It felt good to be off h
er feet again. It was warmer today than it had been, the sun shining straight down through the holes in the clouds that still covered most of the sky. She wouldn’t have preferred the rains of yesterday, but she hoped it didn’t get too hot as the afternoon wore on.
Bolstering her courage, she decided to examine her feet. She noted in resignation that her socks were now torn on both sides. Several new scrapes decorated her feet, but she supposed she’d grown accustomed to the constant, nagging throbbing. It was like a dull tooth-ache—unpleasant, relentless, but tolerable for now.
“How are your feet?” Donovan asked, just as she noticed an area of exposed skin on the ball of her right foot that was beginning to look particularly inflamed and nasty.
Infection, she thought, turning the foot so he couldn’t see it as she replied, “They’re okay. How’s your leg?”
“Hardly bothers me at all.”
They were both lying, of course, and they both knew it. But neither felt the need to examine those lies at the moment.
Sitting side by side, their legs stretched in front of them, they sat in silence for a while, resting and contemplating their situation.
Chloe was the one who broke the silence, as usual. “Donovan?”
“Mm?”
“What time do you think it is?”
It didn’t surprise her when he glanced up at the sky and answered matter-of-factly, “Around two o’clock. Maybe two-thirty.”
She touched her empty stomach. “Too bad we don’t have a can of fruit cocktail lying around, isn’t it?”
“Mm. Want to try an acorn?”
“Thanks, but I’ll hold out for a nice, fresh salad when we get rescued. With lots of crunchy veggies and breadsticks on the side.”
He grunted. “You can have the rabbit food. I want meat. Red. Medium-rare. Maybe a baked potato with some butter and sour cream.”
“And what would you have for dessert? Personally, I’d like a bowl of sherbet. Pineapple—maybe orange.”
“Coconut pie topped with a couple inches of meringue,” Donovan countered without even stopping to think about it.
“Your favorite from the diner,” she remembered with a smile.
It was obvious that he didn’t like to be reminded of the diner where they had been taken. He nodded shortly, his expression grim.
She hurried to keep the conversation moving. “Did your mother make pies like that?”
“My mother didn’t do much baking. She sometimes made fried pies for a treat. They were good—especially peach.”
He’d mentioned the first day they met that he had no family. “When did you lose her?” she asked quietly.
“I was eleven. She died of an infection that set in after a relatively minor surgery.”
Neither his voice nor his expression had changed when he answered her question. She took a chance and asked another. “And your father?”
“Took off when I was six. I never saw him again, and my mother never remarried.”
“No brothers or sisters?”
“No.”
She bit her lip, then asked, “Who raised you after your mother died?”
“Assorted distant relatives. By the time I was fourteen, I was pretty much on my own.”