Wild Horses. Claire McEwen

why he’d looked more worried than surprised in his shop today.

      “I recognized your voice, but at first I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t think straight.” He took a long pull of his beer but never took his eyes off her. He was still wary. Probably wondering if she’d tell the authorities what she knew.

      “Do you usually go around grabbing strange women in the middle of the night?”

      “No! Never.” He flushed red, right over his cheekbones.

      “You’re lucky I didn’t just have a heart attack on the spot. First I almost got killed, then a masked man grabbed me in the dark... It’s every woman’s nightmare.” Her voice shook a little and she cursed the emotion welling in her chest. She wasn’t here to cry. It was better to attack. “You were an idiot to follow me across the parking lot like that. A complete idiot.”

      “I didn’t think about how scary it would be for you. All I could think was that I didn’t want you to call the sheriff.”

      “Well, I can’t say as I’m surprised. You always put your causes before anything else.”

      He looked at her intently. “You’re talking about the rain forest. After college.”

      Nora hid her blush in a long swallow of the icy vodka. How could she have referred to the past like that? How could it still matter? “Well, you always were preoccupied with causes.”

      “I guess you’re right.” He picked up the cap from his beer bottle and rolled it in a slow circle on the tabletop. “How did you know it was me last night?”

      “I didn’t. Not last night. Your voice sounded familiar but I couldn’t place it. But when you walked away through the gravel... Your steps were uneven. And then today at the shop...” She wasn’t sure how to mention his disability.

      “You saw me limping.” He finally met her eyes. His were dark green in the dim light. “I’m so sorry, Nora. I can’t believe that after all these years, we ran into each other like this. And that I put you in danger...and scared you. I don’t know how to make it up to you.”

      “I’ll just add it to the list of things you can’t fix.” The words were out before she’d thought them through. Before she realized she was digging her embarrassing hole even deeper.

      “You know, you chose not to go with me,” he said softly. “I wanted you to come to Brazil. You turned me down.”

      She hadn’t had a choice, but to be fair, she’d never really explained that to him. “I’m just cynical when it comes to you, I guess.”

      “I probably deserve that.” He didn’t have to elaborate. All the old angst hung between them like a line of limp, damp laundry. It was depressing. She didn’t want to argue anymore.

      “How’d it happen?” She changed the subject, nodding her head toward his leg, which extended straight out in front of him under the table.

      “A run-in with a bulldozer.”

      It wasn’t at all what she’d expected. “A bulldozer?”

      “I was down in Brazil on that rain forest project. They were going to clear-cut a whole new area near where we were working. No one was paying any attention to the science we were doing. I got fed up and I joined some locals in a protest to try to stop it. I lay down in front of a bulldozer. The driver saw me, but he just kept coming.”

      “And you just stayed there.” He shrugged and she stared at him in disbelief. “You were always stubborn, but that’s taking it to a new level!”

      There was regret in his wry smile. “I figured he’d stop at the last minute.”

      “But he didn’t.”

      “Nope. Went right over my leg as I tried to scramble out of the way.” He took another drink and looked out over the bar instead of at her. “Scariest game of chicken I ever played.”

      She tried to picture what it would be like, to have a bulldozer coming toward her, intent on murder. To feel it crush you. She shivered.

      “The locals carried me on a stretcher for a couple hours to the nearest village,” he continued “Then I was put in the back of a truck for the ride to the hospital.

      “It took hours to get there—I honestly didn’t think I’d make it. I passed out from the pain. When I woke up in the hospital, they’d pieced my leg together. Then I came back to the states and convalesced at my parents’ house for a few months, listening to them tell me all the ways I’d disappointed them.”

      “I’m sorry you got hurt.” Even in her bleakest moments she’d never wished him this kind of pain.

      “Me, too. I had a lot of time to lie in bed and wish I’d never taken that job. That I’d stayed in the States. With you.”

      The words she’d wanted to hear for so long, right there between them on the table. Now that they’d been said, Nora realized that no matter how many times she’d imagined him saying them, she’d never imagined her answer. She stared at him, but he was still looking out over the bar, lost in memory. Maybe he didn’t even realize what he’d said. The gulp she took of her vodka went down with a burn and she coughed.

      The sound seemed to bring Todd back to the present. If he was self-conscious about his confession, he masked it with a smile. “On the upside, I got a pretty big settlement. Turned out the guy who drove that bulldozer worked for one of the world’s biggest timber companies. I had money to buy my ranch and my machine shop. Plus, now I can predict the weather with my leg.” He took a swallow of beer, grinned, and the cocky college boy she’d loved was suddenly right there in front of her.

      She couldn’t help but smile back. “So you’re the guy I call when I want to know if rain is coming?”

      “So far I’ve been right ninety-seven percent of the time. I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet.”

      She laughed outright. “Why am I not surprised by that? Geek.”

      He laughed softly and she had to look away. He was too familiar, still so beautiful, with a smile that lit his whole face, slashed dimples in his cheeks and added a spark of delight to his eyes.

      “Some things don’t change.” He lifted his bottle in her direction. “To old friends.” But the way he held her gaze, just a little too long, told her he was thinking about more. About what they’d been and how they’d been. About afternoons tangled up in his bed and nights sitting on his roof, watching the stars, reading poetry out loud by flashlight. He was remembering how crazy in love they’d been, so that it seemed the stars they watched were wheeling overhead in a private show just for them. He was remembering, suddenly, the utter magic of it all. The magic she’d never been able to forget.

      “To old friends,” she answered, watching him clink his bottle to her glass. The sound was oddly festive, and very much at odds with the worry in her heart.

       CHAPTER FIVE

      NORA TOOK A gulp of her vodka. Todd’s toast was to old friends, and old was the key word here. A reminder that her memories of him should stay in the past where she’d buried them. Just because Todd was handing her a shovel didn’t mean she had to start digging them back out.

      Luckily, remembering what was wrong wasn’t that difficult. All she had to do was touch the bruises on her hip. Or take a deep breath and feel the pinch under her ribs. She peppered her question with just a little sarcasm. “So are wild horses your new cause?”

      “I guess they are. Not the cause I moved out here for, though. I was hired to manage a campaign to prevent fracking in this area. But when that project was over, I was burned-out. I mean, we’d stopped the destruction here for now, but they’re still tearing up the rest of the earth for natural gas. It just felt futile. I bought the shop and figured I’d