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“Still here.”
Cameron just looked at me, and when I met those eyes again, the discomfort I felt grew. There was something compelling in them—but it was attractive in the same way as fire. It drew me in, but I could already tell that whatever lay behind those roiling depths might pull me down and burn me, maybe scar me for life.
He nodded then, just a quick lowering of his chin before he took another step back. “Don’t hike alone early in the morning or at dusk. Reports of a big cat over in the hills there.” Cameron indicated the hillside that climbed upward on the other side of the ravine that carved a boundary between the village and the forest.
Big cat? He was going to just walk away after dropping that little tidbit on me? He looked at me a moment longer and then spun on his heel, tossing his final words over his shoulder. “You need anything, you know where I am.”
I watched him walk away, his tall lean form sliding through the growing shadows, moving like the predator he’d just warned me about. A chill raced up my spine and I wasn’t sure if it was thanks to thoughts of mountain lions, or because of him.
* * *
My huge suitcaseleft a rutted trail through the dust leading up to the front of the massive house, and it was no easy task hauling it up the five wide steps to the door. That’s what you get when you pack your entire life into a single Samsonite, I guessed.
The massive wooden door swung in to reveal an expansive front room that opened into a shining kitchen in the back, with a set of stairs off to one side next to a little mudroom with coat hooks and cubbies for boots. I took off my shoes, slipped them into a cubby, and stepped into the space. In no way did this place say “cabin.” More like “luxury home” or “too rich for my blood.”
“This is not the Kings Grove I remember,” I said aloud as I wandered between plush couches, past a wall-mounted television and into the gleaming kitchen. The window looked down the slope beyond, where I knew a little creek trickled in the summer time—or it had when I’d been a little kid, when California hadn’t been in the middle of a drought. My dad had told me about the fire up here a couple years ago, and I guessed there was a chance that creek had been dry for a while, though it sounded like there’d been some snow this past winter.
“Why do I even care?” I asked myself. It wasn’t like I’d lived here long enough to want to revisit all my old haunts. I’d been too little when I left to even keep in touch with the few friends I’d had as a kid. I yawned, leaning over the sink until I could see another structure just off to the right. Cameron’s little house. From this window I could see it sitting there quietly in the gathering darkness, little windows gleaming, and I thought about the mysterious dark man inside.
Nope. Not going to do that.
I turned from the window and circled through the bathroom and rooms on this level, then made my way upstairs, leaving the heavy suitcase at the bottom of the stairs. The master bedroom was huge, with a beamed ceiling that formed an A over the bed and a bathroom as big as my New York City apartment. Standing in its center, I closed my eyes, letting the space move around me, doing my best to be curious but not to judge—my yoga teacher would have been so proud.
“Nope,” I said aloud. “Too damned big.”
I padded into one of the smaller bedrooms, comforted by the nearness of the walls beside the bed, the coziness of the space. If I was here alone, I didn’t need an ensuite bathroom, and I was much more at home in a smaller space. This would be my room. I opened dresser drawers and then spent the next fifteen minutes going up and down the stairs, taking my clothes one load at a time instead of trying to manhandle the huge suitcase up the stairs.
At the bottom of the stairs again, I picked up the now-empty luggage and toted it up to the master bedroom, dropping it into an empty spot next to the door before sliding a couple old books from the front pocket. I took these to my bedroom and put them on the nightstand. Most adults probably didn’t lug around copies ofThe Giving TreeandWhere the Wild Things Are, but I’d never been like most people.
Downstairs, the darkness coalescing outside had begun to press itself against the big windows, and I shivered in my solitude. It had been years—maybe my whole life—since I’d been quite this alone. No city noise, no other people shuffling around inside the house. I’d done a good job for a long time of filling the spaces around me, keeping the silence at bay. But after everything that had happened, I was back as I’d begun. Just me, alone in a huge house on the top of a mountain. Just me, starting over once again.
I dug though the cabinets in the kitchen, but didn’t find any tea bags, so my idea to settle in with a nice cup of tea dissolved almost as soon as I’d had it. Tomorrow would have to be grocery day. I settled for water for now, and curled up on the couch with my phone, my legs tucked beneath me.
A quick check of my email revealed that the illustrious event management firm of Pierce and Han had been busy in my absence. I had official severance paperwork, which was hilarious, considering they’d fired me in a spectacularly public fashion and then tried to sue me. But my lawyers had been good. They’d kept me out of the Titanic-level sinking of my firm—something I’d actually caused, depending on how you wanted to look at it—and managed to get me a severance package, which I already knew wouldn’t come anywhere near paying for the lawyers in the first place. Every penny I’d made in New York, every dollar I’d scraped and saved, had been spent in a desperate attempt to save myself and my professional reputation as the firm sank.
That’s what you get for trying to do the right thing. Or maybe that’s what you get for sleeping with your boss.
Chapter 3
CAMERON
The coffee I’d made in the little French press was too damned strong, but I wasn’t in the mood to do it again. Why I couldn’t remember the right number of scoops was beyond me, or maybe it was just that I’d bought the wrong coffee again. Either you were supposed to use a super dark espresso roast or you definitely weren’t. I had a mental block about it. Coffee wasn’t my area. Coffee was Jess. She made the coffee. You’d think after almost two years of living without her I’d have figured some things out. Like how to make coffee.
But I hadn’t figured out much of anything.
There was a sheen of condensation on the Adirondack chair I slid into on the deck, and as soon as I laid my arm along the wide planks I was sorry, since my flannel shirt was now soaked from elbow to wrist, not to mention the back of my jeans. I didn’t get up to change though, it seemed like a lot of effort considering my clothes would dry once I got to work.
The big house that lay in front of mine and set off to the right was dark this morning, and though it was a decent hour—8:00 a.m., I didn’t hear any sounds from within, didn’t see any windows light up with evidence of the occupant moving around.
The occupant...Harper Lyles. I wasn’t sure what to make of her. I’d wracked my brain after meeting her, hearing she’d grown up here, trying to remember a Lyles family. But I knew these mountains and the people who lived here like I knew my own sorrows—deeply and intimately. And there was no Lyles in Kings Grove, though I guess she might have gotten married somewhere along the way. She’d said her dad was still here, and even though I didn’t make a habit of spending my time playing Nancy Drew and trying to unravel the mysteries of those around me, I’d been curious enough to do a mental sorting of the older men I knew who might have a daughter Harper’s age. Hell, my age. Harper looked like she might be a year or two younger than me.
I’d have to ask Maddie if she remembered her from when we were kids. Although Maddie’s memory wasn’t great for that sort of thing—she hadn’t remembered that we’d once played with Connor when we’d all been little. The guy had saved her life, pulling her out of a pond in the creek down below, and she’d barely remembered that. Maybe my sister wasn’t my best source for information.
Not that I needed to know anything about Harper Lyles anyway.
I sipped my coffee sludge and decided resolutely to not think about her.
The interesting thing about that, though, was an annoying little truth. For the first time in a long time, my mind seemed to have found something to do besides dwell and churn and mope. When I allowed myself to ponder the woman who’d taken the keys from my hand yesterday and then dragged the biggest suitcase I’d ever seen into my house, I didn’t feel as generally horrible as I had for the last couple years. She was an interesting new character, and I guessed maybe considering her wasn’t the worst thing I could do. Especially if it pulled me out of my abyss a little bit.
