by Becky Wade
Sebastian lifts his rock again. All of us except for Luke hunt around for the next biggest rocks we can find. When Genevieve stands, she has to put out a hand to steady herself and fear kicks me in the gut. She’s weak and moving slow.
She needs food and water and a bed.
God, please come get us out before nightfall. Please, God. I can’t face another black night in this hole.
“I said I can do it myself,” Sebastian snarls as I near him with my rock.
“I heard you. But I’m going to drop this rock one way or another, and if you don’t move to the side I might drop it on your head.”
Sebastian takes one step back, breathing hard.
We take turns hammering the bend in the pipe with our rocks.
Nothing.
Chapter Eighteen
Sam knocked on Gen’s door at nine that night. He shouldn’t have invited himself over. He was chasing after something that he wanted too much, that was too dangerous to him.
Yet here he was.
She opened the door. “Hi.”
“Hi.” He just stood there, unable to move.
She’d changed out of her costume into jeans and a casual sweater. Her thick hair flowed over one shoulder and her long earrings swung against her throat. Her hazel eyes were so much clearer than they had been, back when she’d been using. Every day they were sharper and brighter.
“Come in,” she said easily. “I lit a fire.”
It didn’t feel like he was coming in from the cold of one autumn night. It felt like he was coming in from seven years of cold.
He settled onto her love seat. She settled beside him, their bodies close but not touching.
“The groceries?” he asked.
“Can wait a little while.” She asked him questions about Halloween in Australia. He asked about the Halloweens of her childhood. Which led to stories about their best and worst family holidays.
Her company was like diamonds to him.
When he looked at his watch it was ten. He hated to leave but he needed to leave. His alarm clock would wake him in just seven hours. Lack of sleep wasn’t his primary concern, though. If it had been, he wouldn’t have come tonight, because he knew even this short visit would keep him awake for a long time. His primary concern was that he didn’t trust himself with her. He’d exerted his control for as long as he could, and now it was crumbling in his hands.
He pushed to his feet. “It’s late. Can the groceries wait one more day?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She trailed him to the front door. “See you then.”
He walked four paces away from the guesthouse. Stopped. Don’t look back. His heart was burning.
He looked back.
With a growl, he returned to her. Sweeping her body against the lean length of his, he kissed her the way he’d been aching to. She responded immediately, passionately, her arms locking behind his neck.
If this kiss were an ocean, he’d willingly let himself sink down, down, down until he drowned.
Where was his sense of self-preservation?
At the bottom of the ocean. Far, far away.
He kissed her for as long as he dared. Deep kisses. Soft and slow kisses. He told her a million things through those kisses about his devotion and his inner struggle.
He separated from her, scared to think what his feelings for her might cost him. But at the same time, he wasn’t sorry for his actions.
“Good night.” She grinned, seeming neither to want nor expect an explanation from him.
“’Night.”
When Genevieve’s phone beeped to signal an incoming text the following day, she lunged for it like a sprinter off the blocks.
It might be easier to explain what to do with your groceries if I can talk about it while I make you dessert at my place tonight, Sam’s text read.
A rosy glow infused every particle of her. How could one text from a man generate such a strong physical reaction?
She sat at the desk in the cottage, beaming at her phone. Not wanting to respond so quickly that she’d appear overeager, she put on “Super Bass” by Nicki Minaj, then danced around the interior of the space, singing along.
She’d been floating through life since he’d kissed her last night. He’d told her that he thought it would be best for her not to get involved with him. Certainly, he also thought it would be best for him not to get involved with her. Thus kissing her ran against his will to a certain degree.
Yet he’d done it anyway—at the grocery store and again last night—which left her feeling ridiculously pleased with herself.
Sam was not an easy fortress to breach. However, she’d miraculously managed to tap a tiny fissure into the wall of his defenses. He was letting her in, which made her hope all kinds of crazy things.
For now, though, the tiny fissure was enough. Indeed, the thought of continuing exactly as they were filled her with tingling excitement.
It wasn’t that she could no longer hear the voices of her misgivings. She could still hear them. The path she’d set out on was a scary one. Kissing Sam might be ill-advised at this precarious point in her life. And it might lead to catastrophe. It’s just that the joy of kissing him was so strong that she was willing to risk a lot in exchange for it.
Do you make apple crisp? she texted him back. I feel that I might be able to absorb all this new information about my groceries best while eating apple crisp.
I’ll make it for you, but only if you agree to call it by its proper name, apple crumble.
Sam was a gift that God had dropped in her lap at one of the lowest moments of her life, right when she’d deserved a gift the least. She was grateful, simply and deeply grateful, for the gift.
That night, they ate apple crisp and they kissed.
The kisses were the sweeter of the two.
No one mentioned a word about Genevieve’s groceries.
A knock sounded on Sam’s door the next afternoon, shortly after he’d returned home from work. Genevieve stood on his porch wearing an athletic outfit, spotless blue tennis shoes, and her hair in a ponytail.
Joy shot through him at the sight of her.
Less than twelve hours had passed since he’d seen her last. Even so, he’d missed her.
“I’m heading out on my daily walk,” she said. “If you’re free, I thought this might be a good time for you to explain what I should do with all those groceries you bought me.”
They walked two miles. They held hands part of the time. They laughed most of the time.
He said nothing to her about her groceries.
I’ll be working in the garden later, Sam texted her the next day. I can explain then what to do with your groceries.
They gardened.
But they did not talk about groceries.
You home? he texted her the following afternoon.
Her pulse leapt happily. Yes.
Would you mind helping me with something in the barn? While you’re here, we’ll talk about your groceries.
Coming right over.
Minutes later, she neared the barn. He’d told her that he’d had it repaired, then sanded, before painting it gray and topping it with its sleek new metal roof.
She loved his house. But she loved the barn, too, especially against the backdrop of fall foliage.
She loved this whole farm, in fact. The apple orchard. The pond. The paths meandering through dense trees. This place charmed her and calmed her. Somehow, her soul could rest here more easily than it had been able to rest anywhere.
It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness inside the barn. Where was Sam?
She yelped and startled backward. He was immediately to her right, standing a few rungs up a ladder, striking a pose.
He held a gray kitten against his torso, one arm beneath it, one arm supporting it from the side. He braced his legs apart and smiled winningly into the distance.
He was reenacting the August photo fro
m her Firefighters and Kittens calendar.
She burst out laughing. Her only sorrow—that he wasn’t shirtless like Mr. August.
The kitten wiggled. The tiny mite wasn’t dozing in Sam’s arms the way the kitten in the calendar photo had.
She laughed harder.
His gaze flicked to hers. Amusement warmed his features. “Well?” he asked. “Do I look like Mr. August?”
“Better.”
“Better?”
“So much better.”
“Because this doesn’t feel very sexy. This beast is scratching me up.”
“Extreme sexiness comes at a price.”
“A high price,” he agreed, breaking the pose and moving the kitten to his shoulder, trying to position him like a parent would a baby who needed burping. The animal scrabbled madly for purchase. “What woman could resist this?”
“Not me.” She extended her hands. “Here. Want me to take him?”
“Please.”
She lifted the kitten from him. “Aw. He’s more fluff than substance.”
“And more anger than fluff.”
She repeatedly stroked a fingertip down the animal’s forehead. “Did you adopt a kitten?”
“No, Eli’s girlfriend did. They’re both out of town for a night and they asked me if I’d babysit.”
“Isn’t kittensit the proper term?”
“I should have said no.”
But, of course, he’d said yes. Because, at heart, he was a protector.
“What’s his name?”
“Abner.”
She raised the animal so that she could smile at him eye to eye. “Hi, Abner.”
“Hi, Gen,” Sam whispered in a raspy voice.
“Is that your Abner voice?”
He nodded.
She cradled Abner against her, and the cat settled. “He likes me best.”
“So do I.”
She fisted a hand into the front of Sam’s down vest and pulled him to her for a kiss, the kitten between them.
They played with Abner at length.
No one mentioned groceries.
Tonight’s the night,” Sam said to her the following evening. “I’m here to talk to you about your groceries.”
“Seriously?” she asked with a note of incredulity.
He entered her cottage and set down two new bags of groceries. “Yes.”
“I ate most of the old groceries.”
“Which is why I brought new groceries. I’ll make you dinner, if you’re hungry.”
“I am.”
Gently, he wound a strand of her hair around his finger, then let it glide between his thumb and forefinger. She saw heat in the green depths of his irises before he cupped the back of her neck and tipped his forehead against hers. “Have you had a good day?”
Her throat went dry. She loved the proportions of his body, its sturdiness and vitality. “Yep.”
Together, they unpacked the sacks. He cooked and, as he did, explained what he was doing. She wrote each step of the recipe down in a notebook. Admired his skills. Passed him utensils and pans and ingredients.
When he came to the end of the process, he handed her a bowl filled with a deconstructed enchilada. It had no tortillas in it. Just poblano pepper and butternut squash, beef, and avocado sauce.
Since she didn’t have a true table in the cottage, they sat on the rug facing the fire, their backs against the love seat.
As usual when she ate Sam’s food, it caused something tightly wound within her to loosen. It was the best kind of medicine, his food. “This is awesome.”
He finished chewing and swallowed. “Thank you.”
“However, there’s no way that I can recreate this. I’m incredibly flattered that you think I can, but I’m afraid that your lesson may have been wasted on me the way a—a trigonometry lesson would be wasted on a five-year-old.”
“I dictated the recipe to you. You wrote everything down.”
“Yes, and yet I’m going to need to start off at a much easier level.”
“Define easy.”
“Three-ingredient easy.”
After they completed dinner cleanup, Sam showed her what to do with each and every one of her new grocery store staples. She ended up with three simple breakfast ideas, three simple lunch ideas, three simple dinner ideas.
“What do you reckon?” he asked in conclusion. “Still like teaching trigonometry to a five-year-old?”
“No. I now believe I’ll be able to pull off two of these nine dishes.”
He grinned wolfishly. “You can pull off all nine of the dishes,” he said with so much unshakable confidence that she didn’t dare protest.
“That’s what I said.”
Genevieve had always liked field trips.
The more things changed, the more they stayed the same, because she and Dr. Quinley had taken a field trip for today’s session—from the psychologist’s office to the atrium outside—and she found that she liked field trips still.
They sat at a little round table drinking the tea the doctor had brewed and enjoying the perfection of the sunny sixty-eight-degree day. The dark trunks and branches of the maple trees around them played hide-and-seek behind foliage that blazed a deep, bright red. The trees were so eerily vivid, they were otherworldly. They made Genevieve feel as though she and the doctor had been transported into the center of a fantasy novel.
“I still catch myself thinking about Oxy fondly,” Genevieve told her. “Almost with this sense of . . . loss and nostalgia.”
“There were things about the pills you enjoyed.”
“Very much,” Genevieve confirmed.
The doctor settled a flap of her knee-length sweater over the other flap. In her aging face, her dark eyes were as kind and bright as those of a girl. “When we long for something that isn’t good for us, it can be instructive to think about the things we want more.”
“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“What do you want for yourself, Genevieve?”
She took a sip of tea. “What blend is this?”
“Nettle leaf.”
“It tastes like hay.”
The older woman laughed richly. “‘Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees,’” she sang. “‘People say we monkey around.’”
“It tastes like hay, and I find that I like it, even so. What does that say about me, doctor?”
“That you can appreciate unconventional flavors.”
Sam was a bit of an unconventional flavor. In the past, she’d always gone for Southern men who dressed hip, had been raised by their mommas to have impeccable manners, and were ambitiously scaling the corporate ladder. Remembering them, especially Thad, she found that she could appreciate Sam very, very much.
The doctor tilted her head back to admire the leaves and waited for Genevieve’s honest answer to her difficult question.
“What do you want for yourself, Genevieve?”
“I want more for myself than a life in which I have to depend on painkillers.” Painkillers would never be able to love or comfort her. Like every other human on the planet, she’d been wired to be loved and comforted by God. And Oxy was no substitute.
Recently, she’d begun to feel as if she was drawing nearer to God as she worked to break free of her shame and put an end to her lies. Yet, she still couldn’t feel His presence.
“I want to have a clear head,” Genevieve continued. “I want peace. I want deep relationships and satisfying work. I don’t ever again want to break promises to myself.”
“When you start to think fondly of Oxy, experiment. See if you can’t reroute your thoughts to those very excellent goals.”
“Will do.” Genevieve wrapped her hands around her mug.
“Last week you told me that you’d started dating Sam. How’s that going?”
“What’s an adjective that’s better than fabulous? That’s how it’s going.”
“Marvelous?” the doctor offered.
“Tremendous?”
; “Extraordinary?”
“Magnificent,” Genevieve declared. “It’s going magnificently.”
“Personally, I’ve always been a sucker for a foreign accent. I once dated a man named Arturo from Argentina. He wore a gold necklace with a saint on it and he could tap dance.” She rested one ringed hand on her chest. “He was magnificent.”
“But?” Genevieve hadn’t started therapy yesterday. She knew that undertaking a romance during the first ninety days was often a Very Bad Idea. She’d known it when she’d kissed Sam after their steak dinner. She’d known it when he’d kissed her in the grocery store.
It seemed to take Dr. Quinley a moment to recover from her Arturo-haze. “But dating comes with some pitfalls I want to make sure you’re aware of. We’ve talked at length about the void that painkiller addiction leaves. You wouldn’t want to allow yourself to fill that hole with Sam.”
“Point taken.” The doctor was right, of course.
“Co-dependency is unhealthy for anyone. But for you, it carries a different sort of danger, given that you’re in recovery.”
“I couldn’t agree more. In fact, you’re articulating things I’ve thought about a lot. I definitely don’t want to become co-dependent on Sam.”
“He can be one of the things in your life.”
“But he can’t be my everything.”
“Precisely.”
Who cared if a man could golf or fish or play baseball? The most seductive (and practical) talent any man could have was a talent for cooking.
Last night, after her session with Dr. Quinley, Sam had made her a divine dinner. And now, sitting across from Natasha this morning at The Kitchen, she was getting positively misty over his equally divine paleo donut.
Natasha had been talking about her hunt for information on Russell’s family for a while now. Genevieve was finding it hard to concentrate on her sister’s monologue when she could concentrate on thoughts of Sam and his donut instead.
“Genevieve.”
She jerked straight.
“Did you hear anything I just said?”