Red Wolf's Return

A silence fell.

The boy shrugged. “Let’s blow this pop stand,” he said to the others. “Too many chiefs around here.”

Letting his comment go, Meg picked up the twenty-two propped against a nearby tree, checked the cartridge. “This yours, Miles?” She pocketed the chambered bullet.

“Yeah.” A two-syllable word.

“Come by the office tomorrow with your dad. You’ll get it back then.”

Within seconds the teenagers had slipped into the night-shrouded woods. “Beau,” Meg called to her son as he followed his friends.

Beside her, Ethan murmured, “Take it easy, Meggie.”

The boy halted and she waited until he turned to face her. She said, “I want you in bed and asleep when I get home, understand?”

He stared at the flickering flames they had yet to douse. “You always ruin everything,” he grouched.

“Not now, Beau.” She did not want to fight him in front of Ethan. Tonight’s situation was humiliation enough. He had seen her parenting skills—or lack of them.

But Beau wouldn’t let go. “Don’t you get it? You embarrassed me in front of my friends, playing big-shot cop.”

“That’s enough,” Meg said.

Ethan ambled toward Beau. No, Meg thought. Not ambled. Moved like a cougar, all easy grace and benign power. “Don’t be disrespectful to your mother.”

A snort. “What, and she respects me?”

“Ever think she might be trying to teach you something?”

Beau looked Ethan up and down, as if the man was an insignificant blip, then her son turned and disappeared into the forest.

Meg’s cheeks burned. That kind of snubbing had been part of Ethan’s childhood, and now her child rubbed shoulders with a second generation of dolts.

The worst of it was Beau knew better. For sixteen years she had provided him with lessons in respect and kindness.

Now this.

She glanced over at Ethan. Moonlight swept along his broad shoulders, against a blade of cheekbone. Though the night shielded their concern, his earth-brown eyes held hers for several heartbeats.

Suddenly Meg’s energy drained and she plopped onto the massive log where her son had sat not five minutes ago, hugging Zena Phillips.

“God, some days it’s like he’s this…this person I don’t recognize.” Leaning forward, elbows on knees, she stared at the licking flames of the campfire and gusted a breath. “We lock horns on everything. Friends, school, his driving ability, meals, curfews…. Where’s that little boy I raised?”

She felt rather than heard Ethan slip onto the wood beside her. Their arms and hips bumped as he emulated her position. The urge to lay her head on his shoulder overwhelmed her, and for a moment she forced herself to keep her body still.

After a long minute he said, “He’s seeking his independence, just like we did at that age.”

“That may be. Doesn’t mean I have to like how and with whom he’s doing the seeking.”

He looked at her, a little amused. “We used to do the same thing, Meggie.”

“We never drank. Or ran around with fools.”

“No…but we did a lot of this.” He picked up her left hand, bounced it gently on his big, callused palm. “And a lot of this.” Between his thumb and forefinger, he stroked each of her paler fingers. “And this,” his voice lowered as he spread his hand, and she did the same, matching finger on finger.

Light on dark. Delicate on strong.

Slowly he closed the gaps between his fingers so her hand lay flat and narrow on his warm one for a few seconds before he reopened his fingers to entwine around Meg’s. “We couldn’t stop touching.”

Or kissing, she thought, enthralled by his voice, the strength of his bones and knuckles. The color of his skin.

“We weren’t so different, Meggie,” he said, and she heard gravel in his voice.

The ebbing fire burnished his cheekbones while the heat of his touch ignited her blood. All she had to do was turn her head, and his mouth would meet hers. She sensed him waiting. Waiting for her next move. For her permission.

In the smoldering coals, she saw the dream again, felt the kiss he’d given, the stroke of his hands. Her body shifted toward him, toward the magnetism that was Ethan Red Wolf.

The rottweiler walked over, lay down with a grunt at Ethan’s feet, and with a shudder Meg shot out of her trance.

What am I doing? She had to get home, see to her son. She had responsibilities, a life, a career. God, what had made her think she could sit here dreaming dreams she’d given up to pride a thousand years ago?

She jumped to her feet, and the crisp night air stole the sheltering warmth of his body. “I have to go,” she said, kicking dirt and stones onto the dying embers of the campfire.

He rose to assist. “Sure.” When night claimed the area again, when the last coal winked out, and she would have walked into the woods, he said, “Meggie, I’m glad I was here to help. If there’s anything else I can do, let me know.”

She stood across the deadened fire’s circle of rocks. Starlight danced in his black hair, and he had held her hand for the first time in nineteen years, and she had almost kissed him. Really kissed him.

Looking at the dusty fire pit, she said, “Beau will make this up to you.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“It is. This is your land. He needs to take responsibility for his actions.” She lifted the twenty-two into the crook of her arm. “Do you need help around your place? Maybe with finishing the pier?”

The dog stood at his side, ready for direction from her master, who laid a hand on her head. “If working off his consequences is what you want, then, yeah, I could put him to work.”

“Fine. I’ll have him there around nine tomorrow.” Saturday.

She headed the way they had come, back through the trees, back to Ethan’s house and her truck, back to her solitary memories, while the imprint of his hand on hers burned other memories into her skin.

And a history of regret.

Chapter Four

Ethan looked over his shoulder when Lila growled. The dog rose to her feet from where she’d been lying in a block of sunlight streaming through the studio’s screen door.

“Easy, girl.” He set down the photos he’d been examining on the drafting table. “That’s probably our guest.” Through the window he saw Beau’s pickup pull up to the house.

So. The kid obeyed his mother. Before driving away last night, Meggie had been adamant Beau be accountable for his actions.

Hell, yes, Ethan could use an extra pair of hands, but having her son around for a week meant she would be checking up on the boy, which meant discussions and more of those long-eyed looks. That the kid was the conduit bringing her here felt like a fish bone in the throat.

Speaking softly to Lila, “Be nice,” he stepped onto the stoop and into the sunshine.

“Is he gonna bite?” Beau called, hesitating inside the open door of his truck as the dog trotted toward him.

“Not unless you give her reason to.”

“Terrific. She probably hates me after last night.”

Ethan remained where he was. “Did you pop shots at my dog along with Miles Ralston?”

A scowl. “No-o.”

“Then you got nothing to worry about.” He gave the dog a few seconds to sniff the kid’s sneakers and hands before commanding her to return. Ethan headed for the shed and his tools. Over his shoulder he said, “If you got gloves, bring ’em.”

“Just so you know I think this is stupid.” The truck door slammed.

Ethan didn’t look back. If the kid left, that would be that. He would call Meggie, tell her to dream up another consequence plan. Without him.

“I told my mom this is slave labor.”

Ethan grunted. Kid was sticking.

Inside the shed he strapped on his tool belt, collected a hammer and a sack of nails, shoved them into a box. Beau appeared in the doorway, blocking the sun for a moment before he stepped over the threshold.

“Cool,” he said, wandering to the Merrimack canoe resting upside down on a pair of wooden sawhorses. “We gonna fix this?”

“Nope.” Ethan set the box into the boy’s hands. “We’re working on the pier. These are your tools. Take care of them because they’re the only extras I have. You lose them, you buy new ones.”

Beau smirked. “You mean my mom’ll buy them.”

Ethan went out the door. “No. I mean you’ll buy them.”

“Well,” the kid’s tone was smug, “since I don’t have a job, guess you’ll be out of luck. No tools, no work.”

Ethan stopped, lifted his cap, scraped back his damp hair. “I own a half-dozen shovels, Beau. Trust me, you won’t be out of jobs to do.” Lila at his heels, he continued toward the dock.

“My dad isn’t going to like this, you know.”

“See those nails popping up?” Ethan pointed to several rusted nail heads standing a half inch out of the wood. “Pull them out and toss them in the box. Hammer a new one in place. If the board’s split or there’s soft rot, pull it up and we’ll replace it.”

Beau dropped the box at his feet. The tools clinked. “Did you hear what I said?”

“I heard.” Ethan knelt and yanked on a nail. “Your dad won’t like this.”

“Do you know who he is?”

He did. Doug Sutcliffe was a plastic surgeon in Sacramento. Ethan had heard the news of Meggie’s marriage—and divorce—from his former employer and friend, Ash McKee, Meggie’s brother. “Who he is doesn’t matter, Beau. What matters is that people conduct themselves in a good and decent manner.”

“You saying my dad isn’t good and decent?” A thread of disquiet under the belligerence.

“I’m sure he is.” But when was the last time he saw you?

Beau crouched at the far end of the dock, yanked nails left and right. “You got something on your mind, spit it out.”

“If I had a son smart as you, I wouldn’t be living in California.” Ethan nodded at the hammer the boy held. “Make sure you replace the old nails. Don’t just pull them.”

The kid squatted. Bang went the hammer. “You don’t know anything about my dad.” Bang-bang-bang.

“You’re right. I don’t.”

“Every time I go to California, he pays my flight down. We do things together.” The bravado was back. The same bravado from last night when the boy mouthed off in front of his friends. “He’s got this pool and a membership to this club where you can play tennis all day. His wife’s really nice and so are my little half sisters. They treat me like part of the family, and we go to the beach and have lunch in restaurants with patios looking out over the ocean. Sharon, that’s his wife’s name, she has a gardener to look after their yard and a housekeeper. Her and the kids never have to do chores. It’s cool.”

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