Morrison didn’t say anything, and after a few seconds the not saying anything got very noticeable. I stopped digging supplies out of Petite’s trunk and looked at him curiously.
He had the cautious expression of a man who wanted badly to speak and was certain it would explode on him. I put the gun and the ammo back in Petite’s trunk and closed it, both to assure him I was listening and that I wouldn’t shoot him. “What?”
“Was that, ah. Was that...?”
Really, I shouldn’t have had the foggiest idea what he was asking. Five words, two of them repeated and one a filler rather than a real word, did not an actual question make. But I understood perfectly, and a soft breath rushed out of me in something like a laugh. “No. No, that’s Les. I guess he had kind of a crush on me in high school. I had no idea until yesterday afternoon. No, it’s... That’s Lucas. Lucas Isaac.”
I folded my arms over my chest and looked down, lower lip caught in my teeth. Then I sidled around Petite’s big back end so I was closer to Morrison, because I knew the body language I was using was all “go away, I don’t wanna talk about it,” which wasn’t exactly true and wasn’t the impression I wanted him to get. I just wasn’t good at talking about it, having kept the secret bottled up for well over a decade.
Morrison was the first one outside of the Qualla who’d sussed it out, anyway. I’d told him my real name, the full Irish-Cherokee hybrid tongue tangling disaster of it, last summer. He’d gone and looked up one Siobhán Grainne MacNamarra Walkingstick, aka Joanne Walker, and had discovered I’d had children while still in high school. After asking very carefully if I’d been raped—there were no police reports indicating I had been, but God alone knew what a fifteen-year-old might choose to report—and hearing the answer was no, he had let the whole thing go with a great deal more grace than I would have shown.
But that was then, and everything was different now. I was different, we were different, and our whole potential future was different. Maybe that was so huge it should all be put off for later consideration, but I was still of the mind that with my life, there was no telling whether there would be a later to consider. So I cleared my throat and tried to answer all the questions he’d been too gentle to ask over the past year. “We hadn’t really been in the Qualla all that long. A year, I guess. And I had a chip on my shoulder like you wouldn’t believe.”
Morrison tried to hide a snort of laughter and completely failed. I laughed, too, and looked up, my cheeks hot. “Yeah, okay, you’d probably believe it.” I looked down again, because I still didn’t like telling this story, even if I’d come increasingly to terms with having to. “Anyway, Lucas came in that fall from Vancouver, and he was really cute. Really cute. And I had a terrible crush on him, and Sara was my best friend and she said she didn’t like him, which wasn’t true but I didn’t get it. Anyway, I was desperate to make him like me so I did the obvious. The really, really dumb obvious. It didn’t work, of course, and to make it worse I got pregnant. And being fifteen...I don’t know. Maybe I thought being pregnant would suddenly make him like me and it’d all be fairy-tale princesses from there on out, but what happened was he hightailed it back to Vancouver at Christmas break, and I had twins about a month early. The little girl died.”
I rolled my jaw, stopping Morrison from saying anything. It had been thirteen years ago and I’d never meant to keep the babies anyway, but it still made a sick sad place inside me to think or say those words. “Aidan was adopted by a local woman. It was an open adoption, of course, I knew she would be taking him, she knew I was having him, none of it was secret, It was all just what we both wanted. I don’t know if he’s ever even met Lucas. I haven’t seen him—Lucas—since he left. I met Aidan yesterday. Seems like a good kid. He knows who I am, which I didn’t know if he would, and Ada, his mom, she’s a little touchy about me being here even if everything was open and okay, but anyway, so Sara grew up and married Lucas after all, which I learned last December. And on Wednesday she called to tell me my father was missing but she somehow forgot to mention that Luke was, too. So she’s furious at having to call me and I think she’s equally terrified I won’t find him, and that I will and suddenly some long-buried passion will spark and we’ll, I don’t know, steal Aidan and run away together.”
“Should I be worried?”
That was so unexpected I lifted my gaze again. Morrison did not look like a worried man. The corner of his mouth was lifted, and his blue eyes were concerned, but not in a way that suggested he felt threatened. He was concerned about me, that was all, and when I inadvertently smiled at the question, his own smile broadened a bit. He came over, put his arm around my shoulders, and tugged me into an embrace. “Thanks for telling me. I knew some of it, but not the details.”
I put my forehead against his shoulder. “I knew you did. You’re a gentleman, by the way. For not pushing it last summer.”
“You said nobody’d hurt you. I had to trust you on that. I figured you knew where I was if you wanted to talk.”
“Is there a universe in which you thought I might actually come talk to you?”
“You just did.”
“Yeah, but you couldn’t have seen that coming a year ago. Could you?” I leaned back, trying to gauge his expression.
“A year ago you were my employee, Walker. Anything you wanted to say to me then would have been in a different confidence than what you tell me now, even if it’s the same information.” He brushed my chin with his thumb and smiled.
“Did you know I love you?” The question popped out, followed by a blush so hard it made my eyes water. I’d said it on the phone, but that wasn’t the same as saying it right to his face, and besides, it seemed awkward on the tail of the conversation we were having.
His grin only got wider, though. “Then or now? Now, yes, I’ve been starting to suspect. Then? Then it didn’t matter, because I was your boss.” He hesitated. “And you took the promotion, so I wasn’t sure.”
The Promotion. Morrison had made that job offer very carefully, after we’d shared a kiss that hadn’t exactly happened in the real world. I’d had the impression then that he was testing the waters, seeing which I wanted more: him, or to become a police detective. “I wasn’t ready. I was still way too much of a mess, and...and besides, you’d kind of thrown down a gauntlet. You said, I don’t know if you remember, but the day I came back from Ireland you said you thought I could be a good cop. Of course, that was right after you said you’d always liked me, so I probably should’ve taken it with a grain of th and...and salt, but—”
“I did like you. I can tell the difference between a Corvette and a Mustang, Walker. It was the woman sitting on the hood that got me flustered. Then you realized I was your new boss, and it seemed like we were better off off to a bad start than making up.” Morrison’s eyebrows darted up and he amended that, turning into something of a confession: “It seemed like I was better off if we stayed on bad terms.”
A smile tugged the corner of my mouth in turn. I leaned against Petite, sliding my feet wide so Morrison could lean against me. “You have no idea how glad I am to hear you can tell Corvettes from Mustangs. Any doubts I might have had are now put to rest.”
“Were you having doubts?”
“No.” I sighed and put my forehead against his shoulder again, easier now that I was scooted a bit lower than he. “Pretty much not since I threw that temper tantrum in the restaurant over Barbara Bragg.” I’d come a breath from going all Fatal Attraction on Morrison’s paramour, and then read Morrison the riot act for putting himself in danger while I was trying to save him. It had not been my proudest moment. “Sorry about that.”