Page 25 of Wind Valley

“Sometimes. We were off and on,” he explained when she looked at him askance. “Greta was…well, she was older than me. She was on the faculty, actually, and probably shouldn’t have looked twice at me. Every so often she’d get irritated because I was so young, and she’d dump me.”

Maura frowned, indignant on past-Lachlan’s behalf. “But she knew your age from the start.”

“She did. I think she thought she could mature me faster with the power of her personality. She wanted kids. And she wanted me to want kids. But I wasn’t as malleable as she thought I was. Also, Gil never liked Greta.”

“Why not?” Smart man, thought Maura.

“He thought she was emotionally manipulative. Which she was.” He smiled over at her ruefully. “I knew it at the time, but I was too excited about all the sex to get worked up about it. But kids…” He shook his head. “That’s different. I wouldn’t want to bring children into an emotionally manipulative situation. How about you?”

The transition was so abrupt that she startled. “Me? What about me?”

“Boyfriend? Girlfriend?”

“Oh.” That phrase emotionally manipulative kept echoing through her mind. Did that describe SS too? Or was he just a straight-up obsessive type? “I’m on an extended break from that kind of thing. It’s a recovery phase.”

He cocked his head, waiting for more. Lachlan was an impressively good listener, she’d noticed. Perhaps the best she’d ever encountered outside a therapist’s office.

“My last…thing…didn’t end well,” she finally said. “Or start well. The middle was crappy too. But I don’t really care to talk about it.”

He nodded but didn’t say anything more, and somehow she found words being drawn out of her. “Sometimes I think I’m cursed. My parents met in high school and they’re madly in love with each other. I always thought something similar would happen to me. But then I caught my high school boyfriend with the star quarterback. They’re married now, so at least the high school meet-cute worked out for someone. Then after I started teaching, I fell for the French teacher and we dated for a while. But then he moved back to France to be with his wife, who he’d neglected to mention. He tried to claim it was a French thing, but there’s something called Google that told me he was full of shit. And most recently there was…”

She trailed off, because the next story was the one she really didn’t want to talk about. The one that had sent her running for Alaska.

“There was a man who wouldn’t accept a ‘no,’” she finished. “They weren’t all such disasters, but you can see why I’m taking some time to rethink my approach to romance. I’m clearly doing something wrong.”

“Or you’ve had some very bad luck,” Lachlan said sympathetically, as he turned onto the road that led back into town. “Or good luck? At least you didn’t marry someone who actually wanted to be with a man.”

“That’s not a bad point. If only you could have consoled the eighteen-year-old me. My mother tried, but she was crying almost as much as I was. She really had her heart set on my following in her footsteps. The fact that I’m still not married…” Maura shook her head sadly. “I know she’s disappointed, though she would never say so.”

“How could she be disappointed?” The outrage in Lachlan’s voice made her smile.

“I’ve never seen anyone adapt so easily to Alaska. The way you whipped Pinky’s place into shape, the way you established yourself as a teacher within just a few weeks of getting here? You found a best friend. Me,” he added modestly. “Now you’re out snowmobiling and investigating strange animal sightings. They should see you out here. They’d never be disappointed.”

“They don’t even know I’m here,” she said before thinking about it.

They reached a narrow spot in the road. He brought the truck to a stop so another car could pass by. After giving the driver a wave—she thought it was Oil Can—he turned to look at her. “They don’t know you’re in Alaska?”

“No. And I don’t want to say anything more about that.”

His sea-green eyes held hers for a long moment, then he nodded once. Accepting her boundaries. She deeply appreciated that. “Any idea where we can find Elias and ask him about this note?”

14

After they’d returned the trailer and the Arctic Cat to Gunnar, Maura directed Lachlan to the house Charlie and Nick were renting. The two of them were on a trip to Blackbear so they could pick up their marriage license, but Hailey hadn’t wanted to miss school. Charlie had told Maura that they were counting on Elias to keep on eye on Hailey because there was no one they trusted more. She was confident they’d find Elias there, and she was right.

Charlie and Nick’s place was a restored cabin with birds-eye pine walls, a loft bedroom, and a view of the fiery sunset lighting up the ridge—which explained how the town of Firelight Ridge had gotten its name.

Hailey lay flat on her stomach on the floor, doing her homework, while Elias worked on carving a piece of wood into the figure of a bird. He had talent, Maura saw, and an incredible eye for detail. She was no bird-watcher, but she recognized that species from Pinky’s birdfeeder.

“Elias, can we ask you some questions about the man who got bitten by the wolf?” Lachlan said as he and Maura sank onto the couch, side by side. Somehow, seamlessly, they’d become a team.

“I don’t know him,” he said, keeping his focus on his creation. “He never said his name.”

“Do you know where he went after he got patched up?”

“No. You can ask Ruth. She helped him.”

Maura made a mental note—one more thing to ask Ruth, if she could get some time with that very busy young woman.

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