Page 34 of The Perfect Deception

So much for hopes and prayers. “It’s okay.”

“I’m re­ally sorry. Go back to bed, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Wait,” she screeched be­fore he could hang up on her. “It’s fine. I need to get up any­way.” That was a lie, but she’d never fall asleep now, so she might as well talk to him. Be­sides, she’d missed his voice.

“Are you sure?”

“Adam!”

He laughed. “Okay, well, now that you’re awake, want to go for an early-morn­ing walk?”

A walk? “A walk? Where?”

“I was think­ing on one of the trails. It’s cold, but sunny and I thought it might be nice. Al­though…”

Dina yawned. “Al­though what?” She heard what she thought was a sigh, and then, noth­ing. “Adam?”

“Never mind. This sounded like a much bet­ter idea last night when I was get­ting ready for bed.”

“It sounds lovely, re­ally. Did you have a par­tic­u­lar trail in mind?” She’d never seen this un­sure side of Adam be­fore.

“How about the Loan­taka Brook Reser­va­tion Trail? It’s at the end of South Street.”

“I know where you’re talk­ing about. Should I meet you there?”

“No, I’ll pick you up. Can you be ready in an hour?”

Dina looked at the clock again. Seven-thirty. “Sure.”

“We’ll stop for cof­fee first.”

“Thank good­ness!”

He laughed, and the echo of it lin­gered in her mind long af­ter she’d hung up the phone. Which was ridicu­lous, be­cause they were noth­ing more than two peo­ple ful­fill­ing a bar­gain. Think­ing of Adam in any other light would just lead to heartache.

By the time she was dressed and ready to go, Dina had just about con­vinced her­self to beg off from the walk. They’d grab cof­fee to­gether and she’d go back home. There was laun­dry to do, bath­room clean­ing, and gro­cery shop­ping.

When he pulled up to her door and flashed his high-wattage smile at her, her pulse thrummed and thoughts of laun­dry, bath­room clean­ing, and gro­cery shop­ping dis­solved in a poof of cleanser bub­bles. He wanted to walk, so she’d walk.

“I missed you,” he said, as she climbed into his car. He missed her? Heck, if he wanted her to run, she’d run, with­out need­ing any­one to chase her, even.

“It’s good to see you too.”

They pulled away from the curb into the al­most empty Sat­ur­day early morn­ing streets, and chat­ted about their week, Adam pay­ing close at­ten­tion and ask­ing ques­tions. By the time they’d stopped for cof­fee and ar­rived at the trail­head, she was ready to fol­low him any­where.

He took her hand as he helped her out of the car and if she hadn’t been star­ing at their hands joined to­gether, she’d swear flames were rac­ing up and down her arm. Meet­ing Adam’s gaze, she saw his eyes darken and a frown line ap­pear be­tween his eye­brows for a brief mo­ment, dis­ap­pear­ing be­fore she had a chance to think about why it might be there.

Once she was stand­ing, he dropped her hand and took a step closer to her, un­til there were mere inches be­tween them. He brushed his hand across her shoul­der, lin­ger­ing for a sec­ond or two be­fore mov­ing away.

“Your hair was caught on your jacket col­lar,” he said, a strange husk­i­ness mak­ing his voice scrape across the space be­tween them. Stuff­ing his hands in his pock­ets, he turned to­ward the trail­head, and Dina fol­lowed.

His stride wasn’t overly long, but it was brisk, and she had to race to keep up with him.

“Adam, wait,” she said, when he didn’t seem to no­tice.

He turned a sheep­ish glance to­ward her and waited for her. “Sorry, I was dis­tracted.”

A part of her wanted to ask what dis­tracted him. An­other part of her was afraid she knew the an­swer. So she kept silent and the two of them be­gan walk­ing the paved trail. The air was cold, the sky a clear blue, and the ris­ing sun sparkled in the stream run­ning next to the path.