Chapter 19
19
“She’s afraid of something. Very afraid.” Lila held a broom and a dustpan, ready to sweep up now that The Fang had closed. The last customer had just left, singing a sea shanty at the top of his lungs, and Lachlan leaned against the counter, yawning.
“I agree. But she wouldn’t tell you what?”
“No. We talked about a lot of things, but the most she would say was that she’d been through a tough time lately, and that she wants nothing to do with men.”
He grimaced—not that he hadn’t known that, but it still felt like a twist of the knife.
“But not you,” Lila added quickly. “She said only nice things about you.”
“Somehow that doesn’t make it better.”
“I know. I’m sorry. But Lachlan.” She stepped close to him, her purple eyes huge with sympathy. “She’s really scared right now, but I think she’s a strong person, even stronger than she thinks. Everyone wants to be happy, so maybe she’ll find her way through the fear.”
Maybe, he thought. Or maybe he’d eat his heart out over her in silence until she left town and found someone who could make her forget her troubles.
Every bit of him rebelled at that thought. There was something between him and Maura, he really believed that. What could he do for her that would help her “find her way through the fear?”
“Do you know that she met us at the door with a frying pan?” Lila was saying. “As if she thought she might have to fight someone off.”
Fight someone off? That sounded even more serious than he’d imagined. He needed to know more about this; if she was that afraid, she might need backup.
He noticed Lila yawn. “I’ll finish cleaning up. You go upstairs to Bear. You’ve barely seen him today.”
Lila looked like she wanted to argue at first, but the temptation of Bear won out. “Thanks, you’re a superstar.” She blew a kiss at him and danced off toward the kitchen, where a narrow staircase led to the upstairs apartment where Bear lived, and Lila spent much of her time.
Lachlan cleaned up in record time, then strapped on his skis and glided down the moonlit road to the general store. Lately, with the threat of actual competition, Kathy had been intentionally leaving the Wi-Fi active overnight; she’d even set out a bench for people to sit on. Once, Lachlan had seen someone stream a movie on that bench, all bundled up in a fur parka in zero-degree temperatures. Firelight Ridge’s version of a drive-in theater.
Lachlan didn’t even take off his skis, just sat down, slid them under the bench, and pulled out his iPad.
He googled Maura’s name first, but that brought up too many results to be helpful, so he added “Colorado” to his search, then the word “teacher.” His fingers were chilling down, so he took a break to put his gloves back on.
After a number of hits that told him nothing in particular, an article from a local newspaper popped up. The headline read Debate Team Wins State. “The Hopper High School debate team, under the leadership of fill-in coach Maura Vaughn, took first in the state championships,” it said.
The story included a photo. A color photo, in which Maura’s hair was a tawny brown with lighter streaks. She looked happy in the photo, grinning in triumph, surrounded by the five members of the debate team. But that wasn’t what caught his eye.
There was a man in it too, a police officer in uniform off to the side. Lachlan couldn’t tell if he was part of the celebration or not. Several parents were mentioned in the caption, along with the team members, but none of them were specified to be police.
Unlike everyone else in the photo, the officer wasn’t looking at the camera. He appeared to be looking at Maura. Intently. Creepily.
Lachlan clicked on another story about an active-shooter drill at the middle school where Maura worked. This article included a photo, too. In this one, the same police officer was speaking to a group of students and teachers. But he was entirely focused on one teacher—Maura. Whereas she was the only member of the group not looking at him. She hugged her arms around herself in a self-protective way. Her body language read fear, loud and clear.
Chills swept up and down Lachlan’s body, from head to toe. Maura had a stalker. No wonder she wanted nothing to do with men. No wonder she’d fled to a place as remote as Firelight Ridge. And if the stalker was a police officer, no wonder she’d picked a place with no law enforcement. No wonder she was so afraid she answered the door with a frying pan.
He closed his iPad, feeling sick.
What now? The one thing he wouldn’t do was push her or crowd her in any way. He should keep his distance.
No, he couldn’t do that. What if the stalker found her? He needed to stay connected to Maura so that if she needed him, he’d be there.
But staying close to her would be torture, because the more time he spent with her, the more he cared for her.
Too bad. He’d just have to get used to it. Protecting Maura was the most important thing, more than his wounded feelings. Should he tell Gil, who was a professional “protector”? No, that would be betraying Maura’s confidence—even though Lachlan had found this information himself.
He could be Maura’s backup on his own, no need for Gil. He knew how to defend himself physically. Gil had made sure of that, since bullies used to be drawn to Lachlan’s dreaminess and innocence. After he and Gil had graduated high school, Lachlan had been on his own, and had a broken nose and a quirky left thumb to show for it. He didn’t like to fight—he was a dreamer, not a fighter—but he could if he had to. In fact, he could do so ferociously, because he didn’t believe in doing anything halfway.
If he could defend himself, he could do the same for Maura, especially now that he knew what she was dealing with. Or at least, some of it. One photo in a newspaper didn’t tell the whole story.
A strange feeling came over him, and he looked up sharply. Was someone out there in the dark watching him? The moon was only half full, but the way it reflected off the snow gave visibility to the road. He didn’t see anyone out there, but he felt someone’s presence in the rise of goosebumps on his arms.
He wished he had a frying pan on him.
Then a large dark figure trundled out of the trees and onto the road. A moose.
Lachlan slumped against the back of the bench with relief. Unless a skinwalker had taken the form of that moose, he’d been worried for nothing. You’re a scientist , he scolded himself. You know skinwalkers don’t exist.
But in the dark depths of the Alaskan nighttime wilderness, anything seemed possible. Even scientists felt the primordial, very human fear of the unknown.