Happy Place(32)

The whole stairwell sways as an awful realization hits me. I latch on to the banister to keep from falling over.

“What? What’s wrong?” Wyn leaps up, steadying me by the elbows. His drawn mouth is visible in bits under the black splotches swimming across my vision.

“We were taking two cars,” I squeak out. “We were taking two cars, so all four of them could’ve left in the Rover.”

His eyes darken, clouds creeping across the green. “They wouldn’t.”

“They might,” I say.

“We don’t need to assume that’s what happened. They could be back any second.” He stares at the ceiling, doing some kind of mental calculation.

I descend the rest of the steps, trying to regain the space between us. But he follows. “This isn’t my fault, Harriet.”

“Did I say it was?” I ask.

“You stormed off,” he says. “There’s an implication there.”

I spin back to him. “Wyn. We’re in a twelve-foot box. That wasn’t storming. There isn’t room for storming. But if your point is to remind me that I shut the door, point received.”

“I’m not blaming you. I just—who the hell has a door that locks from the outside?”

“It’s a panic room,” I point out. “That’s what the little panel on the wall does. We could unlock it if we knew the code.”

His gaze clears. He climbs the stairs in three long strides to examine the panel. “There’s a button to call 911.”

How long will it take for them to realize something’s wrong? Will they drive all the way out to pick up the pre-hike popovers without trying to call us?

If they do call, will they assume we don’t answer because we’re driving?

My stomach resumes its roiling nausea.

“You want to call or wait?” Wyn asks.

Now I’m doing the math of how expensive it might be to replace this door if the fire department has to ax it down or blow it up or something.

“I think . . .” I take a steadying breath, try to find a grip on some version of my mental happy place that has nothing to do with this house or this man. “I think we have to wait, for at least a while.”

It’s obviously not the answer he wanted.

“Unless you don’t think you can—”

“I’m fine,” he says tersely, perching on the bottom step. He sets the wine aside and yanks his hiking boot off.

“Oh my god, Wyn,” I say. “It’s been five minutes. How long until you’re dropping your pants and designating a pee corner?”

He tears the foil from around the wine bottle’s cork. “I won’t need a pee corner. I’ll use this bottle when we’re done drinking it. You, on the other hand . . . you’re going to be out of luck unless you learn to aim, fast.”

I unfold my arms only to recross them when his gaze tracks the movement straight to my chest. “Are you walking around with a corkscrew in your pocket at ten thirty in the morning?”

“No,” he says, “I’m just happy to see you.”

“Hilarious.”

His eyes steadily hold mine as he sets the wine bottle into his boot and smacks the whole arrangement against the wall.

I yelp. “What are you doing?”

He drives the boot against the wall again three more times. On the last hit, the cork leaps up the bottle’s neck a half inch. With another two quick snaps against the wall, the cork pops out entirely. Wyn lifts the open bottle toward me.

“I’m concerned that you know how to do that,” I say.

“So you don’t want any.” He takes a swig. As the bottle lowers, his eyes dart over his shoulder, toward the alcove under the stairs.

Heat swiftly rises from my clavicles to my hairline.

Don’t go there. Don’t think about that.

I know it’s ill-advised, but a part of me is desperately hoping there’s something to the whole hair-of-the-dog school of treating hangovers when I grab the bottle and take a sip.

Nope. My stomach does not want that. I pass it back to him.

“Parth taught me that trick,” he says. “I’ve never needed to use it before now.”

“Oh, you haven’t found yourself imprisoned with any other jilted lovers in the last five months?”

He snorts. “Jilted? Not exactly how I remember it, Harriet.”

“Maybe you have amnesia,” I suggest.

“My memory’s fine, Dr. Kilpatrick, though I do appreciate the concern.” As if to prove his point, his eyes dart toward the nook under the stairs again.

He can’t be seeing someone. He’d never go along with this act if he was. Wyn may be a flirt, but he’s not disloyal.

Unless he’s in something brand-new? Not officially exclusive?

But if it were brand-new, then would he have already reached comfortable-relationship status?

The little so-called clues could just as easily be random bits of information I’m jamming together to tell a story.

But that doesn’t mean he isn’t seeing anyone.

The bottom line is, I have no idea what’s going on in his life. I’m not supposed to.

He takes a few more sips. I guess it doesn’t do the trick for him either, because within minutes, he’s pacing. He rakes his hands through his hair as he walks in circles around the space, sweat brimming along his forehead.