What Should Have Been

“I promise I’ll be right back, sweetie. Now do as I say.”

Planting a kiss on top of Blakeley’s blond head, Devan grabbed Jay’s old baseball bat, which she always took on walks in the park against the threat of some stray, sick dog attacking them. Then she rushed from the house, ignoring Connie’s protest and her daughter’s whimpering; she ran across the yard, and alley, and entered the woods marking the east boundary of their neighborhood.

Regan Park framed Regan Creek, land donated by one of the most powerful families in the northeast Texas county. Barely an acre wide and eighteen long, parts of the outer perimeter were deceptively brushy, but the bike trails were well tended, as were the picnic areas. Often used by joggers and weekend cyclists, at odd hours it had been known to be the rendezvous site of occasional drug deals.

I should have put a lock on the gate.

I didn’t even ask her what the guy looked like.

As she berated herself, Devan charged through the thicket of holly and prickly vines, then between stately pines and bushy cedar. She willed the creep who’d scared her baby to still be out there. She could and would stop him—at least long enough to make sure the police were given an excellent description, and to give the man an earful. That scumbag would know what awaited him if he messed with any youngster in Mount Vance.

After another few yards she crossed the bike and jogging trail, but when she came in view of the creek, she stumbled to a halt. At first she thought the heavy shade cast by a sinking October sun was playing tricks on her. But no, that was a man standing monument-still on the opposite bank just as Blakeley described. More unnerving was who he reminded her of; there was something so familiar about him. With every shallow breath, her impulse to charge and swing receded like the most fleeting dream and left her feeling…what?

“Mead.” She’d seen the article in the Mount Vance Report, had heard the gossip flooding town like whitewater bursting from a broken dam. Most she’d managed to ignore in her struggle to repress the fear that her past could finally have caught up with her. However, there was no hiding from the reality that stood in front of her.

She shifted so what sunlight trickled in through the trees worked to her benefit and drew a steadying breath. She remembered those compelling eyes—dark as the promise of Poe’s raven whispering, “Nevermore.” Gone was the near-black mane of windswept hair of his youth, though she’d seen it almost this short on his last visit home. The bristles now appeared to be seasoned with a hint of gray, as was his beard. He had been home for more than two weeks, but he looked as though he was still existing on a diet of air and willpower, the latter no doubt force-fed him by his mother. Devan estimated him to be at least twenty pounds lighter than was normal for his strong-boned, six-foot-plus frame. The blue bandana not quite hiding the scar at his right temple suggested one of the reasons why.

Her next step forward was involuntary. “Mead…do you hear me?”

Hunkering deeper into the upturned collar of his denim jacket, he stared into the glistening water as though willing himself to merge with the few inches of cold liquid. But her question finally had him raising his eyes in slow motion.

As their gazes met, she almost believed she saw a slight flicker of something like a dawning, only to wait with a mixture of disappointment and relief when he failed to respond. “So it’s true…you don’t recognize any of us,” she finally said.

He made no reply.

She’d known when he left town six years ago that his first destination would be somewhere dangerous…and the next, and the next. Some sixteen months ago, his luck, and that of his crack commando team had finally run out. On a mission to the Middle East that had made national headlines despite the government’s attempts to keep information classified, something went catastrophically wrong, and everyone save Mead had been killed. After that, she’d shut her ears and mind to any more information, and thereafter tried not to think about the Mead Regan who was undergoing operation after operation, was no longer himself, and was reportedly lingering somewhere between “strange” and “scary.” Small wonder that Blakeley had been spooked, she thought, sighing inwardly.

“It’s…it’s good to see you on your feet,” she finally added. That was all she could get past the lump in her throat.

“Do I know you?” he said at last.

Like it or not, that stung. She remembered him as a kidder, the guy with the slow, wicked smile and a “come hither” invitation in his eyes, characteristics she’d insisted for years annoyed her…until, eventually, she had been drawn in like so many before her. This Mead’s countenance was as gray as the stone it appeared to be chiseled from, his deep-set eyes lacking any visible sign of interest in life let alone curiosity about her. Devan decided it would have been easier to deal with news of his death than this. What hell had he seen? What agony had he suffered to come back this far?

You do not need to go there.

“Ah…not really. Sorry to intrude,” she replied, taking a step backward. It was definitely time to go. Connie was waiting and Blakeley needed reassuring, she reminded herself as she pivoted to return home.

She barely registered the meaning of water splashing before strong fingers closed around her upper arm. Devan had neither time to protest nor to catch the bat slipping from her damp grasp; she was spun around and had to plant her hands flat against his chest not to fall into him.

“No!” Her cry was torn from some sleeping place inside her and sounded foreign to her ears; she couldn’t blame Mead for frowning at her.

“Who are you?”

“Devan. Devan Anderson.” Then she grimaced and amended, “You knew me as Devan Shaw.” She could tell he was trying to make some association and failing. Under her hands, she felt his heart beating as powerfully and rapidly as hers, and sweat began to stain his headband.

“Are you a reporter?”

Of course that would be what was bothering him most. It made sense that he would naturally shun prying eyes and probing questions. His politically savvy, reputation-conscious mother Pamela would have encouraged that caution, warned him to shun the media first and foremost if she wasn’t available to monitor each utterance. Devan didn’t want to think about what she would have to say if she heard about this.

“No, I co-own Dreamscapes. It’s a florist-nursery-landscape business in town.”

“I—I don’t…”

His gaze shifted away as though she’d asked him a question about quantum physics. Dear heaven, she hated witnessing this and had to fight a strange pressure in her chest, making it even harder to breathe. “It’s all right, Mead. It didn’t exist when you left.” And she had been only weeks away from changing her name, but that could remain fried with the rest of his memory. Removing her hands and easing from his hold, she strove to get their focus back to priorities. “Mead…you just terrified my daughter.”

He glanced back toward the creek as though rousing from a nap. “There was a child…she left.”

“No kidding. She ran home scared to death by some guy skulking around. Was that you?”

Slowly he touched his forehead near the angry red scar. “I was walking. I needed air.”

Devan refused to let memories or sympathy come before her concern for her precious girl. “Well, could you please walk in your yard until you’re more…more yourself?”

“There are walls.”

True again, with electronically operated iron gates at the end of the driveway. His mother had long been a person to separate herself from the rest of the world, unless it suited her. Some called her Mount Vance’s Liz Taylor. For a man who always enjoyed the outdoors every bit as much as Devan did, that kind of restriction had to be suffocating, and it momentarily eased some of her maternal fury. “You still have to go home,” she told him. “Your mother’s going to initiate a county-wide search for you if she hasn’t already.”

Once again she began to leave, retrieved the bat and started worrying about explaining this to the police—not to mention Connie.

“Can you answer one question?”

She froze. It had been six years since she’d felt such a mix of emotions and she was terrified what he would ask next. Once, she’d made herself his for the taking. Frustrated, hurt, infatuated, she’d risked everything to hear him speak to her and her alone…touch her as she’d never been touched…encourage her to be free, to be truly herself.

But just as he’d changed, she had, too.

With no small reluctance, Devan half turned back to him. This time his eyes looked clearer, even curious. “What?”

“Did you know me? I mean, really? Were we…friends?”

His hesitation was as sad as the question was bittersweet. Friends? For a night, he’d been everything she could dream of wanting or needing. By dawn he’d raced away to adventure, violence and catastrophe, leaving her with a scrawled four-word message. Take care of yourself.

She didn’t want to remember. She was a widow with a small child. Mead had been a mistake, a wild indulgence of her youth. “We didn’t have time,” she replied, shrugging.

“Why?”

This was getting more difficult by the minute. “Pick a reason. There are several that would do.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I was never in your league.” To her dismay that earned her another one of those vacant looks. She pointed to herself with her thumb, “Devan Shaw, small-town girl.” Then she pointed to him. “Mead Alcott Regan II.” When he failed to indicate he understood the nuances of social status, she drawled, “Your mother will be happy to explain it to you.”

Promising herself that this time when she walked away, she would keep going, Devan almost slammed into a police officer.

“Are you all right, ma’am?”

The freckled, flustered young cop was as breathless as she’d been from running. Devan had seen him before in his patrol car but couldn’t remember if his name was Billy or Bobby something. The town was growing and the police force with it. He had to be three to five years younger than her thirty.

“I’m fine, Officer—” she glanced at his nameplate “—Denny. Sorry for the false alarm.”