criticizing the men I see? Granddad, how about a hug?”
Avoiding the hug with a firm grip on Liza’s shoulder, Judson met her eye at last and said abruptly, “That Forrester fellow is dangerous, Mary Elizabeth. You shouldn’t be with him.”
Liza faltered. “Dangerous?”
Judson’s brow was thunderous. “The man’s violent—a crazy Vietnam vet who’s still screwed up. Why, I’m surprised he even spoke to you. Usually he avoids people completely.”
“He was in Vietnam?”
“Vietnam or Cambodia or some such place. You stay away from him, my girl. I don’t want you getting hurt by some fanatic! Keep away from Cliff Forrester, you understand?”
Liza blinked in confusion, hardly able to digest the information. But in the next second her grandfather gave Liza a big bear hug and turned hearty.
“What are you doing in town?” he demanded, laughing as he kissed her cheek and tweaked her chin. “You’re looking prettier than ever.”
Liza gave him a shaky smile and allowed herself to be drawn into the diner for some breakfast. All hopes of slipping out of town without meeting anyone from her past evaporated as Liza was greeted by half a dozen of her grandfather’s cronies. She should have known they’d all be having breakfast in the diner. Some things never changed.
Liza also recognized several familiar faces from her youth. Rose Atkins, the elderly lady known for riding her oversize blue tricycle all over town when Liza was still in high school, gave a cheery wave from a corner booth where she sat having breakfast with Tisha Olsen, the longtime owner of her own beauty salon, the Hair Affair.
“Why, it’s Liza!” cried several voices.
“Judson, who’s that darling little girl with you?” demanded one old gentleman. “That’s not Alyssa’s youngest, is it?”
“Sure is,” Judson called back, casting his arm across Liza’s shoulder. “She’s grown up taller than her daddy, don’t you think? Take a seat here, Mary Elizabeth. We’ll get Marge to get you some fresh orange juice.”
Quiet herself, Liza let everyone make a fuss over her. She was glad nobody forced her to talk just yet. She found she couldn’t clear Cliff Forrester out of her mind right away. His peculiar refusal of breakfast made sense now, if her grandfather’s words were to be believed.
But Cliff a wild-eyed maniac? It hardly seemed likely. He appeared completely sane to her—saner than most of the men she met these days, in fact. Just a little erratic. Angry one minute, and kind of shaken up the next. His temper had exploded in the truck, but Liza had provoked that. Why did he have such a reputation around town?
Judson guided Liza to the most central table in the diner and made a show of pulling out her chair. When he’d sat down opposite her and ordered a large breakfast for her without benefit of a menu, he finally looked at her with a growing, indulgent smile and said, “All right, you can tell me what this is all about now. How come you just waltzed into town without warning?”
“Do I need to warn my family when I come to visit?”
He cocked a grandfatherly eye at her and said, “You know what I mean. Are you in trouble?”
“Of course not!”
He laughed expansively at that, not caring if his friends turned to look up from their own conversations. “You haven’t learned to lie yet, have you, my girl? What’s going on? Boyfriend problems?”
Liza sighed. “Nothing that easy.”
“Need money?”
“Granddad,” she said slowly, “would you mind if we didn’t talk about me just yet? I’m...well, coming back to town will take some adjusting.”
“So,” he said, “you’re going to stay this time?”
“No,” Liza replied quickly. “Well, I’m not sure. I’m at loose ends, I guess.”
He nodded, understanding. “Tyler is a good place to come when you’re at loose ends. I don’t suppose the town has changed much since you left. What can I do to help this time?”
“Nothing. Just be yourself, I guess. Boy, it’s great to see you!”
The waitress returned with steaming coffee cups at that moment. Marge’s Diner was famous for its coffee, and the waitress said, “Here you go, folks! This’ll unclog your arteries, Mr. Ingalls.”
“Thanks, Betty.”
It was half a minute before she left, then Judson turned back to Liza and asked casually, “Have you seen your mother yet?”
“No, and I don’t care to talk about that yet, either. Give me a chance to catch my breath, okay?”
He grinned and reached for his cup of coffee. “So far you’ve shot down every topic of conversation I can suggest. What’s left?”
“Well,” said Liza, leaning forward and bracing her elbows on the table, “you could tell me about Cliff Forrester. Were you serious about him?”
Judson put his cup down, splashing coffee on the tabletop and frowning sternly. “He’s bad news, Mary Elizabeth. I wish you hadn’t met him.”
“What’s so bad about him?”
“He’s screwed up. Some business overseas. He must have been in the war, I guess, and when he returned—well, he came back abnormal.”
“But you hired him to take care of the lodge, right?”
“He was one of your mother’s ideas,” Judson grumbled. “She’s always looking for some poor soul to save. Well, she met Forrester when she was working for some charity—saving the boat people or whatever. You know how she is—always trying to help. She said he looked like a walking ghost, so she invited him to Tyler and he came.”
“Why? Doesn’t he have any family?”
“Don’t ask me questions like that,” Judson snapped. “How am I supposed to know? Once he was here, he stayed at the Kelsey boardinghouse for a while, but he gave people the creeps. The boy never slept, I hear, and he hardly said a word to anybody, just walked the streets at all hours. Is that normal? Anyway, Alyssa jabbered at me until I gave him a job, so he moved out to the lodge. He’s been there ever since—five or six years, maybe more.”
“Why did you hire him if he’s unstable?”
“He can’t hurt anybody up at Timberlake. He can be as crazy as he likes up there and nobody will mind.”
Liza drank some hot coffee and said softly, “The lodge looks terrible, Granddad. If he’s supposed to be taking care of the place, he’s doing a miserable job.”
“He’s not supposed to be looking after the lodge,” Judson said gruffly. “Just the land and the lake. He’s the gamekeeper and takes care of the guys from the Fish Commission for...things like that. We’re trying to restock the bass population after a virus killed off most of ’em, so he’s supposed
