Her skin feels smooth and hot against mine, and the heat between us might be enough to steam up the windows of this caboose.
I lace my fingers into her hair while we kiss. “You can’t leave. No matter how bad it gets, you have to stay. We’ll find a way.”
“If I could,” she whispers against my lips, “I’d hide here forever with you.”
And now, with the front clasp of her bra undone, and me memorizing the peak of the nipple beneath my thumb, and her hands stirring up magic as she draws the tips of her fingers over me, I can’t remember feeling as if she was deliberately putting distance between us, purposely misleading me or lying. I can’t remember anything but honesty between us because this . . . this is honest. Pure.
“We could be like those people who live in tiny houses,” she whispers. “We could make a home out of this train car.”
I laugh, and so does she.
“What if we could?” she asks. “Would you? I mean, assuming we could find a way to heat it.”
“Are you kidding? I’d run back here at the end of every day, and we’d make our own heat.”
She tenses. “Wait.”
I pull my fingers over her contours.
She pulls back. “Wait.”
My hands slide out from under her shirt.
“Joshua.”
And she’s straightening her clothing.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s too much, right?” I silently curse myself for getting too comfortable, too fast, with her body.
“I—”
“We’ll slow things down.”
“What? Oh. Joshua, no. I’m just . . . you said run back here.”
“Yeah. I would.”
An awkward moment hangs between us.
“It’s just that . . .” She swings back over the ledge and jumps down from the loft.
It’s just that . . . what? From up above, I watch her. She spins in a slow circle, and appears to be studying everything inside the caboose.
Slowly, she makes her way through, touching the walls and built-in bunk. She then exits out the back.
I’m on my way down now. When I meet her on the rear grate, she’s leaning against the rail, by the crank the engineers used to turn.
“Savannah was running, telling me to catch up, catch up. We had to get to the train.”
“Mmmhmm.”
“What if . . .” she says. “What if this is where we were running?”
“Do you think—”
“Are there ever lots of people here?”
“Few times a year. Fourth of July. Sugar Creek Summer Days.”
“This place. There’s something familiar about it.”
I dare to drape an arm around her hips.
She melts against me. “It’s the first time something feels familiar. Like, maybe I was here before. Maybe this is the place Savannah and I were running to.”
“In your dream?”
She shrugs. “That dream . . . maybe it was there to make me remember something. And if I was here before, maybe I was here around the time someone kidnapped Rachel Bachton. It’s not too crazy to think . . . maybe Savannah was right. Maybe we really did see something that day.”
The flicker of light in the distance catches my attention. Something like the beam of a flashlight.
“Hey!” The call echoes up the rolling terrain of the park.
Chatham practically jumps out of her shoes when she hears the voice booming at us from a distance.
We’ve been found.
I grab her hand and take off, and she pounds down the grated step behind me. She stumbles a little when we hit the ground running. I feel, more than see, the security officer pursuing us, but I don’t look back to confirm it. “Head for the pines,” I say.
She keeps pace at my side, and we plunge into the forest.
I pull her over the pine-needled paths, dodge branches and protruding tree roots, and finally, I hook to the left, where I know there’s a split-rail fence marking the edge of county property.
I step on the lower rung and hurdle the thing, and turn to help Chatham over it, too, but she’s already clear.
A few steps later, our feet meet with the gravel of the roadside, and the streetlights are like a spotlight on a dark stage.
My Explorer is just up ahead.
I get Chatham in first, then settle behind the wheel.
“Hurry,” she says.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the officer emerging into the light.
I turn the key in the ignition.
The engine doesn’t fire.
Try again.
No dice.
“Fuck.”
“C’mon c’mon c’mon,” Chatham’s whispering.
I take a deep breath and try again. Third try does the trick, and I put the car in gear, and we’re gone.
About a mile down the road, when repeated looks in the rearview mirror confirm no one’s following us, adrenaline starts to wane.
“Guess they don’t want us living there,” Chatham says.
I laugh.
She laughs.
And neither of us can stop.
We go back to Carpenter Street. I go in the front door, and let her in through my window.
She pulls off my hoodie and presses ice-cold hands to my bare chest.
I look down at her. Should we dare to finish what we started in the caboose?
“We probably shouldn’t,” she says, as if she’s reading my thoughts.
“Yeah.” But I can’t help it. I kiss her.
And before I know it, she’s sitting on the edge of my bed.
Then, I’m leaning over her.
She nudges a knee between my thighs.
Maybe it’s the rush of running away from that rent-a-cop tonight, the thrill of escape, of survival. Or maybe it’s just that she’s the most amazing person I ever met . . . and I can’t believe, of all the people in this town, she chose me. But I’m all in. If I ever actually doubted it, the uncertainty is long past by now. I know how I feel.
Now, to garner up balls enough to tell her.
“Chatham?” I pull back to look at her.
She’s smiling. “I can’t believe the car almost didn’t start.”
“Right?”
“We were lucky.”
“Well,” I say. “I am.”
And even though I know it, I can’t say it. It’s too soon, maybe. Or she’s not quite there with me yet. But whatever the reason, something stops me.
I can’t tell her I love her.