Page 2 of Stand
“No, it isn’t. This is family. This is what we do.”
“Lame family.”
“Well, it’s all you got, so suck it up and look at the falls.”
Sam opened her eyes. Two children with faces as uninspired as the weather had appeared on the other side of the narrow stream. Sam had three sixteen-year-old nephews, and the boy looked about their age, though he wore a hoodie that covered half his face. The girl might have been younger; she was in flip-flops, which couldn’t have been useful on the rocky path down to the water.
Behind them, their father had a scowl on his face that he quickly rearranged when he saw her. From where she was sitting, he looked tall, taller than her own five foot eleven. The calves she could see below his Bermudas were strong. He either ran or rode a bike on a regular basis.
He looked familiar. The rainy shadows slanting through the trees across his face reminded her of something.
She squinted across the stream. The bike. The blond. “Tyler?”
He took off his sunglasses. The long, thin face of the teenager she’d known had become chiseled cheekbones and a strong jawline, but his ocean-blue eyes were the same.
He didn’t recognize her. Not surprising. After years spent outside, she was permanently tan, and her sleek, dark hair had lightened and coarsened in the sun. “It’s Sam Fielding,” she said awkwardly. “From… school.”
His eyes widened at first, but then they narrowed, his lips thinned, and he said, “Oh. Sam,” and it sounded as if her name hurt him to say.
Unsurprising, really, given the last time she’d been near him.
Her half smile faltered and died. His kids stopped their desultory exploration of the falls and stared at them. “You know each other?” the boy asked.
“Yep,” Tyler said, biting off the word.
From the way their eyes narrowed at her, the kids could sense he wasn’t happy. “Uh…” Sam said. “How are you?”
He shot a glance at his kids. Thank God he wasn’t about to follow up that scowl with a trip down memory lane. “Fine,” he said. Then, after a pause, he added, “Did you move back to town?”
“God, no,” she said before she could stop herself. “I mean… no. I live in New Mexico.”
The girl’s eyes widened just as her father’s had. “Cool,” she said, then she looked at Tyler. “Like Uncle Noah?”
Sam recalled a kid who’d hung out with Tyler in high school, with the same emo fashion sense, the same reputation for being a great artist but otherwise not worth her time. “You’re still friends with Noah Tran?”
He looked away, then back. “Yep.”
“Do you live in Taos?” the girl went on. “That’s where Noah lives.”
Sam couldn’t be as reticent as Tyler, not in front of this girl’s enthusiasm. “I’m in Albuquerque, but right now I live near the Zuni Pueblo. Do you know what that is?”
“Where the Native Americans lived?”
“Uh-huh.” Ignoring the dislike Ty was quite understandably radiating at her, she went on. “Many of them still live there. My company helps them save the ancient sites they were driven out of. Find artifacts, that kind of thing.”
“So are you an archaeologist or an anthropologist?” the girl asked, obviously knowing her stuff.
“Both. My doctorate was in archaeology, my bachelor’s in anthropology.”
“You have a PhD?” Tyler interrupted.
“Yeah.” Sam couldn’t help herself. She lifted her chin. “Surprised?”
“No. Just…”
“I want to be a psychologist,” the girl interrupted. “Or a psychiatrist. I haven’t decided.”
“You don’t have to decide yet,” Sam assured her. “That’s what college is for.”