Don't Look Back (Warders of Earth) by S E Gilchrist

he wandered along the boundary fence. Now and then a car bumped down the gravel road.
    My eyelids grew heavier, my breathing deepened. 
    The sound of crunching dry leaves startled me. My eyes snapped open and I propped myself up on my elbows, staring around. Wow, I’d almost fallen asleep.
    “You sure have a great garden,” said Alex as he sat down on the grass. 
    Beside me.
    Not too close.
    Careful not to intrude into my personal space.
    Dumbfounded I nodded in response, aware that my pulse rate had kicked into overtime. I closed my mouth with a snap. What was he doing here?
    “All these trees and flowers just growing anywhere. It looks restful.” He linked his hands around his knees. “We didn’t have a garden in the city. We lived in an apartment building. Before that, we moved around a lot, overseas mostly, depending on where Dad was posted. That’s why I think this quiet town is so great. No guns. No fighting.”
    I said nothing, nerves clenched like a fist around my throat. So he was an army brat. Still, that didn’t explain what he was doing out here in this one road town. Feel vulnerable lying there like an offering, I sat up and brushed dirt off my legs.
    “Parents can be difficult at times,” said Alex.  
    I looked at him so quickly, my hair whipped into my eyes. Impatiently I brushed it aside. He was smiling at me, his cool eyes softened like a misty grey dawn. My heart did an odd thump. 
    “Yeah,” I muttered. Maybe I was wrong about him! Maybe he wasn’t so bad. When I came to think about it, I rather liked the colour of his eyes.
    “My father’s had some crazy ideas in the past.”
    I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, maybe, but I bet he never came up with a bomb shelter.”
    Alex grinned. “I wouldn’t worry too much about that it. The plan might not go ahead. It’ll take ages to go through Council for approval. An engineer will need to calculate first whether it’s doable without your existing house collapsing. And then it always takes builders months to do anything. We had some guy in to renovate our bathroom once. He ripped up the tiles, yanked out the tub and loo and said he’d be back after lunch. Didn’t hear from him for five weeks. Dad said he was going to rip his throat out. He was so mad.” He laughed revealing straight, white teeth.
    For the life of me, I couldn’t think of anything intelligent or witty to say. He was staring straight ahead, his stern profile just like his father’s. He looked harder and more worldly than any of my male friends and former school mates. He looked just like my idea of a city tough.
    Or an army grunt.
    “Why did you move here?” The words tumbled out of me before I could bite them back. I hadn’t really meant to speak my thoughts out loud. Not this time, anyway. Hardly breathing, I waited for his brush-off to my nosy question.
    Alex grabbed a handful of leaves and crushed them in his fist. The glance he gave me was cold as frost. Almost calculating.
    I shivered.
    “Mum was killed in some botched hold-up at the local shop. We stuck it out for a while then Dad reckoned there was too much violence and drugs in our neighbourhood. I guess he just wanted to find some peace. While Dad was in the Army, we’ve lived in some pretty bad places around the world. I’m thinking this was the furthermost town he could find and when he spotted the garage in town was up for sale, he decided to buy it. I came along to give him a hand for a few months.”
    “I’m sorry. I had no idea,” I whispered. No wonder both of them seemed so hard and distant. I couldn’t even imagine what kind of a life he had led. The things he’d seen. And lived through. It would be awful to lose one of your parents. 
    At least my mother and father were alive, even if they did drive me nuts.
    “My parents met at University where Dad studied genetics and physics and Mum studied biology,” I mumbled, sneaking a sideways peek at him. He turned and smiled so I kept talking. “When