Red Wolf's Return. Mary Forbes J.

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СКАЧАТЬ “You’ll always be Meggie to me. Meg is the cop. Meggie is the woman.”

      A spear of heat pricked her stomach. She turned to go. “They’re one and the same. I’m not the person you knew back then, Ethan.”

      His biceps brushed her shoulder as he fell in step beside her. “Can’t promise to remember that.”

      “Well, try. By the way, thanks for coming here with me.” For giving me a statement I can file.

      “I don’t think your son shot the eagle.”

      “That remains to be seen. He’s been—” She cut off the direction of thought. Ethan Red Wolf was no longer part of her life, and she had no business burdening him with her woes about a teenager dipping his toes in dark waters.

      “Been what?” Ethan prompted. His stride slowed to match hers across the uneven, tricky landscape.

      She paused in the cool shadows bordering the timberline. Across the water a loon bugled its lonesome call. “Let’s just say Beau has a rebellious streak.”

      “Normal for teenagers.” The flicker of fun resurfaced. “I recall us having a streak of rebelliousness when we were sixteen.”

      “We weren’t irresponsible,” she retorted. We didn’t flick cigarettes out car windows or write graffiti on the sides of buildings. “If we had, our parents would’ve kicked butt.”

      Beneath the cap, his eyes laughed. “Oh, Meggie. You forget so easily. What about the time we did doughnut spins in my old truck across old man Freeley’s hay field? And the time you drove your dad’s pickup to the drive-in without permission. He sent the cops looking for us.”

      Her lips pursed to hide a smile. “That was different.”

      “How so?”

      “We did it for fun. Beau’s got ten miles of attitude. He does things with intent.”

      Ethan frowned. “You’re talking like a cop, not a mother.”

      “Maybe I can’t separate the two.”

      “Like you can’t separate the cop from the woman?”

      She walked away from him, into the forest. “This conversation’s over.”

      “Why, because I hit a nerve?”

      “Because my relationship with Beau is none of your concern.”

      “What about the relationship between you and me?” he called.

      “A two-hour reunion isn’t a relationship.”

      Several seconds later his fingers closed around her forearm. A pinch of fear rushed through Meg. He’d come up behind her, quick and silent, and they were on a mountainside, but most of all she had no tool of comparison for this somber-eyed Ethan to the one she’d suppressed in the memories of her past.

      Scowling, he released his grip and stepped back. “Christ, Meggie. You know I’d never hurt you.”

      Shame warmed her cheeks. He always could read her emotions. “It’s not that.”

      “Isn’t it?”

      “Look, this is my point. We no longer know each other.”

      “We have a history,” he argued. “A long history. Which you chose to throw away by running off and marrying some other man.”

      “I did not run off or throw away anything. You chose not to understand.”

      “I understood full well. Your best friend committed suicide six days before prom night and you were so distraught all you wanted was to eradicate the memory. ‘Please, Ethan,’ you begged. ‘Help me erase the memory. Give me something else to put in its place.’ Well, sorry for not having the enthusiasm to take your virginity just so you could grab what I thought should be a sweet and tender first time for both of us, just to use it as a crutch in your grief. I loved you, Meggie. Didn’t that mean anything to you?”

      From a far distance in her mind, the up-and-down motion of his chest registered. He breathed as if he’d sprinted a mile uphill. Resurrected, that night still bothered him.

      Suddenly, she saw herself as he had. Walking away, crying and cursing him in the same breath. Without empathy for his broken heart, his gentle soul. Farrah had been his friend, too—along with Kell Tanner. Four kids growing up together. “Buds all the way,” they’d repeated on a thousand and one occasions, like a mantra.

      Until Farrah made them a trio and life as they knew it died at the end of a rope in that closet with her.

      As Meg stood looking up at Ethan, she remembered, too, the taunting words she’d said, words no better than those Linc Leland and Jock Ralston uttered years ago….

      That night, after they’d changed from prom finery into jeans and sweatshirts, they had come here and she’d accused Ethan of letting them get to him, letting them victimize him. Like Farrah had been victimized.

      Farrah’s death shouldn’t be the reason, he’d said. Shouldn’t be the reason to make love. To which Meg had responded, So, don’t let it scare you away.

      And here she was, nineteen years later, the one scared away.

      Scared of righting wrongs with Ethan. Of getting involved in a relationship. Most of all, most of all, scared of being a woman. A woman whose disease could return with a vengeance.

      Oblivious of the turmoil in her head, Ethan stroked her cheek, a first in forever. “It’s long past,” he said quietly. His hand dropped. “Come on, let’s head back.”

      She trailed him through the rugged, sun-speckled woods. And, watching the beacon of his white T-shirt amidst the shadows, she couldn’t help but think how once, long ago, she would have followed him into eternity.

      

      Meg waited until Beau came through the back door after school, threw his backpack on a kitchen chair and strode for the fridge. Dark hair gelled, jeans low on his hips—but not so you could see his underwear—he hung onto the door, one high-top sneaker resting on the toe of its mate.

      “Hey, honey.” She stood at the sink, grating carrots for a salad to go with the casserole she’d tossed together. “How was your day?”

      He continued to stare inside the refrigerator. “Same.”

      Translation: boring, stupid, wish-I-didn’t-have-to-go and I-hate-school.

      Decision made, he hauled out a tub of yogurt, dug a spoon from the drawer, delved into the snack. Another time Meg would have reprimanded him for eating out of containers. These days she selected her battles.

      The one about to occur was one of those diacritical choices.

      She turned, set down the grater. He’d plunked himself on a kitchen chair. “Beau, I need to ask you something.”

      “Wha—?” His mouth was full of yogurt.

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