do it if I ask, and we’ll be out of your way. I just have to ring him back and tell him.”
I headed for the phone, and Gray said, “No.” He put out a hand on my way around the table and caught my wrist, and was on his feet in the same motion.
I froze. I knew the girls would be doing the same thing.
I couldn’t let them see this.
Breathe. Think. Act. I said, “Let me go, please.” My voice was controlled. My blood pressure wasn’t. I wanted to twist away, but I knew it wouldn’t work, and I’d only look weak. As strong as I’d made myself, he was too much bigger. My face was flushing. My heart was pounding.
He dropped my wrist.
Two quick steps, and I was on the other side of the table, telling the girls, “Come on. Right now.”
They looked between Gray and me, and I said, “Now.” They sat frozen, and I was, suddenly, furious. How dare they wait for him to tell them what to do? I was their sister. I’d got them out. I was in charge of this.
Gray said, “Daisy. Wait. What the hell?” He’d taken a single step toward me, had a fist resting on the table, and I stared at that fist and thought, No. That makes no sense. Stop and think. You’re panicking.
I took a breath, turned to face him, and said carefully, “Please explain what you meant. And I don’t like to be grabbed.”
He ran a hand over his face, and I asked, “Is it your head?”
“No,” he said. “Or, yes, it’s my head, because you’re doing my head in. Right. Sorry I grabbed you. I should’ve thought. But what the hell, Daisy. Could you just … slow down, please? I thought I had a temper.”
“I don’t have a temper,” I said. “I’m very levelheaded.”
“Compared to who? T. Rex?”
All right, that was funny. I had to laugh at that one, didn’t I?
He said, “Let’s take a walk.”
“I thought you wanted us to leave.”
“Of course I don’t want you to leave. Why would I want you to leave? Why would you think so?” His tone wasn’t exactly measured, but maybe that was because he meant it. He went on, “I meant that I could drive you back this afternoon, if you’d rather. Or this evening, after dinner. What did you think I meant?”
“Oh.” That seemed to be all I had.
“Well,” he said, “that’s weak.”
I had to smile. “Possibly. And, yes, I would like to take a walk.” Since I’d been jumping out of my skin all afternoon, anxious and on edge, and it was getting so hard not to show it.
He glanced at the girls. “Would you like to come? Taste of freedom, eh. Walk by the lake, maybe? Fruitful’s ankle’s not up to it, but Obedience? You could wait at the beach, Fruitful, if you like.”
The girls looked at me, and I thought, Think. Put yourself in their place. When you’ve worked every day of your life, having a couple hours to not work, not to mention being free to check out your first-ever single-family home and exclaim to each other about every surprising detail without worrying that you sound stupid, can be a welcome catch-up period for your overwhelmed mind. I told them, choosing my words carefully, “You can decide. This is one of those choices we talked about. An easy one. Just think what you’d like to do and tell us, and you can do it.”
Obedience looked at Fruitful, because that was too big a leap. Not for Fruitful, though, because she said, “If we stayed here, we could make dinner for everyone. We only have two hours.”
Very satisfactory, because she could do the checking-out part and pretend it was for a useful, helpful reason. “Mount Zion eats at six,” I explained to Gray.
He said, “Let me introduce you girls to an exciting new concept. Takeaway pizza.” When they didn’t react, he said, “Pizza that you take away. From a restaurant.” Another puzzled couple of seconds, and he added, “And bring home. And eat here. Instead of cooking it yourself.”
He waited some more, and finally, Fruitful asked, “What’s … peeza?”
He grinned, and then he laughed. “That’s told me. Right, then. I promise you this: there’s a wide, wide world out there, full of wonderful things. Starting with pizza.”
Gray
Daisy and I went alone, in the end. We didn’t even take the dog, because I didn’t have a lead for her yet. When she ran to the door