Chapter 30
The red cabin is at the end of a long gravel road, burrowed in a small aspen grove a few yards from a narrow artery of the river.
After several attempts at the doorbell, I almost give up before the door swings open, revealing a guy about our age, with dark hair that rests on his shoulders and an untrimmed beard.
He doesn’t say anything and looks from me to Beau and back, waiting for us to get to the point.
“Hi.” I coax a smile into my voice. “I’m sorry to bother you. I’m looking for my mother. She disappeared decades ago, but we have reason to believe she may have lived at this house about fifteen years ago. I know this is a long shot, but—”
“What’s her name?” he cuts in, his dark eyes narrowing.
“Mary Ann Johnson Dahl.” I hand him the photos, and he studies them, flipping through a few before handing them back to me.
“I don’t know where she is.”
He steps back, begins to close the door before I stammer out, “But you know her?” The blood is rushing in my ears, and my throat is tight.
His reaction feels personal, and all the hairs on my arms stand up.
Beau must sense something, too, because he places his palm on the small of my back, an I’m here gesture that anchors me.
The guy sighs. “I don’t know who you are or what you want. But I’m not in the habit of talking to strangers about ancient history.”
I shove the photo toward him. “Mary is my mother, and it sounds like you know her.”
“Look, I don’t remember much. She lived here for a while when I was in high school—she was dating my dad. It got ugly. She left.”
“Your dad,” I say, hoping he’s willing to provide more information. I feel closer to the truth than I ever have—and I can’t lose this clue.
“What about him?” It feels threatening when he steps through the threshold, but I don’t recoil. I sense Beau coming closer, leaning forward in a subtle warning. He has several inches on this guy, who has quite a few on me.
“Would he know more?” I ask.
The guy grunts. “I doubt it. It’s not like they send each other Christmas cards.”
“Would he be willing to speak to me?” I ask, doing my best to stay calm despite the information I’m absorbing, despite this guy’s hostility.
He crosses his arms over his chest and studies me before looking to Beau and back. “He’s not here.”
“Could I contact him?”
A gust of wind blows through, rustling the aspens that cloak the small cabin. A set of wind chimes sing in the corner, and it’s a dissonant harmony against the backdrop of the moment. The guy continues to stare at us, and I wait him out.
“He moved out of state.”
“Would you mind sharing his number?” I ask, undeterred.
He laughs again, but there’s less bite in it. “You’re relentless.”
“Have you ever been lied to?” I ask the guy.
His expression clears, and I sense he’s listening now.
“When I was a kid, my dad told me my mother was dead. I learned she was alive only a few weeks ago—right after my dad’s funeral.
I’m following breadcrumbs across state lines, searching for clues or answers or closure or .
.. something. But I’ve only hit dead ends.
Anything your dad could tell me would be helpful. ”
He levels me with a hard stare. “I feel bad for you—assuming you’re telling the truth—but I have no reason to trust you.”
Beau reaches across me to give the guy his card. I notice that my name and number are scribbled on the back. Beau must have prepared for this possibility, keeping his fingertip on the white flag all this time.
“If you could pass this along. It contains our contact information. It would mean a lot.”
The guy eyes it like potential poison, but finally grabs it. “Can’t promise he’ll call.”
“I understand,” I say. “Whatever you can do.”
Beau slips his hand around my waist and turns us. “Thanks for your time,” he says as we walk to the car.
“Hey,” the guy calls out when I open the passenger door, “all those dead ends you mentioned? They may not be clues, but they could be a sign that you’re better off not finding her.”
“Ophelia,” Beau beckons. I climb in the car, my focus on the rearview mirror as we drive away.
We check in to an inn in Medford that night. It’s a short drive to the Jackson County Courthouse where the court order was filed, and I’ll have enough time to swing by tomorrow to see if I can access the missing pages—or any other court document that might give me answers.
When the receptionist at the inn asks us how many rooms we need, Beau and I don’t hesitate before saying “one” in unison. This thing with us is still new, but when Beau curls his fingers in mine, it feels right.
Beau asked me if I was okay in about a hundred different ways during the drive.
The answer is more complicated than yes or no.
I was swimming in all varieties of frightening emotions—reeling from the feel of his palm on my thigh as we drove, struck by the stolen kisses at stoplights, and sinking with the realization that we might be chasing a dead woman, after all.
My mother’s trace ran cold almost a decade ago.
She could have died before I realized she was alive.
I can’t tell if that guy at the red cabin knew more than he let on.
I don’t know if his last words were intended to be a cryptic clue or a warning.
But other emotions simmer under the surface as well. Jealousy, I think. And anger. While I was growing up and trying to figure myself out—making mistakes, adrift without a mother to model self-respect—she was raising someone else’s teenager.
Our room is plain and sterile but has a king bed centered across the wall with a half dozen pillows. I want to fall on top of it. Right now. But I have two days of filth—and Beau—on me.
“Go ahead, take the first shower,” Beau says. He must read the longing on my face as I look toward the bathroom. I almost ask if he wants to join me, but I’ll feel sexier once clean.
I luxuriate. I use every bath product I brought, which is admittedly minimal.
I exfoliate, shave my legs, let the conditioner do its best to repair my dry hair, and moisturize with the cupcake-batter lotion Beau seemed to appreciate the other night.
The steam is curling over my shoulders as I leave the bathroom in a scrap of a towel, hoping to grab Beau’s attention—hoping he’ll help me shut out the confusion for a night.
But he’s on the phone near the window, pacing and rubbing his hand through his hair. He startles and swivels toward me. An expression crosses his face too quickly to read.
“I have to go.” He turns away. “I know. I hear you. But I can’t talk about this now.”
I step back into the bathroom to give him privacy. He knocks on the door a few moments later, looking sheepish.
“Sorry,” he mumbles.
But I wave my arms in a gesture that appears more erratic than unconcerned, so I pull them back to fiddle with the towel in a useless attempt at tucking in the end.
“It’s fine.” I sneak by him as he hovers at the threshold.
I sense his eyes on me, but I shuffle through my bag, busying myself.
After a few moments, the bathroom door closes and the water turns on.
When Beau emerges, I’m on the bed with my laptop, catching up on work—a distraction quite different from the one I planned.
Beau settles beside me and plants a kiss on my shoulder before resting his forehead there. “So that was Bianca,” he exhales into my skin.
“I assumed.” I attempt to keep my voice neutral. I’m not jealous—just confused.
“I’m worried if I avoid her too often, she’ll make this more difficult. And I still feel guilty ignoring her calls—like something bad may have happened.”
“Beau,” I sigh, feeling the weight of his responsibility and my sorrow, “I was joking about being the other woman. But it’s not something I’d ever be okay with. Am I getting in the way of you reconciling—”
“No,” he says flatly, straightening his spine and putting a sliver of distance between us.
I don’t know if I have a right to ask for more.
It comes perilously close to asking about our future.
Which ... well, I can’t go there. We live on separate ends of the state and lead very different lives—and we’re both a bit broken.
For now, this trip is enough, I think. We can figure out the rest later.
“If I wanted to reconcile with Bianca—if I thought that was even a possibility—nothing would have happened between us. I’m not that guy.”
“Okay.” I don’t know what else to say. This conversation is too murky to wade into.
I don’t know how it starts. I don’t know where I want it to go.
He lost so much so quickly—and if anyone can understand that, it’s me.
I don’t want to hurry him through the grief of losing his marriage and hopes for their family.
“Hey.” He tips my chin to him. “I don’t like talking about Bianca, but if you need to—”
“I don’t,” I say quickly.
He draws his brows together, skeptical. But I want to assure him; I know what it cost him to confide in me last night because I know what it costs me every time I let him witness my darkest hurts.
“Okay.” He searches my face for evidence of the truth.
But the reality is, I want to feel better about it without talking about it.
I want to understand why my nagging insecurity is nudging me in the ribs.
I don’t know whether my lingering unease stems from concern about what Beau feels for Bianca or what he feels for me.
This trip has forced me to recalibrate everything I understood about Beau—how he interpreted our friendship breakup, how he really felt about me during all those tense years, how I misread him.
It’s easy to believe his version of our history when his mouth is on mine, when he’s inside me, and losing himself over me.
But then doubt creeps in.
Because I’ve always known men could want me—and still not want to stay.
“What is it, Phe?”