Page 91 of Hunt for You

His brows rose slowly. “I know… were you looking for me?”

“Yes! I mean, no. I mean… Well, just someone. I was… thinking about Richard and… I don’t know!” I wailed, then dropped my face into my hands and took a step back because I was embarrassed and nowdeeplywished I hadn’t come, because he was looking at me like he was worried for my mental health and wasn’t that probably right? I mean, I was a hot mess. But not the way he probably thought, and—

“Bridget?”

I lifted my face out of my hands and realized I was crying when his eyes widened and he rushed up the steps to get an arm around me and usher me back down and around the building.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. You can be here. That’s what we’re here for, I promise. It’s fine. Don’t cry—I mean, cry if you need to, but… you don’t have to. You don’t have to do anything…”

He was babbling almost as much as me and I started laughing because it was so ridiculous.

A person who’d never been to church being escorted through an old-people’s parking lot by a priest who was a felon and both of us completely clueless about how this was supposed to work.

Oddly, his discomfort made mine less, so I was already blinking away tears by the time he got me into the cottage and practically shoved me into one of the dining chairs, before he marched back into the kitchen to make coffee.

“Now,” he said a couple minutes later while the machine was bubbling away. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on? Is it just about Richard? I was thinking about you yesterday because I found something I thought you’d want. Wait… wait right there. I’ll go find it.”

I sat there, wiping my face on my hoodie sleeves, and snorting a little because we were both being kind of stupid. But he was back a minute later with a little book in his hands.

“I hope… I hope you don’t mind. I wasn’t… I wasn’t prying,” Sam said nervously, clawing a hand through his hair as he took the seat next to me. “I was trying to figure out if there were any other people I needed to notify of Richard’s death. We haven’t been able to unlock his phone yet. So I was going through his journal and diary, looking for names and… well, yours came up.”

He passed me the little book, open to a specific page he’d had his finger stuck in and I saw pages of Richard’s scrawled handwriting.

“Wait… Richard wrote about me in his journal?”

Sam nodded, and gave a sad smile. “He wrote really wonderful things.”

He pushed the book closer and I caught one word on the page.

Bridget.

I leaned back in my chair like he’d just pushed a snake across the table.

“I… that’s really sweet of you to… to show me that. But I don’t think… Right now isn’t a good time. I just—”

“He’s not telling anything personal, Bridget. He’s talking about how much he cares about you.”

“That’sworse!”I blurted, then clapped a hand over my mouth, staring at Sam, wide-eyed over my hand, as he stared back.

Then he blinked and shook his head like he was clearing it. Then he gave an adorable, self-deprecating smile and leaned his elbows on the table, resting his face in his hands.

“I’m sorry, Bridget. That’s a lot. I just put a lot on you. I’m sorry. I’m still… finding my way with normal people. I’m—”

“I’m not normal!”

Dear God, please sew my tongue to the roof of my mouth forever. Thank you. Amen.

Sam dropped his hands and looked at me, grinning. “That’s great. Because I’m not either.”

We just sat there, staring at each other for a second.

And my heart started to beat faster.

I swallowed hard. “I’m sorry to just land on you like this,” I said, trying to keep my voice lower and quieter so I wasn’t shrieking at the poor man. “It’s been a rough couple of days, and I think… I think it didn’t really sink in the other day when we talked about Richard and I just… I needed to get out of my house,” I said, embarrassed, and gesturing towards my loose sweats.

“This is the part I know for sure, Bridget. I’m glad you came. Iwantto help you if I can. And most people take some time to process when they get news like that. So, at least in that, youare,in fact, normal.”

I snorted, and he grinned and my heart beat a little faster still.