Chapter 3
Bonnie’s pulse pounded loudly in her ears, a rapid thud that drowned out everything else around her. She couldn’t hear the waves lapping gently at the sand, the birds singing, or the hum of passing motorboats on the lake’s surface. Dimly, she wondered if anyone out on the water would hear her if she screamed, or if her cries for help would be drowned out by other people’s merriment.
There weren’t any weapons to be found. All she had was the empty plastic water bottle and her wits, and she didn’t feel particularly witty. The figure slowed as he approached, and Bonnie was certain he’d been running after her. A chill rippled down her spine when she realized she had no idea how long she’d been followed.
“There you are.” A deep, husky voice broke through the ringing in her ears, causing her to turn toward the stranger. His eyes, the color of the sky on a warm summer’s day, narrowed as he took her in. Seeing the fear on her face, he pulled the cap off his head, revealing salt-and-pepper hair—mostly pepper with a sprinkle of salt. “Are you all right, Bonnie? You look terrified.”
She exhaled heavily, relief hitting her in the chest. It was Jack. Under the shadows of the trees and in his running gear, she didn’t recognize him. All the terror that had built up in her body drained out of her like water in a bathtub, and she could properly fill her lungs with air again.
“Oh, Jack. I thought you were a madman, or a murderer or something.” Despite calming down, she was still out of breath, sounding as if she’d just finished a five-mile sprint. “You frightened me half to death.”
He blanched, clearly embarrassed. “I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean to scare you. I spotted you half a mile ago, heading the wrong direction down the trail. You took the turn onto the backpacking trail that heads up into the mountains, not the lake loop. If you kept going this way, you’d be dead lost in a matter of hours.”
Bonnie’s face flushed with intense heat—and not from the warming outdoor air.
Her fears about being lost in the woods weren’t completely unfounded, and she’d managed to embarrass herself in front of Jack without waving tuna around her yard for a potentially imaginary cat. The backpacking trail was a long one—and not frequently used. It headed away from the town of Lake Placid, deep into the mountains, and wasn’t always clearly marked. Jack was right. If Bonnie had gone much further, she would have been helplessly lost in no time.
“I tried to stop you earlier, but no matter how many times I shouted your name, you didn’t turn around.” He pointed to the wires hanging on either side of her neck. “Your headphones must have been too loud.”
The more he talked, the more embarrassed Bonnie became about the whole thing. She didn’t want him to think she was stupid for wandering out in the wilderness without a map or proper supplies. The whole morning was supposed to be about self-reliance and stepping into her own power. That’s what the podcast had been teaching her, and here she was, letting a man rescue her.
All her adult life, she’d let Peter rescue her, and look where that left her. She needed to toughen up and solve things for herself instead of clinging to the nearest competent-looking man. She didn’t want to think about what would’ve happened if Jack hadn’t gone for a run today. She couldn’t wrap her head around what would’ve happened to her.
She toyed with the earbuds and shrugged. “Yeah, I was enjoying a morning to myself. I was doing a little exploring while listening to a podcast. If I have to be a grieving widow, I might as well get some peace and solitude out of it.”
Jack’s nose scrunched in slight annoyance, then his brow creased deeper as if his mild irritation had turned to concern.
For a moment, Bonnie was confused, she didn’t understand his reaction to what she’d said. Then she worried he might’ve misunderstood, mistaking her explanation as an insult, as if accusing him of getting in the way of her newfound goal of self-reliance.
Her fear was confirmed when he took a step back, the corners of his lips drawing downward, and gave her a curt nod. “I didn’t mean to intrude on your morning. I’m empathetic to what’s going on in your life, and I understand if you don’t want company right now, but I didn’t want you wandering off into danger unaware. There have been a lot more coyote sightings this year than before. I’m not sure if you’ve been keeping up with the town newsletter, but there have been a few close calls with people out walking their dogs or straying off the trails.”
Truth be told, Bonnie wasn’t sure she’d ever read the Lake Placid newsletter. The emails sat unread in her inbox for months at a time before she mass-deleted them. Sometimes, in the summer, she’d check them for events like the Fourth of July parade or the street fair, but she was hardly a regular reader. Any news of coyote activity, usual or otherwise, had completely escaped her notice.
Her thoughts flickered back to the cat she’d seen last night in the rain. She hoped the poor thing hadn’t been caught by one of these bold coyotes. In fact, the coyote news strengthened her resolve to find the cat and make sure it didn’t belong to one of her neighbors. She considered asking Jack about it but realized he’d been waiting for her to respond to his warning.
It seemed she couldn’t stop from embarrassing herself in front of this man.
“No, you didn’t intrude. I appreciate the warning.” She hoped that was enough to straighten out the misunderstanding. The last thing she wanted to do was turn away her one and only friend in town. “I suppose I’d better keep future explorations closer to my own back deck, huh?”
“That might be a good idea.” His frown relaxed, and the corners of his lips even turned upward into something resembling a grin. “I can show you the way back if you like.”
She opened her mouth, prepared to insist she could make her way back on her own, but quickly remembered how thirsty she was, how sore her feet were, and how nice it would be to take a hot shower and eat lunch…and changed her mind. “I’d love it. Lead the way—you’re the townie now.”
His smile widened as he slipped his hat over a headful of dark hair and turned back to the trail. Bonnie followed, noticing the path he chose was in the exact opposite direction of where she thought she should go. She might have more privilege than some of the women who were interviewed on that podcast, but she clearly didn’t have as much sense.
Feeling down on herself for having what she perceived to be poor instinctual skills, she tried to avoid Jack’s many attempts at small talk as they walked.
“I’m afraid you missed peak bloom for the pink ladies’ slipper orchids this year, but you can still see a few flowers.” He pointed at a cluster of tiny pink petals set against dark green leaves.
In response, Bonnie hummed noncommittally.
She honestly wasn’t sure what a pink ladies’ slipper orchid looked like, or what was different between the peak bloom and whatever was happening with the plants now. Gardening had never been one of her hobbies—or her strengths. Sharon had made snide comments about that fact over the years. She’d been quick to note how infrequently the Wilkins family updated their landscaping and was always showing off herbs and tomatoes from her own garden.
Bonnie didn’t want to hold his ex-wife’s snide comments against him. At the same time, he did mention their divorce was amicable. If they were still on friendly terms, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for Jack to mention his encounters with Bonnie to Sharon. If that woman ever found out just how badly her life had fallen apart, Bonnie didn’t know how she would ever recover from the shame. So she decided to keep everything closer to the vest.
Jack might be a nice enough neighbor, and he might be doing her a favor right now, but that didn’t mean she had to become his best friend. Living next door didn’t mean you had to be close to each other. As the saying goes, good fences make better neighbors. At the rate she was going, Bonnie would need a fortress wall to keep her relationship with Jack affable.
“How are Jackie and James?” he asked after a while. “Last I heard, they were in Chicago and…Charlotte? Is that right?”
“Atlanta,” she corrected. “Jackie’s in Chicago, James is in Atlanta. And they’re both fine, aside from the obvious.”
“Right, of course.” He glanced away uncomfortably. “I’m sure this time is hard for all of you. It’s always too soon to lose a parent.”
Not knowing what to say, Bonnie didn’t answer that. It was an obvious statement. They’d already done the polite condolence song and dance, and she wasn’t interested in repeating it. She’d repeated it a thousand times with every single person she’d encountered over the last week. Of course it was hard. Of course it was too soon to lose Peter. Of course all of this was a nightmare, heartbreaking, such a shame, so unfair, et cetera, et cetera.
Bonnie was sick of it.
She could throw Jack a bone and tell him that. It might break some of the tension between them if she let him in on the secret no widow wants to broadcast: that she was sick and tired of being treated like tissue paper, and all the coddling made her grief feel infinitely worse than if she could get just a moment of humanity from someone else. All Bonnie really wanted was to feel like herself again.
She had spent so much of her life being a wife and mother. Her kids were old enough now that being a mother meant something different—and had for years. Wife had become the most active part of her identity ever since the kids left home, and now that she’d lost that as well, she wasn’t keen on making widow front and center. She was more interested in making room for Bonnie, whoever she was now, in this chapter of her life. But as long as people kept approaching her as a poor woman who’d lost her husband, that was out of her reach.
Yes, it was soon. She was a widow—and she would be for the rest of her life. Bonnie was still very much grieving Peter’s loss. But she’d buried him. She’d performed all the rituals and was all set to gradually move back into her life when Peter’s actions had launched her onto a new path. Her grieving was interrupted by a crisis, and the more the people around her treated her like a fragile, helpless woman, the harder it would be to solve it.
Jack's knowledge of their financial situation didn’t help, either. That still stung, and she wasn’t interested in bringing him any closer to her private business. The longer they walked together, the more uncomfortable she was in his presence. She felt bad about it; he wasn’t doing anything wrong other than having an ex-wife who made Bonnie’s skin crawl. If he were a perfect stranger, she might have felt more comfortable.
Finally, the path turned, and Bonnie recognized where they were. The trees thinned, and she could see the wide strip of beach where the kids had played for so many summers. From here, she could definitely find her way home on her own, but since Jack had to take the exact same path back to his house, there was no sense trying to distance herself from him until they reached their backyards.
They walked together up the path, pausing at the place where it forked to their respective houses. Bonnie’s shoulders relaxed when she saw her deck ahead of her.
“Thank you for walking with me,” she said quickly, then hurried into her own yard without waiting for a response.
She only slowed down when she reached the porch steps. The can of tuna she’d left out was now empty. She scooped it up and took it inside, wondering if the cat had returned or if one of those rogue coyotes had stumbled upon a fishy treat.