He leapt off the couch, face twisted in mortification. She said “no!”—this time meaning the word he’d thought he’d heard—and added, “Wait!”
He didn’t wait. He was already out of her office, and in the few seconds it took to get up and dash after him, he’d already ducked into a corridor and out of view. She ran to his room, hoping to beat him there and make him listen, but no—the softthudof the other door closing, the one leading out of the Inferno, proved that he’d doubled back and escaped.
She tried to find him. She rushed from the building and jogged to Mexican Foo (dark, door locked), then walked back to campus, winded, and with increasingly heavy feet took herself to just about every square inch of the college.
Eventually she returned to her empty office. It was possible—just barely—that he’d show up at seven o’clock, if only to insist her kissing was terrible and he was glad he’d never have to suffer the experience again. He hadn’t missed their appointment before, not once. Like a standing date. She wondered when he’d begun to see it that way—and when exactly she’d changed her mind about him. Because she had, almost without noticing.
He was fascinating, challenging, provoking. Apparently she liked bickering. Also, men who looked likevultures. Under the barrage of constant exposure, her subconscious had made the executive decision that he wasn’t ugly, he was striking—all angles and sharp edges. And good God, thatkiss...
But getting involved with a man who refused to answer questions about his past, who seemed to dislike any questions on principle, would be a monumentally stupid thing to do.
All purely academic, because it was now seven fifteen. He wasn’t coming. He was holed up somewhere, humiliated. Even if she could find him and force him to listen to what she’d meant to say, he wouldn’t like that much better—he’d probably think she was trying to manipulate him into a relationship-for-information exchange.
On that lovely thought, she got ready for bed. It might have been only seven fifteen, but her feet hurt, her heart ached and she had a long drive ahead of her that she hoped would not end in disaster.
. . . . .
Emily woke the next morning to find an old cell phone, the not-smart kind, and a piece of scrap paper sitting on her table. At the top of the note was a telephone number. Underneath:If your car gives you trouble, pull overimmediately—underlined twice—and call me.
She gaped at it. Then she dashed for her gloves and dialed the number with awkward fingers.
“Yes?” Hartgrave—tense.
“It’s ...” She faltered. How should she identify herself? “It’s Daggett. I’m—”
“Where are you?”
“In my office, but that doesn’t matter, I’m—”
“Nothing’s wrong with your car?”
“No, but—”
“Nothing’s happened to you?”
“No,listen—”
“Goodbye,” he said. The word sounded extremely final.
“Hartgrave! It wasn’t what you thought yesterday, that’s not what I meant!”
There was no one to hear. He’d hung up.
10
You Can Run
She didn’t try to engineer an excuse to call Hartgrave from the road. Rather the reverse: Besides wearing her thick gloves, she stopped every half-hour to get out and give the car an anti-magic break.
So she arrived without mishap. But he loomed over her Christmas vacation, memories of him popping up like specters at unexpected moments, making her stomach zip and clench and sink. Shemissedhim. The arguments. The quarter, half and occasionally whole smiles. That kiss.
(God, that kiss.)
Her magic problem was forever jumping out at her, too. For instance, when her father wanted her to try the new global positioning system that could pilot his tractor.
For decades, he’d been saving spare change in glass jars squirreled through the house, and this was what he’d finally decided to spend it all on. No way was she touching the thing and ruining it.
“How about you use it and I’ll watch,” she said, backing away.
