The Wildfire Season. Andrew Pyper
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face has drifted so close to the window that his nose has grazed its warm surface, leaving a print behind. He pulls back an inch. Behind him, Alex waits for him to complete his thought, and only now does he realize he had one.
‘It’s different now, though,’ he says, and watches the patch of steam his words make against the glass. ‘People move around. Try whole new lives on for size.’
‘I guess that’s freedom.’
‘Oh yeah. Free as birds.’
‘Is she there?’ Alex asks after a time.
‘I can see her,’ he says, and realizes he’s been half watching Rachel for as long as he’s been standing there.
Miles forces his eyes to focus. He looks out across the tall grass of the Welcome Inn’s back lot to the yards of mobile homes beyond it. In one of them, a bunch of Kaska kids play on a trampoline. Rachel is there, her strawberry dress lifting wide and sucking back against her legs with every jump. Miles is amazed how quickly they all have gone from introductions to holding hands, screaming in made-up terror. Without instruction they have worked out a pattern where only one pair of feet connect with the elastic tarp at a time, sending them into the air and the pink rubber bubbling up after until the next bare toes push it earthward again.
As Miles watches them he places three of his fingertips against his scar and draws them down. He does it so delicately that, to Alex, it appears that he is searching for something in the marks, reading his face like Braille.
‘Do you have somebody here?’ she asks, and her voice pulls his hand away from the burn.
‘You mean like a girlfriend?’
‘You can choose the term you’d like.’
‘No, I don’t have somebody.’
‘I’m a little surprised.’
‘You shouldn’t be. I’m not looking. And even if I was, there’s nobody here to look for.’
‘There’s that girl in the bar last night.’
Alex isn’t smiling, but her voice is. Viciously amused. Miles has forgotten it. The tone of accusation, mocking and inescapable.
‘What girl?’
‘The pretty one. The only one. The one who gave me the once-over and then burned her eyes right through your forehead when you walked out.’
‘Margot,’ he says. ‘She already lives with an asshole, she doesn’t need two.’
‘From what I saw of her, I’m sure she thinks that’s too damn bad.’
‘Listen to you. You’re here for twelve hours and you’ve got everybody’s secret motives all figured out.’
‘Not everybody’s.’
Outside, Rachel looks up at where Miles stands and raises both her arms in a jubilant wave. With a start, he realizes not only that she can see him but that she could for as long as he’s been standing where he is.
‘You must be lonely,’ Alex says behind him.
‘I suppose it’s a matter of getting used to something to the point that you don’t even notice it anymore.’
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