Chapter 3
After scrubbing the bathrooms twice (both times completely unnecessary), Meghan emerged to find that Jessie had put the stranger to work sorting out the storefront. He was organizing the shelves, double-checking the tags with the displays.
He scrambled gracefully to his feet when Meghan came past.
“Looks good,” Meghan said. It had been a while since anyone else had gotten around to filling in the gaps of things they didn’t carry anymore.
“I’m getting more used to this,” Fred said. “The reading and remembering, they’re all coming back.”
He certainly sounded less crazy, even if he still looked pretty weird in Jessie’s ill-fitting snow pants and Henry’s flannel shirt, with beard sticking out in every direction.
“Do you remember your name? How you got here?”
Fred shook his head, but didn’t seem to be the slightest bit distressed about it.
Meghan wanted to thank him for letting her ugly-cry all over him, but had no idea how to say it, so she just nodded and left him to it.
“Hey, Sweetie,” Jessie said, calling her over to where she was reading through old papers. “You made the front page of the paper!”
Puzzled, Meghan went over to look at a spread of the Anchorage paper.
There, sure enough, was a photo of the sled festival at Tok from two weekends ago.
She was sitting with a group of others in the snow with her hood back, laughing at the camera.
Sheppard was sitting next to her, tongue lolling happily out to one side.
It was probably the last picture of him, Meghan thought, and she was too empty from crying to do more than feel regretful. It had been his last really good day; his downhill slide had been fast after that.
Then a cold, terrible thought took root in her brain. “When did this come out?” she asked with trepidation.
Jessie checked the date. “Two weeks ago Monday. That’s a great photo of you. I’ll save you this copy.”
Meghan turned numbly away, mumbling something in reply and went to stare sightlessly into the display cabinet as she pretended to take stock of the offerings.
It was a great photo. Her blonde roots merged seamlessly into the orange dye and the tips were still hot red. She was looking right at the camera, and she looked…she looked like herself.
Meghan shuddered. The Anchorage paper was online. Which meant that photo was online. Two weeks. Two weeks that photo had been out there.
How long would it take Grayden, with his army of private investigators and his fancy software and his terrible possessiveness, to track her down from that photograph?
She should have changed her name to something less similar.
She needed to dye her hair again. She should move on, not that it was going to be easy to get new identification and a new job.
And she hated to leave Ruby in a lurch. She cursed herself for not being more careful with her cash—cremating Sheppard had cost more than she thought it would, but it was too warm to freeze the body outside, and not warm enough to bury him in the frozen earth.
Maybe it had been long enough that Grayden wasn’t looking for her any more. Maybe after ten years, he didn’t care.
She could not convince herself of it.
Panic was beginning to rise in her throat and Meghan pushed back from the display counter to run into the solid mass of Fred, who was standing directly behind her.
“You are afraid,” he said simply.
I’m terrified, Meghan wanted to say, but she could only look at him in consternation.
“I will protect you,” Fred offered.
Meghan could only laugh, though it sounded humorless to her own ears. “You can’t even remember your name.”
Fred took her nerveless hands in his own, slowly, giving her every opportunity to resist.
“I remember you,” he said. “I remember your grief calling to me. You are my one and I will do anything, be anything, for you.”
“I am not going to cry on you again,” Meghan said, because she wanted to, badly.
“Whatever you need,” Fred said.
“I need you to shave that dead animal off your face,” Meghan said tartly, because otherwise she was going to ask for something even more inappropriate.
Fred’s eyes crinkled with laughter. “I am happy to,” he agreed. “May I do more dishes in order to purchase some of your supplies? I saw that you had all the tools necessary.”
“Knock yourself out,” Meghan agreed, already regretting her command.
Fortunately the bell at the front door chimed then and a shivering group of tourists who clearly had unreasonable expectations for April in Alaska came in to ask for menus.
Jessie swept up her papers and went to greet them, while Meghan escaped to the kitchen again.