The stranger stared at her, or rather at the spot where she was standing. No way could he see her through the foliage and the shadows, but she huddled back against a white oak. A wave of light-headedness hit her. Another warning, maybe, that it was time to end the granola-bars-on-the-go diet.
A second man emerged from the car, much taller than the first. With the long, white ponytail and black leather vest, he had to be Native American. His head bobbed in agitation. The younger man moved quickly, circling the older man’s waist with an arm and guiding him back into the car. It was a filial gesture, and yet the two men couldn’t be related. They looked nothing alike.
The air tightened as if sealed in an invisible container, and the squirrels and the birds fell silent. Hannah closed her eyes through another wave of dizziness, her hands digging into the bark of the oak. A door slammed, the car drove off and a crow cawed.
When she opened her eyes, she was alone with the dogs. And in the bough above, there was an owl.
Seven
Will circled the bathroom. How were two grown men expected to share a space this small? How long would they have to stay here like a pair of shipwrecked refugees?
Dinner sat in the middle of his stomach—a coagulated mush of hushpuppies, the only thing he’d dare eat in the diner where everything was drowning in grease and nothing was organic.
He should find a hotel with a suite. No, find somewhere with a kitchen, a real kitchen, so he could prepare real food for his now-homeless dad. If nothing else, he could at least feed the old man. Will had learned to cook through observation at corn shuckings, wheat thrashings, canning parties and hog killings. The Shepard clan was huge. You only had to clock reactions when you answered the question “Who’s your people?” to realize the reach of his family. And yet it all boiled down to him and his dad and a cardboard tube in a Best Western. With a tiny bathroom.
On the other side of the paper-thin wall, a handful of kids screamed and giggled. A parental voice shushed them, and Will’s heart raced like a souped-up engine. No way could he stay here another night. He needed out; he needed to ditch this feeling of running barefoot through briars. He yanked the scrap of paper from his back pocket and stared at it. A cottage would come with a kitchen. Maybe Poppy’s friend would even consider a short-term lease. Really, at this point, what did he have to lose by asking? Will took a deep breath and punched in the phone number.
“Hello?” a quiet, warm voice answered immediately.
Was it too late to call? Had he woken her? He breathed through his mouth as he tried to block the smell of his dad’s shaving cream. A memory tackled him: his mother, breasts exposed, drunk in the family bathtub. His dad lifting her out. Now, son. You don’t need to see this. Go to your room and shut the door. Most of his family life had happened on the other side of his bedroom door.
“Who are you trying to reach?” the voice said.
Jesus, he’d forgotten to talk. “Sorry. Hannah Linden.”
“I can barely hear you. Can you speak up, please?”
“The art teacher from Hawk’s Ridge gave me your number. You have a cottage for rent?”
“Yes, Poppy stopped by earlier this evening, mentioned she’d given you my number.” Hannah paused but something had shifted. Wary, she had become wary. “I’m afraid she made a mistake. I’m not renting the cottage right now.”
In the next room, his dad snored.
“I’ll pay double whatever you’re asking.”
“That bad?”
“Have you ever shared a motel room with an aging parent?”
“I’d like to say yes, but both my parents are dead.”
Her honesty slapped him; pain settled in his temple. He was losing this conversation before it had begun. “Sorry. About your parents, I mean.” Apologizing, retreating. Time for his ace, the one that never failed. A lousy trick or a sign of desperation? “I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Will Shepard, the writer. Maybe you’ve heard of me?”
“The Will Shepard? The one and only?”
“Poppy didn’t mention it? She saw me lugging a full set of Agent Dodds novels out of the director’s office.”
“When Poppy’s on a mission she doesn’t notice much. You could run past her buck-naked and she wouldn’t clock your ass.”
He smiled and caught his reflection in the bathroom mirror. The smile, a nod to pleasure and happiness, felt like a betrayal to Freddie. He contorted his face back into its customary mask. Blank, expressionless.
“Plus, Poppy only reads glossy magazines,” Hannah said. “Ones filled with celebrity gossip.”
“But you’ve heard of me?”
“I’m a fan. Your plots suck me in and don’t let go.”
“And my characters?” Damn, his ego had to ask.
“You seem to enjoy exploring broken minds.”
Not so much enjoyment as an inability to escape total psychos.
Hannah started talking again. “Poppy hasn’t been at Hawk’s Ridge for long, but I’ve heard a great deal about your father. I gather he loves to brag about his grandson.” She paused. “Such a special bond between young boys and their grandfathers.”
A bond that transcends even death. Grief stirred in his stomach, moved up through his esophagus, threatened to spew out of his mouth in a macabre chant of He’s dead, my son is dead.
“Yes,” Will said quietly. He wanted to say more, but just breathing was a struggle. This bond, this special bond between young boys and their grandfathers, also led to fiction. To a lie, even though Poppy clearly thought it was the truth. He’d assumed all the staff knew about Freddie’s death. Or at least the night staff who’d had to restrain his dad one hundred and two days earlier when Will had driven down with the news of the accident. Maybe the director hadn’t briefed Poppy because she was a volunteer.
Will took a deep breath. Now he really, really wanted that cottage. It offered a clean chalkboard. No explanations necessary. What the hell, he’d go for some honesty. Not his normal strategy with women, but it was the only play he had left.
“My dad’s had a few rough years since my mom died. She was his life. His world collapsed and he’s...he’s not bouncing out of his grief.” The hitch in his voice was surprising. Unnerving. “We drove by your place earlier and it seemed peaceful. I think it would be good for him—the quiet, the forest. He’s always loved the forest. It would only be temporary, until I figure out what to do long-term.”
Silence. Was she digesting what she knew about his dad and Hawk’s Ridge? How much had Poppy told her? How much should he tell her?
Hannah sighed. “Okay, then.”
“He’s suffering some short-term memory loss. Is that a problem?”
“I don’t know. Should it be?”
Wait, she’d totally agreed. Why was he risking more information than necessary? He held the phone tight against his cheek. “My dad can be difficult.”
“And you can’t be?”
Was she teasing him?
“When he gets confused he gets upset,” Will said. “I think the lack of control scares him.”
“Lack of control scares most people.”
“Did Poppy tell you what happened at Hawk’s Ridge?”
“In some detail, yes.”
“I know how it looks, but he’s not violent.” Although the old man had just been kicked out of a retirement home for brawling. “Dad doesn’t even squish bugs. I had this pathological fear of spiders as a kid. He taught me how to catch and release them.” Did he just reveal personal details to a fan? “But I’ll be with him the whole time.”
“It’s fine.” He could hear her smile. “A senescent grandfather doesn’t bother me in the least.”
How perfect, she had used the word senescent. Will loved to be surprised by people’s word choices. Words held such power
and such beauty. And such escape. As a young boy, he chose magical not mad to describe his mother. As an adult, he chose alive, not dead, to describe his son.
“You said this was temporary, but I prefer a six-month lease.” She gave a soft laugh, an easy laugh. No drama. “Is that a problem?”
Yeah, because if he thought he’d still be in Orange County in six days let alone six months, he’d kill himself and his dad. But he could easily pay out the lease. It was just money. The one thing he had plenty of.
“It’s not a problem if we can move in tomorrow.”
They discussed a price—or rather she suggested a figure and he agreed. Then Will hung up and cracked open the bathroom door. The old man snuffled from one of the twin beds with the psychedelic comforters. The giant map, stored away in its thick casing, lay on the floor next to him. Memories-to-go rolled up safe and sound. At some point they would have to return to Hawk’s Ridge—box up the rest of his mother’s knickknacks and arrange for a mover to haul the furniture, even though his dad had said it could stay for all he cared. Wasn’t his goddamn furniture, was it?
The old man had a point. Will had purchased it while his dad was at the rehabilitation center. New furniture for a fresh start, that had been the plan, but Will had given no thought to his dad’s taste. Problem was, he didn’t know if the old man had any taste. Always his mom set the tone; always his dad followed.
Even when his mom was going whacko and smashing crockery, his parents had a bond that excluded everyone. One of the reasons he’d been such a self-reliant kid. That and the fact of being a midlife oops baby, a bear cub—Little Moondi—according to his dad. But bear cubs were meant to follow and learn from their mothers, not run from them. When they were teenagers, Ally had pronounced him to be a coyote, and he’d believed her. Until he’d found out that coyotes often mated for life.
Eight
The pale green Prius from the day before crawled to the end of her driveway, and Will Shepard turned neatly to one side in a considerate act of parking.
His author photo had revealed nothing. Black-and-white, it was taken from a distance as he glanced over his shoulder. Headshots didn’t seem to be to his liking. Hannah had seen a partial of his face years ago in an out-of-date People magazine picked up in the dentist’s waiting room. At the time, she’d just finished the third Agent Dodds adventure, and her radar had been tuned to all things Will Shepard. If she remembered correctly, the photo had shown him escorting a young heiress to a gala.
Hannah fingered the key, and the dogs cowered around her. She could lavish ten more lifetimes of unconditional love on her babies, and still fear would stalk them. Daisy’s abuse had gone beyond neglect. The dog had been forced to fight. So many damaged creatures had passed through Hannah’s life in the past twenty years and most of them had come from Poppy. Now her friend had brought her a bestselling author and his grieving dad. A small happening that felt huge.
Hannah read Will’s bumper stickers: “I’d Rather Be Writing,” and “Love a Climber, They Use Protection.” Climbing—that made sense since Agent Dodds was an extreme sports freak. Was his creator an adrenaline junkie, too? Or a nocturnal reveler who dated beautiful socialites? The two of them hadn’t signed anything. If she had even a twinge of doubt, she would renege.
Will turned to talk with his father, and Hannah drummed her fingers on the porch railing. Impatience didn’t come often, but she had an appointment in... Unbelievable, she was wearing both her watch and her dad’s, and yet she had no memory of putting on either one. Focusing on life’s details was becoming impossible. She sighed.
Would it be inappropriate to ask Will to sign his books? Or would he be offended that she didn’t own anything beyond volume five? Galen was scathing about commercial fiction, especially the kind of thrillers Will had produced in recent years. Her MFA poet preferred incomprehensible allegories written by alcoholics and drug addicts who’d been dead for at least a century. And he would not be happy when he discovered she was renting out the cottage. Privacy was everything to Galen, and since the age of thirteen, he had proved himself worthy of trust, not surveillance. But during the previous night’s phone conversation with Will, she had realized it was time, once again, to adapt.
Coincidence spoke of connection, and renting the cottage to an aging widower was nothing short of symmetry. Her father would approve. No, he would applaud. After all, the cottage had been built as his refuge. And what if it went deeper than that? Her father’s last selfless act had been to protect Galen and Liam, to spare them from the moment of his death, to wander into the woods to die alone. What if some echo of that love reverberated across Saponi Mountain, telling her to contain Galen in his childhood room where she could keep him safe? Her mother had believed that the dead often remained tethered to the living—trapped either in their desire to right wrongs or in their refusal to leave loved ones. Hannah, too, was drawn to the idea that the dead never really moved on, although often it was the living who refused to let them go.
Kookiness aside, renting the cottage was a sound financial move. Galen had become a dropout in need of aid. Her father’s money was gone and she barely made a living, but Will hadn’t quibbled at her inflated price. Overcharging, not undercharging, was oddly liberating.
Will pulled himself from the car. She’d been right: he was small for a guy. His taupe knit shirt, however, revealed a muscular torso, and his thick, straight hair was only slightly less tousled than the day before. Obviously, he didn’t own a comb. He walked toward her, not with the swagger of someone whose name was a long internet search of awards, but as if he were a kid dragging his body to a reprimand. An unexpected blend of curiosity and recognition tightened in her gut. He was so familiar she almost said, “Oh. It’s you.”
His eyes were concealed behind funky green-tinted sunglasses, which wasn’t helpful. You could learn a great deal from a person by the way he held—or avoided—your gaze. He was also beautiful. A pretty boy young enough to be her son, if she’d gotten pregnant that first time.
Will paused in front of the cottage, squatted and waited. Rosie and Daisy sidled down the steps, their claws clacking on the wooden boards. He held out both hands, offering his palms, and a chunky silver sports watch slid down his wrist. He cooed something at the dogs, words Hannah couldn’t make sense of, but her girls clearly understood. Daisy flopped to the ground and exposed her belly; Rosie actually whimpered. Animal behavior rarely surprised her, but her dogs had just told Hannah all she needed to know about this man. Even if he hadn’t been polite enough to remove his sunglasses.
Hannah joined Will and the dogs. Up close, his face was a little too perfect, its bone structure a little too predictable. She preferred faces with wrinkles and scars, faces that spoke of struggles and triumphs. This guy looked no more than thirty.
“Will Shepard.” He rose slowly.
“Hannah Linden. I imagined you to be older.”
“I write fast.” Will extended his hand but flinched.
Now the sunglasses made sense. “Want something for that headache?”
“I thought Poppy said you were a vet.”
“A holistic vet. Treating pets often means treating owners. You’d be surprised how many clients ask for help with minor ailments. But if it makes you feel better, my father was a rural doctor. When I was a teenager, he let me help out with patients.”
“Is that legal?”
“Would it bother you if it wasn’t?”
He winced.
“Bad one?”
“Killer.”
“I have to visit a couple of clients this afternoon, but I’ll be back by early evening. I can pop over then with my acupuncture needles and a feverfew tincture. Should help you sleep, too.”
Will turned as his dad clambered out of the passenger seat. “I don’t sleep much.”
“Well, there’s your problem. Good
sleep habits are the key to a healthy mind.”
“Really.”
She would excuse his snide tone, since her girls had given their approval. “By the way, we’re in a drought, so please be mindful of water usage.” Hannah handed over the key. “Short showers, minimal toilet flushing. And any water you’d like to recycle, please toss over there, for the garden.”
As she pointed at the huge galvanized tub under the outside shower, Jacob Shepard shuffled over. Hannah covered her mouth and swallowed. Jacob’s expression was identical to the one her father had worn in those final months of unbearable grief—his eyes, his mouth, even the skin on his cheeks appeared to be dragged down by sadness. The lines grooved between his eyebrows, the faint scowl, seemed to say, “I no longer understand the world in which I live.”
“Are we home, Willie?” Jacob said.
For a moment, she considered kissing Jacob’s cheek, whispering, You can be happy here. Instead, she strode to meet him with a smile.
“I certainly hope this will feel like home. You must be Jacob. I’m Hannah, a friend of Poppy’s. She’s promised to swing by this evening and see how you’re settling in.”
“Poppy?”
“My friend Poppy. The art teacher at Hawk’s Ridge.”
“Firecracker, that Poppy.” Jacob grinned, showing yellowed, higgledy-piggledy teeth. He was taller than Will—over six feet—and broad shouldered, despite a slight stoop. If she had to guess, she’d put him around eighty. Once again, Hannah glanced from father to son. These two couldn’t possibly share a gene pool.
“I—I’m not good with names, little lady,” Jacob said.
“That’s okay. I answer to anything. Call me Hey You if it’s easier.”
“Hannah,” Will said, his voice sluggish. “Her name is Hannah.”
“That’s a pretty name, name for an angel, but I like Hey You better.”
“Hey You, it is. I love your necklace.” Hannah nodded at the string of bear claws that hung on his chest. “Occaneechi?”
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