She arched a brow. “Yes. You could be very helpful. You do know a thing or two about moving.”
He looked at her for a long moment. The relief was so complete it took him a second to find the words.
“Where,” he said carefully, “are you moving to?”
“Pine Ridge.” She held his gaze steadily. “Frank said I could stay with him until I get on my feet, find a job, that sort of thing.”
“Sounds like you’ve given it a lot of thought.”
“I have, actually.”
“Anything else you’ve come up with?” Patrick prompted.
“And… I want to see where this goes.” She paused, choosing her words carefully. “I don’t know what this is yet, and I’m not sure I believe in the wholecroiephenomenon. But I know that there is something here. Something special that I’d be a fool to walk away from without proper, thorough research.” She met his eyes. “That’s the best I can do right now.”
He reached over and took her hand.
“It’s enough,” he said. “It’s more than enough.”
She exhaled. And then, slowly, she leaned her head against his shoulder.
He wrapped his arm around her.
He was going with her to Philly.
And then he was going to bring her home and give her every reason to stay.
41
SO READY
MORGAN
Philadelphia lookeddifferent than she remembered.
That was her first thought as the familiar skyline became visible. The city hadn’t changed in the weeks she’d been up north, but she had.
She’d spent five weeks looking at mountains and trees and colors other than shades of gray. Smelling pine and leaves and dirt instead of concrete and exhaust and trash. Being the only car on the road instead of slowly creeping along foot by foot, bumper to bumper.
They’d barely crossed into the city limits, and the familiar tension was already preparing her for the constant fight-or-flight readiness that came with being surrounded by the one-point-five million people occupying the city at any given time.
In contrast, Pine Ridge had five thousand. Maybe. And a lot more open space.
Morgan glanced to the side. Patrick looked out the window at the passing streetscape with the same attentive quiet he brought to everything. She tried to imagine him living and working here and couldn’t.
“Have you ever been to Philly before?”
“Once, when I was a kid,” he said. “Class field trip.”
“Let me guess. Franklin Institute?”
“Yep.”
“Did you like it?”
“Didn’t get to see much of it,” Patrick said.
“Why not?”