Abandon by Stephanie Dorman Page A

other; both of them were far too concerned with pleasing everyone to let that happen.  There was something there though, and the strange undercurrent between the two of them was visible to everyone at the house.  
    On Annalise’s side, it made sense;  he often wondered if she thought about their history as much as he did, and if she missed him in that way.  Even now, looking at her red curls peak out from under her beanie, he could almost imagine they had never broken up and they were just on a romantic walk through the woods.  If she was thinking the same way he was, it explained some of her her behavior towards Katy.  
    Katy on the other hand, was still relatively in the dark about the history that Annalise and he shared.  Given that, he wasn’t sure why Katy was so on edge around Annalise.  Perhaps it was a situation where Annalise’s subtle attitude was rubbing off on Katy.  At any rate, it wouldn’t do for both of them to be alone during a scouting mission, especially if it was in bad conditions.
    Annalise was arching her eyebrow and looking at him with an incredulous face.  “We probably don’t need to scout during the storm, I doubt anyone else will be out in it.” he argued.
    “You’re just saying that because you’re uncomfortable with me going out alone.” She stopped to sit on a log that was laid across the path they were on and reached into the pocket of her jacket to pull out a cigarette.  “I’ll take the dog,” she said petting his head.  “He’d never let anything happen to me.”
    Cort knew she was right.  After Annalise had found that dog he’d been more or less attached to her side.  In a way it almost made Annalise the safest in the house, because he couldn’t imagine that dog letting anything happen to her.  He rubbed the dog’s head and took a seat next to her on the log.  “You really think the storm is going to be that bad?”
    The corners of Annalise’s mouth turned upward as she realized she had won the argument.  “Well, both my knees are killing me right now and I can feel it coming in all the other bones in my body, so yeah.”
    “Since you’ve typically been the human barometer, I say we go with your gut feeling,” Cort acknowledged as he took a long drag off the cigarette Annalise passed his way.  “I never thought about that coming out here, that we wouldn’t really have a way to tell the weather until it was almost already on us.”
    Both Cort and Annalise lapsed into silence while they smoked and thought about what he had just said.  It wasn’t exactly the comfortable silence they used to share, but it was something.  He thought about asking her what her feelings were towards him, but he couldn’t find the words or the gumption to ask.  Maybe some questions were better left unasked, because he wasn’t sure how he would handle Katy if Annalise said she felt the same as she did months ago.
    “Did I ever tell you the story of how I got the propane tanks?” Annalise asked, shifting her entire body to look at him.
    “Nope,” he said as he took a final drag of his cigarette.  “I figured you’d tell me when you were ready.”
    “I was on 340 on my way out to you guys and I was running out of gas,” she began, her voice shaking a little bit.  “I stopped at this gas station I knew and when I walked inside there was no one there.  I kept saying hello, and no one answered.  I started checking around and when I got to the back room - there was this older guy - he was sitting on a chair.”
    She paused, rubbing her arms as though a chill had suddenly grabbed her.  “He had shot himself, right through the head.  His brain was all splattered on the wall behind him.  I keep thinking, what did he see that we didn’t because we were driving.  Did he know what was going to happen?”
    Cort was stunned; he expected to hear a cute story about how she managed to flirt with some guy to let her walk away with all the tanks.  He hadn’t