Free Desperate Rescue by Barbara Phinney

destroyed, then turned. “We need to talk.”
    Kaylee stopped. Several people walked past them. A few dry leaves, shed from the trees by a rogue wind, crunched underfoot.
    She turned. “What’s there to talk about?”
    He took her arm, discarding any gentle sympathy he might have. This was too serious an issue to sugar-coat. “We have to talk about what happened back there in the farmhouse. By the door. Among other things.”
    She fidgeted. “I thought you were Noah, but I was wrong. Noah would have abandoned me there, then detonated the explosives. You came up from the basement. I remember hearing you now.” She yanked her arm free and reached for the passenger door.
    “There’s more, Kaylee. And you know it.”
    Her hand stilled on the handle. He leaned forward. “You thought I was Noah.”
    “I was mistaken. I just said that.”
    “You accused me of trying to teach you some kind of sick lesson. Do you need to talk about this?”
    “No.”
    He needed her to trust him. Her life was on the line and he would not allow Noah to destroy it.
    “I’d rather we not discuss it,” she added. “I’m tired and I want to go home. I know it’s late, but would you please drive me home?”
    “I could find us a couple of rooms in a motel here—”
    She spun around. “I’ve had quite enough of the motels here! I’d rather go home.”
    Trisha. How could he have forgotten? He could have kicked himself for his stupidity. “I’m sorry. Yes, I’ll take you home. But first, what sick lesson were you talking about?”
    She rubbed her temples with her fingers. He waited, the wind chilling him. The leaves from a nearby maple flew around, several snagging the windshield wipers of his car.
    Finally, she whispered, “The sick lesson was on trust. A lot of Noah’s sermons talked about that. Trust in him, of course, as the voice of God. But…you know…God?”
    “No.” He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
    Exasperated, she smacked the car window. “I thought you were trying to make me trust God!” She made a disgusted noise. “I don’t know! I thought you were trying to scare me because I didn’t trust God enough. Except I thought you were Noah. And Noah would say trust in him was trust in God.”
    She folded her arms, rubbing them lightly with her hands. “I thought you were horrible to do that.”
    He touched her chin and tilted it to face him. To his surprise, his heart was pounding hard. “I would love for you to trust God completely. But that’s not easy, even for a lot of Christians.”
    Her eyes widened, catching the yellow glow from the streetlight. She blinked, once, twice, then swallowed.
    He yanked back his hand, choosing instead to run it through his hair than to touch her. The short ends scraped against his palm. Frustration tightened the muscles in his neck. “But I would never use a sick lesson to teach that. I would…”
    He heard himself trailing off. He’d brought her here, done everything short of kidnapping in order to get her to show him the hidden way into the compound. She could have just told him where the break was, but he’d expected that she’d want to be part of Phoebe’s liberation. And he practically dragged her here, hoping she could somehow help.
    And she’d tried, against her own fear and better judgment. It didn’t make him feel any better.
    “It may not have been a sick lesson, but what I did was just as bad,” he said, half to himself. Then he focused on her face, as she pulled her jacket closer to her neck. “And I would never pull a stunt like trying to be someone else.”
    She held her jacket collar close and refused to meet his eyes. “I know that it wasn’t you. Now, anyway. But before…I thought you were Noah and…I thought I saw you out in the yard, moving around.” She shook her head. “But it was probably an animal.”
    He quirked an eyebrow. “You mistook an animal for me?”
    She smiled briefly, acknowledging with some embarrassment the attempt