Runaway Princess Bride novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: The Cabin

The sheriff took my statement in the truck stop diner, and he wrote down every word without arguing.

The waitress put a milkshake in front of me that I had not ordered.

By dark, Tristan's driver had found us a cabin on the lake, forty minutes north, where no one in Clinton's world would think to look.

It was small and made of logs, with a stone fireplace and one bed.

Tristan carried in a single bag and stopped at the door.

"I'll take the couch," he said.

"It's a very short couch," I said.

"I've slept on shorter."

I almost laughed.

I took a shower so hot it hurt.

Under the light, the bruises on my arm had turned the color of plums.

There was a long scrape down my ribs where the lace had torn.

I let the water run until it went cold.

When I came out in the borrowed sweater, he had built a fire.

He sat on the floor with his back against the couch, beside a dented pot of tea.

He didn't look at my bare legs.

He looked at the fire, very carefully.

"You can look," I said. "I'm not made of glass."

"I know you aren't," he said. "I watched you drop him in a parking lot."

I sat beside him, close enough to feel the heat of his shoulder.

"You didn't stop me," I said. "At the motel. You could have stepped in front of me."

"You didn't want that."

"No."

"Then it wasn't mine to do."

I turned and studied him.

He was thirty, maybe, with dark blond hair that needed cutting, green eyes.

A scar that split his left eyebrow in two.

Everything about him was careful, and he waited for me to finish a thought before he spoke.

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