Page 32 of Falling for Mr. October

“Going to try to push me down again?” I ask as she comes to a stop.

A smile flits across her face, but she shakes her head. “No, I’m here to liberate you.” Uncertainty fills her eyes. “Only if you want me to, of course. I feel bad about what I said earlier. I was out of line. Obviously, it’s not your fault the farm is doing badly, and it’s not your responsibility to fix it.”

I scuff my foot against the carpet. “We showed up and claimed your hospitality. It probably is my responsibility to help.”

“Thank you for saying so, but no. Look…I thought maybe we could go for a walk downtown, before…”

“Before everyone finds out you kidnapped me and erased my memory?”

“So you saw her post too. Hashtag ‘savetheShirtlessChef.’” She smiles, tipping her head toward me. “I think we’ll be okay. But you should know, I’m prepared to defend you with my life. A woman doesn’t go to the trouble of kidnapping an amnesiac only to hand him over to some other psychopath.”

I smile back, still a little annoyed with her but starved enough for social contact that I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. “I certainly wouldn’t cross you.”

I glance past her at the staircase. “Speaking of women I don’t want to cross, I take it the nonnas are back?”

“Yes, and I should tell you…your grandmother knows,” Bianca says softly. “We were discussing it downstairs just now, after they finished calling the wagon guy a dozen different Italian swears.”

My throat suddenly feels tight. I’m not afraid of my grandmother, but I hate letting her down. One of my biggest fears is that my whole family will see me the way Janine did—a waste of life. A good-times guy. A nobody.

“Are they eating dinner?” I ask.

“Yes. We can join them if you’d like. The eggplant parmigiana is delicious, by the way, and way better than the energy bars I stole from the kitchen for you.” She lifts the handle of the tote bag she has slung over her arm. “But I thought you might like to sneak out of the house for a little while.”

I nod slowly. I’ll have to talk to Nonna Francesca, obviously, but a lifetime of experience has taught me it’s a good idea to give her time to cool off. We can have a conversation tomorrow as easily as today. “Okay. But where are we going?”

“You think you can still climb out of a window?”

“You’ve seen my abs. I’m in perfect shape.”

She gives a surprised laugh and swats my arm.

Some of my darkness slips away, as if she’s tugging it off me.

It strikes me that Bianca must make a great nurse. She’d be all tough love one moment and conciliatory caretaking the next. I wonder if any of the people she’s taken care of have wanted to stay sick just so they could be around her longer.

It’s a stupid thought, and it slips away as her hand closes around my arm and she tugs me toward my room. My heart wobbles, just for a second, before I realize why she wants to go in there. The window in Miles’s room always had the best access to the oak in the backyard.

As we reach the bedroom door, I say, “If you wanted to come in, you only had to use the special knock.” It was the signal she and Miles used to tell each other that it was time to sneak out. But the words came out a little husky.

Her snort is unflattering to my ego as she tugs me into the room and shuts the door behind us. She pauses to listen before turning toward the window, which is just beyond the head of the double bed.

I barely manage to suppress a groan when she climbs onto my bed without hesitation, then leans down and opens the window.

A puff of air escapes her as it creaks loudly.

“Don’t worry,” I whisper. “They’re old. They can’t hear well.”

“They hear very well when they care to,” she says, laughter crowding behind her words.

I slip on my workout sneakers while she peers out into the night.

A breeze blows through the window, tousling her hair as she looks over her shoulder at me, and with the moon’s faint glow filtering in, she looks otherworldly. For a second, I can only stare at her, my gaze traveling over her face.

Bianca’s always been pretty, with her big eyes and dark hair, but tonight her beauty feels like a punch.

“What’s the matter with you?” she whisper-hisses, gesturing furiously to the open window and the well-placed oak branch just beyond it. “We don’t have much time. They’re going to get suspicious.”

“You don’t think your grandmother will assume her matchmaking has worked if we sneak out together?”