Page 39 of Risk It All
Disappointed at the reading selection, she roamed the cabin, peeking in cabinets and the closet, feeling a renewed pang of guilt for nosing around when the owners were kind enough to let them use the cabin—albeit unknowingly.
She was distracted from her remorse when she opened a cupboard next to the fridge to find several board games. “Score!” she cried, although her voice was somewhat muffled as she reached in to pull out the stack. They were obviously older, and the boxes were creased with use, but they’d be better entertainment than those books.
“Batteries?” Kavenski guessed.
Somewhat deflated, she glanced down at the Monopoly box. “Well, no. Games. I suppose that batteries would’ve been more useful. At least these will help distract us from our situation.” As Cara spoke, the thought of her sisters popped into her head again. They had to be beyond frantic by now. She didn’t know if it would be better if Molly had gotten the text before the phone was destroyed or not. All she could hope was that her sisters didn’t cross paths with Abbott or any of his people in their search for her.
Blinking suddenly hot eyes, she focused on the pile of games she was holding. Setting them on the counter, she flipped through them, sorting them into two stacks: fun and not fun. Returning the not-fun ones—including Monopoly, one she’d hated since she was a child, thanks to Charlie’s habit of reducing her to homelessness and bankruptcy—back to the cabinet where she’d found them, she grabbed the three that had made heryespile.
“Okay,” she said, bringing the games over to the coffee table. “We’ve got Connect 4, Battleship, Life, and Clue.” Taking a seat across the low table from Kavenski, she glanced up at him expectantly.
Instead of picking a game, he stared at her.
“Well?” she prompted when he held his silence. “Which one? Don’t get too invested yet, though, since we have to check if all the pieces are still there. Can’t sink a battleship if it’s already lost.”
His stare didn’t waver, but she waited him out this time. “You want to play a game,” he finally said. “With me.”
“Yes.” She drew out the word, not understanding why he seemed so incredulous. “It’s just the two of us here, so no one will ever know that tough and scary Henry Kavenski played a kids’ game. Please? Your cabinmate is bored and needs a distraction.” When he didn’t look convinced, she started to get a touch aggravated. “A cabinmate, I might add, who was kidnapped last night and almost died several times because some wannabe crime boss needs information fromyou.”
Even though he held his stony expression, Cara thought she detected a hint of softening and pushed her case.
“Let’s play Clue,” she said, moving the other games to the side. “It seems like something you’d be good at.”
“Why do you say that?” His words had enough snap to make her meet his narrowed gaze.
“Why play Clue?” she asked, confused. For someone who didn’t want to choose a game, he sure seemed to have strong opinions about this particular one. “We don’t have to if you’d rather pick one of the others.”
“No, why would you think…” He paused, looking at her more intently than her simple question called for, and she stared back as she tried to puzzle him out. “Never mind,” he finally said, his focused intensity fading a bit. “If we’re going to do this, let’s play.”
“We are going to do this.” She gave him her best commanding schoolteacher glare, which she might have stolen from Molly. “We are going to play a game, and we are going to have fun—or at least be distracted somewhat from the life-threatening circumstances we are currently in. Got it?”
His mouth twitched, and the crease on his forehead finally smoothed. “Got it. Not Clue, though. Doesn’t work with two people.”
“Oh.” A little disappointed, she exchanged the game box with another one. “Battleship, then?” His chin dipped in acceptance.
As she pulled out the pieces, she eyed Kavenski’s position on the couch and frowned.
“On the floor, buddy,” she ordered, shifting back so she could pull the table away from the couch to give him more room. The warmth radiating from the woodstove felt good on her back.
“Why?” Although it came out as a grumble, he did lower himself from the couch to the rug.
“Because you could see right over the top to where I’m strategically locating my fleet.” Even sitting on the floor, he seemed enormously tall, and she gave him a suspicious glance. With a long-suffering sigh, he shifted his upper body down so that the middle of his back was leaning against the front of the couch.
“Better?” He sounded so martyred that she was almost distracted from the way he’d stretched his sprawled legs under the table. They weren’t close to touching her crisscrossed knees, but just being inside the V of his legs felt weirdly intimate.
She made a sound that she hoped conveyed a grudging affirmative, although she worried that she might have sounded a bit like a dying duck instead.Focus on the game, she told herself, giving her ships her attention. They were both quiet as they arranged the plastic pieces, the click of the pegs connecting to the board the only sound except for the crackle of the fire and the muted howl of the wind outside. She started getting excited about the game. Unlike Monopoly, she’d almost always beat her sisters in Battleship. She attributed her winning streak to planning her ship search, rather than just randomly calling out letters and numbers. Wind whistled down the flue again, but it didn’t seem so creepy this time. If she didn’t think about all the events of the day, she could almost pretend that she and Kavenski were vacationing in a remote cabin by choice.
The thought of the two of them taking a voluntary trip together made her stomach swoop and clench in both good and bad ways, and she peeked at him over the tops of their game boards. Since it seemed as if she couldn’t get away with anything without maximum embarrassment, he immediately looked up and met her eyes.
“What?” he asked.
Willing her cheeks not to redden, she tried to play it cool, lifting her eyebrows in imitation of his expression. “Ready?”
“Yep. Shoot.” His mouth twitched at the double meaning, making her smile.
“Okay.” She rubbed her hands together with honest glee. Even when she wasn’t trapped in a cabin trying to distract herself, she loved games. One of the reasons she’d decided to major in elementary education was because a big part of her job would be playing with kids. She couldn’t wait until she had her own class of kindergartners, but for now she’d just have to play with Kavenski. “D-six.”
“Miss. A-one.”
