Rachael turned off the TV and followed him to the car before he could change his mind.
The ride was deafeningly quiet other than the occasional direction Rachael read off the map her mother had printed out. Her father said nothing, not even, “Okay,” or, “Got it.” It made her wonder if his apology had been genuine or simply her mom putting him up to it.
The idea was putting a damper on a day she had hoped would be fun.
It didn’t take long for her to realize they were getting closer to Douglas Park. It was still a decent hike off, but envy filled her anyway. Holden lived so close to the place she kept precious in her heart, and he’d never told her.
The driveway they turned down seemed endless. Just when Rachael was convinced they had taken a wrong turn, a house burst from a thicket of trees. It was fairly modest, a simple two-story Gablefront home amidst lush forests with berry bushes which trailed from one side and disappeared into what she assumed would be the back yard. The only truly unusual thing was the enormous detached garage off to the right, at least the length of the house with two wide doors. One was open as though to show off the newly waxed vehicles.
“Damn,” her father finally spoke. “Mr. Moreno seems well-off enough.”
No kidding.
And the aforementioned Mr. Moreno was lounging on a large bench on the front porch. He glanced their way, bent over as though to put something down, and approached the car.
Henry was out of the car first. Offering his hand, he said, “Mr. Moreno. I see you’re a car enthusiast.”
Rachael stood at the hood of the car, unsure if she should say hello or also shake Aaron’s hand. She opted to fold her arms and watch awkwardly.
“Aaron is fine, sir,” the younger man said in his carefully enunciated manner. He gave her father’s hand a firm shake and smiled. “It is a pleasure to meet you under better circumstances.”
Immediately Henry headed for the garage. “What year is the Q7, ‘08?”
“It is an ‘09,” responded Aaron. He shot Rachael an amused look before following her father. Left out, Rachael paced in small circles around the car while she eavesdropped on the men’s shop talk. Little of it made sense to her, like torque and liter engines, but they seemed to enjoy it. When it became apparent they weren’t returning right away, she began to wander around the yard. There was no sign of Holden or Nathan, nothing to make her feel comfortable in her strange surroundings.
Finally, the car door slammed as her father climbed in. With the window down, he spoke a few more words to Aaron, waved a quick goodbye to her, and before Rachael could blink he was gone.
Alone with Aaron, anxiety began to rise in the back of her throat.
Aaron approached her. He stopped a safe foot away as though sensing her discomfort. Dark eyes searching her, he spoke softly, “I apologize for the wait, Ms. Adair.”
Shrugging off her nervousness, Rachael glanced around. “I like the bushes,” she said. “Do you ever use the blackberries?”
A small smile touched Aaron’s expression, never reaching his eyes. “Not so much, no.” He gestured toward the house. “Please, come on in. Holden is in the kitchen.”
“Sounds like he’s always there.”
His short laughter was unexpected. “At times I believe he feels most at home in there. A few decades ago it would have had an entirely different meaning.” On the porch he paused, bent down to pick up what he had dropped earlier, and crushed it into a nearby ashtray. Rachael stole a glance as he opened the door. She’d forgotten he smoked.
Inside, she told him so. It earned her a far more genuine smile. “I believe vices ought to be enjoyed in moderation,” he admitted. “A clove here or there, one glass of whiskey—”
“Clove?” she repeated.
“It is a cigarette with a bit of clove spice inside.”
Well. That explained the smell.
Aaron took her on a brief tour of the home. While modest in size, it seemed as though little expense had been spared on the furnishings. Leather furniture, including the reclining couch Nathan sulked on within the living room as he barely acknowledged them, dark-stained shelves with intricate carvings, two flat-screen TVs, two high-end laptops, several game consoles ranging from plug-in to hand-held—and that was just the living room. Rachael had to wonder if he had been mocking her mother when complimenting her home.
He didn’t take her upstairs, just briefly mentioned where the nearest bathroom was. He also failed to say much about the stairwell down. “Is it a basement?” asked Rachael.
“My study,” he said.
Holden was precisely where she expected him, and he appeared hard at work. The gas stove was awfully old compared to the rest of the appliances, and all four burners were going at once. At the moment he was mostly boiling water or heating butter. He turned to give attention to the cutting board stocked with a variety of vegetables before he noticed Rachael and froze. “Oh. Hi.”
If you like him, give it a try. Her mother’s words came back so suddenly that Rachael started to say, “If you—” Catching herself, she groped for the right greeting. “Um. I mean. Hey. Do you need help?”
Holden shook his head, casting a wary glance toward Aaron. “No. I’m just getting the sides ready. Fish will be on the grill in a few minutes.” The last part he directed curtly to Aaron, who appeared nonplussed.
“Why is Roxi not assisting you?”
With a scoff, Holden turned to the cutting board and began to chop an onion. “She ran off the second she found out we had company. And last I checked, I’m not her babysitter, so screw her.”
Rachael looked between the two, realization dawning on her. They must hate each other. She had never seen them interact extensively, but none of it had ever been more than civil. Moreover, Holden had only taken that same clipped tone once before, when he was revealing her side of the Coleen-wolf story to Mrs. Whitley.
Brushing a bit of lint off his black button-up, Aaron muttered, “That girl will be the death of us one day.”
“ ‘Us’ nothing. She’s not my responsibility.”
At a loss for words, Rachael shrank back. More and more, coming over was beginning to sound like her presence was an incredible inconvenience.
Aaron noticed her movement. “I appear to make a lot of apologies to you, Ms. Adair,” he said. “But that was rude of us. May we offer you a drink?”
“Water’s fine,” she said.
Holden scraped the bits of onion into a large bowl of chopped lettuce. Over his shoulder he said, “I have fresh coffee ready if you prefer.”
“I don’t drink much coffee,” she declined.
Aaron, however, was already pouring himself a cup. He handed Rachael a glass and pointed to the chrome refrigerator. “Ice comes out the front there. The larger door has a filtered water canister next to the milk.”
For all his motions of playing the good host, it seemed odd Aaron would suddenly allow her to do something herself. But Rachael was more than happy to have something to do with her hands. A silly part of her was excited to try the ice grinder; she’d seen them on store models but never had the opportunity to try one out.
A small entryway led from the kitchen into the dining room, where Aaron offered Rachael a seat in one of the mahogany-stained chairs, her back facing the kitchen. He sat across from her with his coffee cupped in dexterous, slender fingers. “May I be frank with you, Ms. Adair?”
Rachael sipped at her water. “I guess. But you can call me Rachael.”
“Very well.” Aaron fixed her with an intently serious gaze. “I was not completely honest with your mother. You are more than welcome in our home, but the purpose of this invite was to explain a bit about myself and our family.”
Behind her, Holden uttered a muffled curse. A quick glance over her shoulder told her nothing; her classmate kept his face rigidly away from the dining room.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “Are you guys secretly in witness protection or something?”
“If we
were, is it likely I would willingly tell you so?” asked Aaron wryly.
Rachael shifted and offered her most light-hearted smile. “Depends on if you were going to kill me or not, after.”
The man’s responding sigh was more sad than irritated. “While we are able to appreciate the joke, I fear you are uneasy. Please know nobody in this house means you any harm. This is merely a . . . precaution, for your sake.”
He said he wanted her to relax, but every comfort Aaron offered only served to make Rachael’s imagination flee with more wild abandon. For the sake of politeness, and knowing Holden was behind her, Rachael did her best to ignore her paranoia. “Okay. So what’s the great Moreno-Cavanaugh clan all about?”
“Hmm. For starters, I am aware of what happened on your recent field trip.”
What did that have to do with anything, and how much had Holden told him? Rachael supposed it wasn’t overly surprising he had to explain something to his legal guardian. Once word got around, a few parents had pulled their students out of West Keeton High, citing grounds of endangering their children.
Rachael self-consciously pulled at one of her foreign curls. “I didn’t think wolves really hung around here,” she said quietly. “Or else I wouldn’t have asked for everyone to go.”
“Oh, do not misunderstand. I do not place any blame upon your shoulders. If it was any one person’s fault, it would be mine,” said Aaron smoothly.
That made no sense to her. “I don’t see how.”
Rather than extrapolate, he said, “Also, I wanted you to know that you had a young witness to the entire debacle.”
That was a good word to describe her encounter, Rachael decided. She was tired of talking about Coleen, though. “I’m not worried about all that anymore,” she responded.
“I am.” Aaron raised his voice. “Nathan, come in here.”
Moments later the patter of bare feet sounded behind her. Nathan emerged from the kitchen and stood by his brother, his cherub face glum and at odds with the cheery pastels of his T-shirt.
Aaron directed him to look at Rachael. “Why don’t you tell Miss Rachael what happened.”
Unhappily, Nathan said, “She’s just gonna be mad at me anyway.”
She blinked while Aaron corrected his brother’s grammar. Mad at him? Whatever for? “You mean when you were at my house?” she asked gently.
Nathan’s eyes dimmed a few shades.
A firm hand on his brother’s shoulder, Aaron urged him again to explain.
Finding Aaron’s coffee cup more interesting to look at, Nathan slowly began to talk. How he had been playing in the woods nearby. She had been right; they lived on the cusp of Douglas Park, and Nathan had been goofing off near Amberlyth Trail. Suddenly, he’d heard voices. Like Holden, he recounted some of what he’d heard—and then the wolf attack.
“And the wolf was sad he got yelled at,” the boy said to the cup. “But the ugly girl made him mad so he tried to get her, but the nice one pushed her.”
The way he told the story was peculiar, but Rachael was more fascinated that he seemed to have noticed the wolf’s moods as well as she. Also interesting was how, in his version, Nathan had been almost as close as she had without her ever noticing.
In fact, it was almost too pat. She tried not to show her doubt, but the details were so precise for a little boy that Rachael was more inclined to believe Holden had provided the material.
Normally she would feel compelled to call him out on it, but Nathan looked so close to tears that Rachael swallowed her misgivings. When he was finished she held out a hand. Nathan looked to his brother for permission. Aaron nodded, and immediately the boy circled around the table to hug her.
First Vera, then Holden, now Nathan. Rachael was getting used to the random displays of affection, so this time she immediately returned the gesture. The boy’s golden hair was soft beneath her fingers, finer than her own.
Unfortunately, Nathan didn’t look any happier when he pulled away. “I told Mr. Selby about it,” he said.
The final piece of the puzzle snapped into place. “You were the one,” she said aloud before realizing it.
“When he told me, I drove him to your school,” Aaron said. For the first time he sounded proud, whether of himself or Nathan she couldn’t discern. “All three of us are quite fond of you, Miss Rachael.”
The constant title of “miss” was like the finest grain of sandpaper skimming across her shoulders, but he seemed determined to add formality to her name. Rachael tried not to call attention to it. “Thank you.” Just as Aaron seemed to apologize a lot, she felt she was frequently giving him gratitude.
Kicking at the carpet, Nathan asked plainly, “Can I watch TV again?”
“If you like,” Aaron replied, authority edging back into his voice. “But once we are done with dinner, you are finished with television.”
“‘Kay.”
Suddenly parched, Rachael finished the last of her water. This time Aaron offered her a refill and went to get it himself. She stared at the wisps of steam drifting from his coffee, mulling over another fact from Nathan’s story that bothered her.
Holden came out right behind Aaron, a platter of raw pink fish in his hand. Ignoring Rachael’s efforts to make eye contact, he nudged open the back door and made his way to the smoldering barbeque on the porch.
Rachael spoke in an effort to ignore the stinging rejection. “Why wasn’t Nathan in school?”
Aaron set the chilled glass before her, waiting until he was seated again before answering. “He was not feeling well.”
“But you let him play outside?”
Smirking, Aaron said, “You have found me out, Miss Rachael. I do not inherently oppose a day of hooky here and there so long as he keeps his grades up. And Nathan does so love being outdoors.”
The scent of smoking salmon wafted through the open back door. Rachael swallowed to hide her watering mouth. Earlier that day, she had been so distracted with how to present herself that she had barely even eaten breakfast.
“I do, too,” she said.
They made small talk about her hobbies. It was a nice surprise to find Aaron was as knowledgeable about the finer facts of nature. It wasn’t as pleasant to hear he enjoyed hunting, but he assured her he went about it as humanely as possible.
Holden interrupted their conversation as Aaron regaled her with a story about his trip with Nathan to the Beppu Hot Springs in Japan. Just how much has this family traveled? wondered Rachael.
“Almost ready,” he said to Aaron.
The always immaculate man stood. “No sign of Roxi?”
“No.”
“I suppose I can set for the four of us, then.”
Holden eyed him suspiciously. “That’s not your job.”
Coolly, Aaron replied, “I will decide what my duties are. Just finish yours.”
Even with the home-cooked feast of salmon, wild rice, warmed turnip-and-spinach salad, roasted and lightly peppered corn, and freshly baked wheat rolls laid out before them, the process of eating felt stifled. Rachael delicately peeled the skin back from her fish with her fork and knife, wondering if her own family seemed this cordial. Even Nathan, who hadn’t seemed able to stop chattering when she first met him, ate in silence.
Rachael tried to catch Holden’s eye throughout the meal, but he seemed determined to glare at his plate. Finally she mustered the courage to address him directly. “You really are a good cook.”
His blue-green eyes shot up as though he’d forgotten she was sitting beside him. “Oh. Yeah, I know.”
“Do not be rude,” Aaron said sharply.
Red tinted Holden’s ears. “I meant that I’ve been doing it for so long I’d like to think it’s something I’m good at.”
“You are,” Rachael assured him, hoping to diffuse the tension. Her smile felt strained; this new and blatantly moody Holden didn’t act like the friend she was used to. “Even Mama didn’t cook this much when she wasn’t . . .” Her voice trailed off as
the remembered there were others in the room.
Holden stabbed at a turnip, but his voice was calm for the first time all evening. “It’s fun. I just wish I didn’t have to do it all the time.”
Sardonically, Aaron said, “You could keep your gripes to yourself until Miss Rachael leaves, you know.”
“It’s okay,” she said hurriedly. Something about the way the two passive-aggressively took stabs at each other made Rachael want to defend her friend. “Things are tense at my house, too.” It came out ruder than she intended.
Aaron shrugged it off. “There is no reason to have you suffer our family disputes.” His eyes narrowed at Holden. “Unless Holden here has an explanation for why he is trying to make you as uncomfortable as possible, it would be beneficial if he stopped.”
If anything made her uncomfortable, it was the blatant threat that belied his words.
Setting down her fork, Rachael said, “I can go if this is a bad time.” The longer she stayed, the more unwelcome she felt. Not even Nathan’s sad expression at her words helped.
“No,” Holden said suddenly. He finally looked straight at her. “He’s right. I’m being an ass. You being here is nice.”
The discomfort remained, but it was softened a little by the warming in her belly.
The rest of the meal went by far more easily. Holden confirmed Aaron’s story about the Beppu Hot Springs, explaining they had lived in Japan for a short period while his guardian held a temporary transfer job in Bungo-ōno. That finally got Nathan excited as he formed Rachael he was “a real live ninja” because of a certification class he’d taken out there.
Rachael was so used to clearing the table after a meal that she wasn’t sure what to do with herself when Nathan piped up, “It’s okay, Miss Rachael, we’ll get it.” Holden took her near-empty plate from her.
“You sure I can’t help?” she asked uncertainly.
“Please just relax,” Aaron said.
This time when she was offered another drink, Rachael asked for a small cup of coffee. One by one the silverware and dishes vanished from the table until Aaron handed her a warm mug. The coffee was dark and overly sugared with a hint of cinnamon.
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