Welcoming the Recluse (Forestville Silver Foxes #7)

Chapter 1

MACALLISTER

The bell above the door at Collins stuck on the second ring. It had been doing that since I first walked in over a year ago. Somebody should fix it.

Not me though. Not my door. Not my problem.

The drive from Bear Creek to town took fifteen minutes.

By now, I knew every curve, every possibly slick spot, every turn where the trees broke open and you could see the Skykomish River running fast with snowmelt.

We were having an unusually warm February, with the winter snow retreating uphill a little farther each week and dumping water into the creeks and the river.

Forestville materialized through the evergreens like it always did, with Main Street first, then the side roads branching off like capillaries.

Brianna’s Bakery had a new chalkboard sign out front, announcing fresh treats in Brianna’s neat handwriting.

That woman could bake. Jesus, her bread was to die for.

Or in my case, worth the drive into town for.

I pulled into the angled spot around the corner from Collins and killed the engine. With my hands on the wheel, I sat for a moment, running through the list in my head. Coffee. Rice. Canned tomatoes. Dish soap. Detergent. Toilet paper. Fifteen minutes max to get in and out.

Then I looked through the windshield and noticed the parking situation.

There were too many cars. It was midmorning on a Tuesday, but Main Street looked like a weekend.

A woman walked past with two kids hanging off her arms. A group of teenagers drifted down the sidewalk with the purposeless energy of kids who had nowhere to be.

Fuck. It was winter break.

I should’ve known. Fraser had mentioned it, but I hadn’t registered the exact dates. He told me stuff like that—town gossip, upcoming events, things he thought I should know but I really didn’t care about—and I let it wash over me like radio static because none of it applied to me.

No kids. No school calendar. No reason to track the rhythms of a town I wasn’t part of.

Maybe I should postpone. I could come back next Monday when it was quiet again. I could drive back up the mountain and—

No. I was here already. I needed coffee, and dammit, I needed groceries. I wasn’t going to be chased out by a bunch of kids.

Gritting my teeth, I grabbed my list and went inside.

The bell stuck on the second ring. And then the noise hit me.

Collins Family Grocer wasn’t a large store.

Six narrow aisles, a small produce section, and a deli counter in the back that served fresh sandwiches.

I’d mapped it months ago, noting the entrances and exits, the sight lines, and calculating the fastest route from the door to my standard products to checkout.

By now, I could navigate the place blindfolded.

But today there were people in every aisle, kids darting between displays, a toddler having a meltdown near the bananas, and the collective hum of conversation bouncing off the low ceiling like a trapped bird.

My shoulders locked and my jaw tightened.

My hand went to my right hip in a reflex, the muscle memory of reaching for a sidearm that hadn’t been there for a while.

I caught myself, redirected the motion into grabbing a basket from the stack by the door.

Smooth enough that no one would’ve noticed. I hoped.

Perimeter first. I moved along the outside wall, keeping the shelves to my right.

Another old habit. In a market in Kandahar, you stayed close to the walls so no one could sneak up behind you.

In Collins Family Grocer in Forestville, Washington, there was no tactical reason for it, but my mind didn’t care about reasons.

It operated on instinct and experience, on what it had learned to keep me safe.

The coffee was in aisle two. I grabbed the same cheap-ass brand I always did, the big canister of dark roast that tasted like it had been roasted with a grudge. It worked for me. I needed the caffeine, not some gourmet stuff.

In aisle three, I got the canned tomatoes, then a bag of rice.

I moved fast, picking without browsing, dropping items into the basket with mechanical efficiency.

Culinary experimenting wasn’t my style. Over the years, I’d developed several recipes I liked, and that was what I made and ate.

Simple, honest food, which made for simple, easy shopping.

A woman with a cart and three kids had created a roadblock in the middle of the aisle. I waited until she noticed me and moved aside with an apologetic smile. I nodded but didn’t smile back. I wasn’t being rude. Smiles just weren’t my currency.

A teenage boy walked past me, trailing after his mother with the slouching, half-lidded posture of a kid being dragged somewhere he didn’t want to be.

He had earbuds in and his eyes were locked on his phone.

His body was lanky and clumsy in the way boys are when they’re growing faster than they can keep up with.

He looked nothing like Boden. Wrong hair—brown, not dark blond. Wrong build. Wrong everything. But he was the right age, or close to it, and for a half-second, my chest squeezed quick and sharp, like a hand closing around a fistful of muscle.

I looked away, blowing out a breath. Time to get out of here.

Aisle five had the dish soap, and across from it, the detergent. I was nearly done. Five more minutes and I’d be back in the truck, back on the road, back on my mountain.

That was when I hit the cluster.

Near the back of the store, between the deli counter and the last aisle, a knot of people had formed, all talking over each other with the easy rhythm of people who’d known each other forever.

It held that dense energy of community I’d felt during the Thanksgiving dinner as well, the kind I could feel from ten feet away, like heat from a campfire.

And at the center of it was the blond doctor.

Arek Jacobson, the doctor who’d arrived in town around the same time I had and shared the family practice with Dr. Everett.

Fraser had mentioned Jacobson a few times.

Solid guy, Fraser had told me. Single dad of twin teenage boys, settling in well.

There was no Mrs. Jacobson, Fraser had informed me, though why he thought I would be interested in that tidbit, I had no clue.

Apparently, Jacobson had adopted the twins. Good for him.

I’d mentally filed the information the way I did everything about Forestville: at a distance, behind glass, none of my business.

Jacobson had both his boys with him, dark-haired twins who were fourteen if I remembered correctly.

One of the boys had his hand on Jacobson’s arm, pulling at his sleeve to show him something on a phone screen.

Jacobson leaned down to look without breaking his conversation with the woman next to him, said something to the boy that made him grin, then straightened and kept talking.

The other twin stood slightly apart, watching the group with dark, assessing eyes that tracked each person’s movement with quiet precision.

I recognized that look. That was a kid who’d learned to read rooms because he knew blind trust was dangerous. Whatever those boys had been through before Dr. Jacobson adopted them, it had left marks.

I needed to get past them. The toilet paper I needed was on the other side of the cluster, and there was no way around without backtracking through the entire store. So I waited and watched.

Jacobson was good at this. He asked questions, nodded, and laughed in the right places.

He touched people—a hand on a forearm, a casual gesture that said I’m here, I see you—and his posture was open and relaxed.

I’d had officers who could walk into any room and own it without raising their voice.

It was a skill. Some people were born with it. Most people learned it. I never had.

I watched him turn from one conversation to the next.

And in the gap between—less than a second, the space between exhale and inhale—his face changed.

Not dramatically, not in any way that anyone around him would notice.

But I did. The smile didn’t disappear. It just…

dimmed. Like someone had dialed it down.

His eyes, warm and crinkled at the corners, went flat.

Then someone said his name and the warmth came back, full wattage, and if I’d blinked, I would’ve missed it.

But I hadn’t blinked. Blinking could get you killed. Not blinking was how I had stayed alive in the 82nd, by watching the gaps, the moments between, those half-seconds where someone’s mask slipped and you saw what was underneath.

Jacobson’s social skills were a mask. A good one that looked natural, but a mask nonetheless. What was underneath? I wasn’t sure, but if I had to guess, my money was on exhaustion.

Not that I cared. It wasn’t my business. He wasn’t my concern. I needed to get to aisle six, and these people were in my way. That was my problem.

“Excuse me.”

It came out rough. No wonder, I was using a voice that hadn’t spoken more than twenty words in the past three days, most of them to myself or to a stubborn window frame that wouldn’t seat properly.

The cluster parted with the instinctive shifting that happened when I moved through spaces. People gave me room. They always did.

And then Jacobson turned, and I got the full force of him head-on for the first time.

Green eyes. Lighter than the dark, murky green of the evergreens outside.

Clearer. The kind of green that had no business being that vivid in a grocery store under unflattering fluorescent lights.

He had an angular face, clean-shaven, with lines around his eyes and mouth that said he’d spent most of his forty-some years smiling.

He was smiling now.

At me.