Chapter 2
2
The entire family goes out of town.
He doesn’t enjoy the quiet as much as he thought he would.
The sun has barely risen, and I've already messed up.
I'd been optimistic this morning, when I woke up with a good gut feeling and a solid weather forecast. That optimism carried me the whole way to Sequoia National Park and through the start of one of the easier trails. And then, that optimism promptly died when the sun started shining a little more harshly, and I realized I'd forgotten to bring a hat. Or bug spray. Or sunscreen.
Rookie freaking mistake, Caroline.
My breath leaves me in deep pants, the ragged sound accompanied by chirping birds and gravel crunching beneath my feet as I trudge along the path. I swear, I used to be able to do this trail in my sleep—that was half the reason I picked it. I walked this route regularly before I got so caught up with the store and helping Lux around the ranch and a million other things that took priority in life over hiking. Sure, it’s been a while, but I thought I could pick up where I left off.
As usual, I thought very, very wrong.
But even as my lungs strain and my calves ache and a nasty blister brews on my heel, it feels good to be out here. To be back. I missed the weekend outdoor ritual that started with my mom, took a long hiatus after she passed, and picked up again in my senior year when my life pretty much imploded and I realized Bloom wasn’t enough to occupy all the time I suddenly had on my hands, nor was it a great place to hide. Back then, I was eighteen and limber with a whole lot of anxious energy to burn, and even more motivation to disappear for a few hours.
Now, my bones ache like I’m two-freaking-hundred instead of twenty-two, and I have to consciously fight the urge to haul ass back to the parking lot. By the time I make it to the waterfall at the end of the trail, I’m bright red and embarrassingly short of breath, but hey, at least I’m smiling.
Maybe it looks more like a grimace to the untrained eye, but I know there’s some joy in there.
Slipping my backpack off my quickly reddening shoulders, I collapse on the first patch of dry, clear ground I see. I plant my hands behind me and stretch out my cramping legs, squinting against the sun—naturally, I forgot sunglasses—as I take in the view.
Bright side; the pain is definitely worth it.
I can’t believe I ever stopped coming here. I forgot the why of it all, how the fresh air seems to clear my head and instantly improve my mood. It’s prettier than I remember, especially this time of year; early June when everything beautiful is in full bloom and the heat isn’t too unbearable so the falls haven’t dried up yet. Adding another notch to my list of mistakes, I make a mental note to wear a swimsuit under my clothes next time so I can take advantage of the refreshing spray.
Wrestling my water bottle out of my stuffed backpack—thankfully, I’m not quite useless enough to forget that—I suck down a greedy mouthful, letting a little trickle down my chest too in an attempt to cool down. It doesn’t take that long for my breathing to even out, but I let time waste by, people-watching as discreetly as I can without my forgotten sunglasses hiding my eyes. Two older women power-walk past, arms pumping and hips wriggling, putting me to absolute shame. A group of shirtless guys dripping with sweat treat the waterfall like a jungle gym, and I quickly avert my gaze away from the dripping, chiseled chests. Most often, I’m drawn towards the couple lingering nearby, both of them clad in athletic wear, looking like the American dream as they frolic along the path. I watch as they amble further up the trail, a lump in my throat as they grip each other's hands tightly, a flush heating my cheeks as the guy smacks his girlfriend's ass playfully. A pang of longing echoes around my chest, a little jealous pinch accompanying it, both of which I shrug off quickly.
You don't need a relationship , I remind myself. You like your life the way it is. You have plenty to be happy about. You’re fine.
Who cares if it's been, what, four years?
Who cares that my ex, my first and only everything, has moved on with someone so perfect, even I can’t help but have a little crush on her?
Who cares that I'm still pathetically alone? That I couldn’t score a date if my life depended on it because while my people skills aren’t exactly stellar to begin with, they evaporate entirely around men? That there’s not a man in town who’ll touch me because despite the fact it’s been forever, I’ll never not be Oscar Jackson’s ex-girlfriend?
Not me.
Shaking my head to rid it of a train of thought that never takes long to turn self-loathing, I refocus my attention elsewhere, on the reason I came here, the thing that inspired me to pick my old hobby back up; the old notebook I found forgotten in the back of my closet, untouched since Mom died.
In my mind’s eyes, I picture her desperately scribbling in the moleskin just small enough to keep tucked in her back pocket. The routes we took, the flowers that bloomed, the critters we stumbled across, all of it was memorialized in a way I didn’t remember until I found the thing by accident whilst packing.
I’d cried for an hour, cradling the leatherbound journal to my chest, before I heard telltale clomping footsteps and quickly hid it in my underwear drawer, paranoid my dad would find it and freak out, probably throw it away like he did with most of Mom’s stuff.
While I cherish the memories, he resents them. Rejects them. Tries to stomp them from existence by adopting an out of sight, out of mind philosophy.
I didn’t get it as a kid. I don’t really get it as an adult either. But, like most things, I never fought it. I was only eight when she died; what the hell was I supposed to do to stop the only adult left to care for me suddenly became a different person overnight and started burning women’s clothing in the fireplace?
It’s a miracle the journal I retrieve from my backpack didn’t burn too. I have no idea how it ended up in my closet, but I’m grateful it did. I swear, as I flip through the pages, it still smells like my mom. The scent that could very possibly be entirely in my imagination comforts me as much as the familiar handwriting does. And even though I’m alone, reading about my mom following the same route I took today makes me feel a little less lonely.
The digital camera that’s been around way longer than I have has the same effect. Just like the notebook, I have no idea when or how it was saved from my dad’s wrath, but every time I flick through the collection of photos, I’m glad. There’s not many, but that’s okay. There’s enough. Even if I only had the one I click through to find now, a portrait of my mom standing in front of the very waterfall I stare at now with a huge smile on her face, her arms lifted triumphantly, that would be enough.
Closing my eyes, I remember what it was like, being here, with her, taking that picture. I imagine what it would be like to be here now, a lot older and with her a lot older too.
If I try hard enough, I can almost convince myself she is.
I'm limping by the time I make it back to Bloom. A whining noise scratches my throat as sweaty palms and trembling fingers hinder my ability to unlock the front door, the various aches and pains plaguing my body only growing when I kick the slab of wood in frustration.
At least the store doesn’t open for a while, so no one’s around to witness my fit. Or me whimpering my way inside. Or me crawling upstairs and into my new home.
Slowly but steadily, that’s what it’s becoming—a home. There’s still a seemingly permanent musty aroma that no amount of incense or candle can conquer. Light is something of a foreign concept, what with only a small window above the stove and the skylight above the bed. The walls will likely remain an interesting shade of orange until a miracle occurs and I can afford paint, and every piece of furniture and decor is thrifted so nothing matches, but I like it. More than I like the last place I lived.
It says a lot that a dusty, stuffy attic beats an actual house with consistent hot water and a real bed frame instead of a rickety wooden pallet.
With just enough time before the store opens to shower, I whip my sweaty t-shirt over my head and start towards the bathroom, already devising grand plans of dousing my poor burnt skin with cold water before lathering on some peppermint oil. But as I toe off my sneakers, the faint sound of a bell chiming makes me groan.
Crap . I forgot to lock the front door behind me.
When I glance at the kitsch clock hanging on the wall—it’s shaped like a daisy; I couldn’t possibly resist—my groan becomes a sigh. Too early to be a real customer, it must be Lux collecting the extravagant bouquet she ordered to celebrate her brother’s college graduation. I won’t lie and say that spending hours on the blue larkspur and yellow daylily arrangement meant for a guy who broke up with me mere months before the only graduation I ever had wasn’t a special brand of torture, but I did it. And I did it good. And I would be proud to present the thing, if I wasn’t looking quite so unpresentable myself.
“I’ll be right out!” I holler loud enough to be heard downstairs, grimacing when I catch sight of myself in the long, vertical mirror propped against the wall; a lopsided greasy ponytail, flushed cheeks, and glistening layer of sticky sweat dampening my sports bra and shorts is quite the combination. At least it’s only Lux.
“Sorry, I just got back,” I apologize as I thunder down the stairs, shouldering open the door separating my home from the store and simultaneously freeing my hair from the ponytail giving me a headache. “I went hiking. I swear to God, I thought I was fit, but my butt is—”
If I thought I was flushed before, it’s nothing compared to the dark shade of red I feel warming my skin when I push my hair back from my face and my eyes do not find Lux waiting for me.
What is my life?
“You're not Lux,” I blurt, immediately wincing the second the squeaky, high-pitched words leave my mouth. Obviously . The mountain of a man filling out my store as well as he fills out the white t-shirts he favors could never be mistaken as his boss.
Big arms crossed over a bigger chest, Hunter Whitlock crooks an unimpressed brow. Hazel eyes blink slowly and, not for the first time, I’m struck with how unfair it is that a man with such a bad attitude has such beautiful eyes. A light, caramel brown near the pupil that fades into a muddy sage, both irises encased in a ring of pine green. So pretty yet so rife with something decidedly ugly as they flick down my body once before promptly looking away.
That signature moody expression of his intensifies a notch.
“Pickin’ up an order for Lux,” he explains in that deep, Southern drawl that the people of Haven Ridge do not get to hear enough. A voice like that should be used. Constantly. Saying all sorts of words, even if they’re mean.
Shrugging off the unwanted goosebumps pebbling my arms—bare freaking arms to match a bare freaking chest and a bare freaking midriff because I stripped off before coming down here, didn’t I?—I resist the urge to hide behind the counter. Instead, I head towards the storeroom, wrenching the door open and keeping it that way with my foot while I lean inside. “She couldn’t make it today?”
It’s a useless attempt at conversation. Every attempt with this man is, and there have been numerous since that first catastrophe over a month ago. I’m at the ranch almost as much as he is, so we cross paths a lot, yet we might as well be strangers—I only know his name because his employer definitely does not share the big guy’s affinity for silence.
Getting a conversation out of him is like getting blood from a stone. A sullen, scowling stone.
Being met with complete and utter disinterest isn’t new to me, but something about Hunter’s is extra frustrating. While he doesn’t exactly engage in riveting displays of friendship with everyone else on the ranch, he doesn’t dismiss them as quickly, as easily, as he does me. I think I’ve even seen him smile in Eliza’s direction once. And okay, sure, he works for the Jacksons, so it’s different. He’s obligated to at least stay in the vicinity when they’re speaking to him, for professionalism's sake. But he so blatantly dislikes me, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. I don’t know what I did, or do, to inspire this freaking Grinch act. I don’t know why it bothers me so much.
Mostly—I mostly don’t know why. I suspect it has something to do with the extremely fleeting crush I had on him when he first arrived, born of misplaced hope and severe affection deprivation, but that died pretty quickly.
For the most part.
I am just a girl, after all, and he is, for lack of a better description, the kind of attractive that renders a girl stupid.
Luckily, I manage to keep my wits about myself as I haul the enormous bouquet out of the storeroom under Hunter’s watchful gaze. Expression wary like he’s waiting for me to drop the thing, he lifts those wide shoulders in a casual shrug. “She had the baby.”
“ What? ” Damn nearing dropping the thing in shock, I hoist the bouquet onto the counter and wrestle my phone out from where it’s tucked in the waistband of my shorts. When, sure enough, I find a confirmatory text from Luna—if you told me a couple of months ago that the current girlfriend of my ex-boyfriend and I would be on texting terms, I would’ve laughed. Or cried. Or laughed and cried—I can’t contain a squeal. “Oh my God!”
Lux has a baby. A baby . God, I hope she’s okay. I hope she’s prepared. I've been heckling her to start stocking up on diapers, formula, all that stuff, but she's been so busy with everything else that she hasn't had the time. Or at least that's what she claims. Honestly, I think she's been putting it off on purpose—having a house full of equipment to keep a tiny human alive suddenly makes it a lot more real that you're about to have a tiny human to keep alive. That kind of responsibility is terrifying, even for a superhuman like Lux.
It’s a good thing I've been stockpiling for weeks. There's a box under my bed filled to the brim with all the mundane supplies, and some other stuff I got slightly carried away with.
“Let me just—” I start towards the stairs with the intention of grabbing it, but I'm cut off by a rough cough.
Lips settling in an unimpressed straight line, Hunter jerks his head towards the door. “I'm in a rush.”
“Oh.” Right. Of course. He’s already spent a whole two minutes in my presence; time’s up. “Do you know if she's okay? And the baby?”
Another frustrating shrug.
“Do you know when she'll be home?”
A grunt and a shrug this time. Wow .
With a disappointed sigh, I slide the bouquet his way, ignoring the way those big hands make it look tiny as he hoists it up with zero strain.
Such a freaking shame.