River’s End

waste each other’s time?”
    “Pardon me, but you’re talking to someone who was raised on whale song and the plight of the pelican. I’m a card-carrying member of Greenpeace, the Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Federation. I get calendars every year.”
    Because she wanted to smile, she sighed. “The documentary runs every hour on the half hour in the theater. You can catch it in ten minutes right through those doors to your left.”
    “Where’s the popcorn?”
    Because she nearly did smile, she turned away. “I’m busy.”
    “No you’re not.” He caught her arm, held it in what he hoped she’d consider a light, nonthreatening grip. “You can make yourself busy, just as you can take a few minutes.”
    “I don’t intend to discuss my family with you.”
    “Okay, let’s talk about something else. How’d you come up with this? The design, I mean.” He used his free hand to gesture. “It’s no small deal, and looks a lot more entertaining than most of the nature places my mother dragged me into before I could fight back.”
    “I’m a naturalist. I live here.”
    “Come on, Liv, it takes more than that. Did you study design, too?”
    “No, I didn’t study design, I just saw it this way.”
    “Well, it works. Nothing to scare the little kids away in here. It doesn’t whisper educational in that dry, crackling voice or bounce out with chipper graphics that give the parents migraines. Nice colors, good space. What’s through here?”
    He moved past the reception counter, where books and postcards of the area were neatly displayed for sale, and through a wide doorway.
    “Hey, this is very cool.” Centered in a room where more displays of plant and animal life were on view was the model of the valley. “HawkVeye view,” he said, leaning over it. “And here we are. The lodge, the center.” He tapped his finger on the protective dome. “There’s the trail we took that day, isn’t it, along the river? You even put in the beaver dam. Your grandparents have a house, though, don’t they? I don’t see it here.”
    “Because it’s private.”
    He straightened, and his gaze seemed to drive straight into hers. “Are you under this glass dome, Liv, tucked away where no one can get to you?”
    “I’m exactly where I want to be.”
    “My book isn’t likely to change that, but what it might do is sweep out all the shadows that still hang over what happened that night. I’ve got a chance to bring the truth out, the whole of it. Sam Tanner’s talking, for the first time since the trial, and a dying man often chooses to clear his conscience before it’s over.”
    “Dying?”
    “The tumor,” Noah began, then watched with shocked alarm as her face went sheet white. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew.”
    All she felt was her throat, the burn of the words forcing their way out. “Are you telling me he’s dying?”
    “He has brain cancer: he only has months left. Come on, you need to sit down.”
    He took her arm, but she jerked herself free. “Don’t touch me.” She turned quickly and strode through the next doorway.
    He would have let her go, told himself to let her go. But he could still see the shock glazing her eyes. Swearing under his breath, he went after her. She had a long stride and the dead-ahead gait of a woman who would plow over obstacles on her way to the finish line. He told himself to remember that if he ever had to get in her way.
    But he caught up just as she turned into an office past the theater area and nearly got flattened when she swung the door closed.
    He managed to block it instead of walking face-first into it, then shut it behind him.
    “This is an employees-only area.” Which was a stupid lie, she thought, but the best she had. “Take a hike.”
    “Sit down.” It appeared he was going to have to get in her way already, and so he took her arm once again, steered her around the desk and into the chair behind it. He had the impression of a small space, methodically organized, and crouching down, concentrated on her.
    “I’m sorry.” He took her hand without either of them really being aware of the gesture. “I wouldn’t have dropped it on you that way. I thought Jamie would’ve told you.”
    “She didn’t. And it doesn’t matter.”
    “Of course it matters. Want some water or something?” He looked around hoping to spot a cooler, a jug, anything that would give him something to do.
    “I don’t need anything. I’m perfectly fine.”