Part 13 (1/2)
”I should have kept an eye on the house.”
”That wasn't your job.”
”I'm the closest neighbor. I'd say it is.”
”I doubt anything would have helped. You couldn't be there twenty-four/seven.”
Owen had learned during his first week in Afghanistan that a determined kook was never deterred. Considering his mother, he'd probably learned that his first week on earth.
”Still, I'm sorry you came home to such a horrible sight.”
”I've seen worse.”
”I'm sorry about that too.”
Carstairs was sorry about a lot. For an instant Owen wondered if he was sorry he'd done what he had all those years ago. Then Owen remembered the first words the guy had uttered today.
You need to leave Becca alone.
Which were nearly the same as the last words Owen had heard him say. Nevertheless ...
”Wasn't your fault.”
”Seems I was the one who encouraged you to join up.”
”Encouraged? Is that what they're calling it now?”
The way Owen remembered it, he'd been ”encouraged” to enlist or be charged with statutory rape. By the time he'd discovered that the statutory rape law in Wisconsin defined adult as eighteen and the age of consent as less than fifteen, and therefore did not apply to him and Becca, it was too late. He was in the Marines.
”What did you expect me to do?” Carstairs looked away. ”I took you in; I gave you a home; I treated you like you were my own son. Then I caught you having s.e.x with my seventeen-year-old daughter.”
”I loved her.”
”You would have ruined her.”
According to this man, he had ruined her.
In the end, Owen hadn't enlisted because of the threat itself, but because the issuance of it had ill.u.s.trated the truth. Owen would never be accepted in this town. He would always be seen as ”less than.”
Carstairs rubbed his palms along the hips of his stained overhauls. It didn't appear as if he'd changed after coming in from morning milking. He'd no doubt run right over here the instant he'd heard that Owen was back.
”You two were so intense, so young.”
Owen had been intense, but he hadn't been young. Not in the way everyone else had. Which meant he should have known better than to touch Becca. He had known better. But that hadn't meant he could stop himself. Then, once he'd started, once he'd known what love was ... Nothing had mattered but her.
That was why he'd left. Owen had had nothing. If he'd stayed, Becca would have had nothing too.
”Young people make huge mistakes. They don't think. They only feel. And then it's too late. I wasn't going to let that happen to her. She was destined for great things, and she wouldn't have been able to achieve them if you...” His voice drifted off.
”If I'd have been hanging around her neck like a dead albatross.”
Carstairs shrugged, which Owen took as a yes.
Owen felt again like that boy from the wrong side of the forest, with the crazy mom and no money who'd had the audacity to fall in love with the town princess. He'd been a fool to hope that Emerson Watley's change of opinion might translate to everyone.
Wasn't going to happen. Others might shake his hand and call him a hero, but this man never would. Owen had broken his trust, and he couldn't really blame Becca's father for still being angry about it.
”You aren't going to tell her, are you?” Carstairs asked.
”Tell her?” Owen echoed.
”What I said back then.”
The man was afraid the truth would come out, and he'd become the villain instead of Owen. Owen wasn't certain that would happen even if he spilled everything to Becca. He'd still lied and left. Her dad had only lied.
”If I didn't tell her then, I sure wouldn't tell her now. I'm not staying.”
”No?” Becca's dad glanced pointedly at his leg once more.
Owen ground his teeth. ”I'm going back to my unit.”
”And if you can't?”
Panic blazed. Reggie lifted his head, let out a huff, as if to clear his nose. His ruff lifted. Either Owen had given off the sudden scent of flop sweat or the dog had heard his breathing enter the freak-out zone. Maybe both.
Now that he thought about it, Reggie's behavior was similar to the behavior he exhibited to signal insurgent. Owen had always wondered how the dog knew the difference between bad guy and not a bad guy. The scent and the sound of nerves might do it.
”I'm okay,” he said.
Carstairs snorted. Owen's fingers clenched. Reggie growled, gaze on Becca's dad.
”Bly'b,” Owen repeated, then breathed in through the nose, out through the mouth several times the way he'd learned in rehab.
”How's your mom?”
”The same.”
If she were any different-better or worse-someone from the Northern Wisconsin Mental Health Facility, where she'd been for a long, long time, should have called him.
”I'm selling the house,” Owen continued. ”Even if she ever gets well enough to leave the facility, she shouldn't live there.”
The place was too isolated-creepy even before it had become so broken down. Living there alone would make anyone crazy. If you were crazy to begin with ... best to stay away.
”Don't you want to live there?” Carstairs asked.
”When I leave the service, I am not going to come back here.”
”Why not?”
Owen cast the man an irritated glance. Even though Carstairs had done everything he could to make sure Owen left all those years ago, and seemed determined to ensure the same happened now, he seemed offended that Owen didn't want to stay.