her kitchen, I never considered where it might have come from.
“What happened to him?” Willie asked.
Nana shook her head. “We wrote for a while, then toward the end it was just once a year. I know he went to the war after that summer. He told me he was going to lie about his age and join up. I got postcards sometimes even after I stopped writing.”
I changed the subject to how pretty the lake looked with the trees turning. Another month and it would go from brown to dead-looking. I was afraid Nana might tell the story of Poor Flo, or worse, start talking about Carla. Nana didn’t mention my mother often, but since she’d shown up this morning, Carla might be on her mind tonight. Nana didn’t seem to have many stories about Carla, and a few she’d told of late were stories of me that she’d just gotten mixed up in her memory.
Carla’s words crossed my mind. What if Uncle Jefferson had meant to put Carla and not me on the will? After all, he had put her as the one person to call when he died. What if my mother was right? A month ago I wouldn’t have cared, but suddenly losing this place would be like cutting a piece of my heart out.
When Willie and Nana collected the dishes, Luke leaned over and whispered, “You got to open the letter, Allie.”
“How did you know I was thinking about it?”
“You’ve glanced toward the office a dozen times tonight.”
“I’ll open it.” I knew it was bad news. I just knew it. Bad news could wait. “Want to go for a walk?”
He raised an eyebrow. “The night’s cool.”
“I’ll get my coat.”
He waited for me out by the dock while I went upstairs, then faced my demons in the office. I wanted to open the letter alone and steel myself against the pain before I faced anyone. I read the letter, squared my shoulders, and walked out to meet Luke without emotion.
When I stepped close, he offered his hand without turning to look at me. “Where do we walk?”
Pointing in the direction of his place, I waited to see if he’d back away.
He didn’t hesitate. He jumped off the side of the dock, then turned and caught me as I dropped onto the damp sand. The lake was down enough tonight so that the normally muddy beach in front of the willows was almost dry. It wasn’t the direction we should have picked for a walk, but I wanted to catch a glimpse of his place.
I could tell Luke had never taken a walk for pleasure in his life. He marched down the beach as if on a mission.
“Slow down.” I tugged my hand away from his grip.
He stopped, retraced his last two steps, and placed an arm on my shoulder. “Sorry.”
“I don’t see your place,” I said as casually as I could.
“It’s in the trees. After dark, unless I light a lamp, no one would ever find it.”
“Do a lot of entertaining?” I tried to sound funny.
“No.” He laughed. “Last week I did have a possum. She ate all my crackers and left.”
We moved at my pace for a while before I blurted out, “I opened the letter.”
He stopped and turned me toward him but didn’t say a word. The night was cool and a gentle wind whispered in the pines that marked the property line between my place and his. They made a whining sound.
“Garrison Walker wanted to inform me that there would be an inquiry about Jefferson Platt’s will.”
Luke relaxed and took my hand again. “He probably had to notify you.” We walked on.
I followed for several steps before I gulped back a cry. “She’s going to take it away from me.”
“No she’s not.”
I wanted to pound on his chest and make him understand. My mother always got what she wanted. Nana never stood up to her. Even when she’d dropped by for the funeral of Henry, Carla had talked Nana into giving her half the cash we had so she could cover her gas.
“Allie,” he said with more caring than I’d ever heard him use. “She’s not going to take Jefferson’s Crossing away from you and Nana.”
I stopped, not able to look up at him even in the shadows. “Nana will give it to her.”
Luke rubbed his warm hand against the cold side of my cheek. “Nana doesn’t own it. You do. That may be why Jefferson left it to you. Maybe he guessed that you’d be the one taking care of Nana and you’d need a place. Maybe he figured you might be strong enough to hold on to it.”
“How would he know that?”
Luke laughed, his breath close against my face. “Carla said she came by and talked to him. Thirty minutes with that woman would teach a man a lot about what not to do.”
“But she is pretty. She’s always looked like a dress-up doll to me. Everything matching. All fitting perfect. All smelling of roses.”
He hugged me close. “There are a lot of men who don’t care for that kind of pretty.”
“Yeah, Willie.” I laughed against his shirt and hugged back.
“And me,” he whispered, leaning down to kiss the top of my head.
When his hug tightened, I moved into his warmth, needing the solid feel of him tonight.
My arm connected with the cold steel of a gun just below his armpit.
I jumped back. “You’re wearing a gun.”
Luke swore.
He reached for me, but I took another step backward. No lake bum, no fisherman wore a gun strapped around his shoulder.
“It’s not a gun, Allie, it’s a Glock 9mm automatic.” He swore again, realizing he wasn’t calming me down by being more specific. “I told you I planned to go out by the dam tonight and look for our nervous drug dealer.”
“You didn’t tell me you planned to shoot him.” I took another step backward. The man I cared about, the quiet drifter with the bluest eyes in Texas, wasn’t the kind of man who went hunting for another. “I don’t know you at all,” I said, thinking of the dumb kissing game we’d played earlier. Maybe I should have asked if he’d killed anyone lately or what side of the law he walked on.
The pieces of him began to fit together. Willie said he was shot once. He lived out here all alone. He avoided the sheriff. He carried a gun. All he needed was a neon sign saying OUTLAW and I might be able to figure it out.
“Allie. Let me explain.”
I headed back toward the dock. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.” I didn’t think I could handle learning that he’d killed before, or that his picture was in every post office.
If I left now, if I moved fast enough, maybe I could outrun the heartache that I’d fallen for a criminal. The first man I’d been attracted to since college and he had to be a Glock-toting, unemployed drifter. How many “wrong for you” signs did I need?
It took me a few breaths to realize he was matching my steps.
I glanced over. He wasn’t even breathing hard. The guy was in shape, and for the first time it dawned on me that he might not keep so fit just so he could race the moon at night.
“You going to slow down and let me explain?”
“No.” I didn’t want to hear anything. Every time I’d been interested in a man I’d hung around until he cut me up into little pieces. This time I was getting out while I could still stand. What would there be next-pills in pockets, a picture of his kids in his wallet?
“Allie?” His voice was cold, hard. “You will listen.”
Maybe he was going out to the dam to kill the drug dealer because the skiddery guy was moving in on his territory. Maybe Luke had this county sewed up. That would explain a few things, like maybe why he was in my house when we’d arrived. He had to check me out and make sure I wouldn’t interrupt his drug trafficking.
“Allie?” Luke’s hands closed around my arms as I reached for the dock. In one sweep, he lifted me up and sat me down hard on the boards.
I looked down at his blue eyes and waited. At half his weight, I couldn’t fight him, but that didn’t mean I had to listen or believe.
“I should have told you earlier, but I didn’t know who to trust. I’ve been a special agent with the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms for ten years. When I heard Jefferson died, I decided to come home and check it out. It didn’t make sense that a man who spent his life on the lake would accidentally fall in one day and die.”
