Page 47 of Colton in the Wild
Mitchell frowned. “I ran into Officer Reynolds outside my office this morning. He said it had been tampered with?”
Spence nodded, the warmth fading as the barely sublimated anger welled up again. “If anybody less than Hetty had been at the controls, I probably wouldn’t be standing here talking to you now.”
“But who would ever—”
Spence held up a hand and shook his head. “We don’t know for sure yet. Might be somebody connected to a client, or totally unrelated, just some nutjob taking potshots. They’re working on it. You know how slow that can go when you’re working with little scraps of evidence.”
“Too well. Speaking of which, what’s this about Hetty finding a dead body up there?”
Quickly, Spence told his cousin what he knew, once again ending with the same exasperation at the lack of progress.
“But your brother is on that one, so I’m betting it’ll go faster,” Spence said, meaning it.
“It will if Eli has anything to say about it,” Mitchell agreed.
“So, what’s up for you now?”
The other man grimaced slightly. “I don’t know. Things have been pretty quiet. I’ve got nothing on the docket at the moment. I mean that thing in Anchorage wasn’t even my case.”
“So you can go fishing or climb mountains for a while,” Spence said. “By yourself, as usual,” he added with a wry grin because, just like himself, it was his cousin’s habit to trek out solo whenever he had some spare time.
He knew, and he was sure Mitchell did, too, that the family worried about that. Just a little, but some, because…well, Alaska. But to Spence it was worth the risk, to fully experience the vast expanses, to enjoy literally endless summer days and cope with winter nights and single digit temperatures. To savor the pristine white of snow and the crackling ice of the glaciers. And above all else the towering peaks that put what they called mountains in the continental U.S. in a distant second place. He supposed it was the same with his cousin.
“Actually, I’m thinking maybe I should be worried,” Mitchell said. “Every time I have a lull like this, something big seems to come along.”
“I’ve had enough of big things for a while,” Spence said, his tone dry. “So the next one’s yours.”
Mitchell gave him an exaggerated side-eye. “Thanks a lot, cuz.”
Spence was still laughing as his cousin left. And knew the only reason he had the heart to laugh at all was his family and the fact that Hetty, indeed, was going to be fine.
And it flitted through his mind that he wanted the day to come when he didn’t have to separate the two.
Chapter 25
Hetty had been many things in her life, but pampered was not one of them. Her father had been loving but brusque, and had left them far too soon. Which had left her mother too harried with seven children to spend a lot of time coddling each of them. Yet Mom had always been there for her, for all her siblings, caring and caretaking, and Hetty counted herself lucky for that.
But right now she was thinking she could get used to this. Oh, not the rigorous rehab she was going through, although she’d had to take a break just now, after an hour of pushing as hard as she could short of doing new damage. But now, while taking a break out on the back deck, looking up at the mountains whose towering peaks were never clear of snow, making for a beautiful contrast with the summer green of the lower altitudes, she seized on other things to think about so she wasn’t so focused on her body’s soreness. And life here in the Colton house was quite a change.
It had been three days of both pain and bliss. The rehabilitation part was tough, but if there was anything she needed, anything she wanted, Spence saw that she had it. Sometimes even before she realized she wanted it. To the point where it was making her think about things like mind reading and psychics. One day, it was the cinnamon roll she’d been thinking about. The next, it was that book she’d been wanting to read. And the next, it was the cane she wanted to try as soon as the therapist said she could. That one he’d leaned against the wall right by the door to the bedroom.
“Keep the goal in sight,” he’d said simply, and with a casual shrug, as if going out of his way to do this was nothing special. But Spence Colton was definitely something special. Even when she’d been the most irritated at him, she’d never doubted that.
She remembered how in high school she used to watch him with the girls, watch how they all flirted with him, looking at him with what her mother laughingly called “sheep eyes.” With his looks, his name and the fact that he’d been the star of both the school’s baseball—weather-short season and all—and hockey teams for bait, they’d circled him like hungry fish. She supposed that was how he’d learned to deal with the come-ons so well, because he’d been the target of them from such a young age.
She, on the other hand, had not. Not that there hadn’t been interest because as one of the few biracial students on campus she’d been a bit of a novelty, but because she’d had no patience for it and it had showed. That had been why, when she’d been given the tutoring assignment for him, she’d dreaded it.
Suddenly, vividly, a memory shot through her mind, something she hadn’t thought of in years. That first day, when Spence had walked into the small study room that was dedicated to the tutoring program. She’d seen him earlier, out near the gym and the baseball diamond, smiling amid a cluster of girls laughing delightedly at something he’d said. But the smile he’d worn then was nowhere to be seen now. And her irritation had broken through the mask of indifference she’d tried to put on.
“Sorry to take you away from your fan club,” she had said sharply as he’d entered and dropped a couple of books on the small table.
His head had snapped up and he’d stared at her. And then, in a voice she’d never forget, he had said, “If they knew I was stupid enough to end up here, they wouldn’t be interested.”
She’d been taken aback, not only by the chill in his tone but the self-disgust, and had truly regretted what she’d said and how she’d said it. Because she knew he wasn’t stupid, the director of the program had told her about his math and science and engineering scores, that he was borderline genius in all of those areas. She’d vowed then and there that she would find a way through whatever his problem was, find the method that would work for him.
And she had, she thought now, with no small amount of satisfaction. And it had, as he’d told her with solemn sincerity the day he’d found out he’d passed all his final exams, changed his life. Forever.
She supposed maybe that was the moment. The look in his eyes, the genuineness in his voice when he’d thanked her for saving him, the nothing-less-than-fierce hug he’d given her… She thought maybe that was when she’d fallen. Fallen for the real Spence, the one he kept so well-hidden but that she had seen in every session they’d had.
