Native Affairs by Doreen Owens Malek Page A

you’re right. I am vacillating about this whole thing. Sometimes when I see how happy you are with him, I want it to work out and I encourage you. Then, at other times, I remember what he used to be like…” She left the sentence unfinished for Cindy to draw her own conclusions.
    “People can change,” Cindy said. “They grow up and different things become important to them.”
    “Possibly,” Paula said, her tone unconvinced.
    “Definitely,” Cindy confirmed. “Now go back to your manicure and let me get this work done.” She sat back down and started shuffling papers.
    “I guess I know when I’m not wanted.” Paula sniffed and marched out of the room.
    Cindy looked up after she’d gone, and her expression was thoughtful.
    * * * *
    The next afternoon Cindy was sitting at a table in the back of the reference room when a long shadow fell across the page she was reading. She glanced up and Fox was towering over her, his expression wary, as if he were unsure of the reception he was going to get.
    “Hi,” he said. “I’m back.”
    Cindy smiled. “Hello, Drew. I’m glad to see you.”
    “Yeah?” he said, tilting his head to one side and looking at her askance.
    “Of course. How did the trip go?”
    He pulled out a chair and turned it around, seat forward. Lifting one leg over the back of it, he dropped into it.
    “Fine,” he replied, folding his arms across the top of the ladderback. “We put that guy away where he’ll never cheat anybody again.”
    “That’s good,” she said, closing her book carefully. She couldn’t help comparing this return with his previous one, when he’d opened his arms and she had run into them. But that was before the lake, before they both realized how much was at stake.
    He glanced around at the floor-to-ceiling stacks nervously, as if viewing a lineup of his enemies. “Looks like you’ve got a few books here,” he said, raising his eyebrows. Cindy thought he looked out of place in this arena of higher learning—his tough, lean exterior bespeaking knowledge of a very different kind.
    “A few,” she replied, making a note in the margin of her pad and putting her pen away. “I like to work here, where I have all the information I need at my fingertips.”
    “How’s the paper coming?” he asked.
    “Fine. Right on schedule.”
    He fell silent and studied her face, while she looked back at him. He was wearing a gray T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, exposing his muscular arms. His jeans and moccasins might have passed for student wear, but despite his clothing he looked about as much like a student as she looked like a fan dancer. He wore his aura of danger like an ornament, and like an ornament, it drew attention. Out of the corner of her eye Cindy saw a couple of girls at the next table staring at him and conversing in hushed whispers. She could guess the subject of their conversation without trying very hard.
    “I wasn’t going to come here,” he said suddenly.
    “What do you mean?”
    “When I called the apartment Paula told me you were here, but I was going to wait until you got home.” He shifted restlessly in his chair. “These places make me jumpy.”
    “Why?”
    He shrugged. “Schools, churches, libraries. I was always getting thrown out of them.”
    The reference librarian chose that moment to advance on them and glare at Fox.
    “You’ll have to keep your voices down or go outside,” she said sternly. “People are trying to work here.”
    “See what I mean?” Fox asked Cindy as the woman walked away. “They see me and freak. You’d think I was going to set fire to the joint.” He stood, shoving his chair back into place with a loud scraping noise and staring defiantly at the librarian when she looked up.
    “Let’s get out of here,” he concluded, lifting her back pack and shouldering it.
    Cindy gathered the rest of her things and followed him down the narrow aisle, then out through the double doors to the hall. Once out of the room