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.
“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.
“I can hope all I want that what I’ve accomplished might change people’s view of me, but in a town like this that doesn’t happen. I’ll always be the son of the crazy lady.”
“That’s because you will always be the son of the crazy lady.” Carstairs lifted his hand in a halting gesture. “You should be proud of yourself, Owen, but you can’t change the truth. Crazy like your mom’s doesn’t go away and—” He let out a sharp sigh. “It’s in the blood. Who knows where it might show up next.”
“You think I’m gonna slip a gear?”
Carstairs spread his hands. “That or one of your kids might.”
“You’re not worried about my kids, you’re only worried if they’re her kids too.”
“Do you blame me?”
Owen did, but he also understood. He didn’t like it. Who would? But Carstairs was just a father trying to protect his daughter. That he was kind of an ass was irrelevant.
“I should never have agreed to let you live with us,” Carstairs said.
“Why did you?” Owen never had figured that out. The guy had four kids. He didn’t need another one. Especially one like Owen.
Iffy grades, fighting, mouthing off, driving fast, the incident with Emerson wasn’t the only time he’d done something like that, it was merely the only time he’d been caught—with Owen it was always something. Certainly he’d been better once he lived with the Carstairs family, but he’d spent the majority of his early childhood on the edge and sometimes he behaved badly not because he wanted to but because he didn’t know any other way.
“You and Becca were friends,” Carstairs said.
“We were,” Owen agreed. Losing Becca’s friendship had hurt as much as turning his back on her love.
“She was an odd kid. You were her only friend. It didn’t occur to me that you’d fall in love. You’d been pals for as long as I could remember.”
For as long as Owen could remember too.
He couldn’t recall where he and his mom had lived before coming to Three Harbors, or why they’d come, or how they’d somehow gotten a house. He did remember being outside, alone in the yard, digging in the dirt with