Matthew started walking again. Relieved to be past the evidence of her father’s anger, she fell into step beside him. When they passed the General Store, Large Marge emerged with a bellow, her big arms outflung. She gave Matthew a hug, then thumped him on the back. When she stepped back, she gazed at the two of them.
“Be careful, you two. Things aren’t good between your dads.”
Leni started off. Matthew followed her.
She wanted to smile, but the vandalized tavern and Large Marge’s warning had taken the shine off the day. Large Marge was right. Leni was playing with fire right now. Her dad could drive up this road at any minute. It would not be good for him to see her walking home with Matthew Walker.
“Leni?”
She realized Matthew had run to catch up with her. “Sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
Leni didn’t know how to answer; she was sorry for things he knew nothing about, for a future she was probably dragging him into that would surely sour. Instead, she said some lame thing about the latest book she’d read; for the remainder of the way home they talked about superficial things—the weather, the movies he’d seen in Fairbanks, the latest lures for king salmon.
It seemed that no time had passed, even though they had walked together for almost an hour, when Leni saw the metal gate with the cow skull on it up ahead. Mr. Walker was standing beside a big yellow excavator that was parked beside the gate that marked the entrance to his land.
Leni came to a stop. “What’s your dad doing?”
“He’s clearing some acreage to build cabins. And he’s putting up an arch over the driveway so guests will know how to find us. He’s calling it the Walker Cove Adventure Lodge. Or something like that.”
“A lodge for tourists? Right here?”
Leni felt Matthew’s gaze on her face, as strongly as any touch. “You bet. There’s money to be made.”
Mr. Walker walked toward them, pulling the trucker’s cap off his head, revealing a white strip of skin along his forehead, scratching his damp hair.
“My dad won’t like that arch,” Leni said as he approached.
“Your dad doesn’t like much,” Mr. Walker said with a smile, mopping the sweat from his brow with a bunched-up bandanna. “And you being friends with my Mattie is going to be at the top of his hate list. You know that, right?”
“Yeah,” Leni said.
“Come on, Leni,” Matthew said. He took her by the elbow and led her away from his father, with the bicycle clattering alongside. When they came to Leni’s driveway, she stopped, stared down the tree-shaded road.
“You should leave now,” she said, pulling away.
“I want to walk you home.”
“No,” she said.
“Your dad?”
She wished the world would just open up and swallow her. She nodded. “He would not want me to be friends with you.”
“Screw him,” Matthew said. “He can’t tell us we can’t be friends. No one can. Dad told me about the stupid feud going on. Who cares? What’s it to us?”
“But—”
“Do you like me, Leni? Do you want to be friends?”
She nodded. The moment felt solemn. Serious. A pact being made.
“And I like you. So there. It’s done. We’re friends. There’s nothing anyone can do about it.”
Leni knew how na?ve he was, how wrong. Matthew knew nothing about angry, irrational parents, about punches that broke noses and the kind of rage that began with vandalism and might go places he couldn’t imagine.
“My dad is unpredictable,” Leni said. It was the only equivocal word she could come up with.
“What does that mean?”
“He might hurt you if he found out we liked each other.”
“I could take on your dad.”
Leni felt a little burst of hysterical laughter rise up. The idea of Matthew “taking on” Dad was too terrible to contemplate.
She should walk away right now, tell Matthew they couldn’t be friends.
“Leni?”
The look in his eyes was her undoing. Had anyone ever looked at her like that? She felt a shiver of something, longing maybe, or relief, or even desire. She didn’t know. She just knew she couldn’t turn away from it, not after so many lonely years, even though she felt danger slip silently into the water and swim toward her. “We can’t let my dad know we’re friends. Not at all. Not ever.”
“Sure,” Matthew said, but she could see that he didn’t understand. Maybe he knew about pain and loss and suffering; that knowledge of darkness was in his eyes. But he didn’t know about fear. He thought her warnings were melodramatic.