There was no note, no message. But the sculpture he had given her, its wooden head flung back in a mournful howl, lay on the bare dresser where she had left it for him to find.
The desperate anger returned, filling the void she had made in his heart, surging outward in a rush of primitive power. He felt his body shift, muscles knotted and screamed protest, through a savage haze he could see her eyes, steady, piercing, aching with echoed pain.
Her eyes guided him as he changed, hurling himself from the cabin at a dead run. He saw nothing, heard nothing, his mind shut off from all sensation, he knew where she was, where she had to be. There was still a chance to stop her. There was still some hope of living.
“It’s all arranged.”
Maggie sat down at the edge of the couch, studying Joey with anxious eyes. “There’s a friend of mine who’s heading out for East Fork first thing tomorrow morning. He’ll be glad to take you along.”
Staring at the shifting, meaningless images on the TV screen, Joey forced her eyes to turn, her head to nod in response. “I don’t know how to thank you, Maggie. I only wish I could explain…”
“Don’t try. Not now.” Maggie squeezed her shoulder “You know we care about you, Joey, Allan and I. When he told me where you were, what had happened—I hoped, we both hoped, that it would work out for you.”
For a long moment Joey was silent, searching for words that had become no more than empty symbols. She remembered little of her flight from the cabin that morning, she had not changed, had been unable to surrender what remained of her humanity after she had left him. But she remembered her feet cracking the snow, icy winds unable to touch her, feeling a new strength in her body she had never known before, her dual nature granting the immunity to cold and weariness that Luke had always possessed.
She remembered the look on Maggie’s face when she had turned up at the redhead’s cottage: no shock, no real surprise. Only the same solicitous friendship, trying to make things right when the world had come crashing down.
And Luke—she could never forget Luke’s face. She thought the pain of it would tear her apart.
Slowly Joey pushed the pain from her heart. It was done. There could be no going back.
“Allan,” she said at last, clumsy with fatigue and grief. “Please tell Allan how much I—how grateful I am for all he’s done. I’ll write him when I can.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to call him now? I know he’d come right over…”
“No!” Joey clamped down on a surge of panic. “No, Maggie, please—I have reasons that I need to leave quietly, without any fuss. I hope you understand.”
Maggie nodded sympathetically, but Joey ached at the deception. Impossible to tell Maggie that she didn’t want Allan connected with her going. She could not risk driving a wedge between Luke and the man who had been his surrogate father. And his friend. Luke would need his friends, however much he denied the need for anyone.
Gentle fingers tightened on Joey’s arm. “We wanted you to be happy.”
Sudden moisture blurred the edges of Joey’s vision.
“I was happy,” she whispered, feeling the icy numbness settle into place. “For a while I was happy.”
It was dark when he reached Lovell, and he loped into town oblivious of the risk. At the edge of an outlying street a woman saw him and froze, wide-eyed and smelling of fear, Luke dodged aside and melted into the shadows, clinging to them until he slid to a halt at the door to Collier’s office.
The door was unlocked, and Luke’s blow sent it crashing open, rebounding against the wall with a ringing crack. He bounded through the darkened waiting room and beyond into the short corridor. Collier was there as Luke had known he would be, quietly reading, no guilt in his face when he looked up to find Luke in the doorway to the study, shaking with exhaustion and rage.