Daredevil's Run. Kathleen Creighton

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СКАЧАТЬ yeah, way. Twice, actually—he’d just managed to climb back in the boat when he went over again. The kids loved it. Randy got some great footage.”

      “Nice.” Alex produced a grin in return, though her heart wasn’t in it.

      In the silence that followed, Eve rotated her chair back and forth with that annoying creaking sound, and finally said, “So, the dude with the glasses. You said he’s Matt’s brother? Sure didn’t look like a cop.”

      “Cop? Oh, no, no, different brother.” Alex waved a hand dismissively, hoping Eve would take the hint from that and leave it alone. The last thing she felt like doing was explaining Matt Callahan’s family to Eve. The last person she wanted to talk about in any way was Matt Callahan.

      He was the last person she wanted to think about, too, and she knew she was going to do that whether she wanted to or not, as well.

      “So, what did he want with you? I thought you and that guy were finished.”

      Alex scrubbed her burning eyes with the hand she’d used to try to fend off the question. “We were—we are. It’s not—it’s nothing to do with me, actually. He just…had some questions about Matt. About the accident, and…stuff like that.”

      “That’s kind of weird, isn’t it? Why ask you? Why not just ask his brother?”

      “It’s not that simple. He doesn’t really know Matt. He hasn’t seen him since they were little kids. Look, it’s a long story, okay? And I don’t really feel like talking about it right now.”

      And instantly she thought, Damn, why did you do that? You know Eve’s going to have her feelings hurt.

      And yes, now she was looking like a kicked puppy. Which she really didn’t deserve.

      “Sorry,” Alex said gruffly. “Hey, you know me. I just…really don’t want to talk about it. Okay? I’ll tell you all about it later, I promise.”

      “Well, you better,” Eve said sternly, then grinned as she levered herself out of the chair. “Hey, the guides are getting together at The Corral to toast Bobby’s double dunking. You coming?”

      “I…dunno. I have a killer headache and a bunch of paperwork to do here before I can call it a day. You go on. Maybe I’ll catch up with you later.”

      “Okay.” Eve paused at the door to look back at her, head tilted. “Hey, Alex.”

      “Yeah?”

      “He’s not thinking about coming back, is he? Your ex? I mean, you’re not thinking about taking him back?”

      Alex gave a short hard bark of a laugh. “Oh, hell no.”

      “Well, good. Because the guy ran out on you, right? I mean, I remember how it was. It was pretty rough around here for a while.”

      “Hey, don’t worry about it,” Alex said with a flip of her hand, as if she were swatting at a fly. “Matt Callahan and I are ancient history.”

      Eve hesitated, then nodded. She gave the door frame a slap. “Okay. See you later. I’ll save you a cold one.”

      For a few minutes after she’d gone, Alex sat without moving. Then, slowly, she swiveled to the desk and reached for the phone. Picked it up. Held it for a long time, then put it back in its cradle without dialing the number she still remembered, even after five years.

      Just as she remembered the words they’d spoken to each other then. Words she didn’t want to remember. Words that made her cringe to remember.

       “Ah, jeez, Matt. Don’t do this.”

       “Do what? It’s not like I’m asking you to run off and get married tomorrow. Just talk about it. Why’s that so hard? We’ve been doing this—whatever it is we’re doing—for five years. Don’t you think it’s about time?”

       “Doing what? What’ve we been doing? Seems to me we’ve been fighting for five years! So now you want to get married?”

       “Yeah, and what is it we fight about? I’ll tell you what we fight about—we start to get close, and you get scared, so you do something to screw it up.”

       “I don’t! That’s bull—”

       “Sure you do. Every damn time things start to get really good for us. Just because your mother messed up your head—”

       “Don’t you dare blame my mother for this!”

       “Why not? She’s managed to convince you every man’s a jerk like your father, leaving her cold when he found out she was pregnant. Well, I’m not your father, okay? I’m not a jerk. We’ve been working together, sleeping together—hell, we’ve been best friends—for five years, you should know that by now. We’ve got a good thing going. Or it could be good, if you’d quit trying to ruin it. It’s no big secret how I feel about you, I tell you often enough. So, now I’m asking you.” He paused to give her a hard, burning look. “Do you love me?”

       Do I love you? The question was a white-hot fire burning inside her head. Somewhere inside the fire was the answer she feared even more than she feared losing Matt. The answer she couldn’t bring herself to grab hold of or even look at, as if, like some mythical curse it would sear her eyes blind, or turn her to stone.

       “It’s…complicated,” she mumbled, her face stiff with pain.

       “I don’t see what’s so complicated about it. You either do, or you don’t.”

      She’d turned away, then. But she remembered Matt’s face…tight-lipped, stubborn as only he could be. And his hands…their movements jerky and hurried as he packed his climbing gear.

      Cory heard the ruckus before he saw it, as soon as he entered the foyer of the rec center. He was able to follow the sounds of mayhem to their source, the indoor basketball arena, where, from an open doorway, the noise pulsed and billowed like a heavy curtain in a high wind. He braced himself and paused there to assess the likelihood that carnage either had already ensued within or was about to. He’d been in battle zones, live ammo firefights less noisy and less violent.

      What he saw inside that huge room confirmed it: people here were trying to kill each other.

      What it reminded him of was an epic movie battle scene set in medieval times. War cries and shrieks of pain and rage echoing above the thunder of horses’ hooves and the clash of steel swords on armor plating and chain mail. Except these battle chargers were made of titanium, not flesh and bone, and carried their riders on wheels instead of hooves.

      Out on the gleaming honey-gold hardwood floor, four wheelchairs were engaged in a no-holds-barred duel for possession of what appeared to be a regulationsize volleyball. Now the ball rose above the fray in a tall arc, to be plucked from the air by a long brown arm and tucked between drawn-up knees and leaning chest. The four chairs swiveled, drew apart amid cries of “Here here here!” and “Get ‘im, get the—” and “No you ain’t, mother—” then smashed together СКАЧАТЬ