Page 24 of Chasing Secrets

“Have you been feeding him for long?”

He kind of shrugged his shoulders. “A few days. But I think he’s been following me a lot longer than that.”

“How do you know?”

Lincoln finally looked at me. His eyes were shrouded with pain, but his voice was still flat as he said, “Just a feeling. I walk through these woods every day and I kept hearing rustling around me but never saw anything. Could’ve been him or could’ve been a rabbit or something. Not sure.” He turned his eyes back to the spot the dog had been. I actually had to clasp my fingers together to keep from grabbing his chin and forcing him to look at me again.

I knew I should leave. My brain was practically screaming at me to get off my ass and walk away. But something I didn’t want to think about too much kept my ass exactly where it was.

The man sitting next to me wasn’t my Lincoln.

My Lincoln? What the hell?

I pulled in a deep breath and tried to calm my raging brain.

“I’m okay, Theo. You don’t have to stay,” I heard Lincoln say. I didn’t even realize he was watching me because at some point I’d dropped my eyes to my clasped hands which were nearly bloodless from how hard I’d been squeezing them.

I forced my eyes up. “You’re not very good at it,” I said softly.

“At what?” Lincoln asked, clearly confused.

Go, Theo. Walk away right fucking now.

I ignored my inner voice and whispered, “Lying.” I dropped my eyes again because I was afraid of what I’d see in his. “It’s not you,” I added.

Lincoln sighed. “Yeah, I guess it’s not,” he said softly. “But I guess we all need to wear masks sometimes.”

His comment made my heart hurt. My chest felt constricted, and it was all I could do to keep my breathing steady. I didn’t know which Theo to be in that moment. Not with this man, anyway.

But that wasn’t what made my body feel like it was spiraling downward with no ending in sight.

I didn’twantto wear a mask.

Not with Lincoln.

Not in this moment.

And I had no clue why.

So I did the only other thing I knew Icoulddo.

Escape.

“I’m sorry I intruded on…” I didn’t know how to finish the statement, so I lamely continued with, “I’ll just go.”

I was in the process of climbing to my feet when Lincoln’s strong fingers closed around my wrist. I felt frozen in time because he didn’t say or do anything, and I didn’t dare continue to get up.

Lincoln was staring at the ground between his legs. His breathing became heavier and although his grip wasn’t hurting me, I could feel his fingers tighten more and more with each breath he took.

I immediately dropped all my weight back onto the ground. Lincoln released me and it was all I could do to not grab his hand so that I’d have some kind of contact with him.

I couldn’t say how long we sat there for in complete silence, but I managed to steal a few glances at Lincoln and was glad to see that his breathing had slowed. But I also recognized a lot of myself in him. Something had a grip on his insides. The kind of grip that you couldn’t shake. It would only go away when it was ready to. Maybe it never would. I’d had a lot of those… still did.

“What made you decide to become a nurse?” I asked. My voice sounded loud in the quiet of the forest. It was like all the birds and little critters that normally scurried around in the fallen leaves had gone silent.

“I was a combat medic in the army. I seemed to have a knack for staying cool under pressure, especially when bullets were whizzing past my head.”

I could hear the small smile in his voice as he said that last part. It made it easier for me to breathe.

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