Chapter 46

When Hannah disappeared through the doorway, Myles closed his eyes and drew in a shaky breath. The woman screwed with more than just his sanity. No other person had this effect on him. He couldn't even think straight half the time in the months she wasn't around. To have her in the same room made it impossible.

No. The cold rain seeped into his bones and clouded his thinking. A far more logical explanation for the effect she had on him. Logical, yes, but nowhere near the truth if he was honest with himself.

For now, he wouldn't dwell on it. He couldn't. He needed her to help him get down, and then he was sure she'd be gone again. Why would anyone want to stay with him?

Myles barely registered she'd called his name for the third time before realizing he needed to answer. "I'm here. What's wrong?"

She couldn't have been gone more than a few seconds by his calculations, and he wondered what happened. Opening his eyes, he expected to see her empty handed, having failed at this simple task for a sighted person.

But she wasn't defeated. One white knuckled fist gripped the butt-end of a sharp kitchen knife while the other tilted a straight-back wooden chair at an angle to use as a makeshift cane as she shuffled towards him.

"Nothing's wrong." By the snap in her voice and the scowl on her face something had upset her for sure. But she wasn't going to tell him. "This is a team effort here, Leland. We both have to do our part for this to work."

Myles frowned as he watched her stiff movements while she positioned the chair beneath him. Already as wet as he was, he really didn't pay much attention to the moisture on her face until she came around in front of him. She tried to shield her face from his gaze, but his breath caught in his throat when he saw her red-rimmed eyes that had little to do with the cold rain washing over them.

Had she shed tears for him?

Hannah knew the harsh realities of life. Finding him in his current situation wouldn't have caused tears. Her original reaction earlier proved that. Still something had made her cry and he couldn't figure out why.

No one had ever cared for him like she had while they were trapped and in hiding. No one he knew would – except for maybe Sue. But Sue was different. She saw no wrong in anybody.

But it wasn't as if he and Hannah hit it off from the beginning. She'd experienced life's ups and downs herself, but Myles couldn't see past her youth and country girl ways. He'd caused her more heartache than any person deserved in their lifetime.

His chest tightened. His heart ached for her. He longed to hold her and assure her that everything would be all right.

But he couldn't.

After a month of fighting and ignoring her, he didn't have the right to be in her life. He'd do what he could to help her now, and then let her walk out of his life forever.

"What's my part?" His mouth felt dry despite all the water around him. "What do I need to do?"

His breath caught in his throat when she stopped fidgeting with the chair and turn towards him. Just like they had when she found him in that basement so many months ago, their gazes met even though this time he knew she couldn't see him. Instead of the pain and fear he saw before, her eyes shone with an anguish unexplainable to him. What had happened to bring her here tonight?.

Several moments passed before she responded. "When I tell you, push as hard as you can against the seat of this chair." She rocked the back of the chair with her hand. "It feels sturdy, so it should hold you up."

Myles almost laughed at the uncertainty in her voice. For the hefty sum he paid to the contractor who took down his grandparents' old barn, the handcrafted oak chair should be quite sturdy. His fingers traced the slight imperfections in the otherwise smooth wood surface of the chair. It may have cost him a lot, but he was more proud of the heritage it represented than the expense.

Hannah's slender body pressing up against his when she hoisted herself up on the side rungs of the chair jolted him out of his reverie. "What are you doing?" Surely she wasn't going to teeter there with a knife in her hand.

Without thinking he reached out to steady her when she wavered precariously to one side. A heat rushed through him when he felt her thigh muscles clench while she fought for balance. Her fingers brushed his cold skin where his shirt had come loose from his waistband, leaving a trail of fire in their wake. He could barely breathe let alone think when she called out for him to push.

His normal exercise routine included push-ups, but his near-exhaustion and the awkward position compounded the difficulty of this one and he felt it in muscles he didn't know he had. He tried to distract himself from the discomfort rapidly growing into all-out pain, but his thoughts centered on the woman perched next to him. And the more he thought about her, the words she spoke finally set in and he frowned as his logic began to work again.

"Starr?"

"Not now, Leland!" He heard the strain in her voice as she struggled with the rope. The sound of her voice and the pressure of her body against his almost made him forget his question but the importance of it refused to let it stay buried long.

"But Hannah..." He didn't want to cause any more problems, but his foggy mind couldn't process all the questions floating through it fast enough. How would she untangle the rope from his legs? If she got one leg loose before the other, could he maintain his balance and not knock her to the floor? It all became a jumble and he just blurted out the next one that popped up. "Who's going to catch me when you cut –?"

The rest went unasked when he began a sudden freefall through the air. Gravity pulled his feet towards the floor despite his efforts to the contrary. His weak attempts to change course failed, and he didn't have time to call out a warning before he tumbled off the chair, taking Hannah with him.

He barely heard her startled yelp over the crash of the bodies hitting the floor. The knife skittered off in one direction while the chair toppled in the other. It all seemed slow motion until Myles found himself freed and planted squarely on top of his rescuer.