The McRae Series 01 - Twelve Days Sam and Rachel

going to be here?"
    "Because... Just... Because I didn't."
    "You're going to have to do better than that," he insisted.
    "Do you have a family?" she asked.
    "Yes."
    "Are you close?"
    How to answer that? "Close enough."
    "Do they worry about you? Do you know what it's like to have all of them worried about you?
    "Yes." Did he ever. He'd kicked them out of his hospital room and the rehab facility more than once. He'd come here in part to get away from all those people watching and worrying over him.
    "Having them watch you all the time, trying to figure out how you're doing, if they should be even more worried than they already are. I mean... I love them, really I do. I'm just not used to being the one they worry about. And it's exhausting, trying to convince them not to worry so much. I just didn't have the energy to do it anymore, and.... This was a totally impulsive move. I was driving down I-275 and saw the exit and just like that, decided to go. Didn't tell a soul where I was going...."
    "Okay, I gotta tell you, if there was a test about what not to tell the man holding a gun on you, you'd have flunked right there, princess."
    She whimpered again, then turned her head as far to the right as she could, trying to look at him. He thought if she could, she'd have slapped his face right then.
    "Oh, stop. I'm not going to hurt you."
    "Then get off me already."
    "I will, but this is how we're going to do it," he decided. "Slowly, no sudden moves. I'm going to take my weight off of your back, and I want you to stay on the floor and slide forward on your belly until you get to the refrigerator. Then you can turn around and sit up. You stay over there. I'll stay over here. Everything will be fine. Got it?"
    "Yes, I do."
    "Good. Here we go." He put one hand down on the floor beside her shoulder to brace himself and then put his weight on his knees to take his weight off of her. "All right. Not too fast."
    She got her hands up beside her face and used her arms to slide forward, her body catching a bit on his as her hips slid past. He put his right lower leg flat against her to make sure she didn't try to kick him at the last minute.
    She didn't, sliding all the way to her corner and sitting down on the floor. The dog followed along, whining and pawing at her side, obviously thinking it was some kind of a game.
    "Tink, no!" he said forcefully.
    To his surprise, the dog stopped and at least looked at him, cocking his head as if to ask, Why not?
    "Tink?" She almost laughed in his face. "The guy with a gun named his dog Tink? As in Tinkerbell?"
    "I know, not very dangerous-sounding, is it?" Aidan said. "The thing is, he's not my dog."
    "Oh. Okay."
    Aidan had gotten slowly to his feet while she was busy sliding across the floor and couldn't see the effort it took him to do it. He walked over to his corner and eased down into the ancient recliner there, still holding the gun but not pointing it at her. Reaching up, he flicked on the light, which wasn't all that good, especially through the gloom of late afternoon amidst all the trees and the stormy sky.
    She was young, but not a teenager. Twenty-something, he decided, and probably beautiful when she hadn't been crying her eyes out. If he knew women, hers was the face of one who'd been crying for hours. She was red and splotchy, with puffy eyes and frown lines on her forehead, still defiant and mad. But he suspected it had been a very bad day for her before he'd grabbed her and scared her.
    The dog was practically in her lap, sniffing all over her and smiling, begging for attention. She made a face at him, clearly horrified by his condition, by the wet and the mud. "Oooh."
    "Tink, sit," he tried.
    And the dog did, right next to her, wagging his silly tail and looking like he'd fallen in love with her on sight, her devoted servant from this point on.
    "Okay. We can be friends, I guess," she said, smiling skeptically at the dog. "What kind of dog is he?"
    "I have no idea. He lives half way around the lake. His owner had a tree come through her roof today, breaking her leg. Compound fracture, so she'll be hospitalized for a while, and there wasn't anyone to take care of the dog."
    "You're trying to tell me you're such a nice guy, you volunteered to take care of this... thing?" she asked.
    "I'm telling you I'm not a bad guy, and I got stuck with him. Oh, and I did help get his owner out from under the tree, if that makes you feel any better about... Well...."
    "Being held at gunpoint by