Of all the people to turn up on his first night back in town he never would have expected Becca Carstairs.
“You’re right,” she said, gaze once again returning to the distant glow of Three Harbors. “I shouldn’t be out here.” She contemplated the shovel he leaned upon. “What are you burying?”
“Bodies.”
She blinked and took a step back, landing on another stick. The resulting crack made her flinch, and he felt bad for scaring her. But didn’t she know him better than that?
Owen rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. He might have been gone from this town for ten years, but he would always be “that McAllister boy.” When there was trouble, everyone pointed his way. To be honest, a lot of the time they’d been right.
Even after he’d found football and discovered he was pretty good at it—knocking heads on the field kept him from knocking heads anywhere else—folks still saw him as Mary McAllister’s son. And Mary had never met a pharmaceutical she didn’t love.
As she’d gone about obtaining them in both creative and illegal ways … Well, in a town like this that was hard to live down. Certainly it wasn’t fair to visit the sins of the mother on the son, but when had life, or small towns, ever been fair?
Still, Becca had always believed the best of him. She’d befriended him, stood up for him, protected him. She’d loved him.
Which was why he’d had to leave.
“Animals,” he blurted. “I found dead animals in the house. I’m burying the bodies.”
“Are they black?”
“Well … blackened.” The moon cast just enough light over her face to reveal her confusion. “They were burned.”
The scent of charred flesh and fur still lingered—in the house, the yard, his nose. For an instant when he’d walked into the place, he’d thought he was having a flashback—wasn’t the first one, probably wouldn’t be the last.
“Show me.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
A lot of reasons, the most obvious one—
“It’s not pretty.”
“I’m a vet. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve seen.”
“You don’t want to see this.” He wished he could unsee it. But he’d wished that about a lot of things, and that never, ever happened. Which was how most wishes went.
“I’m sure I don’t want to see it.” She made a “move along” gesture with both hands. “But I have to.”
Owen shook his head, refused to move, and she stomped her foot. More twigs died.
“There are missing pets.”
“You think these are them?”
“Only one way to find out.” She tilted an eyebrow. He stayed where he was.
“Maybe we should call the police.”
“We will. But if the bodies are burned like you say, they’ll call me to identify what they are. Better if I take a peek first. Besides, my phone doesn’t work. Does yours?”
He hadn’t checked, and his phone was in the house anyway. “After you,” he said.
The ground was uneven; Owen leaned on the shovel a bit. He still had a slight hitch in his giddyup he didn’t want anyone to see.
Ten years and Becca didn’t seem to have aged at all. The light wasn’t good but what there’d been had seemed to shine right on her, like a beacon from above.
Not a wrinkle around her hazel eyes. Her skin was still redhead pale and smooth. Her only freckles dotted places no one could see. He remembered tasting them, tasting her.
Owen took a deep breath, but that only served to reveal another thing that hadn’t changed. She still smelled like lemons and sunshine. He hadn’t drunk a glass of lemonade since he’d left.
Lemonade had always tasted like her.
He stumbled, badly. Lost his grip on the shovel, which fell into her, and she stumbled too. He reached out and snatched her arm—just because he was lame didn’t mean he was … lame. His hands were still quick, even if the rest of him wasn’t.
The snarl that rumbled from the darkness had his skin prickling. His free hand went to his empty hip again as a huge, black wolf loomed from the night.
Becca stepped in front of Owen. He still had a grip on her arm and pulled her back, which only made the wolf snap, jaws clicking shut centimeters away from Owen’s free hand. Again, quickness was everything. He’d learned that the hard way in Afghanistan.
“He isn’t hurting me,” Becca said.
The wolf crouched, still grumbling but no longer snarling and snapping, its freakishly light green gaze fixed on Owen.
“You have a pet wolf?”
She stared at the beast as if it were the first time she’d seen it, and considering the animal’s behavior that couldn’t be the case. “Wolves aren’t pets.”
“Got that right.”
The beast showed Owen her teeth. If he’d been confused before, he wasn’t now. Definitely not a pet.
Frantic barking commenced. A bolt of brown fur vaulted through one of the now glassless windows of the house and hit the ground running.
Owen had time to shout, “Reggie, nein!” an instant before the two animals slammed into each other and rolled. Snarls filled the air. Spittle flew; teeth snapped.