Chapter 7
MAC
Fraser showed up on Thursday morning, which was unusual.
His visits were typically on weekends, a pattern we’d fallen into without ever discussing it.
But here he was, pulling up the service road in his truck at nine a.m. on a weekday, getting out with a thermos and the unhurried ease of a man who had nowhere else to be.
“Calloway’s writing,” he said by way of explanation as he climbed the porch steps. “He gets in a zone where he forgets I exist, so I figured I’d make myself useful elsewhere.”
“You’re not useful here either.”
“And yet.” He settled into the Adirondack chair like he owned it, which, once again, left the step for me. If people kept showing up here like this, maybe it was time to build another chair. I got tired of sitting on the hard wooden steps.
I poured myself another cup of coffee. Fraser had brought his own, which was smart. We sat in the quiet for a while, the way we usually did. Fraser never rushed a silence. It was one of the reasons I liked him.
“Got the flooring done in Cabin 4,” I said.
“Good. What’s next?”
“I need to sub out the electrical. That’s not something I’m comfortable doing myself.”
“Ask Cas Sicotte. He’s a local contractor and does good work. He’s honest, doesn’t overcharge, and he’ll tell you if it’s outside his area of expertise. Tell him I sent you.”
I nodded. The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t immediately place where I’d heard it.
“He’s married to Tiago Banner,” Fraser offered.
Ah, that was where. Even I had heard of the Banner twins, world-famous supermodels, now retired. The other twin was married to Fir Everett, if I remembered correctly.
I drank my coffee as I listened to a woodpecker going at a tree somewhere behind the house. “I had an episode.”
Fraser didn’t look at me but kept his eyes on the valley, his coffee mug resting on his knee. “When?”
“Spring festival.”
“You came to town for the festival?” Surprise colored his voice.
“Don’t know what I was thinking, but yes.”
A beat. “Was it bad?”
“Bad enough. Full flashback.” I kept my voice flat. “Someone dropped a stack of crates. I was already on edge from the crowd. It hit and I was gone.”
Fraser took a sip of his coffee. “Anybody see?”
“Sheriff Frant was there. He ran interference and kept people away. And Dr. Jacobson.” I hesitated over the name in a way I hoped wasn’t obvious. “He was standing next to me when it happened. He talked me through it.”
“Talked you through it how?”
“Grounding. Verbal anchoring. He knew what he was doing. He was a medic before he went to med school.”
Fraser processed that. His face gave away nothing, which was something he was good at.
He was a former smokejumper, a man who’d spent years walking into fire, and he could lock down his face to express itself in increments so small you’d need a micrometer to measure them.
But I’d also seen him with Calloway, his partner, and Fraser was completely different with him. A man in love. Besotted.
“That was good of him,” Fraser said. “He came up here too, I heard.”
I looked at him. “How’d you hear that?”
The faintest hint of a smile. “Small town, Mac.”
Of course. The blue BMW on Bear Creek Road. “He came to replace the supplies he used from my first-aid kit. When his son got hurt.”
“That’s a lot of driving for some gauze and butterfly strips.”
I didn’t respond to that.
Fraser refilled his mug from his thermos and started telling me about things happening in town.
Calloway’s latest book was giving him trouble, something about a character who wouldn’t cooperate.
Ennio was testing a new menu at the Sunshine Corner, and people were raving about the seafood pasta he’d introduced.
Some out-of-towner got arrested for a drunken brawl at the Double F, and Jack, the owner of the bar, was pressing charges to recoup the tables and glassware that had gotten damaged.
Brianna had won some big national baking award, which surprised absolutely no one.
I listened, not with the half-attention I usually gave Fraser’s updates, letting them wash over me like background noise, but actually listened and took it in.
Forestville was a living thing, constantly shifting, and for the first time, I found myself curious rather than indifferent about its movements.
I didn’t examine why. But I noticed it. And noticing was becoming a problem.
Fraser left around eleven. At the bottom of the porch steps, he turned back. “You should talk to Cas sooner rather than later. He books up fast in the spring.”
“I’ll reach out today.”
“Good. He actually lives halfway down your mountain. The big house with the overlook? That’s Tiago and Cas.” He paused. “And, Mac? Jacobson showing up here, helping you through the episode… That’s not nothing. That’s someone giving a shit.”
It was almost word-for-word what Arek had said. “Yeah.”
Fraser nodded, then walked back to his truck, gave me a last wave, and drove away.
A quick search gave me a phone number for Cas Sicotte, and when I called him, he suggested I stop by to talk in person later that afternoon. Said he preferred doing business that way rather than over the phone. I could respect that.
Around four, I made my way down the mountain. Halfway, in this case. Their place was a timber-frame house set back in the trees, well-built and well-maintained, with a million-dollar view. Cas was out front when I pulled up, loading tools into his truck.
He was younger than me by close to two decades and solidly built, with brown curls, sharp blue eyes, and the easy confidence of a man who was good at his job and knew it. We’d never spoken, but Fraser’s name opened the door, and we were in business.
“I can start in about four weeks,” he said after I described the work. “May is better anyway. More daylight, and the access road won’t be a mud pit.”
“Works for me.”
“I’ll stop by tomorrow morning to take a look at the cabins and give you an accurate quote.”
We shook on it. His grip was firm and professional, and I felt nothing, which I noted and then wondered why I’d noted it.
Back in my truck, I sat for a moment. The smart thing would be to drive back up to the campground. There was still plenty of daylight for working on the cabins, and I had a list of tasks that could fill a week. Instead, I turned the truck down the mountain toward Forestville.
I needed supplies. Sandpaper, a new set of drill bits, and I was running low on wood stain. All perfectly legitimate reasons to drive into town on a Thursday afternoon. The fact that I’d been to town two days ago and hadn’t needed any of those things then was irrelevant.
Main Street was quiet, the way I liked it.
I parked near the hardware store, got the stuff I needed, then stood on the sidewalk and looked down the street toward Brianna’s Bakery.
Brianna’s was dangerous territory. Not because of the woman herself, who was perfectly pleasant, but because of what going in there meant.
Browsing. Lingering. The act of buying something unnecessary simply because I wanted it.
I went in anyway.
The bell above Brianna’s door rang clean and bright, twice, and the smell hit me immediately: butter, cinnamon, fresh bread, and the dark roast of good coffee. The place was warm and golden and smelled like someone’s idea of home, though not any home I’d ever lived in.
Brianna herself was behind the counter, a woman about my age with flour on her apron and a smile that could power a small city. “Well, hello there. What can I get you?”
I scanned the display case. Croissants, danishes, scones, muffins, various Dutch goodies she was known for, and something with chocolate that looked obscenely good.
I hadn’t had a pastry in months. Maybe longer.
“A wholegrain bread, two of the croissants, a slice of the Dutch apple pie, and a bag of krentenbollen.” I was probably mispronouncing it, but she understood anyway.
“Excellent choices.” She bagged them with efficient care. “Anything else?”
Behind her, on a shelf, stood rows of coffee bags with the bakery’s label on them.
Mild roast, medium roast, dark roast. The kind of coffee that cost four times what my canister of dark roast grudge cost, but would taste divine in comparison.
I thought about Arek grimacing through a mug of my usual stuff on the porch. “The medium roast. One bag.”
“Do you want it ground or whole bean? I know not everyone has a grinder at home.”
“Ground.”
She rang me up, and I paid and walked out with pastries and a bag of coffee I had no business buying. My coffee was cheap and tasted like shit, but it worked, and I didn’t need anything better. Except I wasn’t buying it for me.
I sat in the truck with the bags on the passenger seat and looked at them.
What was I doing? Why the fuck was I getting coffee for a man who might or might not come up my mountain again?
I was preparing for a possibility I had no reason to expect, stocking provisions for a visitor I had no right to want. Jesus Christ, what was I doing?
The dinner invitation surfaced. The boys and I eat dinner at six most nights. You know where we live.
I did know. Two blocks off Main Street, in the craftsman with the porch that needed repainting.
I could go. It was five-thirty. If I drove over now, I’d arrive right around the time—
No. He’d said that to be polite. It was the kind of thing people said, an open-ended invitation that wasn’t meant to be taken literally. Showing up unannounced at a single dad’s dinner table on a Thursday? With his kids there? That wasn’t how things worked. That wasn’t how I worked.
But I wanted to. That was the part that scared me.
Not the logistics, not the social awkwardness, not even the prospect of sitting at a table with two fourteen-year-olds who would remind me of everything I’d lost. What scared me was the wanting itself.
The pure, stupid, reckless pull toward this man’s kitchen and this man’s family and this man’s warmth after eighteen months of wanting nothing and no one.
I didn’t go to dinner.
Instead, I drove back up the mountain and put the coffee in the cabinet next to my regular canister, where it sat like evidence of a crime I was in the process of committing. Then I ate my croissants and the apple pie alone. After, I sat on the porch in the dark and took out my phone.
Arek’s number had been transferred from the piece of paper to my phone for reasons I didn’t want to think too much about.
I stared at the blank message screen for a long time.
What did you say to a man who’d talked you out of a flashback, then sat with you in silence before driving up your mountain with the exact right medical supplies and inviting you to dinner with his kids? What words covered that?
I typed. Deleted. Typed again. Deleted again until I settled on something that had to be enough.
It’s Mac. Thanks again for the kit replacements. And for having coffee with me.
I hit send before I could delete it a third time.
The response came four minutes later. Four minutes that I did not spend staring at my phone.
You’re welcome. Though I’d argue you’re the one who made the coffee and I’m the one who suffered through it
Something in my chest did the compass-needle thing. I typed back.
I bought better coffee today. In case you come back up.
I sent it, then stared at the words on the screen and felt my pulse do something it had no business doing. Had I just invited him back? Was that what that was? It looked like an invitation. It read like one. What the hell was I doing?
The three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
I’ll be there. I’m off this weekend?
I sat on the porch in the dark with my phone in my hand and the mountain silent around me, my heart doing things I hadn’t felt in years, things I didn’t have names for. I was building a friendship, except I didn’t do friendships. And friendships had never felt like this.
I could do Saturday.
Perfect. Morning or afternoon?
Anytime. I’m not going anywhere.
See you Saturday, Mac.
I put the phone down. Picked it up. Reread the exchange. Put it down again.
Arek Jacobson was coming back up my mountain because I’d asked him to. Because I’d asked.
What the ever-loving fuck was I doing?