“Please. I don’t want to be alone out here.” She folded her arms and seemed steadier. More confident. “You’re the one who said it wasn’t far.”
He studied her, debating whether to keep arguing or to let her have her way. Her face was determined, but those flimsy shoes were screaming that she had no business walking through brush and mud.
“Fine.” He reached into the back seat, grabbed a blanket, and tossed it into her lap. “Put this on.”
Rachel knew she deserved every miserably muddy step. Her fears were irrational, and she should have stayed behind. But she couldn’t handle that silent, closed-in feeling of being parked in the middle of nowhere. Not again. The panic attack had left her drained, weak, and incapable of being alone. And so, despite the open sky dumping sheets of rain over them, and Nathan’s assurances that she’d be safer in the car, she’d followed him anyway.
Nathan paced himself so she could keep up. Rachel pulled the blanket tight over her shoulders and tried to move faster, but only managed a few steps before her foot sank in mud up to her ankle. She yanked it out and stumbled backward, minus her shoe. When Nathan spotted her bare foot, his expression was so incredulous she wanted to return to that mud hole and see if it was big enough to hide her entire body.
“You can’t walk like this,” he said. His face tightened, like he was readying for a fight. “I’m going to carry you. Please don’t argue.”
The situation was now beyond embarrassing, but she couldn’t summon the energy to protest. Nathan turned around and crouched low so she could climb onto his back. At first, she held her body stiff and upright as if she could make herself lighter. But then he squeezed her ankle, said, “Relax,” and like some magic spell, it made her sink into his warmth. He smelled like rain, fabric softener, and aftershave. She buried her face against his neck and closed her eyes.
Exhaustion made her lose track of time. One minute they were surrounded by dense forest and the next the lake house was looming a few feet away. She loosened her arms and said, “I think I can walk from here.”
Nathan’s grip tightened, like he wasn’t ready to set her down yet, but he relented. A few minutes later, they were standing at the door of a rustic two-story cottage, almost as tall as the surrounding pine trees. Nathan typed in a security code, and a motion sensor kicked the heat on as soon as they crossed the threshold.
The living room was long and lean, the walls covered with bay windows that framed a cinematic view of the storm still streaking across the sky. Nathan yanked a protective cover away from a chair and told her to sit. Then he disappeared upstairs to look for towels.
Rachel stared at the puddle forming beneath her feet and thought of how furious Sofia would be if she ruined the gleaming hardwood. She stripped a cover from the sofa and crouched to her knees. By the time Nathan found her, she’d mopped up most of the water and cleaned the mud from her bare feet.
“What are you doing?” He dropped a stack of towels on the couch. She ignored him. There was a smaller puddle near the front door, and she scooted toward it, still on her knees. He touched her arm. “Rachel!”
She shook him off. “I’m almost done.”
His grip tightened. “You need to get dry.”
“I’m almost—”
“Rachel, stop.” He knelt and met her eyes. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Neither do you.” She tried to blink back tears and failed. “We could have stayed in the car.”
“No, we couldn’t.” He gestured to the room. “We’re here. We’re safe. I’ll call a tow truck and we’ll be back on the road in a few hours.” He pried a wet strand of hair from her cheek. “The shower is upstairs, first door on the right.”
She rose with the towel balled in her hands. “You’re mad at me.”
His eyes were on the floor. “No, I’m not.”
“I know I was horrible to you in the car, I was rude, and I’m so sorry.” Her voice was pitched and fractured, the words tumbling in jagged pieces. “It’ll never happen again. I don’t want to lose our… our friendship over—”
“I’m not your friend,” he said gently, with the exhaustion of someone tired of explaining the obvious. Her eyes filled. This was it. This was how she lost him.
“Nathan, please don’t—”
He stepped back. “I can’t do this. I can’t be around you and not…” He looked at her, finally, and took a deep, ragged breath. “I love you. I’m so in love with you, but I don’t know how to be in love with you.” There was no joy in his confession, only anguish. Like it was a sickness without a cure.