Chapter 8 #2
The first time, she comes off-balance at the top and has to step back down. She does not say anything. She sets her jaw and tries again.
The second time, her foot slips from the stirrup on the way over, and she grabs the saddle horn and saves herself, but lands crooked. For a half-second, she is sitting sideways on a horse, looking at nothing with great concentration.
I reach up and hold Pilgrim steady.
She corrects herself, squares her hips, and adjusts her grip. She takes a breath, gets down, and tries again.
The third time, she gets it — weight forward, leg long and clean over, lands quietly in the saddle like she knew where it was all along. Pilgrim doesn't move an inch.
She looks straight between the horse's ears, chin level, and adjusts her reins.
I get up behind her for the first ride out.
I tell myself this is for safety, but not entirely.
The saddle does not have much room. My chest comes against her back, and my arm goes past her ribs to hold the outside rein, and she goes very still.
Pilgrim shifts her weight once and settles. The leather creaks. I can feel Suzanne breathing.
Her hair is against my face. She smells like the lavender spray she uses in my room. I keep my voice instructional and my face professional. When I tell her to shift her weight to her outside heel, I hear how quiet my voice has gotten, given how close we are.
We ride to the lake.
Theo and Lila come on their own horses. Lila rides well. She has ridden since she was twelve. She brings her horse close to ours twice in ways that I track but don't call out, because I'm not going to give her the satisfaction of looking at her sideways with Suzanne in front of me on the saddle.
We dismount at the shoreline. The cottage sits a few yards back among the pines. The wind is up. The pines are moving. A heron lifts off the far reeds — white underside, gray wing, slow as a thought.
I watch it for a beat.
I point. "Look."
Suzanne looks. "Wow."
Theo, behind me, says, "He is doing the bird thing, Suzanne. Run."
I don't turn around.
Suzanne walks toward the water. She is closer to the edge than I would like. I'm about to say something when Lila steps past her on the narrow path — narrow enough that one of them has to give — and Lila's shoulder catches Suzanne's at the wrong angle.
Suzanne goes into the lake.
She is in the water before I know I'm moving.
I'm in the water on the third stride. It is not deep.
It is also not warm. She is already pulling herself upright, hair plastered down her back, gasping from the cold, furious.
I get my arm under her knees and the other under her shoulders, and I lift her clear of the water in one motion before she has a chance to tell me not to.
Theo is moving toward Lila with a face I have not seen him use since we were nineteen.
I carry Suzanne up the bank. I don't stop. I pass Lila on the path. I don't look at her face. "Do you lack self-control?"
I keep walking. I don't look back to see what her face does. I don't need to.
The guest room on the second floor of the cottage is the one I have used twice. I set her down inside it. She is shivering. Her teeth have started chattering.
"Stay here."
I open the closet, pull down the stack of clothes I keep here for myself — soft drawstring pants, a long-sleeved shirt I have worn a couple of times, and a pair of dry wool socks. I put them on the bed.
"Towels are in the bathroom."
I leave and shut the door.
I stand in the hallway with my own jeans wet against my thighs and the cold of the lake still working down the back of my neck. I go to my own room down the hall.
I change out of my wet clothes.
I think about her in that room, drying her hair with one of my towels and stepping into a pair of pants with my name on the waistband. I change faster than I need to so I can go back to her.
I knock on her door.
"Come in."
She is sitting on the edge of the bed in my clothes. They are too big for her. The pants are rolled at the ankle. The shirt is loose at the shoulder. Her hair is wet down her back. The collar of the shirt has slipped off one of her collarbones.
I'm thrown.
I had been preparing for fury — at me, at Lila, at having ended up wet in the cottage after meeting my friends.
"Thank you."
"You — what?"
"Thank you for the clothes."
"I was preparing for you to yell at me."
"I have decided to ration."
There is silence. It is uncomfortable at first, but I break it.
"Why do you yell at me every time I try to help you?"
"Why do you never back off?"
I laugh. It surprises her. The corner of her mouth moves. Then the laugh fades.
We are looking at each other.
I cross the room slowly, and I don't break eye contact. She does not move.
I stop in front of her. She is sitting. I'm standing. I touch her cheek. I drag two fingers down the line of her jaw. I bring my hand to the side of her throat — my palm warm against the cold of her skin.
I press my forehead against hers. She makes a small sound.
"Can I kiss you?"
"I don't know."
"Why?"
"We can't start this. We just — Cade. We can't start this."
"I'm willing to take the risk."
"That is easy for you to say."
"Tell me why it isn't easy for you."
She pulls back. "I have a lot to lose. I could lose my job. I could lose my apartment. What do you have to lose? Tell me… Nothing."
"You don't have to lose your job."
"You're going to throw money at me again."
"No."
"Then how?"
"You don't have to lose your job… Not if we keep it a secret."