Blood Brothers Page 0,53

Paula-that's her partner-got married. Or had their life-partner affirmation, whatever-we all went out there and celebrated like mental patients. She's happy and that's what counts. The alternate lifestyle choice is just kind of a bonus for my parents. Speaking of family, that's my little brother's place."

Layla saw a log house all but buried in the trees, with a sign near the curve of the road reading HAWKINS CREEK POTTERY.

"Your brother's a potter."

"Yeah, a good one. So's my mother when she's in the mood. Want to stop in?"

"Oh, I..."

"Better not," he decided. "Ridge'll get going and Mrs. H has called Mrs. Oldinger by now to tell her to expect us. Another time."

"Okay." Conversation, she thought. Small talk. Relative sanity. "So you have a brother and sister."

"Two sisters. My baby sister owns the little vegetarian restaurant in town. It's pretty good, considering. Of the four of us I veered the farthest off the flower-strewn path my counterculture parents forged. But they love me anyway. That's about it for me. How about you?"

"Well...I don't have any relatives nearly as interesting as yours sound, but I'm pretty sure my mother has some old Joan Baez albums."

"There, that strange and fateful crossroads again."

She started to laugh, then gasped with pleasure as she spotted the deer. "Look! Oh, look. Aren't they gorgeous, just grazing there along the edge of the trees?"

To accommodate her, Fox pulled over to the narrow shoulder so she could watch. "You're used to seeing deer, I suppose," she said.

"Doesn't mean I don't get a kick out of it. We had to run herds off the farm when I was a kid."

"You grew up on a farm."

There was that urban-dweller wistfulness in her voice. The kind that said she saw the pretty deer, the bunnies, the sunflowers, and happy chickens. And not the plowing, the hoeing, weeding, harvesting. "Small, family farm. We grew our own vegetables, kept chickens and goats, bees. Sold some of the surplus, some of my mother's crafts, my father's woodwork."

"Do they still have it?"

"Yeah."

"My parents owned a little dress shop when I was a kid. They sold out about fifteen years ago. I always wished-Oh God, oh my God!"

Her hand whipped over to clamp on his arm.

The wolf leaped out of the trees, onto the back of a young deer. It bucked, it screamed-she could hear its high-pitched screams of fear and pain-it bled while the others in the small herd continued to crop at grass.

"It's not real."

His voice sounded tinny and distant. In front of her horrified eyes the wolf took the deer down, then began to tear and rip.

"It's not real," he repeated. He put his hands on her shoulders, and she felt something click. Something inside her pushed toward him and away from the horror at the edge of the trees. "Look at it, straight on," he told her. "Look at it and know it's not real."

The blood was so red, so wet. It flew in ugly rain, smearing the winter grass of the narrow field. "It's not real."

"Don't just say it. Know it. It lies, Layla. It lives in lies. It's not real."

She breathed in, breathed out. "It's not real. It's a lie. It's an ugly lie. A small, cruel lie. It's not real."

The field was empty; the winter grass ragged and unstained.

"How do you live with this?" Shoving around in her seat, Layla stared at him. "How do you stand this?"

"By knowing-the way I knew that was a lie-that some day, some way, we're going to kick its ass."

Her throat burned dry. "You did something to me. When you took my shoulders, when you were talking to me, you did something to me."

"No." He denied it without a qualm. He'd done something for her, Fox told himself. "I just helped you remember it wasn't real. We're going on to Mrs. Oldinger. I bet you could use that chamomile tea about now."

"Does she have any whiskey to go with it?"

"Wouldn't surprise me."

QUINN COULD SEE CAL'S HOUSE THROUGH THE trees when her phone signaled a waiting text-message. "Crap, why didn't she just call me?"

"Might've tried. There are lots of pockets in the woods where calls drop out."

"Color me virtually unsurprised." She brought up the message, smiling a little as she recognized Cybil's shorthand.

Bzy, but intrig'd. Tell u more when. Cn B there in a wk, 2 latest. Tlk whn cn. Q? B-ware. Serious. C.

"All right." Quinn replaced the phone and made the decision she'd been weighing during the hike back. "I guess we'll call Fox and