Anywhere (Sawtooth Mountains Stories, #3)

by Susan Fanetti

  “You can’t flit in and out like Tinker Bell and think you can save the world on one of your flybys! Just leave us alone!”

  Reese knew what this was about. She’d meant to tell them about the Cahills’ offer, and she’d been worried how Frannie would take it—but they’d also expected to have dinner with just the family, not provide a one-act drama for the whole tribe.

  “I’m not flitting. I’m here. I’ll be back!”

  He handed the tongs to Arnold and went to Mac. When he tried to pull her into his arms, she twisted away, but reached for his hand. So he took that and held tight.

  Elaine, Mac’s mom, was outside now, too, and several women who’d been in the house. None of them was dressed for the thirty-six-degree temperature, but nobody was worried about the cold just now.

  “Please stop! Georgia, Francine, please!

  Tyson was still wailing. Frannie pushed his head to her shoulder and began to bounce wildly up and down, turning his cries into ululations. “Ty is fine! He’s fine! He don’t need the Cahills riding in on their white horses! We don’t need them! We needed you, but you ran! You’re running now. You’re a goddamn COWARD!”

  “Frannie, enough! Back off!” Reese shouted—and everything stopped. Tyson kept crying, but every other person went still, and every goddamn eye around was on him. Even Mac was looking at him like a third eye had just blinked open in the middle of his forehead. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. I know this is between you, but I can’t”—he turned to Frannie—“I can’t let you talk to her like that.”

  Finally, Tyson settled, and the evening was almost perfectly silent. Even Nature was stunned by this display.

  Frannie’s mouth twisted into a snarl. “She’s my sister. I can talk to her any way I want.”

  Reese had hold of Mac’s hand. He could feel her anxiety, her sadness, her shame pulsing through her, and he didn’t know how to save her from it.

  “Frannie, maybe you should take all this inside,” Victor said, walking carefully up to her. “We can get outta your hair.”

  “No. There’s food. People should stay and eat, or it’ll go to waste.” Frannie walked with her son back toward the house. When she came abreast of Mac, she said, clear enough for all to hear, “But you can go. You don’t belong here anymore.”

  Now Reese got full hold of Mac, catching her in his arms when she staggered. Her mom still stood near the foot of the front steps. Mac turned to her, and Elaine came to her and embraced her for a moment. When she leaned back, she drew Mac’s head down until their foreheads touched. “You are my baby girl, and you will always belong here. But go now. Go on your trip. Then come home. When your sister sees that you’ve come back, she’ll believe you’re here to stay.”

  “Mom ...” There was so much pain in that syllable, it must have drawn blood on its way out.

  “It’s alright, Georgia. I know you’ll be home again.” Elaine looked up at Reese. “I know this good man will keep you well and bring you home.”

  Reese nodded. “I will. I promise.”

  *****

  That night, Reese woke alone in bed, with light coming in from the hallway. He checked the clock at his bedside; after three in the morning. The first part of their journey began with a late-morning flight out of Boise, so they had to be on the road out of Jasper Ridge by six-thirty or so. Heath was driving them to the airport.

  He’d been hoping for another two hours of sleep, anyway.

  Mac had been quiet last night, after they’d come back from the debacle with her family. They’d done their face time downstairs and turned in early, and he’d tried to talk to her while they settled into bed, but she wasn’t ready to talk about it. So he’d held her and let her be sad.

  Finding himself alone in bed now made a little varmint of worry gnaw on the edges of his gut. He got up and pulled on a pair of sweats, hoping with everything he had that he wasn’t alone in the apartment.

  He let out a long breath when he saw their bags, all their bags, packed and waiting at the door. She’d made him pack insanely light—just a backpack and a carry-on, which was the first piece of luggage he’d ever owned. She had her backpack and duffel bag. That was it, for three months of travel. He was skeptical, to say the least, but hey—what did he know?

  Seeing her weathered, patched old backpack and duffel settled his heart right down. She wouldn’t go anywhere without those. He found her sitting at the table, her sticker map rolled out flat again. She was staring at it, her arms folded on the table before her.

  “Mac?”

  She looked up and gave him a smile. “Hi.”

  “What’re you doin’?”

  “I don’t know. Just looking.”

  He sat beside her and studied the map. It never failed to impress him, seeing how widely she’d roamed. “That’s quite a thing, all the places you’ve been.”

  “I guess. Wasn’t worth what I gave up, though.”

  “Second thoughts? We can cancel if you want.”

  “No! No. I want this. I want to have this with you.”

  Pulling her close, he tucked her under his arm and kissed her head. “Then we’ll have it. And when we come home, Frannie will see that you’re home. Like your mom said.”

  She sighed and snuggled close. “I hope so.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The flight from Boise to Madrid, with a layover in Dallas, was about seventeen hours of travel. With the time difference, they landed in Madrid about half an hour later the next day from the time they’d first taken off. Reese had thought that meant jetlag wouldn’t be an issue: it was the same time of day in this new place, like he was leaping over a day in the calendar. The bulk of the flight would be at night, and he’d just sleep and wake up in the morning. Normal day. Right?

  Wrong.

  When he’d first aired his theory about the flight being a little time out, Mac had laughed at him and patted his arm with no small amount of bless-your-heart condescension. They’d been in Boise, a couple weeks before the trip, getting some shopping done. While she insisted they pack light, she had a long shopping list for the drugstore, stuff the IGA at home didn’t stock in its back-corner pharmacy. Vitamins, something called ‘Airborne,’ ginger gum, eye drops, Imodium, melatonin—half her backpack was a little traveling clinic. She’d explained what it was all for, but he couldn’t imagine sitting in a padded seat for a few hours was going to be that hard.

  Wrong.

  Flying itself was not a big deal—he’d been kind of excited at first, and he hadn’t even minded the complicated journey to get from their domestic flight arriving at DFW to their international flight leaving it—but the seats in the plane to Madrid were narrower and closer together. Mac was fine; she was just a slip of a thing. Reese was six feet tall and long-legged. His knees had jammed against the seat ahead of him before the asshole sitting there leaned it back.

  By the time they landed, he’d concocted several intricate homicidal fantasies featuring that guy. He’d been awake the whole flight, so he’d had time to really fill in the details.

  Mac, wearing the ear plugs and sleep mask he’d scoffed at, had slept through most of the international flight, curled cozily in her seat, using his shoulder as her pillow. He’d enjoyed that, and taken what ease he could from her comfort and the intimacy it made between them.

  The evening before they left had been hard for her, fighting with her sister like that, and she’d been quiet on the ride to Boise the next morning, but once they’d gotten through security and been well and truly on their way, she’d shaken all that off and been lighthearted and calm. Also really bossy, like one of those museum tour guides that walked backward and droned out facts and dates and wouldn’t let you go to the bathroom unless it was break time. Mac had this traveling thing down to a science, and he was just along for the ride.

  As his guide, she blossomed, and he saw just exactly how constrained she was in Jasper Ridge. During this trip, he meant to make sure they talked about that, and when they
got home, they were going to do something about it.

  Once they landed in Spain—takeoffs and landings made him sick to his stomach, but the ginger gum helped—Reese had a moment where he wasn’t sure his legs would work. Then the guy in front of him stood up, a short fucker who had no excuse for hogging his leg room, and pure, murderous spite got Reese moving.

  The exhaustion hit him in the line for Customs. The long, slow line, in a featureless gymnasium-size cavern. They’d been in Madrid for an hour, and he hadn’t seen any sign of it yet.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” He blinked his eyes clear. She’d made him put drops in to combat the dryness of the airplane, but that hadn’t helped much with his profound need to close them and fall down. “Tired.” He’d had plenty of nights in his life without much sleep. Why was this hitting him so hard?

  Mac rubbed soothing circles over his back. “By the time we get through this and get a taxi to the hotel, we’ll be able to check in. We can sleep as long as you want.”

  “I don’t want to sleep through this trip.”

  “You won’t. We’ll be in Spain for more than a week. Don’t push it and start everything off tired and grumpy.”

  “Okay.” They inched forward. He was jealous of the little kids in line, who just dropped to the floor when they wanted to. One family was dragging their two little ones forward on a blanket, while they slept through this whole dull process. “They really roll out the ol’ Welcome Wagon, don’t they? This is the first impression they want people to have of their country?”

  “It’s not so bad coming into Europe. Getting back home will be worse.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. US Customs is a pain in the ass.” She beamed a bright smile and hugged him close. “But we don’t have to worry about that for weeks.”

  For another forty minutes, while they inched their way to the Customs stands, Mac kept Reese distracted and wakeful with chatter about their plans for Spain. Using Madrid as a base, they meant to explore the whole city, doing big touristy things as well as seeing obscure sights she’d found on her own. They meant to go out for a few day trips into the countryside as well. And then a flight to Italy. That would be their last time on a plane until the final couple weeks of their trip, almost three months from now. Most of their travel would be by train. Reese had never been on a train, either.

  Finally, they reached a Customs agent, a young woman wearing a severe uniform and a serious expression. “Passport, please,” she said in accented English. Not for the first time, Reese worried if his glaring lack of a second language would make trouble for him. Mac assured him it wouldn’t; in cities, she said, most people they’d need to speak with would speak English. She’d taken Spanish in high school, and her travels had made her fluent, so she could get them around in Spain, and muddle through with Italian and French as well. When all else failed, they had a translation app on their phones.

  Mac handed the agent her passport, open to her photo, as she’d instructed Reese to have ready as well. They’d filled out forms, too, with addresses and declarations. All the officious paperwork and unsmiling people made him a little nervous.

  The agent studied Mac’s passport, looked up and considered her face, and asked, “What is your purpose for traveling to Madrid?”

  “Vacation.”

  The agent considered Mac’s form. “This is a long vacation, but only eight days in Spain. You are not returning?”

  “No. We’re flying out of England when we’re ready to go home.” It said as much on the forms they’d filled out, but Mac didn’t point that out.

  The agent considered the form some more, long enough to make Reese wonder if something was wrong, but Mac didn’t seem bothered. Then the agent stamped her passport and handed it back. She turned to Reese. “You are together?”

  “Yeah,” he answered. “Yes, ma’am.” She was half his age, but the ‘ma’am’ seemed suddenly important. He handed her his passport and form. For his, she only scanned his photo, gave him a quick glance, and stamped the book. “Enjoy your stay.” She waved the next person up, and they were dismissed.

  Mac caught his hand as they walked away, into the airport. Reese felt like he’d been freed from jail. “Damn, that was intense. Is it always like that?”

  “Baby, that was nothing. Wait till you see what I go through to get back into the country of my birth.”

  “Why’s it so hard?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’ll see. It doesn’t matter right now. C’mon. You’re about to see the first benefit of not having much baggage. We get to pass the bag claim and go straight for a taxi.”

  *****

  Reese rolled over and opened his eyes. A brief flash of strangeness woke him all the way, and then he remembered he was in Madrid, in a nice hotel right in the middle of everything famous. The room was dim, with only a light from the tiny bathroom on, as well as the city lights shining through the uncovered windows. Mac sat on the wide sill of a window, her legs folded up close, and watched whatever was going on in the city below.

  “Hey, baby.”

  She turned and smiled. “Hi. How d’you feel?”

  He thought about that. “Not bad. What time is it? How long did I sleep?”

  “It’s about eight-thirty. Four hours.”

  That counted as enough sleep. He sat up and scrubbed his hands over his face and head. “Gimme ten for a shower, and then I’m ready to go. I’m sorry if you’ve been bored.”

  “I haven’t been. I’ve been sitting here, watching and thinking.” She got up and climbed onto the bed to sit at his side.

  He took her hand. “Thinking what?”

  “That I love you, and I’m lucky.”

  “Good thoughts, then.”

  “Yep. Great thoughts.” She lifted his hand and kissed it. “Go shower. I can’t wait for you to see Plaza Mayor.” She said the name with an accent Reese found intensely sexy. “And we can find something to eat down there, too.”

  *****

  “Holy shit.” He’d never seen so many people in one place.

  “I know. It’s crazy. You should see it in the summer. This is probably one of the most touristy things we’ll do the whole trip, but I don’t even care. I love this.”

  It was chilly, below fifty degrees Fahrenheit, but few people seemed bothered by the chill. For Reese’s part, his leather jacket was plenty warm. Mac, too, was sufficiently cozy in her old leather jacket and a hoodie sweater.

  Plaza Mayor was exactly that: a huge plaza surround by a massive brick building that was apparently hundreds of years old. In and around that building were more shops and cafés than Reese could keep track of. The place absolutely teemed with people—diners, shoppers, tourists, and so many buskers the air pulsed with a discordant musical mélange. People were dancing and laughing, arguing, pushing rudely though, strolling amiably. There were clowns. And magicians. He could hardly figure out where to put his eyes.

  But Mac was virtually floating, so he simply focused on her and let her happiness pull him along. She threw a little money to every busker, she danced to all the music—trying and failing to get him to join her—she stopped at every shop window, and she pulled him in to browse through several shops. They mostly catered to the tourist trade, offering t-shirts and knickknacks, but hey, they were tourists, so he liked it. But it was too early to start spending money on crap they’d have to lug around all through Europe, so they only browsed.

  They ate at a café Mac chose, and he was glad to see the menu included English under the Spanish descriptions. But he loved to hear her speak Spanish, so he let her order for him. She’d suggested callos a la Madrileña, a kind of stew. He saw it had tripe in it, and tripe was decidedly not on his list of favorite foods, but she told him it was great and he’d love it. He trusted her, so he let her order him up some tripe stew.

  And it turned out to be pretty good.

  Until this day, he’d never heard her speak Spanish. He’d heard her speak a few sentences
in Shoshone, but that language wasn’t really meant for outsiders. To hear her rattle off Spanish so fluently, in real conversation, with waiters and shopkeepers, in actual Spain, struck him with a powerful love that was almost melancholy. This was a part of her he’d never known. She’d honed her Spanish in her years away from him.

  But he was with her now.

  After dinner, they wandered through the plaza some more, and did a little more browsing. His commitment not to start buying things on Day One crumbled when they stopped a little clothes boutique, and Mac fixed on a long, flowing skirt in a fluttery cloth with lovely, intricate design. She held it up to her body and spun around.

  With the one and only exception of the Native dress she’d worn to win Miss Jasper, all those years ago, Reese had never seen Mac in a dress or skirt. She was a jeans girl, start to finish. He knew she’d been a cheerleader in high school, so she must have bounced around in one of those teeny skirts, but that was before she was in his orbit. Unfortunately.

  She’d meant to wear her grandmother’s traditional Native dress for their wedding, too. That skirt she was fondling was the prettiest, girliest thing he’d ever seen her touch, much less wear, and the thought of her in it ...

  “Try it on,” he said, and cleared his throat when the words came out like a growl.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I just think the fabric is pretty. And feel.”

  She held it out to him, and the way the skirt draped between them, he saw it had a deep slit up the side. He ran an edge through his fingers. Soft and cool. It was cotton, but felt like silk. “Would you try it on?”

  One corner of her mouth quirked up slyly. “You like?”

  His inner wolf was at the controls, so he merely nodded. If he’d tried to speak, he might actually have howled.

  With a flip of her beautiful hair, she spun and went to find a dressing room, sashaying like a runway model. He followed her back.

  After a few minutes, she peeked through a curtain and said, “Reese?”

  “Right here.”

  “Come see.” She pulled the curtain open, and he cast a glance around the shop. It was crowded, but nobody paid them any mind. He slipped into the little room with her. She’d kicked off her boots and socks, too, and taken off her jacket and hoodie. She wore only her little black t-shirt, and that skirt, a deep, jewel-rich blue filled with a dozen other colors in a swirling pattern.