The Return Of Luke Mcguire. Justine Davis
him a mug of steaming coffee, he indicated the posters with a nod. “What you do in your spare time?”
She looked startled. “Me? Oh, no. Never.”
“Then why the wallpaper?”
“To remind me that other people do those things. I admire courage.” She said it, he realized, as if it were something to be found only in those others.
“Some would say foolhardiness,” he said; he’d heard it often enough aimed at himself.
“Yes. And I suppose sometimes it’s true. But the exhilaration must be worth it.”
“Until something goes wrong,” he said.
“Yes,” she answered simply, and glanced at the wall behind him. He turned and saw, in a direct line of sight from her desk chair, a large photograph of Amelia Earhart.
“So,” he said, turning back to her, “you’re a namesake?”
“Yes. She was a heroine of my mother’s. The name hardly fits, but it gave her pleasure to honor a woman she admired. Now, about David,” she ended briskly, clearly changing the subject. “Why don’t you sit down?”
He took the chair she indicated, an antique-looking wood affair of the kind it made him nervous to sit on. But it was surprisingly comfortable, and had a spot to set down his coffee mug on the wide, wooden arms.
“I know David wrote to you,” she said, forgoing any niceties.
He appreciated the leap, since he hadn’t known quite what to ask. “I didn’t even know he knew where I was.”
“He told me you sent him birthday cards.”
Luke nodded. “But I never put an address on them. I knew my mother would throw them away.”
She didn’t react, didn’t look shocked or surprised. He wondered if it was because she already knew his mother’s tricks, or maybe she didn’t find them presumptuous. “He must have guessed from the postmarks,” was all she said.
“That’s how he addressed it, just to me in River Park. If the place was any bigger, I might not have gotten it.”
“Where’s River Park?”
“In the Sierra foothills. Near the gold country.” He studied her for a moment. “How bad is it?”
She didn’t pretend not to understand; he appreciated that, as well. “He’s horribly unhappy over his father’s death. It’s so devastating to lose a parent at that age. And for a father and son who were so close, it must be even worse.”
“I wouldn’t know, I never met mine,” he said casually. “I don’t even know what he looked like. My mother isn’t one for family photos.”
It didn’t really bother him anymore. There had been a time when it had almost made him crazy, but that was long ago. He—
“He looks like you.”
He stared at her. He slowly set his coffee mug down. He shifted in the chair. “What?” he finally said, certain he couldn’t have heard her right.
“Or you look like him, I guess is more accurate.”
“And how the hell,” he said slowly, “would you know that?”
“Your mother told me.”
He’d made a big mistake, a huge mistake. There was no way he would get a reasonable answer about David from someone close enough to his mother that she would even speak of the loathsome Patrick McGuire. He set down his mug and stood up.
Her brows furrowed. Unlike Mrs. Clancy’s, they were delicately formed and arched. “What’s wrong?”
“When you report back to my mother, give her my love,” he said sarcastically.
“Report?” She looked genuinely puzzled. “I barely speak to her. Why would—” She broke off, as if suddenly understanding what he’d meant. She stood up, meeting his gaze steadily. “Luke, I’m not a close friend of your mother’s. I’ve only even spoken to her a couple of times. After I saw you that night, when I didn’t know it was you, I…asked her what you looked like, that’s the only reason she mentioned your father.”
It was you….
He remembered her saying it, and now this explained it. She’d somehow guessed his identity with that glimpse. He wasn’t sure how that made him feel.
“I only spoke to her this time,” she went on, “because I was worried about David.” Her mouth twisted. “She didn’t seem to care.”
“Now that’s the mother I know and love,” he quipped.
She cocked her head sideways as she looked up at him consideringly. “You don’t sound at all bitter.”
“I’m not. Not anymore. I don’t have time.”
“David said you were busy.”
He blinked. “He did?”
“I thought it was just…little brother talk about a big brother he idolizes.”
“Idolizes? He doesn’t even know me anymore.”
“But he’s built you up into an idol of mythic proportions in his mind. You’re his hero, Luke. Especially, I’m afraid, for all the trouble you got into here.”
Luke sank back into the chair. “Damn,” he muttered. That wasn’t what he wanted to hear. Nobody knew better than he how hard it was to get off that path once you’d started.
“He’s taken up with some new friends since his father died. They’re…”
“Troublemakers,” he supplied when she stopped. “Like me?”
“I don’t know exactly what kind of troublemaker you are,” she said, “but I do know that these boys are getting worse. They haven’t physically hurt anybody yet, but it’s only a matter of time. And David’s starting to think like them.”
He didn’t bother to disabuse her of the notion that he was still a troublemaker. He’d vowed to let the people in this town think what they would about him. It was David who mattered now.
“He gets too far down that road, it’ll be hard to stop him.”
“It’s a self-destructive path,” she said. “Who knows where he’d end up.”
Luke propped his elbows on the wooden chair arms, steepled his fingers and looked at her over the top of them. “In jail? Or worse? I believe that’s the assumption. And I should know.”
For a moment he thought she was going to ask him what he should know about, jail or assumptions. But she didn’t, and he figured she’d decided for herself. And although her quiet, reserved expression never wavered, he had little doubt as to what she’d decided, just like everybody else in Santiago Beach.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Do?” How about rattle that restraint of yours? he thought, and blinked in surprise at himself.
“About David.”
He steered his attention back in to the topic at hand. “I don’t know. Talk to him, I guess.”
She looked about to speak, then hesitated. He waited silently, wondering if she would have to be coaxed, or if just setting the lure of silence would be enough.
It was. Finally.
“I…it’s hard to get kids his age to buy ‘Do as I say, not as I do,’” she said, watching him warily.
Think I’m going to jump you for painting me with this town’s brush? he wondered.
And yet, he had to admit it stung a little, that she assumed along with the rest of Santiago Beach that he’d continued to