Page 58 of Shadowing You

Mei Lin laid her fingers on Ethan’s arm. “We will have to trust God to protect us.”

Right. He’d made that mistake before.

“You have a suit with you?” Michael asked the question as if the decision had been made, which apparently it had, despite how he felt.

“Didn’t realize I’d need one.”

“There’s a shop with a tailor not too far from where you are. I’ll send the address. You need to get there tonight.”

Ethan checked the time. It was four thirty. Plenty of daylight left. And plenty of reasons not to be in this room. “Fine.”

“I’ll call back in the morning. Get some sleep, both of you.”

The call ended, leaving the room silent, if not peaceful.

Mei Lin’s fingers were still on his arm. She looked up at him, then drew her hand back. “You are angry.”

“I’ll get food on my way back.” He snatched his jacket off the chair. “Anything you don’t want?”

“Whatever you choose is fine.”

He was halfway out the door when he turned.

Mei Lin stood in the center of the room, watching him. The anger she’d worn earlier had faded. Now she just looked confused and wary, bracing herself.

It gutted him.

He should say something kind. We’ll figure it out. I’ll be back soon. I’m sorry I’m acting like this.

But he couldn’t force any of those words out of his mouth. “Lock the door behind me.”

He pulled it shut before she could reply and headed for the stairs. Only once he was in the stairwell did he pause to breathe.

He was furious. Mei Lin was willing to walk into a building where men who wanted her dead would probably be looking for her. He should’ve…he should’ve drugged her and dragged her to Hong Kong. This plan was all kinds of stupid.

And he was angrier with himself because he’d been trying to find another way to get the evidence, and he hadn’t.

Lord, get her through this. Get us both through.

He waited, hoping God would drop some amazing alternative into his head. After a minute, he gave up waiting and continued his quest for the perfect distraction suit.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Something had changed the man Mei Lin had married.

When she’d first fallen into Ethan’s arms in Changsha, he’d felt like her husband. He’d acted like her husband. But somewhere between when they’d left Zhangjiajie and when he’d returned the night before with the suit now hanging in the second bedroom, he’d turned into a stranger.

Or maybe she’d never really known him at all.

She filled the electric kettle and set it on its base in the little kitchenette area of their hotel suite. Outside the window, the morning was gray with mist that hovered over the Qing River below and obscured the mountains in the distance. In the village of her childhood, Mei Lin’s mother would sweep the courtyard every morning, often before the mist burned away. The smell of wood smoke would permeate the house while her father read the paper at the kitchen table.

This suite smelled like nothing at all.

Mei Lin had given up her battle with the nightmares at dawn. After showering until the water cooled, she’d dressed in clean leggings and a knit tunic that Ethan had bought her, and then she’d sat on the sofa and stared at the closed door between the living area and the room where her husband had slept.

The night before, he’d come home with the suit, turned on the TV, and eaten dinner while watching sports. He hadn’t been rude, just distant and distracted.

She’d told herself he was tired, that he needed to unplug for a little while. She understood that. Wanting to be near him but not to disturb him, she’d curled up on the couch, listening to the murmur of American voices on the television, men arguing about American football. She must’ve fallen asleep because she remembered Ethan crouching beside her and saying, very gently, “Go on to bed, sweetheart. I’ll be in soon.”