"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.

"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 a.s.s 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 a stick-his favorite toy-and he'd heard someone talking in the woods. He'd followed the sound and discovered a little red-haired girl. She'd been having a one-sided conversation with a squirrel, a chipmunk, and a rabbit. There'd been a bird perched atop her head. But that wasn't the strangest thing. The strangest thing was how the creatures seemed to be listening.

She was special and magical. A bit fey. And from the instant she'd turned and seen him there, then smiled and held out her hand, she had been his.

It had never entered Owen's head that they would become more than pals. Then one day he'd looked at her; she'd looked at him, and together they'd laughed. It had all seemed so simple.

Until it wasn't.

Her dad hadn't been blind, slow, or stupid. He'd seen the glances, the lingering touches. He'd taken Owen aside and said, "No." Only that one word, but Owen had known what he meant. And he'd tried. He really, really had.

"I'm leaving," Owen repeated.

"You sure?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"I saw you walk, Owen, and I'm sorry to say this, but you suck at it."

"Gee, thanks."

"Truth hurts."

So did Owen's leg, but he forced himself not to rub it, and though he really needed to sit, he didn't.

"What did Becca have to say about that?" Carstairs waved a hand in the general direction of Owen's knees.

"Not much."

"Doesn't sound like her." Becca's dad frowned. "She didn't mention it at breakfast either, and you'd think she would."

"You'd think."

Carstairs remained silent. Owen knew what the man was doing. Waiting for the silence to become so loud Owen was compelled to fill it-a technique perfected by parents and interrogators everywhere. Despite his recognizing what Carstairs was up to, Owen still caved.

"She doesn't know."

"She isn't blind or stupid."

"No." Owen took a breath. "I didn't walk when she was watching."

"How'd you manage that?"

"Wasn't easy." And he wasn't going to be able to continue managing it if he stuck around much longer.

"Why?"

Owen shrugged. Seemed fairly obvious to him. He hadn't wanted pity, especially hers.

"If you can't go back to the Marines what will you do?"

"Well, I'm not going to hook up with Becca and let her be my sugar mama." Even if she'd let him.

"I don't remember you having a mouth like that back in the day."

"I did." Which had been half of his problem. The chip on Owen's shoulder had smoothed over a bit with Becca's friendship, attention, and love, but it had always been there, and when people poked at it, he poked back.

"I can send the boys over to fix up your mom's place. You hire a Realtor; give him my name. I'll take care of whatever needs to be taken care of. You don't have to hang around."

Owen was getting the b.u.m's rush, and he wasn't even a b.u.m any more.

"Until this mess with the serial-killer-in-training is solved, I think I do have to hang around town."

"They don't believe you did it, do they?"

"Not that I know of." Didn't mean they didn't.

"Then you're free to go."

As Carstairs wasn't the police chief, Owen decided not to take his word for it. Besides, he didn't think he'd be able to just leave without knowing what that mess had been doing in his house, not to mention making sure every trace of it was gone. He didn't trust anyone but himself for that job.