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Unlocking the door, I gently set her on the seat. Her limbs are still covered by the towel, and she looks at me like she’d bite me, if she could.
I blink at her. “You were going to sit on the seat dripping wet. It ruins the leather.”
“I fucking hope so!” she shrieks at me.
I shut the door, then go to retrieve our bag.
A smile tugs at the edges of my mouth.
Roisin is pissed. Genuinely raging angry.
And it’s so much better than her being locked away behind bars of sadness and fear.
By the time I pick everything up and we’re on the way again, Roisin has calmed somewhat. She refuses to speak to me, which I find I’m also annoyed by. It makes me want to reach out and hold her. Ask if she’s okay.
Do anything except sit and be surrounded by her stony silence.
She does notice, however, when we don’t continue on the road back to the lake house.
“If you’re taking me somewhere to kill me, De Luca, you should know I won’t go down easy.”
I can’t help it. I laugh. “If I wanted to kill you, I could have done it in a million different ways by now, Rosin.”
She snorts. “You’d wait until it was perfectly to your advantage.”
My heart twists a little, but not because she’s wrong.
“I’m not used to being so predictable,” I murmur.
“Well. I guess not everyone would notice,” Roisin responds.
But she does notice.
The mountain road gets steeper, and I’m grateful for the SUV’s off-road capabilities. At this point, we’re practically plowing through snow, and when we finally roll up to the little cabin I found, the snow is coming down thick and heavy.
Roisin peers around, her face pinched in worry. “Okay seriously, Marco. I will haunt you forever if you kill me.”
“It’s a long way back to the lake house,” I explain. “I didn’t want to drive in the weather, and I wasn’t sure how long we’d be at the spring, so I rented this.”
Her eyebrow rises, and before she can say it, I cut her off.
“I used one of my aliases, and it’s rented in cash. Honestly, Roisin. Do you think I’m an idiot?”
“Not the word I’d use, but the sentiment is true,” she mutters.
I chuckle, then step out of the Range Rover. “Stay here until I come get you,” I say to Roisin.
“I’m perfectly capable?—”
“The snow is almost a foot deep. I’ll carry you in, unless you want your feet to freeze?” I eye her naked toes meaningfully.
She wrinkles her nose. “Fine.”
“Fine.”
Shutting the door to the Rover, I trudge through the shin-high snow and punch in the key to the little rental. The cabin opens, and I quickly set the heat on. It’s not a huge space. The main room flows into a kitchen, and just beyond I can see the door that leads to the bedroom and bathroom. The furniture is well-worn, but clean; a leather couch, thick rugs marking the space. It looks like the kitchen has been stocked too, which was one of the conditions of the rental.
Good.