Charlie jumped in before I could respond. “I’d say it was the baseball he’d mind more.”

They both laughed. I shot my dad a look. Where was the best behavior I’d been promised?

“Should we be on our way?” I suggested.

“We’re not in any hurry,” Edythe said with a grin.

I hit Charlie with my elbow. Edythe’s smile got wider.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” Charlie said. “You kids go ahead, I’ve got a… a bunch of stuff to get to.…”

Edythe was on her feet in a fluid move. “It was lovely to see you, Charlie.”

“Yes. You come visit anytime, Edythe.”

“Thank you, you’re very kind.”

Charlie ran a hand through his hair self-consciously. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him so flustered.

“Will you kids be out super late?”

I looked at her.

“No, we’ll be reasonable.”

“Don’t wait up, though,” I added.

I handed her coat to her and then held the door. As she passed, Charlie gave me a wide-eyed look. I shrugged my shoulders and raised my eyebrows. I didn’t know how I’d gotten so lucky, either.

I followed her out onto the porch, then stopped dead.

There, behind my truck, was a monster Jeep. Its tires were as high as my waist. There were metal guards over the headlights and taillights, and four large spotlights attached to the crash bar. The hardtop was shiny red.

Charlie let out a low whistle. “Wear your seat belts.”

I went to the driver’s side to get the door for Edythe. She was inside in one efficient little leap, though I was glad we were on the far side of the Jeep from Charlie, because it didn’t look entirely natural. I went to my side and climbed gracelessly into my seat. She had the engine running now, and I recognized the roar that had surprised me earlier. It wasn’t as loud as my truck, but it sounded a lot more brawny.

Out of habit—she wasn’t going to start driving until I was buckled in—I reached for my seat belt.

“What—er—what is all this? How do I…?”

“Off-roading harness,” she explained.

“Um.”

I tried to find all the right connectors, but it wasn’t going too fast. And then her hands were there, flashing around at a barely visible speed, and gone again. I was glad the rain was too thick to see Charlie clearly on the porch, because that meant he couldn’t see me clearly, either.

“Er, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

I knew better than to ask if she was going to put her own harness on.

She pulled away from the house.

“This is a… um… large Jeep you have.”

“It’s Eleanor’s. She let me borrow it so we wouldn’t have to run the whole way.”

“Where do you keep this thing?”

“We remodeled one of the outbuildings into a garage.”

Suddenly her first answer sank in.

“Wait. Run the whole way? As in, we’re still going to run part of the way?” I demanded.

She pursed her lips like she was trying not to smile. “You’re not going to run.”

I groaned. “I’m going to puke in front of your family.”

“Keep your eyes closed, you’ll be fine.”

I shook my head, sighed, then reached over and took her hand. “Hi. I missed you.”

She laughed—it was a trilling sound, not quite human. “I missed you, too. Isn’t that strange?”

“Why strange?”

“You’d think I’d have learned more patience over the last hundred years. And here I am, finding it difficult to pass an afternoon without you.”

“I’m glad it’s not just me.”

She leaned over to swiftly kiss my cheek, then pulled back quickly and sighed. “You smell even better in the rain.”

“In a good way or a bad way?”

She frowned. “Always both.”

I don’t know how she even knew where we were going with the downpour—it was like a liquid gray curtain around the Jeep—but she somehow found a side road that was more or less a mountain path. For a long while conversation was impossible, because I was bouncing up and down on the seat like a jackhammer. She seemed to enjoy the ride, though, smiling hugely the whole way.

And then we came to the end of the road; the trees formed green walls on three sides of the Jeep. The rain was a mere drizzle, slowing every second, the sky brighter through the clouds.

“Sorry, Beau, we have to go on foot from here.”

“You know what? I’ll just wait here.”

“What happened to all your courage? You were extraordinary this morning.”

“I haven’t forgotten the last time yet.” Was it really only yesterday?

She was around to my side of the car in a blur, and she started on the harness.

“I’ll get those, you go on ahead,” I protested. She was finished before I got the first few words out.

I sat in the car, looking at her.

“You don’t trust me?” she asked, hurt—or pretending to be hurt, I thought.

“That really isn’t the issue. Trust and motion sickness have zero relationship to each other.”

She looked at me for a minute, and I felt pretty stupid sitting there in the Jeep, but all I could think about was the most sickening roller-coaster ride I’d ever been on.

“Do you remember what I was saying about mind over matter?” she asked.

“Yes…”

“Maybe if you concentrated on something else.”

“Like what?”

Suddenly she was in the Jeep with me, one knee on the seat next to my leg, her hands on my shoulders. Her face was only inches away. I had a light heart attack.

“Keep breathing,” she told me.

“How?”

She smiled, and then her face was serious again. “When we’re running—and yes, that part is nonnegotiable—I want you to concentrate on this.”

Slowly, she moved in closer, turning her face to the side so that we were cheek to cheek, her lips at my ear. One of her hands slid down my chest to my waist.

“Just remember us… like this.…”

Her lips pulled softly on my earlobe, then moved slowly across my jaw and down my neck.

“Breathe, Beau,” she murmured.

I sucked in a loud lungful.

She kissed under the edge of my jaw, and then along my cheekbone. “Still worried?”

“Huh?”

She chuckled. Her hands were holding my face now, and she lightly kissed one eyelid and then the next.

“Edythe,” I breathed.

Then her lips were on mine, and they weren’t quite as gentle and cautious as they always had been before. They moved urgently, cold and unyielding, and though I knew better, I couldn’t think coherently enough to make good decisions. I didn’t consciously tell my hands to move, but my arms were wrapped around her waist, trying to pull her closer. My mouth moved with hers and I was gasping for air, gasping in her scent with every breath.

“Dammit, Beau!”

And then she was gone—slithering easily out of my grasp—already standing ten feet away outside the car by the time I’d blinked my way back to reality.

“Sorry,” I gasped.

She stared warily at me with her eyes so wide the white showed all the way around the gold. I half-fell awkwardly from the car, then took a step toward her.

“I truly do think you’ll be the death of me, Beau,” she said quietly.

I froze. “What?”

She took a deep breath, and then she was right next to me. “Let’s get out of here before I do something really stupid,” she muttered.

She turned her back to me, staring back over her shoulder with a get on with it look.

And how was I supposed to reject her now? Feeling like a gorilla again, only even more ridiculous than before, I climbed onto her back.

“Keep your eyes shut,” she warned, and then she was off.

I forced my eyes closed, trying not to think about the speed of the wind that was pushing the skin flat against my skull. Other than that tell, it was hard to believe we were really flying through the forest like we had before. The motion of her body was so smooth, I would have thought she was just strolling down the sidewalk—with a gorilla on her back. Her breath came and went evenly.

I wasn’t entirely sure we had stopped when she reached back and touched my face.