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“More than I do any other woman, and especially if you’re coming along, yeah.”
“Were you worried that I wouldn’t come?”
“I was. You’re not always an easy woman to figure.”
“But I thought you had me all figured out,” I jibed.
He shrugged, looking at the brand-new backpack falling from my shoulder.
“That your things?”
“Not too much, is it?”
“It’ll probably fit. Ever been camping?”
“Never.”
“Ooo my, you do have few things to learn.” KC was happily amused.
Chapter Eleven
We were on the road three weeks, in campsites and hostels. I was in love with my life on the lam; this was the most perfect way to forget the city and experience my first freedom—Rossi, my parents, my career, architectural form, clients, Ripley & Wingardt and its dozen partners. Gone. Out of my world forever—at least in these first few halcyon days.
I was ready for anything new, letting the old slide away. Only once I thought about the way I left my job—and all my abrupt and hurried explanations for forfeiting my plum position. I sat one night face to face with KC in front of the campfire. Tears started to flow and he peered at me through the smoke.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“That was a really dumb thing, leaving,” I said glumly. These things had been stewing in me all day—you’d think I’d just started my period, but that was two weeks away.
“How so?”
“It’s gone. Do you realize what I did?”
“Yes. Liberate your mind.”
“More like punishing myself.”
He looked concerned “You’re not making any sense.”
“Maybe I am. Maybe I just needed a few days away to appreciate what I had.”
“You want to go back?”
I thought a moment and couldn’t answer.
“Go ahead, I’ll put you on a bus in the morning if that’s what you want. But that will be the second stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”
I didn’t want to ask him what the stupidest was… it seemed superfluous at the moment.
“If you need to punish yourself for the crime of following your heart, then why don’t you let me do it?” His eyes were making merry. “In fact, I’d be more than happy to strap your ass right now.”
I refused to lighten my mood. Maybe I was baiting him the way I was glowering so miserably.
“Here, how about some soup?” he handed me a cup of chili—called it soup because it was too thin, he said. It was damned good, but I didn’t acknowledge that either. I toyed with it a little, and sighed.
“I will tell you one thing, Gail. You’d better change your mood, or I will change it for you.”
“Yeah, as in spank my ass.”
