Free The Summer Hideaway by Susan Wiggs Page B

okay? I have to stop running.” There might have been a time when she’d accepted her life underground, but that time was over. She simply couldn’t keep it up. Instead of getting easier, being in hiding was getting harder. She was dying inside, unraveling with need. Her mother had been alone in the world, and sometimes Claire was convinced that was what had made her live so recklessly and die so young.
    Claire sometimes heard of protected witnesses who came out of hiding and got themselves killed. People thought they were foolish, but she understood why they couldn’t stay anonymous forever.
    “I won’t let you,” he snapped. “Just wait, okay?” he said. “I’ll figure out the next step.”
    She merely nodded, pretending to agree with him. Then they parted ways in secret, like illicit lovers. That was the way all their meetings went. It was best not to be spotted together. She knew he was furious with her for insisting on risking herself in the Jordan case, but he must have known she wouldn’t sit still and watch Vance Jordan become someone’s foster father again. There was a ninety-day period before approval was granted or revoked. Ninety days to figure out how to come forward with what she knew—and to make someone believe her.
    The prospect excited Claire as much as it frightened her. Mel had always insisted the chances of success were slim and the risk of exposure too great. But she kept thinking about how her life could change if Vance Jordan were arrested.
    In her job helping people at the end of their lives, she had learned much about the importance of the way a person spent her time on earth. Running and hiding was not a life; it was just getting through the day.
     
    George Bellamy was adrift. These spells came upon him in the gauzy numbness between waking and sleeping, courtesy of his disease. He was sometimes treated to an unprompted magic carpet ride through time and space, and at the end, he was amazed to find himself in the here and now. Here—in this paradise of a place, so beautiful it almost hurt to look at it. And now—at the last part of his life, which had not always been beautiful. It had never been boring, though.
    Once he was gone, he imagined people would say he’d fought a brave battle with cancer or some such nonsense. In fact, he was not brave in the least; he wasscared shitless. Who the devil wouldn’t be? No one knew for certain what awaited him in the vast infinite, no matter what one’s teachings were.
    But still. Death was one of the Great Inevitables. George was working hard on accepting his fate, but a few things were holding him back, like the last uncut anchor ropes that kept a hot air balloon from soaring. If he wanted to fly free with boundless energy, he was going to have to find a way to untether himself.
    Hence the visit to Avalon, to excavate a past that had always haunted him. Yet now that he was here, he felt himself balking. When Ross comes, he’d told Claire. Then he’d pay a visit to his brother.
    George was grateful for Claire. He’d gone to a great deal of trouble to find precisely the right person—not just for him, but for Ross. Because Ross was one of those uncut tether ropes.
    George wondered what Claire thought of this place, and of the glimpse into the past he’d given her. She was easy to talk to, this quiet young woman. Perhaps it was her gift, or perhaps it was something people in her profession were trained to do. Once she learned the rest of the story, she wouldn’t judge him or show disapproval. And honestly, in the place where he was in his life—what was left of it—he didn’t much care.
    How much was the truth worth to a dying man? He’d been wondering about that lately. Perhaps he would discuss it with Claire. She was easy to talk to, this quiet young woman…. He frowned, frustrated to find his thoughts looping back on themselves.
    Claire Turner. Turner. George wondered what made her so guarded, so hard to know. He hoped she