Chapter 14 Clara
“R EMIND ME AGAIN WHY WE are doing this?” I call out, breathless from trying to keep up with Jack’s superior stamina.
My words fog in the air between us. Jack is several steps ahead, with the assured strides of a man who has done this a hundred times. Meanwhile, I’m shuffling in the leaves, trying to avoid tripping over half-exposed roots, and trying not to snap an ankle on the uneven trail.
He glances back, his cheeks flushed from the cold. “I did attempt to warn you that this wasn’t a good idea, but in what is becoming a recurring theme, you didn’t listen.”
I step over a gnarled root and immediately stumble. I manage to catch myself on a tree trunk just in time to stop me from face-planting into a patch of mud. “Helpfulness waits for no one,” I mutter, brushing moss from my hands.
“I’m not sure how helpful you’ll be to anyone if you get seriously injured out here,” Jack replies, shining his flashlight at the ground in front of my feet. “And stop shining your light at my head. I’d like to be able to see when I check that you haven’t fallen over.”
“It’s a safety measure so you can’t land on top of me if I fall down,” I tease.
“You wish,” he grumbles in response.
Something hot sparks below my belly button. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
The woods swallow the quiet groan he lets out.
The trees create a canopy over us, which would be beautiful if it weren’t so damn dark and creepy.
The woods are perfectly peaceful, apart from the sound of my boots skidding every few steps.
It reminds me to concentrate on staying upright and not wonder what it might be like to be horizontal.
“Tell me again why you’re so sure the nutcracker is in this part of the woods?” I ask, wiping sweat from my forehead. It shouldn’t be possible to sweat in this kind of weather.
“Not many places to be a rebellious teenager in a town like this, which means there aren’t many places to hide things. Stealing the nutcracker is a beloved Fraser Falls High tradition. One you’re fucking up, I should point out.”
“Sorry for ruining your legacy, but I’m more concerned about my own. I want to make Wilhelmina happy by finding it.”
“I don’t want a stolen prop to be my legacy, Clara. I was young and acting out and it became a thing accidentally. I’m just saying, don’t be surprised if you get pelted with snowballs walking through town by pissed-off teenagers.”
“I’ll just deny it. I’ll tell them it was you.
” I’d be feeling pretty smug if I didn’t immediately trip over a tree root.
Jack catches my elbow and keeps me upright, hardly even breaking his stride.
There’s something sexy about being outdoors with someone who actively wants to keep you safe, I realize.
I mutter a quiet thank-you and focus on my feet and not him.
“They’ve gotten lazy. We didn’t always hide him in the woods. One year we tied him to the water tower and nobody noticed. Flo wasn’t here that winter, otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten away with it.”
“I think I’d have liked to see that.”
Jack digs his hands deep in his pockets. “It was awesome when I was fourteen. Probably crap my pants if I tried to climb that tower now. Danger feels like fun when you’re young, I guess.”
I’m successfully keeping up with him but too scared to point it out in case the woods decide to humble me. “Can I ask you a question?” I say.
“I suspect you’re going to anyway.”
“Have you ever thought about leaving Fraser Falls? I’m just curious if you’ve ever thought about starting somewhere new. There’s so much to love about this place and I’m trying to work out if I’m looking at it through rose-tinted glasses as an outsider.”
He doesn’t answer right away, and for a moment I think maybe he won’t.
Maybe I’m prying. Then he exhales, slow and deliberate.
“Maybe once or twice when I was a teenager. Sometimes anything else feels better than home and I’m sure I had visions of myself in Chicago or somewhere cool.
Knew I’d never make it there deep down.”
“Not New York?” My flashlight is pointing at the correct angle to catch the way he grimaces. “Oof, not New York.”
We reach a fallen tree on the path and Jack holds out his left hand as he easily steps one foot over it.
I take it and his other settles at the bottom of my back, keeping me steady while I put one foot on the trunk and step over it.
Jack’s still holding me when he brings his other leg over, only letting go when we’re ready to walk again.
“I like knowing who my neighbors are. What they like. What they stand for.”
“Hey!” I protest. “I know who my neighbors are. Mr. Eighties Perm lives on my right. He likes to play Phil Collins late at night and he gets more takeout deliveries than I do. I thought Mrs. Upstairs was dead at one point, because she’s old as hell and I hadn’t seen her in weeks, but it turns out she just got really into Netflix.
And Ms. Won the Apartment in the Divorce lives on my left.
She never acknowledges me but I think she runs a pyramid scheme so that’s probably for the best. I’m impressionable. ”
Jack snorts. “Sure you are. They sound like great neighbors.”
“I haven’t even told you about Dave! I don’t know if that’s his name but it’s what Honor and I call him. So, Dave lives opposite me and doesn’t wear clothes or close his blinds.”
“If I want naked neighbors I can get that right here in town,” he says. “Wouldn’t even need to move that far.”
I almost fall down. “Who?!”
“I can’t tell you that. Classified town secrets.” I want to call him a liar but the way he’s trying not to smile, I think he might be telling the truth.
“It’s Arthur, isn’t it?” It’s hard to tell navigating the dark with limited light but I swear he nods. “As a naked-neighbor expert, Arthur gives me a vibe.”
“You’ll never know. Unless you move into a house with a view of his windows, I guess. He lives next door to Donald. You three could be quite the trio.”
“Is this the part where you tell me Donald caught a naked Arthur in his net?” I’m so glad there’s nobody around to listen to this conversation. At least, I hope there’s nobody around. That’s the true-crime podcast listener in me.
“I’m not telling you anything. Like I said, classified town secrets.”
“Oh no,” I groan. He stops immediately, grips my arm, and shines his flashlight over me. “Hey, what’re you doing?”
“You said ‘Oh no,’ are you hurt?”
I lower his hand from where he’s pointing light directly into my eyes. “Because I got a mental image of Donald catching a naked Arthur in his net! Not because I hurt myself.”
“Oh.”
“You care a lot about people, don’t you?” I ask, squeezing the hand still gripping my arm with mine. He lets go but doesn’t step back.
“Are you being sarcastic?”
“No.” I hold my arms out as if to show the woods. “You’re giving me an X-ray with a flashlight because I said two words. Look where we are, look what you’re doing tonight because you were worried I was going to get myself into trouble.”
“Which you would’ve,” he mutters.
“And the first night we met you were fielding calls from people just wanting your input or your help or reassurance. People don’t call people who don’t care late at night. It was an observation, Jack. I’m observing that you take care of people. It’s a very generous thing for a person to do.”
He’s contemplative, letting the quiet roll on as he starts walking again. I sneak a glance at his face and he’s chewing the inside of his cheek until he catches me looking. “I guess,” he eventually concludes. “I don’t think of it like that.”
“Have you always been so selfless?”
Jack laughs so loud it makes me jump and something rattles the branches.
“I’m not selfless, Clara. Far from it. A lot of people in this town helped raise me, forgave me when I didn’t deserve forgiveness, and kept me from screwing up when I was determined to.
I owe them answering their questions and helping them feel better when sometimes it can take hours to get actual repair guys here.
I wouldn’t want them wasting their money when I can deal with it anyway. It’s just not how we live around here.”
“And who takes care of you?”
“Who says I need taking care of?”
“Everyone needs taking care of, Jack,” I say.
He sighs, something he does a lot of around me. “You ask a lot of questions.”
I smile at him but he isn’t looking at me. “Wouldn’t want you to get bored.”
“We wouldn’t want that,” he mumbles, pulling me out of the way of a puddle by my waist before I plunge myself into it. His hands hover there, my skin, which wants to feel his touch, shielded by the padding of my coat. He realizes and pushes his hands into his pockets.
“Is Holly the first toy you’ve designed?” I ask, thinking maybe talking about work is better suited to his personality.
“If I say no, will you steal the others?”
Okay, na?vely thinking talking about work is better suited to his personality.
“Depends if you can get them to go viral.” I’m trying to make a joke, but it lands as flat as I’m probably going to on my face during this late-night excursion.
Especially because I just upset the guy keeping me upright.
“That was a poorly worded joke, I’m sorry.
I’m just interested in what took you from furniture to kids’ toys. ”
Another sigh. I should start a tally. “It was a present for Sailor, my goddaughter. Dove isn’t into plastic toys and it got me thinking. It was a passion project that spiraled into something more.”
“That’s the best kind of project.”
“When I had my finished doll, I was talking about it to Sailor’s dad, Luke, and people started chipping in on how to make her better.
Next thing I know it’s a group project. Then neighbors started asking to buy them for their kids and grandkids.
So I bought a tiny shipment of stock and thought anything left over could go in my store. Then it went viral.”