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“Well…” She hesitated.
Yeah, because he never said anything about stranding her out here.
He leaned his elbows on his thighs. “What are you doing out here? Really?”
She pulled a quick breath. “Why didn’t you tell me you were staying in the cabin right next to mine?”
He thought about that. He supposed he hadn't mentioned that because it would've set her up for potentially saying something like,should we have dinner together?Want to come over for a beer? How about I come over to your place for a beer?And all of those were bad ideas. Having Savannah at his house, alone, deep down in the bayou where no one would find them,alone, was a very bad idea.
Kind of like they were right now.
“Didn’t think it mattered. You’re supposed to be over there.” He pointed at her cabin. “Alone.” He got to his feet. “What are you really doing over here?”
“I was just going on a walk. Then I realized there was a cabin here, with atruck.”
“The truck you were trying to get into.”
She moved closer, shaking her head back and forth quickly. “I just wanted to make sure it had keys in it.”
“So you could take it.”
She stared at him from the bottom of the steps. “Take it? Where would I take it?”
“That’s a good question. If you stole my truck, where would you go?”
“I wasn’t going tostealit. I just wanted to make sure it actually ran.”
“If you didn't want to steal it. Why do you care that it runs?”
“Because that means if Ineededit, I would know that it was here. All I want is to know it’s here and in working order.”
He shook his head and lifted a hand to scrub the back of his neck. “I don't understand.”
She dropped her hands on her hips. “I have no idea where I am. If I did steal it, where would I go with it?”
“Toward town, I suppose.”
She glanced behind her in the general direction of Autre. “Yeah. Probably. I guess.”
There was something weird about her demeanor. She wasn’t being sassy. He wasn’t sure he’d ever spoken to her when she wasn’t sassing him somehow.
“What is going on?” He descended the steps. “Are you all right?”
She seemed flustered. He wasn’t sure he'd ever seen Savannah flustered. Except for the night outside of the city council meeting when he was standing just a little too close.
“I just…” She looked up at him and swallowed. “I'm a little claustrophobic.”
“The cabin’s too small for you?” He tried to make the words teasing, but he was afraid his voice sounded gentle. And concerned. Savannah being nervous was messing with him.
“No. I mean, I do get claustrophobic that way too. But my anxiety mostly comes on when I feel stuck. Or stranded. When I feel like I can’t leave a place of my own volition. So when you brought me out here and then left, I was trying really hard to ignore the fact that I could not leave until you came back.” She pressed both of her hands against her stomach. “And then it finally just got the best of me. I decided to try going for a walk. I had no idea if it was going to work or not. I don't know the terrain out here. But I thought I should try. At least be outside and scope out the area so I knew what I was dealing with.” She swept one arm out. “I know it’s all bayou on the other side, and even if I can walk in some of it, I don’t want to. There are critters in that water.” She gave a little shudder. “But I was thinking that maybe out this direction, I should find out what was around.” She looked in the direction she’d come from. “Then I saw the path, and I felt so much relief. And then I saw the cabin. Then the truck.” She looked back at Theo. “Obviously, I'm not going to try to drive the truck. I don't even know where I am. But knowing that there's a truck that runs and thatcoulddrive out of here will help me sleep so much better tonight.”
All of that came out in a rambling rush. Theo stared down at her. She was definitely rattled. And it was for a real reason. She was anxious.
He'd made her anxious.
And not in a good, wound-up, hot way.
She'd been scared.
