“Read it.”

He did, then flipped the page just as I had. “So what’s the surprise?”

“It doesn’t say.” I glanced around, wishing we hadn’t stopped.

Anything could be hiding in the forest.

Hudson shut the book and handed it back to me. “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it. Besides, it doesn’t say the surprise is something bad.”

I slipped the book into the saddlebag. “Oh, it’s going to be bad.

Surprises in stories are always bad. Robin Hood will ambush us or a troll will be waiting under the bridge. Something like that.” Hudson flicked his reins, but his horse had found a patch of grass by the path, and she didn’t seem in any hurry to move. Hudson let her eat. “Surprises aren’t always bad. It could be the surprise of …” His broad shoulders shrugged. “ ‘She found a patch of wild strawberries and got to eat something besides stale bread.’ ” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Have you ever actually read a book?” He tilted his head at the question. “Have you?”

“Of course I have.” My horse wandered a few steps off the path, chomping leaves from a nearby bush. There didn’t seem to be a point in pulling her away since Hudson’s horse was eating too.

Hudson was still surveying me. “Nick told me you refuse to read books as a way to tick off your dad.”

“Well, I used to read a lot, and I distinctly remember that all the surprises in books were bad. This is clearly a problem.”

“Clearly,” he said with a teasing lift in his voice. He directed his horse farther off the path. She went willingly, stepping over to the next 253/356

patch of grass. “The horses are tired and hungry, and so am I. We might as well find a place to set up camp for the night.” I didn’t move my horse. “That’s the last thing we should do. We should keep riding until we’re safe.” Hudson dismounted and walked his horse farther away from the path. The mare went, pulling up clumps of grass and chomping them as she went. “We have to set up camp sooner or later,” Hudson said.

“We might as well do it while it’s light. If something is going to surprise us, I’d rather have it happen when I have a fire going.” I groaned but dismounted too. He was right. We couldn’t ride until we were safe. No place was safe until we knew what the surprise was.

My legs ached so badly I could only take tiny, awkward steps in Hudson’s direction. Eventually he found a spot he liked and turned back to check on me.

He watched my mincing progress. “Saddle sore?”

“Aren’t you?”

He took a section of rope and tied his horse to a tree. “I told you, my grandparents have horses. You’ll get used to it after a few days.” If my legs didn’t break off by then. Hudson walked over and took my horse’s reins, murmuring things to her as he led her to a tree. By the time I had winced my way over to help him, he’d already untied our provisions, put them in a pile, and was hefting off his horse’s saddle. I hadn’t even thought about the saddles and probably would have left them on all night.

I watched him effortlessly swing my saddle off my horse and place it on the ground. “Maybe the moral is ‘If you’re going to get stuck in the Middle Ages, make sure you bring along a country boy.’ They know how to build fires, take care of horses, escape from castles—really, is there anything you can’t do?”

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“Lots of things.” An emotion flashed across his expression that I recognized but didn’t understand. Self-recrimination. Some memory of a time he had failed had surfaced in his mind.

We gathered wood, set out our blankets, and made a small fire that crackled against the growing cold. We sat beside it and ate apples, cheese, and stiff bread. I tried not to keep checking over my shoulder for a surprise. Hudson ate without speaking. Whatever memory I’d brought up, it was still bothering him.

This was the Hudson the girls had told me about at school. The sullen one.

Finally, I got tired of the silence, of the undercurrent of pain that swirled between us. I put my hand on his knee, trying to console him.

“Your mom wouldn’t want you to be sad about her for this long.” He ripped a piece of bread from his loaf. “She’s off the list, Tansy.”

“She would want you to have a social life, to be happy.”

“What’s the point of crossing things off the list if you’re still going to bring them up?”

“You’ve got to let the sadness go.”

“Fine,” he said with a grunt. “We’ll talk about this.” He ripped another piece from his loaf, but didn’t eat it. “My mom and I got in an argument that night. I told her I was going to a movie with friends but I went to a party instead.” He turned the piece of bread over and over in his hand. “When you’re the police chief’s son, you’re not supposed to go to parties where there’s drinking. It would look bad if the party got busted. I wasn’t trying to undermine my father or the law or anything.

I went because my friends were there.” He looked straight at the fire, but I knew he wasn’t seeing it anymore. He was back in that night.

“Somebody called and told my mom where I’d been. When I came home, she was getting off the phone and was really steamed. She went off about how I was supposed to set an example. My friends weren’t 255/356

going to respect the law if I didn’t. And I was making my father a laughingstock.

“I told her I wanted to have my own life, and I didn’t want to be their son anymore.” The rest of the bread in Hudson’s hand crumbled under his grip, but he didn’t notice it. “She stormed out of the house, and I knew I should go after her. But I didn’t. That was the last thing I ever said to her—that I didn’t want to be her son.”

“You couldn’t have known what would happen,” I said. “It wasn’t your fault.”

He still kept his gaze on the fire. “I thought she might be headed to the party to yell at my friend’s parents. It wasn’t far away, just the next street over. So I called my friend and warned him that his party was about to get busted.” His voice wavered, dropped. “My mom was probably hit by someone leaving that party, someone who was drunk and going too fast. Because I warned them.” The breath went from my lungs. I didn’t know what to say. But Hudson didn’t stop, didn’t wait for my reaction.

“My father was on duty that night. He was called out along with the paramedics. He didn’t know until he got there …” Hudson’s voice broke off. “He’s never forgiven me and I don’t blame him.” I took hold of Hudson’s hand. “That can’t be true. Has he said that?”

“He doesn’t have to. I see it in his eyes every time I look at him.” Even though Hudson’s hand was stiff and unresponsive in mine, I kept hold of it, pressing it between the palms of my hands as though I could force comfort into his fingers. “He’s probably in too much pain to see what you’re going through.” I intertwined my fingers into his.

“Pain makes you blind.”

It was true, and yet it wasn’t. The pain of my parents’ divorce had made me blind to a lot of things, yet here, holding Hudson’s hand, I 256/356

realized that suffering could also make a person see. I could understand a little bit of the crushing weight he felt because I had been crushed myself.

“I should have gone after her,” Hudson said.

I slid one arm around his waist and laid my head on his shoulder.

I didn’t think he would return my hug but he wrapped his arms around me, resting his cheek against the top of my head. “I’ll never be able to make it up to him.”

“You don’t have to,” I said. “Your father doesn’t want you to carry around this guilt.”

Hudson didn’t say anything else, but I don’t think he believed me.

The muscles in his arms and chest were rigid. Neither of us moved, though. We sat there by the fire, arms around each other, while the flames hissed and popped and smoke swirled up into the sky.

Eventually, the tension left him. He let out a deep breath and it drained away. But instead of letting me go, he pulled me closer. As though, after pushing away comfort for so long, he finally wanted it.