Chapter 5
Jake
I went out to my truck because I needed air.
The cold did a better job of clearing my head than the bourbon had all week.
Even so, my heart was racing like I’d just crawled under the truck and found a snake in the oil pan—not adrenaline, exactly, just that raw-nerved edge I only ever got around her.
I paced the length of the Ford with the package in my hand, already rehearsing how I would hand the thing over and leave without making another mess of myself.
I could have made a career out of keeping my damn mouth shut, but every time I was around her, I said the stupidest things.
I remembered all the ways you could ruin a good thing by saying too much.
I nearly turned around and left the envelope propped on the porch, but when I looked up, she was already waiting at the screen door, silhouetted against the flicker of firelight while Kori’s laugh drifted in from the next room.
She stepped onto the porch, pulling a sweater close at her neck. “You really brought it? I thought that was just an excuse to leave.” Her voice was hoarse, like she’d been bracing for a fight.
I handed it over and tried not to notice how her hands were shaking. “I told you I did. I brought it tonight, after Kane told me you’d be here.”
She stared at the padded envelope like it was a snake before taking it. She tucked a thumbnail under the tape and peeled it back. The envelope made a ripping sound as she tore it open.
Inside was a greeting card and a small, battered box sealed with more tape than was necessary. She handed me both envelopes after tearing open the card. Her eyes scrolled the handwritten lines, and the color went out of her face in a single sweep.
She tried to say something, then pushed it down with a tight swallow and opened the box.
Inside, bubble-wrapped and bound in tissue, was a strip of Polaroids—old, sun-warped shots of a kid I assumed was Nora, her hair matted with cake and her front teeth missing.
I didn’t get why that mattered until Ella flipped the photos and showed me the backs.
In black Sharpie, someone had written: “THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE PROTECTING. HIS DAUGHTER!”
I took the card from her hands and read the message.
Letters cut from newspapers and magazines spelled out: HELLO, ELLA. WHAT’S IT FEEL LIKE TO BE FOUND FINALLY? SLEEP TIGHT. See you soon.
Her voice was flat. “It’s some sick joke. It has to be.”
I looked up and realized every muscle in my body had gone tight. “Do you want me to call the cops?”
She just shook her head. “They’ll say it’s a prank. So no, no cops.”
She folded the card in half, then quarters, then turned it into confetti between her fingers. For a minute, the only sound was Kori shouting something in the background and a car pushing up the distant road.
I could see panic, clearly etched on her face. I wanted to reach for her, to say something that might fix it, but all I managed was, “If you need help, I’ll stay over tonight. Keep watch. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
She let out a low, ugly sound. “It would be the first time anyone actually meant it.”
That one landed deep. “I wasn’t planning on sleeping anyway.”
She shoved the Polaroids into her pocket and straightened up, looking me dead in the eye.
“Fine,” she said, her voice gone hard and level. “But not here. I want to go home. It’s time I stopped running and stood up to whoever this is.”
I watched her step back inside and stood there, wondering what she meant by running while the screen door banged lightly in her wake. I waited on the porch until the cold wind cut through my flannel shirt, then followed her inside.
I waited in the hall while she slipped into the living room to collect Nora and her things. My hands went instinctively to the envelopes I’d stuffed in my pocket. Whoever sent those threats knew what they were doing. They knew it’d work.
Down the hall, Ella’s voice had a finely tuned edge as she called for her daughter.
I could hear the steadying breath she took before putting on the “let’s go, honey” face.
But when she emerged, she was carrying a sleepy Nora, and the mask was back in place.
She looked like herself again, only her white knuckles clutching her car keys betrayed her.
After thanking Kane and Kori for dinner, we waved goodbye and headed out to our vehicles.
“Ella, she’s too big for you to carry. Let me take her,” I said, holding out my hands.
She looked at me, and for a second, I thought she was going to refuse, but she nodded and passed her over.
It was a mistake for me to take her. Memories of my Melanie slammed into me the second Nora settled her head onto my shoulder, and it took me everything not to break down in front of Ella. She likely would have thought I was some creep if I had.
I couldn’t get to her SUV fast enough. She hurried ahead of me and opened the back driver’s side door, where I set Nora down on the seat. “I’ll see you back at your place,” I grumbled before heading to my truck.
Caleb was already waiting inside, his hands tucked under his arms for warmth, his face dimly lit by the dashboard. He looked at me when I slid into the cab, gaze unblinking.
“Threat, or prank?” Caleb muttered as I fumbled with the ignition.
“Hard to say. But a coward either way.”
He grunted. “You want to talk about it?”
“Nope,” I said. “You know what I think about talking.”
Fifteen minutes later, I pulled into their drive and parked.
The windows of Ella’s bungalow glowed warmly in the cold night, like a beacon.
Caleb and I got out and met them on the porch.
I went in first, Caleb stayed with them, while I did the ritual check of every room.
It wasn’t just habit—I wanted to be the one who saw if anything was off, and I wanted to keep them away until I’d given it the once over.
Scout followed me, pausing at every doorway as if waiting for my cue.
He watched me sweep each room, and when I was satisfied, he did a circuit of his own, then slumped in a corner and farted, giving the all-clear.
I called out, “Safe,” and heard Ella exhale from the front hall, Nora in tow. She kept her voice light as she thanked me, but the way she hung back near the kitchen made it clear she wasn’t sure what came next.
Caleb went straight for the Keurig, made three cups of coffee, brought one to me, and the other to Ella. “You want me here, or should I go?”
“Up to you,” I said. “If you can handle a few chores, I could use a hand feeding the stock at home before dark.”
He eyed the bandage on his hand. “The other option is I sit here and look intimidating while Ella and Nora help you.”
Ella glanced at him, then me, then the kitchen clock. “I’m fine with that, as long as we get done before 8:00, it’s a school night.”
Nora bounced. “I can help? Really?”
I looked at Ella for confirmation, but she just gave a weary nod.
Scout wouldn’t be left behind either, so when I led them all out to the truck, he bounded in the back with Nora while Ella sat in the front with me.
We didn’t talk much while feeding the barn animals, but Nora did enough chattering for all of us. “This cow is smaller than my school principal,” she announced, pointing at a shaggy steer who barely reached her shoulder. “Does he have a name?”
“He’s just ‘Number Twenty-Three,’” I said. “I try not to get attached, unless they earn it.”
Scout ran figure-eights between us, then took up a post at the edge of the stall, as if fending off coyotes from the feed.
Nora followed me, so I let her hold the hay rake as I dropped flakes into the trough.
She handled it like a baseball bat, and I had to warn her once about the sharp tines before she figured it out.
The barn was warmer than outside, though my breath still fogged. When I finished with the cattle, I took them to check the horse stalls. Hourglass snorted at the intrusion, but her ears went soft when Nora whispered her name.
As we were closing the door to the tack room, Nora froze and pointed. “Look!” she whispered.
A calico barn cat was curled up on a pile of old saddle blankets, three tiny kittens squirming at her belly. I’d seen the cat a half dozen times that winter, always after setting out cat food and always in passing, but I hadn’t known she’d had a new litter.
Nora dropped to her knees as if drawn by gravity. “Mom!” she shouted. “There are babies!”
Ella appeared in the doorway, still wearing the same tired smile as earlier, but the kittens seemed to push her over some invisible edge. “Are you finished up here?” she asked me, which was the closest she’d get to admitting she wanted to stay.
“I could stay longer,” I said.
Nora was all in. “Can we keep one, Jake? Please?”
Scout barked, just once, like he was asking too.
“That’s up to your mom,” I said, making a point right off the bat that it wasn’t up to me.
Ella scooped a kitten carefully, cradling it in her palm. She looked like she was weighing the whole world. “We’ll see. They have to stay with their mother for now.”
Nora beamed, which made me happier than I had any business being. The air in the barn felt normal for the first time in a year.
Ella tucked the kitten back beside its siblings and straightened up, giving me a look that I wasn’t supposed to interpret. “Thank you,” she said quietly, brushing shavings off her knees. “For tonight.”
I nodded, and we started the process of locking up the barn, making sure the latches were set, that no water trough had frozen over, and double-checking to make sure every animal had feed.
By the time we got back to their house, Nora’s enthusiasm had faded into the pre-bedtime fog, and she headed off to bed. Caleb left shortly after, heading back to my house, and I stood at the window watching him go.
I was about to ask Ella where she wanted me to sleep when I heard her voice, low in the kitchen. “You want tea or something stronger?”
“Whatever warms me up,” I said, and she poured two mugs.
We sat across the table, arms folded, silence stretching out until it snapped.
“I know who sent that package,” she said.
I waited.
“I mean, I know who would do something like that,” she clarified. “It’s Nora’s father.”
She looked at me from under her lashes, as if waiting for a punchline or a test.
I cleared my throat, debating on telling her that I knew about her ex. “Before he left to go back home, Declan mentioned that he had died. Killed in a boat accident.”
“I don’t think he was killed, I thought I saw him the night of the tree lighting ceremony,” she said, and her hands closed around the mug so tight I thought it’d shatter.
“But his father—God, I shouldn’t even be telling you this, it’s all so complicated.
” She let the steam from her mug wash over her face.
“He’s the Russian mob, and when Mikhail ‘died’, he blamed me. ”
“You think he’s here then, the grandfather?”
“No. Men like him don’t do the dirty work,” she said with a half-hearted smile. “But he wants Nora back in his world. He’s been trying to find us for years, but to no avail. How he found us now is beyond me. But this kind of threat, though… It’s his signature.”
“My kind of people prefer a pipe bomb,” I said. “Or a brick through your window.”
She nodded, eyes shining. “No, this is cleaner. Scarier, in a way.”
I sat with it, then said, “I can fix the barn alarm tomorrow. And I’ll set up the game cams on your driveway and at each window of the house. You’ll know if anyone comes within a hundred yards of the house.”
“Would you teach me how to shoot? If I wanted to.”
It was my turn to look away. “Yeah. I would.”
Her hand reached for mine, just for a second, then retracted as if she’d overestimated her nerve. “You know, I’m used to being alone. Most men, even the decent ones, see the baggage before they see me. Thanks for not running. And I do know how to shoot.”
I smiled. “Doesn’t surprise me one bit.” I almost told her that I’d been running since the accident, but something about the way the lamplight softened her features kept my mouth shut. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Shortly after, Ella called it a night and went to bed. But for me, it was nearly midnight when I crashed on the sofa. Before I did, there was a new message on my phone. No caller ID. Just a single text, in block capitals:
“YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED AWAY.”
I deleted it, rolled my thumb over the screen, and passed out.