Page 86 of The Marriage Narrative
His demonic laughter didn’t rattle her nerves—it curled around her, tempting and smoky. She’d brave the flames, fire,andbrimstone as long as he came with it.
Her grandma would be so disappointed in her right now.
Jordan suddenly began to slow the car down to a reasonable but still very ticket-worthy speed in the double digits. They shot out of the forest and into…flat prairie fields. Farmed land stretched clear to the horizon on both sides of the two-lane road.
“So, where are we going? I’m sufficiently surprised, thank you, and would now like some spoilers.”
“Just wanted to take my lady for a drive.”
“Aht, wrong title. I am your wife.”
“You’re also my lady.”
“Wife only.”
He snickered softly.
“Don’t do it,” she warned.
He could barely say the joke without laughing. “Do what, my lady wife?”
“I will bite you.”
“Oh no, not that. Anything but that. I would hate that so much.”
“You can keep your sarcasm too.” She gave him a half-hearted glare and he gave her thigh a reassuring squeeze—something inside her snapped like a rubber band.
“I also wanted to talk to you privately.”
“Uh-huh,” she agreed, still thinking about his hand…the solid weight of it…his fingers splayed across her skin…how she wanted to grab his wrist and tell him to do it again…
“Are you happy?”
“What?” She snapped to attention.
He stared at her in confusion for a beat too long.
“Watch the road, not me!” She gently turned his head forward and definitely didnotnotice how silky his freshly shaven skin felt. “I just didn’t hear what you said at first. Why are you asking?”
“Because you said you weren’t going anywhere but maybe we should. I don’t know if staying here is the best thing for our marriage right now.”
“You want to leave?”
Hope always had a funny way of appearing precisely when she didn’t want it. She’d already let it go and yet there it was,filling her up like a hot-air balloon. Jordan wanted his family. He’d told her that from the very beginning. Him wanting to leave early didn’t make any sense.
He glanced at her and asked, “Don’t you?”
There’d been other little changes besides their work schedule. The clicker was gone.Get to Know Youstoryline afternoons had been suspended. Their bungalow date nights now started an hour earlier on Wednesdays, and they used the time to play virtual board games with Grace and Fiona. Her homesickness stubbornly remained, but her misery wasn’t nearly as potent as it had been.
“I want to be married outside of this,” she answered, firmly avoiding his question. “In my real life. The way I planned it. But if I could go back and change things, I wouldn’t do that either. I’d still end up right here so we might as well stay. Your family needs us.”
And she needed him.
Jordan
He continued driving until he reached a partially hidden right turn onto an unmarked path. The trees grew denser for thirty unnerving seconds, and then the car broke through into a fruit orchard drenched in early afternoon sunlight.
Zinnia’s skin glowed as bright as her smile. “Wait, where are we?”
