Chapter 6
Bonnie thought it through carefully all afternoon. She didn’t want to rush into anything or embarrass herself in front of Jack again. It wasn’t just her dignity at stake this time, either. Mike’s talk of attorneys and severed business ties made Bonnie wary. She’d been met with reluctance time and time again ever since she started poking around Peter’s business affairs. Whatever had sparked the fire she sat in the middle of now, other people already knew, and they weren’t telling her.
She didn’t want to trick the information out of Jack if he had it. He had always been a kind and open man, and his behavior over the past couple of days supported that. But Bonnie had always found Mike and Charles to be pleasant, too, and they were leading the parade of secrets. For all she knew, Jack was fully aware of Peter’s business and was in on keeping it hidden from her. It didn’t seem likely, but she no longer felt like she could trust her instincts anymore.
At the same time, if anyone could help Bonnie unravel this, it was Jack. He and Peter used to spend evenings out on the deck sipping Scotch and talking business. They’d be out there for hours, citronella candles burning down until the wicks were gone. Bonnie never paid too much attention to what they did; she’d been more focused on avoiding stepping into any of Sharon’s conversational land mines. On those rare occasions when Sharon would make an excuse to go back to her own house early, Bonnie had taken advantage of the quiet house to read or soak in the tub upstairs. She never imagined she’d need to know what Jack and Peter discussed those nights.
Bonnie turned over her options as she made herself a tuna sandwich for dinner. She owed Jack a proper thank-you for his rescue on the lake trail. If it weren’t for him spotting her, she knew she could still be out wandering the wilderness, waiting for someone to miss her. It would be the most natural thing in the world for her to knock on his door with some kind of token of appreciation.
Since Jack was never a business associate of Peter’s—as far as Bonnie knew—it wouldn’t be appropriate for her to ask him outright the way she’d talked to Charles and Mike. Whether or not he had answers to her questions, at the end of the day, Jack was still her neighbor. She needed him to continue feeling neighborly toward her, or heaven knows what would happen if the repo man found his way up to Lake Placid.
A month ago, if anyone had told her that she’d be wading her way through a baffling, terrifying financial sludge with Jack Barlow as her closest friend and ally, she would have laughed out loud. If they’d predicted she’d be scheming about how to ask Jack if her late husband’s business partner had sabotaged the business and ruined their lives, she wouldn’t have believed it for a second. Her life looked so different now than it had a month ago, and it was disorienting and bizarre.
Frowning out of her kitchen window, which faced the side of Jack’s house, Bonnie decided the sneak approach was best. If she went in guns blazing and accused Mike of cheating Peter and destroying the Wilkins legacy, it would set the tone for a difficult night. Bonnie wasn’t in the mood to deal with being patronized, or for Jack to make some comment about her being hysterical or too emotional in her grief. Everyone else had handled her with kid gloves since Peter died; she didn’t want Jack to start, too. Not when he’d been the first person to treat her normally in more than a week.
So she’d have to walk into the conversation backwards.
Bonnie could approach this from a place of honesty; she was his neighbor, she was grateful for his help over the past couple of days, and she wanted to repay the favor. But if she just so happened to casually mention a troubling conversation with Mike and his reluctance to speak to Bonnie without a lawyer, then so be it. A few snippets of information from a troubled friend might be enough for Jack to tell Bonnie what he knew.
With her plan in place, she went up to the bedroom to search through the closet for something decent to wear. It wasn’t that she was trying to impress Jack so much as wanting to hold onto whatever shreds of her dignity she could. He’d seen her sneak into her own house, rescued her from the wilderness, and likely saw her waving canned tuna around for a cat that may or may not exist. She wanted to remind Jack that she was a capable, rational woman. Even though she was unsteady and falling to pieces on the inside, she wanted to put her best foot forward. No one else needed to know she was struggling to make sense of things.
Bonnie found a breezy blue linen dress hanging in the closet that wouldn’t need ironing. It was casual enough that she’d be comfortable and nice enough that Jack wouldn’t be reminded of the sweaty, frightened mess he’d stumbled upon on the trail earlier. The dress was armor. She felt more like herself with it on—and more confident. And if the dress was her armor, the chilled bottle of pinot gris she dug out of the wine cellar was her shield.
The sunset turned the sky a brilliant pink with huge swathes of orange clouds rising behind the mountain peaks in the distance. Bonnie stepped onto her deck and inhaled a deep lungful of fresh air, letting the familiar scents of earth and water settle her. She’d survived another day on her own; she could survive the next, too. Every day, she could take another step forward until it wasn’t so hard anymore. Tonight, that step was down her deck stairs and toward Jack’s front door.
There was a long minute between Bonnie knocking and Jack opening the door. But as he swung it open, he froze, his eyebrows lifting as he took in the sight of her. It made her feel slightly uncomfortable like she was being judged, so she held up the wine.
“Hi, neighbor. I wanted to apologize for the brusque way I treated you this morning, and thank you for your help. I haven’t been myself lately, and it was terribly rude of me to repay your kindness with irritation…again.”
Jack stepped back to let her into the house. “Nonsense, Bonnie. There’s no hard feelings. I’d be more worried if you were feeling normal right now. Come on in. Join me for a glass of wine, and we can talk about it.”
Despite his initial surprise, Jack seemed genuinely pleased to see her. She followed him into the kitchen and passed over the bottle to allow him to uncork it. He grabbed a pair of glasses and a corkscrew and went about pouring the wine.
“It’s gorgeous out tonight. Want to sit on the deck?” he asked, handing her one of the glasses. “I’ve got citronella candles to keep the mosquitoes away.”
“That sounds lovely.”
They walked out onto the back deck and settled into a pair of Adirondack chairs facing the lake. Jack lit the candles and the sharp, lemony scent of the wax filled the air. She couldn’t ask for a better setting.
It wasn’t Scotch and Peter, but it was a similar enough atmosphere to those business talks that Bonnie could imagine it being easy for Jack to slip into that role again with her.
With the candles and the lake, and a cool breeze off the water, it felt like any of the hundreds of early summer evenings Bonnie had spent here before. If she closed her eyes, she knew she could transport herself back to a simpler time, where an evening on the deck with a neighbor was just that—no ulterior motives, no stressful financial mystery, no dead husband. As badly as Bonnie wanted to slip into that fantasy, she forced herself to stay present, to face the reality she’d been handed.
“How are the kids holding up?” Jack crossed one ankle over the opposite knee, angling his body toward Bonnie rather than the lake.
“Better than I anticipated, honestly. I was so worried they would fall apart when they got the news. I was all set to mother them, and then they turned up ready to be strong for me. It’s shocking sometimes to see them so capable. They’re really thriving, and I’m so proud of them. But there are moments when I’ll see Jackie’s dimple when she laughs, or James will frown and get that little divot in his forehead, and suddenly, all I can see is a pair of toddlers who were totally dependent on me. In those moments, it’s so hard to believe that they don’t need me anymore, like I’m done being a mother.” She met his stare, noticing how intently he sat listening to her, and giggled beneath her breath. “Sorry, I’m rambling.”
She flushed, embarrassed at how much she’d said. He was making small talk, not investigating her innermost feelings about motherhood.
“No need to apologize. I know exactly what you mean.” Sincerity shone brightly in his Caribbean blue eyes. “Emily paid the bill at dinner in January when she came to visit, and it had me all choked up. I’m thrilled that she’s making a life for herself and really succeeding, but I had a few seconds where I missed the teenager who used to beg me for gas money. Same goes for Daniel; anytime he does something that shows he’s grown up, it feels a bit like I’ve missed a step walking downstairs. For me, I think it’s one part nostalgia and one part freaking out about aging. But they’ll always need us one way or another. I still need my dad sometimes, and he’s been gone for decades.”
“You’re right.” Bonnie found herself oddly comforted by his admission. “It’s like we carry our childhood selves along with us as we age.”
Jack nodded. “And then we carry our children, too. It’s a wonder anyone manages to do anything when there’s so much stuffed into our hearts.”
He smiled, and she couldn’t help the corners of her lips lifting in return. It felt good to share something so simple yet so important with another person. For the first time since Peter passed, Bonnie didn’t feel so alone. But as soon as she thought about Peter, she remembered why she was on Jack’s deck in the first place. The calmness she felt now wouldn’t last if she didn’t figure out how to fix Peter’s business problems.
“So it sounds like your kids are doing well, too. How’s your work?” she asked, trying to subtly redirect the conversation toward her goal.
“It’s going well.”
She was surprised he didn’t elaborate, so she decided to press for more information. “Oh? That’s all, just well?”
His expression shifted from easy grins and soft eyes to parted lips and raised brows in an instant. “You really want details? I didn’t think my job was something that would interest you.”
Bonnie took a deep breath and dropped her gaze. It was the same thing Peter used to say when she asked questions about business or finances. There was always an assumption that she wouldn’t understand or care, and it was so frustrating. She was sick of being underestimated by everyone.
“Well, it does.” Indignation rang in her tone as she set her stare on him again. “I realize I never had a career, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand how business works.”
He sat up straighter and held up a hand. “Of course not. I just assumed—you know, that’s my fault, Bonnie. I assumed, and I shouldn’t have.”
She raised a perfectly arched eyebrow, regarding Jack over the rim of her wineglass. He laughed and shook his head, taking the hint to answer her original question.
“It’s been an interesting year, that’s for sure. But I was ready for it, and when the Federal Reserve increased interest rates, my clients were prepared and expecting the change. We weathered it well, and with a few quick-thinking decisions, we’re staying on track.”
She wouldn’t admit it, but Bonnie had only absorbed about half of what he said. Some of the terms were familiar, but not enough to ask an intelligent question or determine whether this was the kind of thing he used to talk about with Peter.
Jack kept talking, describing trades and deals, and a bunch of things that sounded like math. He refilled her glass every time it emptied, as well as his own, and by the time they were on glass number three, Bonnie could feel her eyes glaze over. Nothing he said was penetrating—it all bounced off her and disappeared into the deepening night.
She tried to maintain the illusion of listening, nodding along and occasionally humming vaguely, hoping he would interpret it as agreement or interest—whatever was most appropriate to what he’d said. But eventually, he noticed she was less than engaged in the discussion.
“Sorry.” He laughed sheepishly and lowered his chin toward his chest. “Now I’ve gone too far the other way and gotten lost in the weeds. We can talk about something else. I know the nitty-gritty about the interplay between the stock market and the average consumer habits isn’t everyone’s favorite light-hearted conversation.”
Bonnie perked up. This was her opening.
“Maybe not everyone’s…” She smiled—probably a little too flirtatiously than she intended. “It sounds like the kind of thing Peter would talk about, though. Is this the kind of thing you two discussed when you’d sit around drinking Scotch and talking business?”
He laughed, giving Bonnie the confidence that she’d played her hand well and hit the mark. “We talked about all sorts of things, but you’re right. Finance news, strategy, business decisions—it was all fair game. We had good conversations.”
“It’s nice that you two had that connection. I take it that means you knew about his business and how it worked?”
Jack shrugged, his attention drifting to the twinkle of lights bouncing off the lake’s surface. “A little. I know he ran a private equity fund, but a lot of our discussions stayed theoretical. You know, to keep things ethical.”
Her confidence dropped a few levels. She knew Peter ran a private equity fund—she just didn’t have the faintest idea what that meant. It would be humiliating to admit that to Jack, so she decided to look it up later.
For now, though, she kept her tone casual and pressed on. “So you wouldn’t necessarily know, then, what happened to his fund over the past year or so? Because you didn’t talk specifics?”
Jack chewed his lip, not meeting Bonnie’s eyes. The silence stretched out between them long enough that she began to wonder if she’d asked her question out loud, or if she’d simply thought it. But then he set his empty glass aside and stood.
“It’s getting late.” His voice was soft yet final. “You’ve had a lot to drink, and it’s dark. Do you want me to walk you home?”
She quickly set down her glass and stood, facing him with her shoulders pulled back and squared, hoping to hide her humiliating defeat. “I’m capable of crossing the driveway on my own. But thank you for a lovely evening. Good night.”
Then she hurried off the deck and across the yard to her house, feeling awkward and more confused about Peter’s business dealings than when she’d arrived a couple of hours ago.