He drove past the turnoff to her house.
“Hey,” she said.“You missed my driveway.”
“No, I didn’t.”
She sat up straighter.“Christian?”
His hands stayed locked on the wheel.His eyes never left the road.Trees leaned in from both sides, wind snapping their tops.
She tried to concentrate.“Where are we going?”
“I have a place.”
The words sat between them.No more, no less.
She stared at him.His hands looked too big for the wheel.“What do you mean, you have a place?”So much for her thought that he didn’t have a home and bunked out wherever.Maybe he was more together than she’d thought.“Christian?”
Nothing.
The dark outside got thicker.The cab of the SUV shrank.Her pulse crawled up the back of her throat.“Christian.”
Still no response.
Fear hit like a wave, then anger rode in behind it, sharper, cleaner.“Answer me,” she snapped, her voice high and sharp.
He looked at her.Just a glance.“You’re safe.”
“That issonot good enough,” she said.“I’m tired of the grunting and the quiet, the whatever.When I ask you a question, I want an answer, considering you’re driving my car and taking me somewhere I don’t know.Where are we going?”
“I told you.I have a place.”He turned his gaze back to the road.
She might actually punch him.“I want to go to my house,” she said through gritted teeth.
“No.”
No?Just no?Fury actually heated her.Finally.She clenched her hand into a fist.
“I wouldn’t,” he said calmly.
Her eyes narrowed.Her hand was tucked against the door.Out of sight.“How did you know?”Maybe everybody wanted to punch him and he was just guessing.
“We’re almost there,” he said.“Just hold on.”
Then he cut the headlights.
She flinched.The dark closed in like a sealed room.Rain drilled the metal roof, and nothing but black lay ahead.“What in the world are you doing turning off the lights?There’s a storm out there.”
“I know the way and want to make sure we’re not followed.”
She stared at the windshield.No road, no lights, just movement and shape.“You can see in this?”
“My vision’s better than most.”
She turned toward him, her heartbeat echoing in her head.“Better naturally, or did the military give you something new?”
Even in the dark, she caught the edge of a smile.Barely there.“I just have good eyesight, and I know this road.Just relax and enjoy the silence.”
Was that a hint for her to shut up?“Why’d you turn off the lights?”
