Alex didn’t think at all as she moved to the girl’s side and took her arm, “You okay?”
The girl looked up at her blankly. “Who’re you?”
“My name’s Alex. What—”
“I told you to get out,” Olsen snapped from behind the girl.
Alex turned on Olsen, heart pounding. “What’s the problem here?”
Olsen’s eyes flickered at her and away. “I caught her shoplifting. Damned In—” He stopped, but Alex completed the sentence in her mind, and the girl stiffened.
Damned Indians.
Wolf lover. Ugly bitch…
“I didn’t steal anything!” the girl protested, clenching her fists. “He was following me around—”
“I believe you,” Alex said, never dropping her gaze from Olsen’s.
“And so do I, Deanna.”
The girl turned toward the new voice. “Aunt Julie, she said, visibly struggling to keep her dignity.
Julie stood just within the doorway, hands on hips sweeping the store with an impassive stare. Alex looked from the girl’s face to Julie’s, noted the resemblance, and let her breath out slowly.
“So this is one of your nieces,” she said.
Julie grinned, as if they were alone in the store and not the objects of several hostile stares. “Yeah. Not the best place to introduce you, but—Deanna, this is my friend Alexandra Warrington. The wolf researcher I told you about Alex, this is Deanna, my sister’s eldest daughter.”
Deanna swallowed. “Hi, Alex.” But her expression was still taut with strain, and Alex felt the girl’s misery as if it were her own, hating the familiarity of it.
“You didn’t by any chance get my truck finished?” Alex asked Julie with feigned casualness.
“Matter of fact, I was coming to find you. Looks like I timed it perfectly.”
“You did. I was done here.” She set her basket deliberately down on the counter, leaving the groceries for Olsen to put away. “Why don’t we get out of here?” she said to Deanna. She held the girl’s arm firmly as the two of them walked to the door. One by one she met the men’s gazes and saw them slide away from hers.
The three women emerged into the wan sunlight, Deanna kept her expression rigidly in check until they rounded the short block. Then the tears came. Alex let Deanna go, flexing her empty hand, and Julie hugged the girl close.
“Thanks for what you did in there,” Julie said over Deanna’s head.
“Those bastards,” Alex burst out. “Those damned bastards—”
“Easy. Come on, let’s all go to the garage where we can talk.” She ruffled Deanna’s hair and started across the street.
The day was growing gray and promising snow. It had been a mild winter; the old snow lay in dirty heaps along the sides of the street. The sidewalk was wet under their boots. People loaded up supplies in preparation for the season’s last big storms, or stood on the street comers talking about the weather. Alex ignored the stares that followed them.
“Does that happen often?” she asked as they reached Pine Street. “What they said to Deanna—”
“Often enough.” Julie shrugged. “You get used to it.”
Alex gritted her teeth. Get used to it. Was that what Julie and her relatives had done when people let loose their ugly prejudices? Was it so easy for them?
She glanced at Deanna. No, not easy. Not for Deanna, made to feel like an outcast at the most vulnerable age, when every minor slight felt like a kick in the gut. Oh, yes, she remembered.
“I didn’t say we liked it,” Julie said, and Alex started. Julie had an uncomfortable knack for reading silences. It was an uncanny thing; once or twice Julie had jokingly referred to her ability as an inheritance from her grandmother, a medicine woman on the reservation. If such talents existed, Alex was grateful that few people possessed them.
Especially people like Howie Walsh, and Olsen, and all the others who could see only her face and nothing underneath.
“The way I look at it, they’re the ones with the problem,” Julie said.
Alex strode ahead and up the driveway of Julie’s garage, looking for her Blazer. This wasn’t a discussion she wanted to pursue. But Julie was right behind her, persistent as a wolf on the hunt.