The Bone Man by Vicki Stiefel Page A

felt that strongly in him. As desperate as he was for the return of what he saw as one of his people, he wouldn’t have stolen it, and he sure wouldn’t have killed for it. Talk about bad joss.”
    Kranak shook his head. “Sometimes you lose reason, Tal. He’s one tough dude. I could see him killing Doc Cravitz in a flash. See, I got him going back home a hero. Him going back to his tribe with the skull and the broken pot, and becoming a BMOC. Power. That’s a huge motivator.”
    I shook my head. “I know it can be. But just not with that man, not with the governor. So what is it you’re not telling me?”
    He held out his hands, palm up. “I got nothing, except we found two of the pot shards under a counter. That’s somethin’, huh?”
    I smiled. He’d closed up for the day, but I knew he had something more than two potsherds. So how come he wouldn’t tell me? That worried me.
    We grew quiet, and I lost myself in the elegant gray waves that cradled the huge steel ferry. A breeze chilled my face.
    I brushed a finger across the gauze that covered my left cheek. The island surgeon who’d stitched me together had said I’d need plastic surgery to erase the scar. Hank would not react well to this injury. Not one bit.
    The gauze felt funny. Kranak had a long scar on his face that I loved. But, honestly, he was a guy. I stroked the line where I’d been cut. It would uglify me. I could handle that, except it would also define me.
That
I didn’t like.
    “I love it, ya know,” Kranak said.
    Startled, I turned. For a moment, I’d forgotten about Kranak. “The sea, you mean? I know you do, Rob. Me too.”
    He clasped his hands. “Yeah, ya do. But not like me. With me, she’s an ache, day in, day out. I need her to breathe. I need her close by, or I suffocate.”
    I smoothed my hand across his clenched ones. “Why not join the Coast Guard?”
    He smirked. “And leave my cushy berth? Yeah, right.”
    He was full of it. His “berth” was anything but cushy. “You can retire soon, right?”
    “Ten years isn’t soon.”
    “I didn’t realize.”
    “If you and me, well . . .”
    Crap. “Rob, I . . .”
    “No worries.” He turned from me and stared far beyond what I could see. “We wouldn’t’ve worked. I know that. But it felt nice for a while.”
    His beefy profile and mean scar spelled love to me. Always had. But with Hank, it was different. A quickening. More. “I know.”
    I dug around my purse and found a plastic pack of crackers,ripped it open, and sent them sailing. The gulls dived for the treats.
    Kranak wrapped his arm around my waist, and I leaned my head on his shoulder as we approached the dock.
    “Tally! Hey, Tally!”
    The call came from far away. I peered over the rail. I didn’t recognize the tall, beefy man with a trim beard at first. He was waving. I looked and suddenly . . . “Hank!”
    I disengaged from Kranak, but it wasn’t fast enough.
    I’d seen Hank as mad, but only once before. Minutes later he clutched my hand as he tugged me from the ferry landing toward the bus that would take us to the parking lot miles away. He’d been cordial to Kranak, who’d left as soon as he’d unloaded his police car from the ferry, but now . . .
    “That hurts, dammit,” I said. “Cut it out.”
    His grip loosened, but his scowl deepened. Hank in a beard. He looked great. Different, but great, even if the beard did hide his dimple. I wished he hadn’t seen my affection with Kranak.
    “You’ve got to believe that Kranak and I aren’t a number,” I said. “I guess it’s too much to ask.”
    “Too much.”
    “Carmen called, didn’t she? She told you what ferry I was taking?”
    “Ayuh.”
    Ah, we were in terse Maine-speak. It was colder here in America. I zipped my fuzzy and slipped my pink Boston Red Sox hat on my head. “You should trust me, Hank.”
    He was silent on the crowded bus ride back to the parking lot. I refused to be drawn into his snit, and so I chatted with a