The Return of Luke McGuire. Justine Davis

realized he was clenching his fist around David’s letter. It wasn’t his problem, he thought. He didn’t have to deal with it. Which was a good thing, since he’d sworn to never set foot in Santiago Beach again, and nothing had happened since he’d left to change his mind.

      He would just throw the letter away. Pretend it had never reached him.

      He finished crumpling it up, feeling the oddly sharp dig of one of the corners of the envelope against his palm.

      Not for anything or anyone would he go back to Santiago Beach. Not even for the boy who had made those last years survivable.

      “Hey, McGuire! You comin’ or what?”

      The voice of his friend and partner Gary Milhouse was a welcome interruption.

      “Yeah,” he called out. “On my way.”

      Good idea. Half a pizza and a beer or two, and he would forget all about it. There wasn’t a damn thing he could do anyway.

      He stuffed the letter in his pocket and walked right past his wastebasket. He would burn it later, he thought. That way it wouldn’t be lying around to taunt him.

      Maybe three beers.

      Amelia Blair watched the gangly boy heading toward her bookstore. His hair moved loosely on top of his head, where it was long and bleached a white blond. A darker, medium brown showed beneath, where it was shaved short. A baggy shirt and baggier pants flapped as he crossed the street. He was walking—almost strutting—in that self-conscious way teenage boys had when they were trying to be adult but were still in the imitation stage, before it came from the inside.

      She knew she tended toward worry anyway, but she was certain her concern about her young friend was warranted. He’d changed so much from the open, natural boy she’d met when he’d first come into her bookstore four years ago. And the change had not been for the better.

      The buzzer on the door announced David’s arrival in the cultured tones of Captain Jean-Luc Picard; she’d adapted the sound effects from Star Trek and rotated them daily. They were a big hit with her younger customers—some of whom stopped in daily to see who would be talking—and even made the older ones smile.

      “Hey, Amelia.”

      He sounded normal enough this morning, she thought. “Hello, David. How are you?”

      He shrugged. “Hangin’ in.”

      Amelia nodded, knowing he usually wanted to leave it at that. She couldn’t blame him; the subject of his father’s recent unexpected and sudden death in an accident was still new, and he was still raw and aching.

      He made a show of looking at the books in her front display rack, but since his taste ran more to science fiction, she doubted he was really interested in the bestsellers and her own personal choices. She knew it took him a while to work up to really talking to her, and she’d found the best approach was to just welcome him and wait.

      After a moment he stopped fiddling with the latest political exposé and stepped over to the counter. He leaned his elbows on it and finally looked at her. “How was kickboxing today?”

      She smiled. “Tiring. We’re working on punch-kick combinations, and it’s tough.”

      “Bet it’ll take out a bad guy.”

      “That’s the idea, anyway,” Amelia said. She’d signed up for the classes three years ago in the hope they would help her feel less…timid. She was at home in her world here, amid her books, but outside, she was never quite sure of herself. She had resigned herself at twenty-five to being forever a mouse, with mousy brown hair to match, but now, at thirty, she was determined to at least be the bravest mouse she could be.

      As a side benefit, it had impressed David, who had decided she had to be fairly cool to be taking kickboxing. After that, the relationship had grown rapidly.

      “I wish my mother would change her mind and let me take lessons,” David said.

      Amelia hesitated. She doubted that was likely. Jackie Hiller seemed to run her son’s life with a heavy hand, allowing him only the extracurricular activities she approved of.

      Of course, she also doubted Mrs. Hiller knew about the new friends David had acquired. Loud, obnoxious, frequently nasty and purposely intimidating, the group of about five boys had already gained an unpleasant notoriety in Santiago Beach. From what Amelia had seen they were all hotheaded, which unfortunately made them very attractive to a boy still angry about his father’s death.

      “Maybe if you got a part-time job and offered to help pay for the lessons?” she suggested, thinking that something physical, like kickboxing, might be just the thing David needed to release some of that anger. And the part of the program that dealt with mental and emotional control couldn’t hurt.

      But David snorted aloud. “It’s not the bucks. Hell, she spends it like crazy. She just wants me to do wussy stuff like piano lessons. And during the summer, too!”

      “Well, even Elton John had to start somewhere.”

      David looked at her blankly. “Who? Oh…he’s that old guy from England, right?”

      She smothered a sigh and nodded, wondering how a boy only fifteen years younger could make her feel ancient. “He’s lasted in the music biz for decades now because he can play the piano.” Well, that was stretching it a bit, but it made her point. And she liked Elton, even if he was more of her parents’ generation.

      “Yeah. Well. I still hate it.”

      She grinned at him then. “So did I.”

      He blinked. “You did?”

      “Yep. My mother made me practice for two hours a day, then I had to play for my father when he came home.”

      “Bummer,” David said with an eloquent shiver. “But I won’t have to do it much longer.”

      “Talk your mother out of it, did you?”

      “Not exactly.”

      Something about the way the boy said it set alarms off in Amelia’s mind. “What, exactly?”

      David looked at her, then looked away, then looked sideways back at her again. Her worry increased, but she reined it in, telling herself to remember that he had to take his time, but he eventually opened up.

      “I’m going away,” he finally blurted out.

      “Away?”

      “To live somewhere else.”

      This startled her, but she knew if she peppered him with questions he would clam up. So she settled on one thing she knew was true. “I’ll miss you,” she said simply.

      He looked startled, then pleased, then he blushed. She knew when he felt his cheeks heat, because he lowered his head again.

      “Where are you going?” she asked, careful to keep her tone casual.

      He didn’t raise his head. He tapped his fingers in a restless rhythm. Took a deep breath, let it out.

      “I’m going to live with my brother,” he said in the same kind of rush.

      “Your brother?” She was genuinely startled now.

      “Yeah. Luke. Luke McGuire. My half brother, really. You don’t know him, he was gone before you came here.”

      No, she didn’t know him. But she knew of him. It was hard to live in Santiago Beach and not know of the town bad boy who had departed the morning after the high school graduation he’d barely achieved and never been back. Luke McGuire might have been gone for better than eight years, but his reputation had lingered.

      “I didn’t realize you were in touch with him,” she said carefully. “You never mentioned him before.”

      “He’ll be coming to get me soon,” David said.

      Amelia