Page 42 of Runaway
A good sign.
“The gladiator returns,” Mark cried as they slammed into a hug. “Took you long enough, brother.”
“It's not too hard choosing your sister over your ugly mug.”
Mark laughed, hands spread in surrender. “Fair enough.” Then he knelt down, giving Atticus a full scrub on either side of his rib cage. Atticus licked his face with what I figured was a happy whine, because Justin laughed.
Already, my nerves felt more settled. Back in the folds of the mountains, away from people, felt much safer. Atticus would not only alert us to the mountain lion, but people, as Mark had pointed out. And the likelihood that Joshua would search here for me was low anyway.
This will work out for the best,I told myself again, desperately searching for Grandma's natural positivity.
My muscles unwound a little bit while Mark and Justin started to talk. I couldn't even lie to myself about it: I felt betterbecauseI was with Mark. Although I didn't understand exactly how, I knew that he'd notched up in my mind. Gone from client to friend to . . .
Something.
Friends had never made me feel physically safe before. Not like Mark. Nor had they talked me out of my darkest, most frightening moment without a single thought to their own safety or situation.
No, Mark was something else. The question that haunted me waswhat.
Mark and Justin, now lost in conversation about the mountain lion, headed back to the house. I followed not far behind, then slipped a hand into my to-go box, grabbed a slice of leftover bacon, and pulled it out. Atticus trotted faithfully at Justin's side, then suddenly stopped. I grinned as he whirled around and trotted over, then gobbled the bacon up and remained next to me, nose to the white styrofoam.
Before we made it all the way in, I gave him one more slice with a mental note to order some really delicious dog treats the next time we bought groceries.
Strategic alliances at the ready.
* * *
Seiko arrived the next morning.
A long night of restless tossing and turning kept me up until 4:00 a.m., when I finally slipped into a jagged sleep and woke up at 6:00, bleary-eyed and frustrated by dreams of Joshua and orange parkas.
With a growl and pathetic attempt to get into a better headspace, I packed up all my things and moved into Mark’s cabin. At his insistence, I had the entire attic at my use. He'd stripped the bed, replaced the sheets, and cleared off a table that I suspected had once held all his unfolded clean clothes. The attic smelled like an alluring mix of aftershave and pine. The perfect scent combination to describe Mark.
It soothed me for a moment, but five more emails from Joshua brought my energy right back down to a witchy level. As usual, I left them unopened in my inbox. I could block them, but for some reason, they made me feel like I had some visibility on him. Like it kept a tab on whatever his brain was doing, even though I didn't look at them.
I assumed Mark planned to sleep on the couch, but I doubted evenheknew where he'd end up. So I sat at his desk downstairs, paperwork cluttered around me and my laptop, and tried to forget Joshua. To lose myself in saving Adventura and Mark, because I couldn't save myself these days.
Maybe I didn't need to price out every single aspect of Mark's rental plan right this second—down to the cost for catering, including the gas it would take JJ to bring the food that, at some point, he'd agreed to provide—but the numbers soothed me. Digging my fingers back into the calculations, formatting spreadsheets, and mind lanes soothed my agitation.
“Seiko just texted me that she left,” Mark said as he stepped out of the bathroom, toweling his wild black hair. “She'll be here in forty-five minutes.”
I snuck a quick glance up, then froze. He'd forgotten to put a shirt on after his shower, and the half-naked view from the first moment that I met him lay back before my eyes. Only now I knew Mark better. For some reason, that made his thick, sculpted body even more beautiful.
With a hard swallow, I forced my gaze back to the table.
“Great,” I said, and managed to sound just this side of strangled. He riffled through a laundry basket on the couch, grabbed a shirt from it, and pulled it over his head. The ease of it was oddly intimate.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Just running the numbers before she gets here. Did we already figure out the cost for housekeeping?”
“No cost.” He sauntered past me to the cupboard. “I'll do it.”
“Heaven help us all,” I muttered.
“I heard that. “
“Cleaning supplies cost money.” I chewed on the bottom of my pen. We were talking details now, and Mark tended to tune out when those came up. But I needed them. Details were the only certainty we had.
