Page 73 of Sweetest in the Gale
Elizabeth wasn’t chatting with anyone, though. She wasn’t even watching the congressman. She was staring at the empty stage, at a spot containing nothing of real interest.
Even when he lowered himself into the seat beside her, she didn’t move. Didn’t acknowledge him. Was she angry he’d cut the timing so close?
“I’m sorry, Eliz—” he started to say, but then she jerked at the sound of his voice and turned her head in his direction.
Her deep-set blue eyes, usually so clear, were bloodshot, the lids swollen. Her skin had transformed from rosy to blotchy, its paleness mottled by angry patches of pink. Her strong features appeared to have sunken in on themselves somehow, turned creased and saggy when he’d always considered her an ageless wonder.
Only that trademark low blond ponytail was normal, its brightness incongruous. Almost obscene, given the fear and worry etched across her face.
She’d never looked like this. Ever. Not even at her mother’s funeral a couple months ago. Jesus fucking Christ, what was going on?
He wrapped a hand around her upper arm, and the chill of her flesh seeped through her sweater. “Are you okay? What happened?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Brindle moving toward the stage. They only had a minute to talk. Maybe seconds.
Her throat shifted as she swallowed. “I’m fine.”
A lie refuted by its telling. He could barely hear her, even though the audience had quieted in anticipation of the congressman’s words, and her voice was rough in a way he didn’t recognize.
Enough. She didn’t belong in a damn high school auditorium, not in her condition.
“Let’s go somewhere we can talk. Somewhere warm.” He got to his feet and held out his hand to her. “My house is closest.”
He’d turn on the gas fireplace and crank up the heat until those tiny shivers wracking her frame stopped. He’d swaddle her in a blanket, get her some of that fancy hot chocolate she liked, and make her tell him everything. Then he’d figure out how to fix it, whatever it was.
She took his hand, but only to tug him back down to his seat. “No.”
“But you’re—”
Her mouth set, she shook her head. “I need to do this.”
“You need to do what?”
But it was too late. A woman in a navy dress had stepped up to the mic stand and started yammering about Brindle’s accomplishments, his love for his constituents, and a bunch of other shit James neither believed nor cared about.
He leaned over to whisper in Elizabeth’s ear. “Are you sure you want to stay?”
Her soft hair caught on his beard, several strands pulling loose from her ponytail. The scent of baking surrounded her in a nimbus, imbued in that hair and the fabric of her clothing. Vanilla and almond and fresh bread. Sweetness and comfort.
She smelled edible. Always had.
At his words, she shivered again, harder. Then she nodded.
After a round of halfhearted applause from the audience, the woman retreated from the stage, replaced by the suit-clad congressman.
Brindle cleared his throat and gazed out over the auditorium. “It’s my honor to speak to you tonight at Marysburg High. As you know, my constituents are the reason I’m here, in every possible sense. And tonight, I’d like to share with you some crucial information about our national debt and the dangers of our ballooning deficit before I open the floor to questions.”
Beside James, Elizabeth took a shaky breath, her long, blunt fingers curling into fists on the armrests. Without thinking much about it, he covered the hand closest to him.
Her fingers were stiff under his. Cold. But as Brindle ran through his PowerPoint presentation, complete with endless bar graphs and alarming spikes in various charts, they gradually loosened and warmed, flattening against the plastic armrest.
Abruptly, as the congressman seemed to be reaching the end of his speech, she turned her palm upward, and their fingers intertwined.
Holding hands. They were holding hands for the first time in almost thirty years.
The fit felt natural. Easy, in a way he hadn’t anticipated. And her shivers had waned at some point over the last several minutes, which allowed him to take his first full breath in half an hour.
Her distress disturbed him. Immensely. He’d had no clue. Not given her usual self-possession, her seeming imperviousness to damage, the way she’d remained stalwart and cheerful even during the sale of her bakery and her mother’s slow, painful decline and death.
