CHAPTER 7
JONATHAN
The road curved sharp along the ridge, just wide enough for my truck to straddle without scraping the edge.
I was already halfway back up the mountain.
Trees closed in on both sides, shadows stretching long and thin across the pavement as the sun dipped low behind the peaks.
Early-evening light flickered through the branches.
I had one hand on the wheel, the other drifting out the open window, elbow catching the breeze, fingers lazily riding the wind.
It was quiet, and that quiet made me think too much.
Blanchette Redfield.
Even her name stirred something in me I didn’t want to look at closely.
Guilt, maybe. Or something deeper. She had no idea who I was.
No idea that after she’d left for Graymore to carve out her career miles away, I’d been the only person showing up in her grandmother’s life, checking in, mending fence posts.
Trimming the wild rose bushes June had loved so much, making sure the place still looked lived-in… even later when it wasn’t.
June had never asked for help. She’d never needed to. I’d just wanted to do something kind for someone who’d needed it and deserved it. Someone who’d given me kindness when no one else would. When folks would rather not engage with “the boy who grew up in those woods.”
Blanchette had never seen the weeds creep up the porch steps…or the windows built up with salt and dust. She hadn’t seen June’s loneliness settle in like the Everwick fog.
I had.
And still, she’d stayed away. Blanchette had never been there, not even toward the end. When it mattered most.
The girl had no business being back here on a retreat. A vacation. She hadn’t come to sort through her grandmother’s things or tend to the house or even pay her respects. She came to unwind—like this place wasn’t heavy with everything she’d left behind.
Maybe once I’d have understood her. Even defended her.
Back when I’d been clawing my way through Graymore’s courts, chasing wins and titles like they actually meant something.
I’d made a living out of turning motives into arguments, of dressing up excuses as justification.
I’d made my peace with a lot of things when I’d left.
But people who abandoned their roots and then acted surprised when they found rot?
I had no patience for that anymore.
I hated thinking. It always involved thoughts about things I hated thinking about.
My phone buzzed from the console, slicing through my thoughts.
I glanced down. May. Of course.
I let it ring once, then swiped to answer on speaker. “Yeah?”
“Jon-boy,” she said in that sweet, syrupy drawl of hers that always meant she was about to ruin my evening with a smile. “Hope you’re not already back and settled, ’cause I’ve got your honey-do list.”
I exhaled slowly. “Let’s hear it.”
“Well, for starters, that loose board on cabin four’s porch finally gave out. Nearly sent me flying, and I ain’t keen on airborne adventures anymore.”
“Ya sure? Maybe you should dust off the old broom. Might surprise yourself,” I replied, steering through the bend.
“Hardy har-har. Anyhow, the septic inspector’s gonna be here round one o’clock tomorrow.”
“I didn’t forget. Anything else?”
“Mm-hmm,” she said, unconvinced. “Also, there’s a whole pile of firewood behind the shed that needs splittin’. It’s been sittin’ so long, the spiders think it’s rent-controlled. And those sprites are back,” she added, clicking her tongue. “Undid a whole line of linens I just hung.”
I huffed a breath. “Thought you had wards up for them.”
“I do,” she shot back. “Doesn’t stop ’em bein’ little menaces.” A beat. “I started hittin ’em with bug repellent. Seems to do the trick.”
I shook my head.
“Oh—and word is the Harrowins sold off their land two days ago,” she added, almost absently. “Been in their family near a hundred years. Folk don’t just give that up—not out here.”
I rubbed the tension at the back of my neck. “All right, anything else? I want off the phone—signals breakin’ up.”
I was lying. Signal was fine; I just wanted to be alone.
“Try that line on someone who doesn’t know your tell, pup. Signal’s just fine.”
Dammit. Why do I even bother?
“And don’t get prickly. Ya asked me to remind ya—I’m just doin’ my job. Anyway…I’ll see ya both soon for supper.”
“Uh—about that…” My grip on the wheel tightened. “I showed up to the pickup spot we agreed on. She wasn’t there,” I said flatly. But I could already hear the judgment in her silence, so I quickly added, “I figured she had things to do and would find her own way back.”
“So…what? Ya just left her there?”
I stayed quiet.
“Well, aren’t ya a gentleman. And they say chivalry is dead,” May replied sarcastically.
“Might I remind ya, she’s a guest. Have ya considered that if ya keep this up, she might just surprise ya with a blemish of a review for your less than accommodatin’ treatment toward her?
How would that look so early into this venture?
Not to mention, that girl’s not from up here in these woods.
She doesn’t know these roads. She barely got here in one piece on her own the first time. Ya gonna let her try her luck twice?”
“You know why I don’t like her.”
“Yes, I do…” She sighed softly. “But that’s no excuse.”
She let the pause sit, heavy with disappointment.
“The roads will be pitch black soon, Jon…kinda like your heart, if you’re not careful.”
She never called me Jon. No one did. I hated it. Which was probably why she used it now—sharp and deliberate. I knew she wasn’t intending to bruise my feelings, only to make a point.
I let out a slow breath through my nose, jaw tight. “I’ll go back.”
“Damn right ya will,” she said. “And you’ll bring her back with both her groceries and her pride intact, if ya can manage it.”
“I don’t know where she is.”
“Ya sure about that? I’m gonna let you think about that one, Counselor…see what the evidence tells ya.”
And right before I could fire back, the call clicked off.
I stared at the screen for a moment, then shoved the phone back onto the console and turned the wheel hard at the next turnout, tires grinding on gravel as I reversed course.
Back to Everwick.
It didn’t take long to get back into town.
Everwick was quieter at dusk. Lanterns flickered to life along the narrow lanes, casting soft pools of light over cobblestone and ivy.
A few pedestrians lingered, their conversations low, their steps unhurried.
Tourists or a few of the town’s quieter regulars who still respected the hush that fell over Everwick after dark.
I should’ve been back up to the B&B by now.
I had a list a mile long waiting for me at the Hollow—endless repairs and upgrades, firewood to split before the next group of guests arrived, and a mountain of paperwork my father had left behind.
Permits, contracts, old legal filings—all of it half-sorted and scattered like breadcrumbs he’d never intended anyone to follow.
Some days it felt like I wasn’t just running a B&B…
I was excavating a legacy, one giant, forgotten mess at a time.
I coasted down Sandshore Drive, scanning the familiar storefronts, the bistro lights twinkling overhead, the breeze from the sea threading through the open windows.
I turned down familiar roads as if on auto-pilot.
Then I saw it…the low white fence, the trellis draped in wisteria still heavy with blooms.
June’s cottage.
And there she was.
Sitting on the old garden bench, shoulders hunched, a bag of groceries at her feet. Her body language said everything her partially hidden face didn’t—like whatever storm she’d been holding back had finally passed but had left her hollow in its wake.
I pulled over slowly.
Leaving the engine running as I stepped out, I shut the door softly behind me. I didn’t say anything right away but just stood for a moment, taking her in. This strange mess of a woman who had been thrown at me.
The soft light from the porch caught her hair, turned it to bronze. Her face was turned away, but the tension in her frame told me she knew I was there.
“I’ve been looking for you,” I said quietly.
She didn’t look up at first. But when she did, her eyes were still a little glassy, her face and cheeks rosy red. It was obvious she’d been crying. And for a while. I rubbed at my chest with the realization when I felt a dull ache.
“How did you find me?” she asked, voice hushed, somewhat embarrassed.
“May has a talent for these things.”
A long pause. Then she asked, “Are you here to be rude to me again?”
I gave a slow breath through my nose. “No.”
“I don’t understand why you’d come back for me. You said you’d leave if I wasn’t at the pickup point…”
This made me feel worse. And, strangely, for the first time, I started to wonder if I had gauged the situation completely wrong with this poor girl.
I mean, I didn’t really know her, and yet I was judging her entire character from one slice of her life.
I knew how that felt. It had been done to me a lot in the past—in my career and life.
“I’m here now.” I let that sit for a moment, then gently added, “The sun’s going down pretty quickly, and it’s best if we go back before the road gets too dark. It can be dangerous at night.”
She hesitated. I could see her deciding whether to argue, to dig in and stay just to be contrary. But she didn’t. Instead, she slowly stood, straightened out, and wiped her cheeks.
She went to grab her groceries at the same time I moved to pick them up, and our hands collided. Skin against skin, warmth catching between us, too fast and too soon.
Her breath hitched. I glanced up to apologize but stopped when I saw the color in her face. Red. Again. Not sadness this time. Embarrassment, maybe. Or something closer to surprise. I tried to pretend I hadn’t noticed…but she saw that I had.
For a moment, maybe longer, neither of us pulled away.
There was something there as her flesh grazed mine, and heat bloomed under my skin, sharp and alive.
My instincts flared—the wrong kind. The ones that didn’t care about reasons or boundaries or the past. The ones that prowled under my skin, ancient and feral, stirred by contact and proximity.
A spark. A flicker of static that passed between us in the smallest touch, as if the air had gone eerily still and was now searching for a reason to ignite.
She looked up then, and I caught the shift in her expression, soft and startled. Something I didn’t want to name. That unspoken thing that threaded between us now, quiet but undeniable.
I cleared my throat, took the bag gently from between us, and turned away before I could think too hard about it. This was the last thing I needed. Not now. Not here. Not with her.
I loaded the bag into the truck without a word, then moved around and opened the passenger door for her.
She blinked like she wasn’t expecting the gesture. Given the way I’d been treating her since she’d arrived…I guess I hadn’t either.
She jumped up into the cab, and we didn’t speak when I climbed into the driver’s seat. But the air between us had changed. It was charged now.
This time she didn’t slam the door.
This time the silence wasn’t cold.
We pulled onto the road in that silence as I drove us out of Everwick and up the main highway toward Juniper Woods.
Finally, she offered, “That cottage…it belonged to my grandmother. I…I didn’t expect it to look like that. I guess someone’s been taking care of the garden. It’s strange…but then again, she was well-loved in the community.” A pause came. Then, she added, “It means a lot.”
I didn’t look at her, just kept my eyes on the road.
“It’s odd how time passes,” she continued, her voice wistful, her face turned toward the window.
Night was falling fast. “How a single day can feel like a year or a year can feel like a single day. It’ll almost be a year since she died…
but I feel like no time has passed at all.
I feel like she should still be there. In that cottage she loved so much.
Maybe that’s why I couldn’t go in. Because… I didn’t want to find it empty.”
Her voice wobbled a bit. The darkness of the road allowed me to catch her solemn expression, reflected in the glass.
She sniffed, then shook her head, her eyes flickering to me before they lowered. Was that embarrassment? If so, I didn’t want to add to it. I just kept my eyes on the road.
“Sorry,” she said, faking a quick smile. “I didn’t mean to, um, to lay that on you. I just haven’t been back to Everwick in a long time. I didn’t expect…well, anyway. Thanks for the ride back.”
I didn’t say anything. Just gave a small nod.
Then I reached over and turned on the radio, keeping the volume low. The rest of the ride passed quietly. Not like before. Not tense or sharp. Just…quiet. Calm, even.
And that was enough.