Patrick did not show her his smile. “Careful. You sound jealous.”
“Then why can’t I come? Are you still afraid I’ll run away?”
He considered the question carefully. “No,” he said. “And you don’t seem very fast, in any case. I’d catch you.”
A flicker of annoyance. “I’ll remind you that it took six months for you to catch me.”
“It took six months to find you. Catching you was simple.”
She stopped on the hill, braced her hands on her hips, which only drew his attention to them, which led to imaginings of how he’d span his hands around them, grip the flesh, lift her—
“Then I’ll make you a deal, Patrick Colson. Catch me, and I’ll let you be on your way to Dorser. But if I make it to the fence at the bottom of the hill, you’ll bring me along.”
Some keen sense of thrill was rising in him.
