Helen Myers – What Should Have Been (страница 2)

“Ah…not really. Sorry to intrude,” she replied, taking a step backward. It was definitely time to go. Connie was waiting and Blakeley needed reassuring, she reminded herself as she pivoted to return home.

She barely registered the meaning of water splashing before strong fingers closed around her upper arm. Devan had neither time to protest nor to catch the bat slipping from her damp grasp; she was spun around and had to plant her hands flat against his chest not to fall into him.

“No!” Her cry was torn from some sleeping place inside her and sounded foreign to her ears; she couldn’t blame Mead for frowning at her.

“Who are you?”

“Devan. Devan Anderson.” Then she grimaced and amended, “You knew me as Devan Shaw.” She could tell he was trying to make some association and failing. Under her hands, she felt his heart beating as powerfully and rapidly as hers, and sweat began to stain his headband.

“Are you a reporter?”

Of course that would be what was bothering him most. It made sense that he would naturally shun prying eyes and probing questions. His politically savvy, reputation-conscious mother Pamela would have encouraged that caution, warned him to shun the media first and foremost if she wasn’t available to monitor each utterance. Devan didn’t want to think about what she would have to say if she heard about this.

“No, I co-own Dreamscapes. It’s a florist-nursery-landscape business in town.”

“I—I don’t…”

His gaze shifted away as though she’d asked him a question about quantum physics. Dear heaven, she hated witnessing this and had to fight a strange pressure in her chest, making it even harder to breathe. “It’s all right, Mead. It didn’t exist when you left.” And she had been only weeks away from changing her name, but that could remain fried with the rest of his memory. Removing her hands and easing from his hold, she strove to get their focus back to priorities. “Mead…you just terrified my daughter.”

He glanced back toward the creek as though rousing from a nap. “There was a child…she left.”

“No kidding. She ran home scared to death by some guy skulking around. Was that you?”

Slowly he touched his forehead near the angry red scar. “I was walking. I needed air.”

Devan refused to let memories or sympathy come before her concern for her precious girl. “Well, could you please walk in your yard until you’re more…more yourself?”

“There are walls.”

True again, with electronically operated iron gates at the end of the driveway. His mother had long been a person to separate herself from the rest of the world, unless it suited her. Some called her Mount Vance’s Liz Taylor. For a man who always enjoyed the outdoors every bit as much as Devan did, that kind of restriction had to be suffocating, and it momentarily eased some of her maternal fury. “You still have to go home,” she told him. “Your mother’s going to initiate a county-wide search for you if she hasn’t already.”

Once again she began to leave, retrieved the bat and started worrying about explaining this to the police—not to mention Connie.

“Can you answer one question?”

She froze. It had been six years since she’d felt such a mix of emotions and she was terrified what he would ask next. Once, she’d made herself his for the taking. Frustrated, hurt, infatuated, she’d risked everything to hear him speak to her and her alone…touch her as she’d never been touched…encourage her to be free, to be truly herself.

But just as he’d changed, she had, too.

With no small reluctance, Devan half turned back to him. This time his eyes looked clearer, even curious. “What?”

“Did you know me? I mean, really? Were we…friends?”

His hesitation was as sad as the question was bittersweet. Friends? For a night, he’d been everything she could dream of wanting or needing. By dawn he’d raced away to adventure, violence and catastrophe, leaving her with a scrawled four-word message. Take care of yourself.

She didn’t want to remember. She was a widow with a small child. Mead had been a mistake, a wild indulgence of her youth. “We didn’t have time,” she replied, shrugging.

“Why?”

This was getting more difficult by the minute. “Pick a reason. There are several that would do.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I was never in your league.” To her dismay that earned her another one of those vacant looks. She pointed to herself with her thumb, “Devan Shaw, small-town girl.” Then she pointed to him. “Mead Alcott Regan II.” When he failed to indicate he understood the nuances of social status, she drawled, “Your mother will be happy to explain it to you.”

Promising herself that this time when she walked away, she would keep going, Devan almost slammed into a police officer.

“Are you all right, ma’am?”

The freckled, flustered young cop was as breathless as she’d been from running. Devan had seen him before in his patrol car but couldn’t remember if his name was Billy or Bobby something. The town was growing and the police force with it. He had to be three to five years younger than her thirty.

“I’m fine, Officer—” she glanced at his nameplate “—Denny. Sorry for the false alarm.”

“The lady back at your house, Mrs. Anderson, said your little girl escaped an attempted kidnapping?”

Devan’s heart plummeted and quickly worked to keep this from mushrooming. “My mother-in-law, Blakeley’s grandmother. It’s all a misunderstanding, as you can see. This is Mead Regan.” She gestured behind her. “Son of Mrs. Pamela Regan.”

As expected, the name had considerable effect on the newcomer. The red-faced officer glanced beyond her. “Uh—sir? You okay?”

“Yeah,” Mead replied.

When he offered nothing else, Office Denny shifted his attention back to her. “So what happened?”

“My daughter disobeyed me by leaving the yard while I was preparing dinner, and I panicked.”

Officer Denny studied her for a long moment. “That’s it?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m certain.”

Denny refocused on Mead. “Why are you here?”

“I was walking.”

“Maybe you should go home, sir.” The cop glanced down at Mead’s wet shoes and jeans. “Do you need me to call for someone to help—uh, escort you?”

Devan winced and wrapped her arms around her waist. At another time, Mead would have turned the guy into a stuttering fool with a mere look…or sent him off laughing, depending what mood he was in. Now all she heard behind her was the sound of footsteps, splashing water and more footsteps. It was all she could do not to go after him and apologize for her part in causing him this humiliation.

“Mrs. Anderson?”

Accepting she had to play out what she’d started, Devan nodded and led the way back to her house. To her chagrin, at the alley, Officer Denny bent to pick up the Barbie doll Blakeley had dropped. Devan accepted it with shaking hands; she hadn’t seen it when charging into the woods. It was the one Blakeley had received for Christmas.

Clearing her throat, she asked, “What happens now? You won’t press charges, will you?”

“It’s not up to me, but as you said, it was a misunderstanding.”

“Your report, though…these things get out onto the radio and into the newspaper.” As she regained her composure, she was thinking of the repercussions that could occur from this—for him as well as her.

“Nothing happened to where names need be used, ma’am.”

Devan could see he was thinking, too, concerned about Pamela Regan’s attorney breathing down the neck of the department for declaring her military hero son a public nuisance.

“Thank you for your timely response and sensitivity, Officer.”

“You take care, ma’am. Keep your little girl in sight.”

Devan all but gritted her teeth. “I will.”

Officer Denny motioned to another cop in the kitchen doorway. Belatedly, Devan recognized petite Sarah White with her spontaneous smile. Sarah’s reputation with kids prompted her to wave, albeit wearily. As the two cops left, Blakeley came running and Devan scooped up the only child she expected to ever have to hug her close.

“I’m sorry, Mommy. “

“I know. It’s over.”

“The man was scary.”

It was hard not to defend him. “He’s been sick, sweetheart.”

“Like flu sick or worst?”

“Worse. And I can’t answer that question because Mommy isn’t a doctor. In any case, you’re the one who needs to do some explaining, young lady. What were you doing going out of the yard without telling me?”

“I heard a kitty.”

This wasn’t a reassuring answer whether it was the truth or not. “Blakeley, you’re allergic to cats. If anything, you should run in the opposite direction of a mewing kitten.”