He pressed his palms to the sides of his skull.
He’d told her not to take a fancy to him the day she’d moved in.
Then he’d gone and taken a fancy to her.
Natasha
Luke’s cell phone just died, and this quiet is so much worse than the sound of him talking.
We’re alone.
Genevieve and I are sitting criss-cross applesauce, like we used to at VBS or when watchingThe Sound of Musicin our living room or when we’d play with dolls in our tree house.
“My dad said someone will come get us,” Luke says, looking at the ground. “He said to be patient and wait.”
“How long do you think it will take?” Ben asks. “A few hours?”
“Yeah,” Genevieve says hopefully. “Probably a few hours.”
“It’ll take longer than that.” Sebastian’s eyes are slits, and I know his headache must be terrible.
I glance up at the fallen building on top of us. The earthquake was so strong and this city is so large. There must be hundreds of crushed buildings just like this one. Crushed roads. Crushed cars.
“How long do you think it will take, Natasha?” Genevieve asks.
“A day?” I say. I try to sound normal even though the thought of being trapped here for a whole day makes me want to cry.
“A day!”
When Mom leaves us at the house to run errands, I’m always the one in charge. Just like I’m in charge of my sister now. “We might want to search for water and food.”
“Where?” Sebastian demands. “Look around.”
I see exposed pipes and hallways stuffed with concrete and piles of what used to be the ceiling. “I think we should look,” I say. “Just in case we’re down here for a while.”
Sebastian snorts. “There’s no water and there’s no food. If we’re down here for a while, we’ll all die.”
Chapter Thirteen
The next morning Genevieve stopped at the apex of Sugar Maple Farm’s highest walking path. Breathing hard, she unscrewed the top of her stainless-steel water bottle and took a drink. The October breeze cooled her perspiration as she contemplated both the sweeping view of the valley below and the state of her feelings toward Sam.
For the first time in her life, she’d initiated a first kiss with a man. And what a kiss! It had been urgent and brain-spinning, and she viewed the fact that she’d had to come up for air asa very good thing.
But what she’d intended as a tiny intermission before more kissing had given Sam just enough time to think twice.
It was difficult to regret the fact that she’d kissed him when the kiss itself had been the very best kiss she’d ever experienced. She kept going back over it and over it in her memory, hugging the nuances of it to her like priceless keepsakes.
But each time, thoughts of what he’d said afterward intruded.“I’m not meant for relationships.”
Any woman with a kindergarten diploma could see that he was made for relationships. But Sam himself couldn’t. Until he could see what she could see, he couldn’t move forward.
She soaked in the beauty of the scene before her—the slope of tree-covered land glinting orange and rust and yellow, the quaint buildings, the tranquil pond. Every day she cherished this farm more.
Her phone rang. Anabelle, the publicist at her publishing house.
Genevieve answered the call, and they exchanged greetings.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” Anabelle said. “But we received another strange letter about your parents, and I thought you’d want to know.”
