by Edie Claire
I want you, too, you know.
Wolf shifted in his chair. Now he was definitely uncomfortable.
“Nana doesn’t have many contacts with my grandfather’s family anymore,” Kai explained. “But she said she’d give it a try, see if anyone knows anyone who’s ever done a DNA test. Or if anyone in the family knows of anyone in the Philippines who might have been a diplomat or an exchange student in Russia. But that would be a long shot, of course.”
Ri shook her head. “Please, thank your grandmother for me,” she said with a smile. “Profusely. I’d love to have some other evidence that you and I are related, however distantly. But to be honest…” She looked wistful as her voice trailed off.
“What is it?” Maddie asked finally.
Ri blew out a breath. “I go through phases,” she confessed. “Sometimes I’ve felt an urge to find my birthparents. To try and meet them and even get to know them. But other times… well, most of the time, I don’t really care about them. I know that sounds callous, but it’s true. I used to have a lot of anger bottled up against my birthmother, but I got over that a long time ago. She dumped me in a train station the day I was born, yes, but if she hadn’t, I wouldn’t have had the parents I love and the life I’ve got.” Her pretty brow furrowed with thought. “I’ve never known enough about my birthfather’s situation to have any opinion about his actions, and sometimes I think that’s for the best. I can do without the burden of knowing things I would need to forgive. I’m glad my birthparents created me, but the fact is, I don’t need them in my life now any more than they needed a baby in their lives then.”
Her features relaxed, and she offered a shrug. “All I’ve ever really wanted was to know who I am biologically, why I look the way I look, and what people’s heritage I share. I have all that now.” She smiled around the table at everyone in turn. “So, hey! I’m good!”
Maddie and Kai gave a smile and a laugh of relief, and the conversation soon turned to Kai’s family on Lana'i, and how they would all love to meet Ri regardless of the DNA factor.
Wolf’s attempts to listen got sidetracked. He was still trying to understand everything that Ri had said. Not so much the content of her speech, but the fact that she had said it at all. Whether Kai was technically a relative or not, Ri had not known any of them a week ago. He knew her to be a thoughtful, relatively private person, yet she had just shared something extremely personal. And she had done so without an ounce of embarrassment. Or shame.
She dumped me in a train station the day I was born.
Ri had said that of her own mother without batting an eyelash. She hadn’t seemed to think it reflected badly on her. Which of course it did not. Why should it?
Wolf’s own words came back to him with a flash of red-hot anger.
Our mother died when I was six.
His mother. Dead. That’s what he’d told Ri. She had been brave enough and honest enough to admit the ugly truth of her own bio-parental shortcomings, but what had happened when he was asked?
He had lied, that’s what. He’d lied because he was a coward, because he hadn’t wanted to admit that his own mother had left him. He’d been ashamed to admit it because he’d taken that shame on himself. But he’d been thinking all these years like a child would think. He’d been a child back then, dammit — his mother had been the adult. The fault was all hers!
He had nothing whatsoever to be ashamed of. And certainly no reason to lie about it.
By the time Wolf and Ri said their goodbyes to their hosts and stepped up into the truck to begin the long drive home, it was well after nine. Wolf hadn’t intended to hang around so long. But Kai had tempted them all with a quick game of cards, and after everyone’s competitive streak kicked in, the time flew by. All in all, despite the near-constant physical frustration Ri caused him, he had enjoyed their ocean cruise and mundane domestic evening immensely.
But there was something he had to clear up. “Ri?”
“Yes?” she asked hesitantly, seeming to sense the import of his tone.
“I lied to you yesterday.”
“About what?” she asked. She did not sound particularly surprised, and he had no right to be offended by that. But her easy acceptance of duplicity on his part did bother him. He would prefer to have her trust.
“My mother isn’t dead,” he announced. “The last I heard, she was alive and in Montana. But I wouldn’t say she’s ‘well.’ She’s an alcoholic and has been since she was a teenager. She had a dry spell in her twenties, when she married my father and had me and Bear. But she walked out on all three of us when I was in the first grade, and I haven’t seen or heard from her since.”
Wolf looked out the windshield at the passing lights of Kahului.
“I’m sorry,” Ri said softly.
Wolf shrugged without looking at her. He wasn’t telling her this to elicit any particular reaction. He was telling her because he shouldn’t have lied to her in the first place. He needed to get the words out, and he’d done that. It hadn’t been all that difficult, really.
“You did me a favor, talking about your own birthmother,” he admitted. “It made me realize that lying about mine was an automatic reaction. I started doing it when I was a kid, and then I guess I never bothered to rethink. But I’ve got no reason to lie. What happened wasn’t my fault. So, hey—” he threw up his hands and gave her a small smile. “Now, you know. Chalk it up as something else we have in common: maternal abandonment.”
Ri did not smile back. He watched in horror as her beautiful brown eyes grew watery. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
She shook her head briskly. “Nothing!” she insisted, her voice choked. “Nothing.” She plastered a smile on her face, then cut a turn too short at the intersection and bounced the truck up over a curb.
“You want me to drive?” Wolf asked, flummoxed. What the hell was wrong with her, now?
Ri swiped at her eyes with a hand. “No way!” she answered, sounding ridiculously cheerful all of a sudden. “I told you, I’m fine!” She smiled at him for real this time. “Um… you said you’d tell me sometime about your trip to the Pribilof Islands, remember? You said it was a long story. How about now?”
Wolf blinked. She was crying and then she was happy, and then she wanted to talk about fur seals and walrus?
He relaxed in his seat. He could talk about the Pribilofs the whole ride home, if that’s what she wanted. He did enjoy putting a smile on her face.
Even when she did make no sense at all.
Chapter 27
Ri and Wolf walked side by side down the dirt track, lugging all of the day’s gear and two empty water bottles. The day had been cloudless and hotter than expected, and despite her best intentions, Ri found herself dragging. The views from the southwest slope of Haleakala had been amazing, and Wolf’s quiet company contented her to the point where she found it difficult to hurry. Most likely, she admitted to herself, she was subconsciously stretching out the workday because she was unsure whether she could lure him into spending a fourth evening in her company.
The physical magnetism between them was now impossible to ignore. They’d managed to beat it into submission today for the sake of Wolf’s work, but it had taken a mutual effort. At the same time, he was opening up to her emotionally, and he genuinely seemed to want her friendship whether anything else happened between them or not. Ri was both ecstatic and terrified. She had left the infatuation stage somewhere between seeing his sleeping bag in the dog run and feeling his arm encircle her shoulders in Kai’s kitchen, and whether she liked it or not, her whole heart was now hopelessly, irretrievably on the line.
They’d been hiking all day, but the walk back down the dirt road they were on now seemed endless. Ri was uncertain why Wolf had instructed her to leave the truck at the road’s far end, since she could have parked it at any one of several pullouts closer to the trail. But she assumed he had his reasons. She focused instead on picking the most compelling invitation for tonight. A picnic dinne
r on a beach in South Maui? Window shopping in old Lahaina town? No, he would hate the crowds. A drive up the cliffs northwest of Kahului? Since they were running late, they would have less playtime before dark. Perhaps she could alter her budget so that they could spend the night hours dining at a real restaurant. That would mean peanut butter sandwiches for her for a month after he left, but what did that matter?
Just as they turned the bend and the truck came into view, Ri’s path forward was abruptly blocked by Wolf’s broad back and the bulky equipment hanging off it. She braced her hands on his upper arms and stumbled to a halt, enjoying the feel of his firm biceps even as she opened her mouth to protest. But no words left her lips. She could feel the tenseness in his muscles. He was standing with his arms outstretched in a defensive posture.
“Ri,” he said quietly, but firmly. “Do me a favor and call 911, would you?”
Her breath caught. She couldn’t see around him to know exactly what he was looking at. But she knew better than to waste time being curious. She set down her own load, slipped off her pack, and pulled out her phone.
“Could you put it up to my ear?” Wolf asked. His voice was calm, but his wariness told her otherwise as he scanned the empty road and bushes around them. They were near a crossroads, and there was some kind of commercial building a couple hundred yards away. But there were no other people in sight.
Ri dialed the number and waited for an answer. Then she reached up and placed the phone where Wolf could hear. Only then did she get a good look at the truck.
The wheels were sitting in a pool of shattered glass. Every window had been smashed out. Jagged shards clung to the frames, and those on the windshield near the passenger door were smeared with blood. Red streaks ran across the front right fender. Red droplets spilled out onto the road.
Ri couldn’t focus on what Wolf was saying. She stood frozen, holding the cell phone and staring around them. Whoever did this could still be here.
“Ri?”
“Yeah?” she squeaked.
“You can hang up the phone now. But keep it out.”
Ri released her pent up breath, slowly, and lowered her arm.
Wolf gradually let his own arms fall to his sides, although he remained tense and alert. “Let’s walk toward the main road,” he advised. “But quietly. And keep a lookout.”
They did. The building supply store near the corner was inexplicably closed, but its parking lot was exposed on three sides and in plain sight of any passing cars, and as they reached its center, Wolf relaxed slightly. He shrugged off his gear and set it down on the ground beside him.
Ri’s pulse continued to race as she did the same. Vandalism was bad enough. But she could not erase the sight of the smeared blood from her mind. That part could have been an accident. But it could also have been a warning. Either way, whoever did this couldn’t possibly be sane. There was nothing of value in the truck. It had been parked within sight of a fairly well-traveled road in broad daylight. There was nothing about that scenario that boded well. She looked with dismay at the splint on Wolf’s right hand. “You know who did this, don’t you?”
Wolf didn’t look at her. He was still watching every tree, boulder, and clump of shrubs that could possibly conceal a human being. He nodded.
“The man who hurt Bella?” she pressed in a whisper.
The muscles in his jaw tightened. He nodded. “I reported him to the humane authorities. I saw him kick her and I didn’t think he was feeding her right. But he told them she wasn’t his dog. He said she was a stray — that she was dangerous.” His features hardened into a scowl. “Dangerous! Bella! I was hoping that animal control would pick her up then, but they didn’t. He hid her in the house or something. I don’t know what he did. But they couldn’t find her. And sometime after they left, he laid into her again — only worse. I didn’t see her in the yard for days. Finally I just went over there. That’s when I found her under the shed. I told him I was taking her and he said no. He would have left her there to die.”
Ri felt herself begin to tremble. She didn’t know why she would start now. They were almost certainly not in any danger here, and the police would arrive any minute. “That explains the broken hand,” she said softly.
Wolf shrugged, still not looking at her. “He took a swing at me first.”
Ri’s desire to wrap her arms around him was close to overwhelming, but she managed to suppress it. She knew he wouldn’t want the distraction. He would probably not welcome her consolation, either, although she was not above offering it again at a more opportune time.
“I used to have a pretty good uppercut myself, you know,” she said instead. “Or so I’ve been told.”
She watched as the corners of Wolf’s mouth twitched a little. His gaze flickered toward her. “Yeah?”
“You don’t believe me, but it’s true,” she insisted. “I know you think I’m perfect and all, but as a toddler I was a complete psycho mess. If you ask my mother about it she’ll go on for hours about the spectrum of attachment disturbances and sensorimotor deprivation and coping skills and resiliency. But what she really means is that I was a holy frickin’ terror with anger management issues who used to punch other children in the face.”
Wolf’s eyebrows lifted. “Thanks for the warning,” he said dryly.
“You’re welcome,” Ri said pleasantly. “I’m mostly over it now.”
“Well, if The Beard shows up before the police get here, I’ll be sure to shove you out front.”
Ri chuckled. “‘The Beard,’ eh? Well, I’m a little out of practice. But at least my hand’s not in a splint.”
Wolf held up his right hand and studied it speculatively. “I’ve been thinking this thing could do some pretty serious damage, actually.”
Ri’s brief feeling of levity faded. “Please don’t joke about that. I mean, I know I just did, but—” She felt suddenly sick to her stomach. No cars had come by. There was no sign of the police. Every time the wind rustled in the trees, her gut tightened. “Tell me the truth. Is this man seriously out to get you?” She could feel herself trembling again.
Wolf noticed. His arms swept out immediately and pulled her to his chest. “It’ll be all right,” he soothed, rubbing his good hand gently along her back. “I’m sorry to get you involved in all this.”
Ri’s breath caught in her throat. He felt so good. So strong, so comforting, so… sweet. He had held her before in the grove, but it was not like this. This was a Wolf she’d never seen before. No, that wasn’t true. This was the Wolf she’d heard before. In the dark and the fog. Comforting a lonely, wounded animal.
This was his nature, his instinct. The side of himself he usually fought not to show. She closed her eyes and relaxed against him. She could stay here all day. She could stay here forever.
The sound of a car approaching on the highway met her ears, and Ri greeted it with mixed emotions. Having the police arrive on the scene was good. Wolf’s tensing up and releasing her was not.
“It’s nobody,” he said with fake cheer, rubbing her upper arm briskly with his good hand while he stepped away. A red minivan sped by them, and he looked at her with concern. “Seriously, are you all right? I really don’t think there’s anything to worry about. I’m being cautious in case this guy is still around, but the odds are he’s long gone. He obviously cut himself up.”
Ri looked back into Wolf’s intelligent, alert eyes, and a light dawned. Not only had he told her to park the truck in an inconvenient location, but he’d insisted they take a questionable “shortcut” that bypassed the regular trailhead and cut cross-country instead. That wasn’t like him at all. He’d preached to her before about how sticking to the trails minimized damage to the environment. “He’s out for revenge and you know it,” she contradicted. “This guy lives nearby, doesn’t he? You’ve been leading us out of our way to avoid him.”
Wolf’s brow furrowed. “He does know my truck. I’ve been parking within sight of his place for months. And it’s tru
e that he probably hates my guts. In his mind, it’s all my fault that he’s up on animal cruelty charges. I’m surprised he took the risk of lashing out in such a public place, but there’s nothing for you to worry about now. The truck’s covered by insurance, and we just finished all the work that’s anywhere near here. Bella’s perfectly safe where she is — he doesn’t know where I’m staying, and even if he did, he thinks the shelter took her.”
For all his reassuring words, Wolf continuously scanned three-hundred-sixty degrees around them, and he was still visibly tense. Studying him, Ri began to believe that his words were true, even if he didn’t look as confident as he sounded. He probably wasn’t all that worried about himself. But he did seem to feel responsible for her.
He forced out a laugh. “He’ll regret cutting himself for more reasons than one. Without that, I’d have a hard time proving it was him. Now, the case will be open and shut.”
Ri imagined the man sitting in a dingy house somewhere with his arm wrapped up in a bloody towel. He’d need stitches, but he’d be afraid to seek medical help for fear of getting caught.
“Oh, no,” Wolf said suddenly.
“What?” Ri barked, her head snapping around.
“I just realized,” he said calmly, albeit sadly. “The truck. It’s… there’s no way you can drive it, now. Oh, Ri,” he lamented, his face awash with guilt. “I’m so sorry. That’s my whole end of the bargain! How can I—”
A commotion arose to their right. Leaves and branches rustled sharply.
In a flash, Ri found herself behind Wolf’s broad back again, shielded from whatever was happening at the edge of the gravel parking lot. She grabbed for the phone in her pocket, her heart beating wildly.
She heard a loud squawk. Then a low, rumbling vibration in Wolf’s chest.
He turned to face her. “Damn chickens,” he chuckled. “They’re lucky I don’t have a shotgun.”