LITMIR.BIZ

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the letter stuffed into his back pocket only through the dint of greatest willpower. “I won’t.”

      His father. His family.

      And the Core, back in his world.

      * * *

      Regan tossed the washcloth in the laundry and ran a quick load, hanging it out to dry and watching the blue roan pretend to have antics over the mild flap of cloth in the breeze. She pondered the garden—should she plant? Would she be here long enough? Would her father be back?—and pulled out her easel, setting it precisely in the best light in her small bedroom studio space.

      And then she gave up pretending that the morning hadn’t happened, that she hadn’t attacked a man with her walking stick, that Kai hadn’t been skimmed by a bullet or that her hands weren’t still shaking now and then. She stood by the living-room window to look out at Bob, dozing in the sun, and spoke to the old cat.

      “I could head down the hill and take in a movie,” she told the cat, who didn’t care. “I could drive out and get some touristy pistachio products.”

      The cat made squinty eyes at her.

      “Could check out the garden center.”

      The cat yawned and stretched hugely—suddenly a long, flexible thing with claws extruded at almost every appendage. At great risk, she gave its belly an admiring pat. “Nothing stretches like a cat,” she said. “Nice job, there.” She couldn’t help but join it, stretching out some of the lingering shivers of the morning, regretting that she’d agreed not to call the police...thinking it not too late.

      Her gaze fell on her father’s desk—on the business cards she’d left out, side by side. Matt Arshun.

      She’d almost forgotten.

      Not that she had any intention of calling him. But she’d certainly check him out. She had the feeling he’d be back—and she didn’t want to be caught flat-footed a second time.

      She tossed a light jacket into the passenger seat of her bright yellow FJ Cruiser—nothing but four-wheel drive for this area—and headed into town.

      Their dirt road took a curving path down to the heavily graveled dirt connector, which took her past the occasional driveway to tucked-away summer homes. A couple of miles out she hit the asphalt, a winding road that ran the edge of this slope face, and which quickly took her into town.

      The road had changed since her last visit here, years earlier. More guardrails...mesh screening to the inside of the curves where the rock loomed high and close, and always threatened to trickle down on the unwary. And Cloudview, as she grew closer, held an obvious little cluster of new conveniences—a single mega gas station almost obscuring the old block mechanic’s garage, a mini movie rental place tucked in behind and new improvements to the long, narrow park where the summer festivals squatted, one after the other, during the tourist season.

      But the town was essentially what it had always been—a long, narrow crossroads built on sheep farming, orchards and hunting, with topologically terraced layers of activity. Along the south street front the original old buildings—heavy log and overhung raised porches, most of them connecting—hosted Realtors and banks and artisans. Rising up on the next level behind them, vacation cabins pushed back into the rising ground, tucked in behind trees and perched on sharp angles. Twisty stairs, stone-paved paths, and wraparound porches ruled the day...and the decades.

      The north side of the street held a layer of more practical things—the elementary school, a bank, a handful of brick and block construction. A steep walk and long, narrow parking lot behind it, the long boardwalk of original buildings offered a historic hotel, an ice cream shop...a hangout for cyclists and climbers.

      Home.

      The murmur behind her thoughts—the one that wasn’t hers—stayed silent. Regan breathed a sigh of relief and pulled the Cruiser over in front of the general store, where the parking lot hardly bothered to differentiate itself from the road.

      Her footsteps echoed hollowly on the boardwalk; the door jingled wildly in her wake.

      “Regan Adler,” said a voice familiar across years. “How about that?” And there was Bill, with more gray in his beard and a little more belly in his lap, his ubiquitous clipboard in hand and a pencil stuck not behind his ear, but in his beard. On the other side of the shelves, a toddler burbled laughter and ran with flat, slapping feet across the boards at the murmur of a maternal command.

      “How about that?” Regan agreed. Another glance and she found the old cash register counter—and Mary behind it, fussing with a sign for some sort of festival, the lifeblood of the town, those festivals. “Mary. How are you?”

      “’Bout the same as I was when you left in such a hurry,” Mary told her. “Didn’t anyone tell you that going away to school included coming back home now and then to do your laundry?”

      Regan sighed. “Found a launderette,” she said as neutrally as possible, and realized quite suddenly that if this old family friend brought up her mother, she’d simply turn around and walk out.

      Bill must have seen it in her. “Well,” he said, preempting Mary’s next and obvious words, “we missed you.”

      “Thanks,” Regan told him. “I missed you, too.” And she had—she always had. She’d just known better than to come back.

      Home...said the murmur in her head, and she winced.

      Mary chortled. “Still getting used to the altitude, eh?”

      “Boulder is high,” Regan admitted, “but it’s not nearly like this. What I want now is some of that elk jerky I can only get here. You still making it?”

      Bill’s expression brightened. “Yes, ma’am! Let me get some for you.”

      Mary leaned on the counter, her round face watching Bill with satisfaction. “Don’t suppose you could have made him much happier, remembering that jerky. But don’t tell me—you’re really looking for Kai. You’ll find him at the library.” She turned aside, grabbing up the khaki jacket draped over the chair behind her. “You can return this to him, if you’d like.”

      Regan stood rooted. “Kai?” she said stupidly.

      “Of course, Kai. Nice job you did on his arm, but it’s not holding. I don’t suppose he was willing to visit the clinic.”

      “No,” Regan said numbly, aware that this conversation, like so many others since she’d returned home, had gotten completely away from her.

      Mary smiled, a knowing thing. “Thought not. I’m surprised he sat still long enough for you to get that bandanna on him.”

      “You know him well?” It was an inane thing to say, but her mouth had done it for her.

      “As well as anyone.” Mary gestured with the jacket, and this time Regan took it. “He’s a special one. Not a crazy old coot in the making, just...takes things on his own terms. Always seems to be where we need him to be when things come up.”

      Regan felt the dampness of the jacket and realized that Mary had washed it for him. She realized, too, that Mary’s words held an underlying message. Warning?

      “Regan,” Mary said, casting an eye to the back of the store where Bill would emerge, his homemade elk jerky in hand, “you staying?”

      That, too, seemed to have a message behind it, but Regan could only respond to the words themselves. “As long as my father needs me to,” she said. “But I hadn’t planned to stay beyond that.” I have another home now. A life. My work.

      Mary nodded shortly, her wiry curls bobbing. “I thought not. Not after the way you ran from this place.” Regan winced, but Mary paid no mind. “Take care with Kai Faulkes, Regan.”

      Regan took a step closer, suddenly aware that she didn’t want the toddler’s mom hearing this conversation, either. “But he’s perfectly...” Safe, she was going to

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