“What’s happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Something’s upset you. Tell me what.”
“You saw those pictures.”
“Sure, but they didn’t make you scared, just sad.”
“Hey there, Hope.”
“Sheriff Hawker.”
“Just Cubby will do, Hope.”
“Katie.” Hope nodded again as Jake’s sister settled herself beside her man. “I… ah. I need to go.”
“Buster’s bringing you a coffee. Be a shame to waste it.” Katie smiled at Hope.
He’d noticed that about her too. She didn’t like to be with people. She was a solo kind of girl.Too bad, he thought. In Howling there was no escaping contact. He wasn’t entirely sure how she’d managed it for so many years before leaving.
“Thank him for me, but I just remembered something I have to do. Bye.”
She was out of her chair so quick, Newman didn’t have time to stop her, then ran out the door with everyone watching her.
“Okay, that was weird even considering it was Hope,” Cubby said.
“She’s not weird,” Newman said.
“Different then?”
“I’ll buy into that,” he said, wondering what the hell had her running this time.
CHAPTER TWELVE
She’d meant to go back to the house; it had been her plan. Once there she’d pack and get out of town. Instead she’d found herself in the trails after sprinting down the main street so no one from Wildlife saw her, in case they were still in town. Once the cool of the redwoods surrounded her, she stopped and exhaled.
“Hello.”
A young boy was coming toward her. Tall, thin, he hadn’t yet grown into his feet or legs. She had an inkling she knew who he was.
“You lost?” The tone of his voice told Hope he’d encountered his fair share of lost tourists on the trails.
“No, I’m a local. Hope Lawrence.”
“Really? Wow.”
She found a laugh at his shock. It was a common reaction.
“What’s the problem, did you expect me to have horns and a tail like my mother?”
Color flooded his cheeks.
“It’s all right, I know her faults. Don’t beat yourself up.” And she did, but Hope also knew that her mother would lay down her life for her children, she just had a strange way of showing it.
“You any good with that?”
He was pointing to the camera she had slung around her neck.
