Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
Whatever was happening inside that house wasn’t Nash’s business. That was what he told himself as he stared at his pretty neighbor right now.
He just needed to drop this and move on.
Before coming to this town, he’d told himself that Fog Lake was just a place to let his gunshot wound finish healing. He needed to keep his distance from anyone and everyone.
Besides, after everything that happened with Allison, he really did need to keep his distance.
What had happened back in Nashville had been the perfect storm of heartaches. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever be the same person again—and he wasn’t just talking about his physical well-being either.
He had a lot of healing to do.
Which was why he should stay away from his neighbors. He sensed their secrets ran deep, and deep secrets meant trouble. Trouble was the last thing he needed.
Despite that, he was already cataloguing details from his brief visit. The tremor in Bo’s owner’s hands. The way she kept glancing behind her as if she expected someone to disappear or something.
She was holding herself together for him to see. Whatever falling apart looked like, she’d save it for when she was alone.
He could probably pull a file on her and find out information about her past.
But that would be a bad idea.
Especially since he was on leave from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
It’s not your town, he told himself. Not your family.
“Well, I’ll see you around,” he finally said.
“I’ll see you around,” she repeated.
As he walked away, he couldn’t help but feel like he was making a mistake.
Wren closed the door and stood there a moment.
She’d been tempted to open up to her neighbor. But she hadn’t—and that had been a good call.
Though she understood the temptation. He was a big man, tall and built like someone who’d done a lot of physical work at some point. He had dark hair that needed cutting and about four days of beard. Early thirties maybe, with one of those faces that had settled into a permanent slight frown.
None of that was the problem. The problem was his eyes. They were brown, steady, and unhurried, and when he’d asked if she was okay, he’d waited for the answer like he had all day.
The thought unnerved her.
She didn’t know the man. But she did know that he used to be a detective and that his name was Nash.
She’d known it a couple of weeks, ever since one of her regulars at the salon had told her during a shampoo: You know the new guy renting the Pruitt place?
Used to be some hotshot detective for the state.
Nashville, I think. Got shot on the job.
Wren had filed the information away and mostly forgotten it, because knowing Nash used to carry a badge hadn’t changed the fact that he was, in every interaction she’d actually had with him, grumpy and entirely too obsessed with keeping an oversized but adorable dog from wandering onto his side of the property line.
Was it her fault Bo was friendly? No. But she knew it was more than that. Her dog was overbearing. A goblin. That was what Nora called him—on good days.
However, what was she supposed to do? A fence was entirely too expensive, and she wasn’t going to tie her dog up to a tree.
The last thing she wanted was another complication in her life—and Nash was just that.
She turned back to her family.
Christian stared at her from the kitchen table. “Who was he?”
“Just a neighbor,” she explained.
Christian seemed to measure her words before beginning to eat again.
He was eating like he hadn’t eaten in days—which might genuinely be true. Nora had put together a ham sandwich, chips, and some yogurt. Christian had gone through half of it before any of them had said a word, shoveling each bite into his mouth.
They hadn’t asked him questions. Not yet.
Marlowe watched him from across the table, the same cautious, held-back hope on her face that Wren suspected was on her own.
Wren couldn’t stop looking at him.
She kept trying to overlay the seven-year-old she remembered with this one.
His jaw was wrong—too heavy and square—but faces did that.
His hairline was right. So were his ears.
When he reached for the water, his hand moved the way Christian’s used to, quick and a little clumsy, like he expected to knock something over.
It fit.
Then he turned his head, and it didn’t.
His sleeve had ridden up when he picked up the sandwich, and she saw the scar on his forearm. It was pale, thin, and right where it should be.
Except she couldn’t be certain it was right where it should be. She’d looked at that scar a thousand times when she was younger, and she’d never once thought she’d need to remember exactly where it sat.
Nora set a glass of water in front of Christian. “We need to talk about Mom and Dad—about if we should tell them about this . . . this . . . turn of events.”
Christian went still. “They should know. Why wouldn’t you tell them? Don’t they want to see me? Where are they even? Why aren’t they here?”
Nora and Wren traded a look.
“It’s not that simple,” Nora finally said. “Mom’s—she’s not been well, Christian. Not since you disappeared.”
“What does that mean?” His expression took on that of a little boy—all worry and devastating concern. “Where is she? Is she okay?”
“She has her own place in town now, and some days are better than others,” Nora said.
“This is going to be a lot for her. And Dad’s got his own life two hours from here.
He hasn’t been a part of our lives in years.
I don’t know how to even start that conversation, let alone what he does once he’s in it. ”
“I need to see them.” For the first time since Christian had walked out of the woods, his voice carried something that didn’t sound fragile. “Both of them. Please.”