Page 48 of Paper Horses

I leaned over and grabbed her wrist, the contact sparking currents over my skin.

“Sit, and we’ll talk about something else.” Besides your inability to do anything for yourself.

Her brows scrunched as she thought it over. I released her wrist, returning to my soup and watching her.

“Promise?” she asked.

“Yes, although I can’t say it doesn’t annoy me that you seem incapable of doing anything for yourself anymore.”

Her lips thinned as rain slashed at the windows. I continued to eat my soup while she debated what to do. Finally, she sat, keeping her eyes on her soup and staying quiet. I let the silence fester, embracing it because doing anything else would either leave me aggravated or with thoughts that shouldn’t be in my head.

On edge, her movements tense, she ate. The silence cast a net over us, insulating her from my prying questions and me from emotions that had been bucking for acknowledgment since the moment she walked back into my life.

When I finished my meal, I left the table, the sound of the chair legs scraping on the floor breaking the heavy quiet. I washed my bowl and spoon, hearing her rise. The soft padding of her footsteps had me glancing at her feet. A grin tugged at my lips when I saw the cats on her socks.

“That’s different,” I said, my voice almost loud with the lack of sound that had hung over us.

She looked down at them. “Yeah,” she replied, her voice soft enough to lift my eyes to see melancholy in the dim hues of her irises. It matched the one in her voice, and I squinted, trying to understand where it came from.

“And cats bring you down?” I asked, trying to remember if we’d ever talked about cats before. There had been plenty at the farm where I would take her riding, but she avoided them.

Focus remaining on her socks, she said, “I don’t like cats.”

A statement that didn’t match the forlorn look on her face. She seemed lost in a memory, one I wasn’t privy to, and I wasn’t certain what to do. In the past, when those moments struck, I would gather her into my arms and hold her, smooth my hand over her head and let my strength bring her back to me. But I couldn’t do that now, no matter how I wanted to.

I turned back to the sink, taking her bowl and spoon from where she’d set them, and washed them. Giving her time to work out whatever it was that had taken her away. I should have insisted she wash her own dishes, but it was an argument I didn’t have the energy for.

The lights flickered just as I was drying my hands. Olivia’s eye leaped up, and on the last flicker, the electricity went out.

“Gonna be a long night,” I said, waiting for the generator to kick in.

“We don’t have power?” The transformation in her mood was instant. Back was the spoiled, expectant woman.

“The generator will kick in shortly.” I walked from the sink, unsure of how I was going to handle being stuck in the house with her for the rest of the day. Thunder rolled through the sky, shaking the house. I peeked back at her, seeing how her hand was now gripping the island.

A choice stood before me. Go to my room and ignore her the rest of the day or deal with her because seeing her nervous about the storm scraped at that side of me that still wanted to protect her. To soothe away all her troubles.

Ridiculous, Hudson. You hate this woman, and she’ll be gone in days.

The thought stalled as an unexpected jolt of discomfort shot through my chest.

“Come on,” I said with a sigh. “I’ll put a movie on.”

And sit ridiculously far from you.

“A movie?”

“Yeah, I have a handful you can choose from. The Wi-Fi and cable will likely go out soon. It’s a given with storms like these. The infrastructure is flimsy this far from the city.”

I heard the patter of her feet as she followed me into the living room. The leather couch creaked when she sat. Grabbing a handful of DVDs, I handed them to her. Strands of auburn hair slipped forward as she studied each one, her bottom lip sucked between her teeth.

“I don’t know any of these,” she said, handing them back to me just as the power flicked back on. The generator was sufficient to keep us lit for two days. I was hoping the storm would be over by then.

“You don’t know any of them?” They weren’t old movies. I tried to keep up with current releases, adding to my stash when I really enjoyed one. I’d only brought the newer ones over to her.

“I don’t go to the movies.” A simple statement said with a scratch to her ear and averted eyes.

“But surely you stream movies? Binge-watch them?” She stared at me, eyes wide and skittish like a newborn colt. “Movie marathons?”