Alone in the Wild (Rockton #5)(63)

“You know him.”

“Yeah.”

“What was he in Rockton for?”

Another exhale. “That’s what I want to talk to you about. If I’m hesitating, it’s just…” He waves his hands, gesturing, and I start to roll off, but he holds my hips. “It’s the usual bullshit, this part of me that wants to smooth it over, pretend it’s not that bad, so I don’t scare you off. I wouldn’t do that. You need to know. I just…”

Another helpless wave. “You were in the forest, playing with our dog, and a couple of psychos threatened to kidnap and sell you. That’s fucking nuts, and it’s just another day out here, and it shouldn’t be. Biggest thing you should need to worry about is the wildlife. But no, it’s the crazy people who want to kill you or, now apparently, sell you.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. It starts as a snicker, and then I’m sputtering, choking on laughter.

“It’s not funny, Casey,” he says.

“Oh, but it has to be, doesn’t it? Otherwise, we’ll become the crazy people.” I settle in and look down at him. “We’re in the Yukon wilderness. There are people here for this lifestyle, like you and me and most settlers. But there are also people with a certain level of eccentricity and, yes, crazy, who come here because of that. They’re here to escape the norms and rules of life down south. That can be a positive thing—they want something less rigid and more natural. Or their disregard for the rules of law is the reason they’re happier here, where they can do whatever they want. That’s going to mean, overall, a high quotient of…”

“Batshit crazy, as Ty said?”

“In every possible way, the good and the bad. It’s a world of extremes. It’s like walking down a city street and winnowing out all the average people, the people who are happy enough going about their lives. The people who don’t yearn for more, yearn for change, yearn for different. That’s who we have here, long-term. The dissatisfied and the dreamers and the doers and, unfortunately, the dangerous—those who want to box up their superego and let their id run free. You get that down south, too. It’s not as if people like Petra and Sebastian and Cherise and Mathias are some new species I never knew existed. I’ve met variations on all of them before. There’s just a significantly higher concentration here.”

“Yeah.”

“As for Owen…” I prompt.

Dalton sighs and reaches for his canteen, taking a slug and then offering me some, which I accept.

“Owen came to Rockton five years ago. I was deputy, and it was a little more than a year before Gene retired. Owen and I are about the same age, and that caused problems. He saw me as competition.”

Dalton rolls his eyes. “By that time, I’d had my bad experience with a woman, so he was welcome to them. It’s not like he’d have had a problem anyway. When he showed up, they paid attention. He screwed around a bit, and then he set his sights on Isabel, which I couldn’t figure out.”

I sputter a laugh. “Don’t let her hear you say that.”

“Nah, she said it herself. I don’t mean any insult. But she was fifteen years older, and he had his pick of women, and it wasn’t as if he knew her well enough to fall for her. He acted like a new stallion in a herd of mares, making his way through them, and when he came to Isabel, he figured he’d have a go and then move on. I mean, obviously she’d be all over that, right?”

“She wasn’t, was she?”

“Hell, no. Isabel might have an eye for younger men, but she’s never been hard up for attention, and she’s a helluva lot pickier than ‘young and good-looking.’ When Isabel rejected him, she figured he’d sweep up his wounded pride and stalk off. He didn’t. The more she said no, the more he wanted her. Pretty soon, she complained to Gene.”

“How’d that go?”

He shifts and makes a face. “I said this was shortly after my ‘bad experience.’”

I know what he’s talking about. When Dalton was young, he had plenty of women happy to introduce him to the joys of sex. He’d been in his late teens, and they’d been five to ten years older, so everyone knew it was just fun. Then he reached his early twenties and relationships became a possibility. He wasn’t interested, and if the women were, he stepped away. Then he hit the one who didn’t give up so easily.

“It wasn’t even one of my usual casual-but-committed relationships,” he continues. “We hooked up a couple of times, and she hinted at wanting more. Seeing the warning signs, I backed out, as gently as I could.”

“She didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

He nods. “At first, it was like she was just trying to change my mind. But then … I’d come home, and she’d be in my kitchen, making dinner in her underwear. I’d be sleeping, and she’d slip into my bed. Hell, she walked into my shower once. Fucking scared the life out of me. First time I ever locked my doors.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. It was bad. If another woman even talked to me, she’d get in their face, and it wasn’t like I was trying to pick anyone up. We’re talking conversations with women. Normal conversations.”

“What’d you do?”

“Tried to handle it myself. When I couldn’t, I asked other guys for advice. They laughed. Told me I should take advantage. So I went to Gene. He didn’t laugh, but he didn’t see the problem either. Even my mother wasn’t much better. She felt sorry for the woman, who’d obviously fallen hard for me, and said I should be more understanding. Maybe I should give her another chance. This woman is fucking up my life because she wants me back … so I should give in? Because, fuck yeah, that’s the kind of woman I want.” He shakes his head, and in his eyes, there’s old hurt, old pain, old anger.