Page 46 of Wind Valley

“Jesus. Sending a message?”

“Exactly. If I made any more noise about his son, my parents would pay the price. He knew my soft spot, that’s for sure. My mom has health issues, and they don’t make a lot of money. I was so afraid that they’d get caught in the middle of that mess.” She swallowed hard, remembering the moment she’d explained the situation to them, sparing them the worst details. It was her mother’s idea that she take a leave from school and get out of Hopper for a while.

“You’ve always wanted to travel,” she’d said. “Maybe now’s the time. Just don’t tell us where, because you know me, I can’t keep a secret to save my life.”

“How long did all this go on?” Lachlan was asking.

“Oh God. Months. His niece was one of my students, and sometimes he’d pick her up at school. That’s how I met him. I think it was April, maybe. Not long before school ended. He was picking her up after debate team practice, and we chatted. He seemed nice enough, so I agreed to go to dinner with him. That was fine, but nothing special. I thought we were too different to really click. He was very open about wanting to get married and start having kids right away. That put me off, as if he was just looking for someone to fill the slot. So after a few more dates and one night together—one—I told him it wasn’t going to work out. He lost it.”

Lachlan’s face darkened, his green eyes turning hard. “Lost it how?”

“He didn’t hurt me,” Maura assured him quickly. “Not physically. But he wouldn’t let me leave. We were in his car right outside my house, and he locked the doors and kept me there until four in the morning, just yammering at me about how we were destined to be together and I’d come around eventually.”

“What did you do?”

“I had to get out of there, so I told him I would think about it, and we should talk more the next day. I was hoping that he’d come to his senses and realize he was acting like an idiot. And no,” she said before he could ask, “it didn’t work. At first he sent me lots of angry texts, then he started pursuing me even harder. He seemed to see me as a challenge. His personal Mount Everest. He started a full-on flowers-and-courtship campaign. To other people, it seemed romantic. My colleagues at school, some of my friends, everyone thought he was just…exuberantly in love.

“But it never felt that way to me. He was a…wolf in sheep’s clothing. It was coercive, and no matter how many times I asked him to stop, he didn’t. He thought he’d wear me down, and I thought he’d get bored and move on. There were plenty of other women in town, women who would have wanted the attention. I didn’t understand why he didn’t go after one of them.”

“What would have been the fun in that?” Lachlan said dryly. Then he caught himself. “Oh shit. That didn’t come out right. I meant?—”

“I know what you meant. And I agree. The fact that I didn’t want him, that was what made me so attractive. He wanted to win, to defeat me, to obliterate my rejection. It drove him crazy that anyone tried to resist him. I think he genuinely had never dealt with rejection before.” She let out a long sigh and slumped against the hard base of the couch. This wasn’t a story to be told from a comfortable position. It helped to have a firm surface at her back.

“Important life skill, dealing with rejection,” Lachlan murmured.

Which made her think of the graceful way he’d taken her rejection of his dinner invitation. Lachlan was a mature adult who could handle a “no.” It was as if he existed in a different universe than SS.

“Yes. I guess I should be grateful now to the boy who gave me back my valentine in third grade. He said it looked dumb. I cried for two days over it. I thought my life was over at the age of nine.”

Lachlan chuckled, then ran a hand through his hair. “If we’re going to get into rejection stories…wait’ll you hear the one in which the skinny science nerd took the cheerleader to see the Perseid meteor shower, only to find out she was trying to get his twin brother’s attention, and also that she had an aversion to extra layers of clothing and blamed him when she came down with bronchitis. I would call it social ruin, except there wasn’t much to ruin. After that, I waited until college to try again.”

“Awwwww.” For some reason, she found that story absurdly endearing. “Did her ploy work?”

“Hell no. If she really wanted Gil, she should never have gone out with me. That was the one way to guarantee he wouldn’t be interested. Gil has always been an exceptionally loyal brother.”

She climbed onto her feet and plopped herself onto the couch next to him. “I can see why,” she said softly. “I think you’d be easy to be loyal to.”

He touched her lightly on the shoulder, then drew his hand away. She grabbed it and put it there herself. “Don’t do that,” she said.

“Clarify, please.”

“Don’t withdraw in advance. I’ll tell you if I don’t want something. Does that make sense?”

He thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “When I asked you to dinner that first time?—”

“Nothing wrong with that. I’m glad you did. Even though I said ‘no,’ now look at us.” She leaned to one side and brushed her lips against his cheek. “Cuddling together on a couch hoping that horror-movie wolf doesn’t come back.”

He snorted with laughter, and the world seemed to fill up with light.

25

In his younger days, Lachlan had been so thoroughly clueless about girls that he’d found it safer to wait until they made the first move. He was practically guaranteed to say something awkward, after all. Then, at a certain point, he began opting for a more straightforward approach. “I like you. Do you want to watch the bore tide?” Or “see the sea turtles lay their eggs?” Or “check out the snowy owl nesting in the sign at the hair salon?”

Surprisingly, this approach worked more often than not. Either that was because girls liked directness, or because he’d finally grown into his gawky frame and outsized ears and other features. Bit by bit, date by date, he’d grown much more confident in himself when it came to women.

He’d learned that communication was key, and that it required just as much listening as it did talking—maybe more. He’d gotten really good at it, too, so long as he was genuinely interested in someone. If he wasn’t, he unfortunately had never mastered the art of faking it. The flip side of that flaw was that he would never want anyone else to fake anything, especially in bed.

But with Maura, he felt at sea all over again. Nervous, as if he was that confused, nerdy kid all over again, the one who had assumed everyone was interested in anthills and ladybugs. Why not, after all? They were so fascinating.

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