The Maverick. Carrie Alexander

a pang—Joe used to sit with her while she soaked in the bathtub. He’d chatter about his day at school and why the pond changed color and how come Grandpa only had one arm and what he’d dreamed about last night, which at the time was usually spaceships or vampires. Now she was lucky if she could get a “’lo” out of him.

      Today she needed more. “Can you talk to me, please, Joey? Tell me that you got an A on your first biology quiz and that you and Grandpa cleaned out the garden shed like you were supposed to all summer.”

      “I got a B+, and Grandpa wasn’t here when I got home from school so I went over to Fletcher’s and played basketball. Okay?”

      “You’ll do the shed this weekend.”

      “Yeah.” Agitated, Joe rattled a bag of tortilla chips in time with his jiggling leg. He was all twitches and fidgets these days, a perpetual motion machine. “Can I go now?”

      The silhouette he made hovering in the dim hallway was disturbing to Sophie’s tenuous peace of mind. Anyone looking for it would see her son’s familiarity to the Salinger brothers—the lanky frame, the handsomely carved profile, the height. Luckily Joe’s eyes were brown like hers and not Luke’s steel blue. That would have been a dead giveaway.

      Joe raked one hand through the scruff of dark hair that flopped over his forehead. “Huh, Mom? Can I pleeeze go to my room now?”

      Sophie squirmed in the bathtub, rubbing at the goose flesh that had sprung up on her arms despite the steamy water. “Then nothing interesting happened today?”

      “Mo-o-om…”

      “Okay, you can leave,” she said, relieved. “Way to go on that B+.” But Joe was already gone, galloping up the twisting steps like a gangly runaway colt. His door slammed. Two seconds later, music blared. Sophie listened for a few minutes to be sure he hadn’t sneaked in a banned CD—she knew more about gangsta rap than she wanted—before tuning out.

      Reprieve. She closed her eyes and slid lower in the tub. She had time to think of what—if anything—she should tell her son about his father.

      Gradually the hot bath eased her tight muscles. Total relaxation beckoned, but one thought kept intruding. Joey had said that his grandfather was gone. Which meant that Archie would return knowing of Luke’s reappearance. The Lucases—even though the younger generation carried the name Salinger, they were still considered Lucases through and through—were the kind of family that the citizens of Treetop loved to gossip about. Every lurid detail of Sophie’s chase and arrest of the black sheep would be dissected over dinner tables all over town. Archie would glare at her across the table and wave his stump around, dredging up his ancient complaints about the Lucases and how they’d done the Ryans wrong. It would be the Montagues versus the Capulets all over again, and Sophie was exhausted just imagining it.

      “Nuts.” She hoisted herself out of the tub. One way or another, Maverick’s return was going to force her into a showdown with everyone in her life. And out of it, she supposed, thinking of Luke with an unwelcome but nonetheless compelling fascination. She shivered.

      “Branded,” she whispered, blotting herself with a towel. Her fingers went involuntarily to the Mustangs tattoo on her rear end. Get a grip, she scolded herself. It’s just a tattoo. Not a brand. She wrapped the towel around herself, hoping that out of sight would equal out of mind, and went to get dressed.

      Sure enough, by the time Sophie had concocted a kitchen-cupboard casserole and was slicing sweet potatoes to look like french fries—as if that would fool Joey—Archie Ryan had arrived in a temper. A short, stubby, muscular man in canvas work pants and an un-tucked plaid flannel shirt, he stomped past the kitchen window, ignoring his daughter’s wave. He went straight to the trailer she’d persuaded him to park in the backyard because that was the only way she could keep an eye on him.

      After putting the sweet potatoes in the oven to roast, she called for Joe to set the table, knowing very well he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—hear her over his loud music. She sighed in exasperation before climbing the attic steps to bang on his door until it rattled.

      Archie was next. However, as soon as Sophie stepped outside the back door, the mud-speckled red motorbike leaning against the garden shed caught her eye. And held it.

      Getaway.

      She plopped down onto the back step and rested her chin on the heel of her palm, letting herself imagine climbing aboard Joe’s peppy little bike and taking off for the hills, leaving behind her cantankerous father, her complicated son and all her other responsibilities. She’d go straight to the Rockies and climb toward the sky, the Continental Divide being the closest thing to heaven on earth that she knew of. Already she could feel the wind in her hair, the thrum of the engine, the adrenaline coursing through her bloodstream….

      Sophie shook her head. She hadn’t dreamed about such things in years. Luke was to blame, Luke and his seductive pledge that he’d wanted to take her with him.

      Fourteen years too late.

      “Goddamn you, Maverick,” she said, rising to stalk across the straggly grass to pound on her father’s dented door. “Supper,” she barked. “Now or never, Dad.” Without waiting, she returned to the cottage where Joe was miraculously setting the table. She wrapped her arms around his skinny shoulders and gave him a tight hug that was mostly a comfort to herself. He slipped away, smiling sheepishly.

      The screen door wheezed. “What’s to eat?” Buzzsaw demanded in his distinctive gravelly voice, already scowling at her from beneath the creased brim of his grimy straw cowboy hat. He had a grizzled week-old beard and stormy brown eyes that turned mean when he’d crossed from pleasantly buzzed to downright drunk.

      Sophie was no longer intimidated. Time and circumstance had tipped the scales of power in her favor. She swept off her father’s hat and set a green salad on the table. “It’s been a long, hard day. We are going to sit together and have a nice dinner without complaint or ill comment. We will be polite and courteous and talk only of pleasant subjects. Isn’t that right, Dad?”

      Archie grunted as he went to his place.

      Sophie took that as agreement. “Joey, will you say grace?”

      “Oh, Mom.”

      She smiled—pointedly. “Pardon me. I meant, Joe, my dear, handsome, obedient son, will you please say grace?”

      Joe took one look at her steely smile and ducked his chin to comply. He knew his mother’s limits.

      Even Archie seemed to understand; occasionally a glimmer of a clue pierced his thick skull. They ate dinner in a near silence that Sophie found very restful. The only discussions were those she initiated, consisting of topics such as the cushions she was needlepointing for the window seat in her bedroom and the gorgeous acorn squash Bess Ripley was selling from her produce stand at the railroad junction.

      When they finished, Joe helped wash the dishes one-handed—a towering ice cream cone occupying the other—and then begged to be excused to play computer games. Because he asked so nicely Sophie agreed, even though she couldn’t understand why he didn’t want to be outside on such a beautiful evening. She thought of Luke then, locked up in one of Treetop’s little-used, cement-block jail cells. Luke, who belonged to the outdoors more than anyone she’d ever known.

      It wasn’t like this was the first fine September evening he’d spent in the lockup. The Mustangs’ penchant for petty crime had kept them all checking in and out of the jail on a rotating basis. Luke had always been the first to make bail or pay his fine, thanks to Mary Lucas and her attorneys-on-retainer.

      There was no reason for Sophie to feel sorry for him.

      She put the last plate away and slammed the yellow cupboard door. She raked her hair back from her face, hoping the taut pull of skin over her forehead would yank her out of the momentary funk.

      Instead her thoughts returned to the shock of seeing Luke again. How he’d alternated between lazy taunts and the bitter accusations that had shaken her already-wobbly