“I could use a minute to freshen up, actually,” I said.
“Of course,” she said. “Head on up. Take your time, and I’ll see to the family. Your father’s right. We couldn’t keep them away, but they don’t have to stay forever, either. Solana, go with Althea. Go on.”
Solana and I looked doubtfully at each other.
“Hi, Solana,” I said. “Want to go find my room?”
The dog wagged her tail. I pointed with my cane, and she bounded up the steps ahead of me. I had just reached the top of the stairs when I heard a commotion below and paused to look back.
“Thea!” a guy called. “Thea! Where are you?”
Solana gave a bark, barged past me, and scrambled down the stairs again. I held on to the bannister, peering over.
Down below, a guy sank his hand into Solana’s furry neck, looked up my way, and froze. I stared in surprise. I recognized Tom instantly from his photos, but he was utterly different in real life. Whiplash energy coiled in his frame and bright, compelling eyes lit his face. A bolt of alertness shot through me.
“Thea!” he said. “You’re actually here. I don’t believe this!”
A man charged in from the side and tackled Tom out of sight.
“Outside!” Diego yelled. “I don’t want you under my roof!”
I came down the steps as fast as my legs would let me and found Tom backed against a wall, both his arms up, with Diego inches from his face.
“I just want to talk to her,” Tom said.
“I want you out!” Diego gave him another shove.
Tom shot his gaze to me. “Thea, come outside with me. I’m not going to fight your father.”
Diego packed a jab into Tom’s gut, and with an Oof! Tom folded over.
“Thea!” Tom said.
I was shocked by Diego’s sudden violence, but even more, I was stunned by my reaction to Tom. A foreign sense of urgency, a deep, reaching awareness syphoned all of my attention toward him. I was riveted by the turn of his neck and the ruddy color in his cheek as he glanced up at me from his pained position.
Diego hauled Tom toward the front door and delivered another punch to his gut. I winced in vicarious pain. A swarm of men rushed in from the kitchen and pulled Tom and Diego apart. The rest of the family flooded in, too, shouting questions.
“For heaven’s sake,” Madeline said. “Get ahold of yourself, Diego!”
“I don’t want him under my roof!” Diego bellowed.
Tom shook off the men who were holding him and strode outside.
I started after him.
Diego caught my arm. My cane clattered to the floor. “You don’t have to talk to him,” he said. His chest was heaving. “I’ll kick his mangy butt off the property. You just got home and already! Already it begins!”
“I want to hear what he has to say,” I said. “Let go of me.”
Diego only held tighter. He shook his head, back and forth, like a bulldog that refuses to negotiate. “He’s going to twist you up. He always does. He’s going say things that make you think we’re the bad guys, me and your mother, and that’s the last thing we need right now. The last stinking thing this family needs.”
“Would you let go?” I said fiercely, tugging against his painful grip. “I’m not stupid.”
He released me suddenly. He glared at me a long, conflicted moment, and then his lips closed in a hard line. “You might not be stupid, but look at you. What’s he doing to you already?”
I didn’t know. Some new excitement buzzed in my veins, and I wasn’t surprised that it showed. I turned to look toward the doorway, where sunlight gleamed beyond the porch, beckoning. “I’m just going to talk to him,” I said.
A dozen worried people surrounded us, but no one spoke. In the silence, Grampa bent over to pick up my cane.
“You said yourself you don’t know anyone here,” Diego said to me. “But we know you, and we know him, too. Trust me. You don’t need to talk to him. Listen to me, please, this once.”
“I am listening,” I said. “But it’s my life now. Mine to make my own mistakes with or not.”
“You’re killing us,” Diego said. “Tell her, Madeline.”
But Madeline only shook her head. I’m not sure I would have heard her speak, anyway. The feverish curiosity in me was burning with a life of its own, lighting me up inside and drawing me toward Tom. I had to answer it for my own sake as much as his.
“Unbelievable,” Diego said. He turned on his heel and elbowed through the others.
I took my cane from Grampa, passed out the front door to the porch, and paused at the steps, wondering at the churning that charged my pulse. It had nothing to do with logic.
Tom stood in the shade of the big beech in the yard, facing away, toward a breathtaking view of the valley. The leaves were a dark, purply red, and the trunk was a melting gray color that seemed to pour downward rather than grow out of the ground. Together, Tom and the distant horizon and the tree created a striking, eternal picture. A splash of sunlight dropped through the leaves and lit up the shoulder of his shirt, and when he turned to face me, every cell in my body calibrated to a new hum.
My cane made a hollow noise on the wooden steps as I started down. Behind me, I heard the movement of a dozen people, and then the distinctive ratchet noise of a rifle being cocked.
“Upset her in any way, boy, and I’ll shoot you dead,” Diego said clearly.
“Thanks, Dad,” I said. “I’ll take it from here.”
18
THEA
MAROON
I STRODE SLOWLY DOWN TO TOM, and I tried with each measured placement of my cane to still the adrenaline in my veins. Behind me, my pseudo-father, who had seemed so sensitive and gentle at Chimera, had just demonstrated a shocking capacity for violence. I wasn’t sure what to make of any of it.
“Don’t mind my father,” I said. “He doesn’t mean anything with the gun.”
“Except he does,” Tom said. “He’d love to shoot my nuts off.”
Up close, Althea’s boyfriend was nothing like the easy, adoring guy in his photos. In a faded plaid shirt over loose-fitting, dusty jeans, the real Tom was taller and leaner. The dappled shade made each detail of him vivid, from his worn, scuffed boots to a blotchy freckle on his collarbone. His short hair was lighter than I had expected, and softer looking. His blue eyes were harder.
“Did he hurt you?” I asked.
“No.” He wiped the corner of his mouth and nodded toward my cane and my belly. “How are you?”
I smoothed a hand down my blue sweatshirt. “Not bad. I’m awake and pregnant.”
“I see. And the baby?”
“Healthy.”
He peered at me with grim, unnerving directness. “You were essentially dead,” he said. “You know that, right? What did your parents do to you?”
“They managed to get me out of a coma,” I said. “Is that a problem?”
He closed his eyes for a moment and opened them again with a pained expression. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You would not believe how many times I’ve imagined talking to you again, and now I don’t know what to say.”
“You’re happy to see me?” I suggested.
He winced briefly and then gave a slow, crooked smile. “Yes. Of course. I’m sorry. Do over?”