Thankful by Shelley Shepard Gray

I’m inconveniencing you.”
    â€œAll I’m saying is that this is going to be a difficult drive home.”
    â€œWe’ve done it before,” she pointed out.
    â€œBut you were better prepared.”
    He carefully reined in Maisey as traffic stalled, and felt Christina look over at him with a critical eye. “Aden, you don’t look like you’re dressed any warmer than me.”
    â€œThat’s different.”
    â€œWhy? Because I’m a girl?”
    Because she was Christina. “ Jah . And because I promised your parents I’d see you safely home.”
    Something flashed in her eyes that looked a lot like hurt. “So that is why you’re upset? Because you promised my parents that you’d look out for me?”
    â€œWell, jah .” With effort he refrained from rolling his eyes. Christina knew as well as he did that Joe and Martha depended on him to keep her safe from harm.
    He was able to glance at her just long enough to see her grit her teeth. “I’m only speaking the truth, Christy,” he said.
    â€œWell, just think, soon you won’t have to make this drive anymore. You’ll be living in town.”
    â€œRight now I’m feeling like it can’t happen soon enough. Heaven help your brothers.”
    â€œMy brothers are too young to come and get me! I’ll simply be driving myself.”
    â€œYou certainly won’t.”
    â€œAnd why not?”
    â€œBecause it’s not safe.” At the moment, he didn’t even care that they were verbally sparring like a pair of teenagers. She was able to get under his skin like no other. And she certainly knew how to get a rise out of him.
    â€œLots of women drive their own horse and buggy, Aden.” She paused, then glared at him again. “Or maybe I’ll even have someone else drive me around.”
    He hated these kinds of conversations, where they bickered like children. He was just about to tell her that, too.
    But then what she said finally registered. “Who would you get to drive you home?”
    â€œAnother man. Maybe a beau.”
    Her comment startled him so much, he almost jerked on Maisey’s reins. “What in the world does that mean?”
    â€œAbout what you’d think.” She had the nerve to sound all airy about it, too.
    And that really gave him pause. “I didn’t know you were seeing someone.”
    â€œI’m not yet. I mean, not exactly. But I’m hopeful that something is going to become of it.”
    â€œWhat do you mean by ‘of it’? What have you done? And where did you meet him?”
    â€œI don’t see how that is any of your business, Aden.”
    â€œChristina,” he bit out, wincing that his temper and worry had made him draw out her name to five syllables. But he couldn’t help himself. She was making him crazy.
    Well, imagining her with some mystery man was making him crazy.
    â€œDon’t you ‘Christina’ me. You know I’m right. You’re moving away, Aden. You should stop worrying about me.”
    â€œYou know I can’t do that.”
    When they stopped again, he glanced at her. But this time he didn’t gaze at her eyes. Instead, he let his gaze drift to her temple, to the faint scar along her hairline. The scar she’d gotten when she’d been struggling to get out of the ice all those years ago and the jagged edge of the ice had cut her delicate skin.
    The scar had been deep enough that she probably had needed stitches, but her parents had decided to simply bandage it well. Now, whenever he looked at it, he remembered feeling helpless and scared to death.
    And guilty.
    â€œAre you staring at my scar again?” she snapped.
    He’d had no idea she’d ever noticed that he’d done that. “Nee.”
    She folded her arms over her chest. “Aden Reese, one day you are going to have to let that accident go. Me falling into the ice was