“You’ll have to take the long way around, then. You aren’t setting foot on this ranch again today.”
Montague looked like he’d argue, but then he sighed gustily. “Fine, I’ll take the long way.” He walked on to the lane that led to the main road. He soon had his phone out, and Avery figured he was calling a cab.
“You think he’s the one who’s been sneaking around?” Eve asked.
“Definitely not,” Boone said. “We’ve had more than one sighting, remember, and it wasn’t Montague. Back to work, everyone. And stick together.”
Chapter Eight
‡
By the time Sue arrived just before dinner, Walker was beginning to feel the fatigue like a crust of rime covering his normal good sense.
Elizabeth had shadowed him like a ghost all day, followed by Gabe, who seemed to have stopped talking in the last twenty-four hours. Avery came and went, her joy at being free of Brody unmistakeable. If he hadn’t had such a gloomy entourage, he would have pulled her into his arms and kissed her several dozen times already, but Elizabeth looked ready to scratch out Avery’s eyes whenever she got too close.
Sue called ahead to let him know she was on her way, so he and Elizabeth met her at the parking area. Walker had asked Avery to stay behind, knowing Sue wouldn’t like any interference in what she thought of as family business. Gabe wasn’t in sight, either. Elizabeth must have told him to back off.
“I’m here,” Sue announced when she got out of her car.
“You’re here,” he confirmed.
“So make your important announcement.” She stood with arms crossed, daring him.
“I’m not marrying Elizabeth. I don’t love her. I never have. I never wanted to marry her in the first place. Elizabeth made up the whole story of our being engaged.”
Sue turned to Elizabeth, whose eyes glittered with frustration and anger.
“Is this true? You made it up?”
“I—Fine, it’s true,” Elizabeth admitted, surprising Walker. “I did make it up. Netta was dying. I wanted to see her happy. Is that so wrong?”
“So you lied. Both of you. Because you thought a ghost wouldn’t care whether you followed through on your promises.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “Honestly, Sue, how about taking responsibility for your part in all of this!”
Sue blinked. Walker didn’t think anyone had spoken to her like that in years.
“My responsibility?” she asked slowly. Walker knew that tone of voice. If Elizabeth was smart, she’d back down now.
“We were teenagers when I said we were engaged. Far too young to know our minds, anyway,” Elizabeth said. “If Grandma hadn’t been sick and we’d come and asked you for permission to marry right then, the two of you would have been up in arms! I can just hear what she would have said. ‘Not until you’ve finished school. We don’t want to hear another word,’” she mimicked in a very Netta-sounding voice. “So what’s your rationale for holding us to that promise now?”
“Because you need looking out for! Because it made Netta happier than I’d seen her in years. She worried about you being alone in the world after she was gone. It kept her up nights!”
“Are you sure that wasn’t the pain keeping her up?” Elizabeth countered. “Come on, Sue. You know if Netta was standing here today she wouldn’t try to force Walker and me to marry.”
Sue threw her hands in the air. “If you don’t want to marry him, why are you even here? I’m doing all this for you!”
Walker had been wondering that himself. He’d assumed Elizabeth would fight him every step of the way, given how she’d acted all day.
“Look,” Elizabeth said. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“You can say that again.” Walker couldn’t help himself. “You were supposed to come home months ago and tell Sue what you said tonight. None of this would have happened. You would have been here and gone before Avery or anyone else even knew you existed. You know how badly you’ve hurt the woman I love?”
“How badly I’ve hurt her?” Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. “I think you’ve got that turned around. You’re the one who made her wait months with no explanation. You could have told her all of it right from the start.”
“Why didn’t you come sooner?” Sue demanded before he could protest. “Why string us all along when you knew you’d break your word in the end?” She was holding it together better than Walker had expected, but then she’d watched last night’s episode. She’d known this was coming.
“Because I’m fighting for something bigger than all of us—and I need your help!” She had their attention now. “I didn’t get here sooner because I’ve spent the last year touring arctic areas to study the effect of climate change on wildfires above the arctic circle.”
“And?” Sue asked pertly.
“And the situation is getting worse year by year. I’ve been studying tundra fires. You’ve never seen anything like it. They don’t burn on top of the tundra—they burn underground, sometimes for years. There’s no way to put them out,” she went on. “You can’t reach them with traditional firefighting equipment, so they just smolder away, sending tons of carbon into the air that used to be sequestered in the ground, and that carbon adds to global warming, and global warming sends higher temperatures and storms into the arctic, and those storms spark more fires.”
“You’re working to stop the fires?” Sue asked. She looked confused. Walker knew he was. What did arctic fires have to do with him?
“I’m working to stop carbon emissions. Seeing those fires in person brought it home like nothing else. We’re in trouble—big trouble. And no one’s stopping it.” Elizabeth took a breath. “Look, there are so many things we need to do to halt global warming, but the first and most important is to keep as much carbon in the ground as humanly possible. That’s a concept that’s easy enough to explain to anyone. Or
