River’s End

celibacy.”
    She only laughed and got out a second thermos. “Your virtue’s safe with me.”
    “Well, that’s a load off my mind. Christ, that smells fabulous.”
    “My grandmother’s a hell of a cook.” She poured soup out of the wide-mouthed thermos into bowls.
    “So, can I come to dinner?”
    She kept her gaze focused on the thermos as she replaced the lid. “When I got home last night, she’d been crying. My grandfather had told her you were here, what you wanted and that he’d talked to you. I don’t know what they said to each other, but I know they haven’t said much to each other since. And that she’d been crying.”‘
    “I’m sorry for that.”
    “Are you?” She looked up now. He’d expected her eyes to be damp, but they were burning dry and hot. “You’re sorry that you brought back an intolerable grief, caused a strain between two people who’ve loved each other for over fifty years and somehow shoved me straight into the middle of it?”
    “Yes.” His eyes never wavered from hers. “I am.”
    “But you’ll still write the book.”
    “Yes.” He picked up his bowl. “I will. It’s already opened up, already gone too far to turn back. And here’s a fact, Liv. If I back off this time. Tanner’s still going to tell his story. He’ll just tell it to someone else. That someone else might not be sorry, sorry enough to tread as carefully as possible, to make sure that whatever he writes is true. He wouldn’t have the connection, however tenuous it is, to you and your family that makes it matter to him.”
    “Now, you’re a crusader?”
    “No.” He let her bitterness roll off him, though there were a few sharp pricks on his skin. “I’m just a writer. A good one. I don’t have any illusions that what I write will change anything, but I hope it’ll answer questions.”
    Had he been this sure of himself before? She didn’t think so. They’d both grown up quite a bit in the last six years. “It’s too late for the answers.”
    “We disagree. I don’t think it’s ever too late for answers. Liv, hear me out.” He pulled off his hat, raked his fingers through his hair. “There are things I never got to explain to you before.”
    “I said—”
    “Damn it, let me finish. I was ten when all this happened. My father was the biggest hero in my life; I guess he still is. Anyway, I knew about his job, and not just the ten-year-old’s perception of him going after the bad guys. What he did mattered to me, made an impression on me. And I paid attention. When he came home after your mother’s murder, there was grief on his face. I’d never seen it before, not from the job. Maybe there’d be anger, God knows sometimes he’d come home and look sick and tired, but I’d never seen him grieve. And I never forgot it.”
    To give herself something to do, she picked up her bowl, stirred without interest at the stew. She heard more than frustration in his voice. She heard passion. And purpose. “Isn’t what you’re doing now bringing back that grief?”
    “You can’t bring back what’s never really gone away, and it hasn’t, for any of you. I saw you on TV,” he continued. “You were just a baby. They showed that clip dozens of times, when you ran out of the house, crying. Holding your hands over your ears. Screaming.”
    She remembered the moment perfectly, could relive it if she chose—had relived it when she didn’t. “Are you offering me pity now?”
    “So you can spit it back in my face.” He shook his head, studying her as he spooned up stew. She wasn’t a defenseless and terrified little girl now. She’d toughened, and if she didn’t take steps otherwise, she’d soon be hardened. “I’m telling you I won’t do that. I won’t crowd and push. We’ll take it at your pace.”
    “I don’t know if I’ll agree or not,” she said after a moment. “But I won’t even consider talking to you unless you promise to leave my grandmother out of it. Leave her completely alone. She can’t handle it. And I won’t have you try to handle her.”
    “All right.” He sighed at her suspicious frown. “What? You want me to sign it in blood?”
    “Maybe.” She ate only because she knew she’d need fuel for the hike back. “Don’t expect me to trust you.”
    “You did once. You will again before we’re finished.”
    “You’re annoyingly sure of yourself. There’s a pair of harlequin ducks on the lake. You can just spot them, on the far side.”
    He