Page 26 of Omega’s Fold

I grip the wheel hard enough that my knuckles go pale.

His nostrils flare. I see it out of the corner of my eye. It’s a small, involuntary movement. His head does not turn. His jaw tightens. His hand, on his thigh, curls once and then flattens.

He knows.

He has to know. There is no way he does not know.

He says nothing. He goes on looking out the window.

I keep driving.

Twenty minutes. It is the longest twenty minutes of my life. I count the fence posts as we pass, and the whole time there is a heat in my belly and a wet ache between my legs and the smell of him in my nose.

He does not speak and does not look at me. Mercifully, he doesn’t try to make small talk.

Thank God for that. If he talked to me right now I think I would drive us into a ditch.

The lights of town come up over the rise. The meeting hall is on the far end of the main street, next to the post office, across from the diner. Donna’s sedan pulls into the gravel lot ahead of us and parks. I pull in two spaces over. I put the truck into park. I turn off the engine.

I do not get out.

I sit there with my hands on the wheel for a second longer than I need to, and I breathe, and I tell my body that this is not the time. It doesn’t care.

“Go,” I say. My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to. “I’ll be a minute.”

He looks at me for the first time since we left the yard. His face is carefully blank. His pupils are very large.

“Fine,” he says.

He gets out and walks across the gravel toward Donna, who is already out of her truck and heading toward the diner with Matthew skipping beside her and Caleb trailing, hands in his pockets.

I sit in the cab and put my forehead against the steering wheel.

Too soon. It is too soon. I had more time. He was supposed to be gone by the time it started.

I was going to stock the pantry, put in a grocery order, take the boys to her place for the night, lock myself in upstairs with the fan on and ride it out like I have ridden out every heat since they started.

I lift my head. Through the windshield I can see Donna at the diner door, bending down to say something to Matthew. I see Caleb go inside. I see Donna straighten and then turn and start walking back across the road toward me.

I get out of the truck. I do it quickly. I do not want her coming close enough to smell me.

“How are you doing, sweetheart?”

I glance across the road where Julian is standing, looking at the town hall with his hands in his pockets.

“I’m okay. I don’t want him there,” I say, meaning the ranch.

“I know, love, but he seems respectful. And nice,” she says.

I don’t want to hear that Julian Duffield is nice. Maybe he is, but that doesn’t stop him from looking down on me.

“I don’t think he should be here either,” I say. “This is none of his business.”

“He’s an architect. Maybe he’ll know something we don’t,” she says. “Some new angle.”

“Fine.”

“And I want you sitting next to him while he listens.”