, but could he like her?
She had to know. But how could she draw the answer out of him?
“Kinda like my reaction to Justus’ behavior yesterday?” Chaney asked.
He grinned. “Totally different, but you still couldn’t change it.”
She stopped pumping her legs and just swung back and forth until she slowed down enough for her feet to touch the ground again and stopped the swing from moving until she could twist herself back and forth in place.
Rawlins grabbed hold of her chains and stopped her, pulling her swing closer to his. They stared at one another. “We better go back.”
