Chapter Seven: Tell Me What You Think

"Could you please not go through those?" Maureen asked as she glanced over to where Wyatt was looking through some of the patient progress reports she had in her oversized bag.

"What's this?" Wyatt asked as he thumbed through the files of visits, medical evaluations, and word association transcripts.

Maureen licked her lips and loosely explained the word association sessions she'd held with the patient whose file he was flipping through.

Wyatt whistled as he read though her assessment of the man who'd killed his parents and very recently sodomized an orderly.

Wyatt ran his eyes over Maureen's neat handwriting detailing the murderers graphic fantasies.

Maureen settled the SUV in the center lane, not excessively speeding but not at a snail's pace either as Wyatt tucked away her patient files and retrieved the magazine from where it'd tumbled to the floorboard.

"Question seven," he said. "When's the best time to talk about anal?" Wyatt started, pausing for the briefest of moments before plowing ahead with the multiple-choice selections.

"A. While you're doing it baby. B. After a lot of margaritas. C. On special occasions, everyone has one birthday a year. D. Ewwww, no."

Wyatt looked over at Maureen who had squared her shoulders before he had finished reading all the choices.

"Well?" he pressed, trying but failing to keep the amusement out of his voice.

"None of those," Maureen finally said, not wanting to hear his answer.

Wyatt reconsidered the possible answers, nodding along with a neutral sound as he continued.

"Question eight, if you could only pick one sexual position for the rest of your life, what would it be? A. Missionary, a classic. B. Doggie-style. C. Reverse cowgirl or D. sixty-nine."

Maureen scoffed and adjusted the volume dial, "how about a quiz break?"

"Ask me the questions you ask your patients," Wyatt rebutted quickly as his hand shot and covered hers while she twisted the dial.

Maureen nodded; anything was better than the rest of those possible fucking quiz questions.

Wyatt had been becoming just as edgy thinking of her and Blair in the last couple questions, how she liked to be kissed, touched, and fucked.

Maureen adjusted the rearview mirror, watching the cars in front of her as she felt the weight of Wyatt's full attention from the passenger seat.

She reiterated for him to speak whatever came to mind, to not fear any judgement from her.

"Childhood," she began.

"Myth," Wyatt murmured after a pause.

"Death."

"Honor."

"Life."

"Domination."

"Murder."

"Necessary."

"Fear."

"Imaginary."

"Light."

"Blinding."

"Darkness."

"Comfort."

"Weakness."

"Foreign."

"Pain."

"Tolerable."

"Birth."

"Enslavement."

"Happiness."

"Façade."

"Strength."

"Respect."

"Power."

"Life."

"Prison."

"Temporary."

"Soldier."

"Yes."

"Death."

"Eventual."

"Loyal."

"Yes."

"Guilty."

"Yes."

"Mother."

"No."

"Father."

"No."

"Soul."

"Damned."

"Life."

"Unsecured."

If she hadn't been driving, Maureen would've been taking volumes of notes on Wyatt's answers, she wished she could be watching his face as he spoke.

Wyatt shuffled through the patient file again, his eyes skimming the words, "you didn't ask me all of these."

Maureen smirked at his accusatory tone as she signaled to pass an RV when a plume of noxious smoke spilled out from the exhaust pipe.

"I don't remember all the words off the top of my head," she lied.

Wyatt stared at her until she glanced over at him, "I don't, I read from the paper and take notes," she added.

"Have you ever been married?" Wyatt asked, abruptly changing the topic.

"No," she said adjusting the heater vents until the warm air was hitting her midsection. "You?"

"Once," he murmured, quickly adding. "How come you're not married?"

Maureen shrugged, "no one's asked," she said with a chuckle.

"Have you ever given someone the chance to ask?"

"Why'd your marriage end?" she rebutted.

Wyatt was quiet for a few heartbeats, "she died," he finally murmured.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" Maureen asked without a shred of hesitation.

"Are you going to bill me for this?" he scoffed.

Maureen was unable to keep from smiling widely. "We're just talking, this is all too unorthodox to be sanctioned by any medical institution."

"We're just talking," Wyatt stated with a slight questioning lilt.

Maureen nodded without looking over at him, "sure, what do you call it?"

"I'm just surprised you'd call it talking," Wyatt said as he opened the magazine back up to the quiz page where the last two questions were waiting to be read aloud.

Maureen continued to stare straight ahead, she did think it was more than talking, moments that were uncomfortable, but she also endured far greater moments of fear and discomfort being across from mass murderers, serial rapists, and everyone in between.

"Where are we headed?" she asked before he could ask the ninth question.

Wyatt didn't look up from the glossy page as he answered. "There's a hotel in a few hours we'll stop at tonight and another full day of driving tomorrow."

"And where do we end up after all day driving tomorrow?" Maureen asked, her tone unreadable.

Wyatt looked over at her, seeing both her hands clenched tight around the steering wheel, her knuckles white with the pressure.

The rest of her appeared to be calm, just her hands gave away a growing tension within.

"A different hotel," Wyatt answered as he allowed himself to look at her closer, scrutinize her profile.

He'd known the moment he'd seen her in the vast mall parking lot, that she was a woman who didn't travel in the same circles as him, they were two worlds colliding.

"More driving the next day?"

"Yes."

"Another hotel that night?"

"No."

Maureen looked over at Wyatt, finding his eyes already on her. "We'll be staying in the home where I was born," he said before she asked him to expound.

She nodded before turning her attention back to the road in front of her. "How long are we staying?"

"They'll be no reason to leave once we get there," Wyatt said in an easy tone.

Maureen chuckled, thinking of how far she was going to end up from home. "So, do I get to keep this to be able to drive home or do I have to take a taxi?"

Wyatt was quiet so long that Maureen thought he had fallen asleep or died of an aneurysm in between mile markers as she looked over at him, again his eyes only on her. "It'll be your home too."

"You can't be serious?" Maureen finally asked, unable to think of more in the moment.

His continued silence was more than answer enough as Maureen's forehead pulled into a frown, "but I can't, you can't," she started, feeling a foreign fluster taking over her nerves before she took a deep breath and spoke in a close to even tone. "What am I supposed to do there? What about my job? Mortgage?" she asked before Wyatt interrupted her.

"You don't have to do anything but stay," he said, thinking of the bountiful stacks of cash he'd brought with him, all neatly stacked and secure in a medium-sized duffle bag.

"Stay," Maureen echoed flatly.

"Yes."

The news report about Wyatt and his alleged and actual crimes replayed in her head. "You're adding abduction and the enhanced charge if we cross state lines?"

Wyatt grinned, "well when you put it like that, it sounds criminal."

Despite everything happening in her frontal lobe, a smile kissed the corners of Maureen's lips before she briefly glanced over at him. "You're abducting me?"

Wyatt's expression remained neutral, but his eyes simmered with electrical activity.

"No, you're coming home with me."

"You actually expect me to ….. live with you?"

Wyatt nodded.

"I can't live with you," Maureen scoffed.

Wyatt stayed silent in the wake of her declaration.

"What if I say no?" she asked at his continued silence.

"That would be disappointing to hear," Wyatt finally said.

"But what happens if I say no?" she pressed.

"You're an intelligent woman, you're coming home and staying with me," he said in an easy tone that was barbed and didn't invite a discussion.

Maureen blinked at the road in front of her as she tried to process his casual words.

"Well?" Wyatt asked as he stared at her, his eyes able to freely move over her as she needed to focus her attention on driving.

"You want an answer now?" Maureen scoffed.

"Yes."

She swallowed hard, "I can't answer that right now."

"When can you?"

"I can't answer that either," Maureen stated in a clipped tone, beginning to feel the oxygen leave the roomy SUV, a suffocating feeling landing around her like a heavy shroud.

Wyatt watched her façade begin to fray around the edges and knew he needed to change the direction of the temperature in the spacious SUV.

"You're someone people can trust? Safe to talk to?" he asked.

His questions were disarming, making Maureen slip right back into her lab coat which she never completely removed, always working with patients at all hours, not having taken a vacation in close to nine years.

"You can tell me anything," Maureen said.

When she looked back at that precise moment in time, she would never know if she meant to sound suggestive and of a license losing nature.

Wyatt looked over at a dented, forest-green sign on the side of the road, announcing the upcoming hotel exit, gesturing to it before speaking in a low tone, each syllable was touched with vulnerability at his admission.

"I can breathe freely around you, there's no fear present."

"What are you afraid of?" Maureen asked.

"There's always someone waiting to offer a challenge," Wyatt flatly stated, his cheek twitching.

Maureen looked over at Wyatt, finding him staring straight ahead. She looked back over the wide hood of the SUV as she considered Wyatt's sudden shift. Her mind began to catalog what she knew, suspected, and didn't know about Wyatt Rivers.

By the time she flicked on the signal to exit the freeway, she was still torn between what was either his sincerity or reptilian subterfuge. Maureen had to heed the lessons of the past with other inmates and their reindeer games.