Free Seeing Red by Susan Crandall

her and swinging her in a circle.
    And suddenly it was as if the past sixteen years hadn’t been. He was seventeen, and they’d just spent a long night helping Mr. J deliver a foal. Ellis had always jumped into his arms the minute newly delivered babies successfully struggled onto their wobbly legs. Laura had been too squeamish to attend a birthing, but Ellis had been there every time, with her nose stuck right between Nate and Mr. J.
    As he settled her feet back to the ground and looked into her eyes, he realized it wasn’t the same at all. There was nothing platonic about the way she felt against his chest, nothing brotherly in the way his heart raced as he looked into those incredible green eyes.
    He quickly released her.
    He wasn’t here to romance her. She wasn’t supposed to know he was here at all.
    He dropped his hands to his sides and stepped a safe distance away, but her fragrance still lingered in his senses.
    Exhaling strongly, he tried to rid himself of her scent as well as his inappropriate response to her closeness.
    He quickly schooled his features and ordered his thoughts.
    How was he going to handle this?
    Immediately after Ellis squealed and threw her arms around Nate’s neck, she realized she was behaving like a twelve-year-old.
    She was thankful Nate’s response to seeing her seemed equally unchecked; she felt just a little less foolish when he set her back down on her own two feet.
    Looking into those stormy eyes, her senses began to register that this was no longer the boy she’d known but a man grown in height and breadth, mature ruggedness replacing boyish good looks.
    He had a crescent-shaped scar near the corner of his left eye that hadn’t been there fifteen years ago. His neck was lean and corded; she could see his pulse in the artery beneath the surface of his skin. He’d always been muscular, but the solidness under her hands had felt completely unfamiliar to her—and undeniably masculine.
    However, the look in his eyes didn’t match the exuberance of his initial reaction. She took a tiny step backward.
    “I can’t believe you’re here . . . after all this time.” Even as she said the words, she realized she was overstepping. She’d been so unimportant in his life that he’d disappeared without a word, had left and never sent so much as a postcard.
    “Jake tells me you’re an elementary teacher.”
    “Yes. Fourth grade.” Sending a quick glance Mr. J’s way, she wondered if he’d kept in touch with Nate over the years. She’d never asked after those first weeks when she’d bugged the man day and night, asking if he’d heard from Nate.
    Nate’s mother had moved away from Belle Island the year after Nate disappeared. As far as Ellis knew, no one had heard from her either.
    “Good.” Nate nodded. “That’s good.” In the lull that followed, he stared at her, looking rather ambivalent. Back in the day, they’d never had an awkward moment, could talk about anything. But the years had robbed them of easy conversation.
    She asked the first innocuous question that popped into her mind. “How’s your mother?”
    Nate said softly, “She died eight years ago.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that.” Ellis hadn’t really known Nate’s mother. She did know what the town had said about her: that she was “loose” (which, now that Ellis was grown, she knew could mean anything from prostitution to wearing an indecent neckline), that she was white trash and let Nate run wild. Ellis had ignored the comments. This town had also said a lot of unkind and untrue things about Nate back then.
    “Laura’s dead too.” Only after the words were out did Ellis realize that it was an utterly insensitive way to break the news.
    No surprise registered in his face. “I know.”
    Had he only discovered it when he’d arrived back in Belle Island? Had he maintained contact with someone in town? That idea stung, salt in a wound she thought had healed long ago. Ellis had shared his grief, had