Annie lowered the window and fresh forest air, impossibly green and sweet, filled the Jeep. In an instant, she was back in her childhood home, dragging a sleeping bag into the living room to spend the night beneath the Fraser fir her father brought in, fresh cut, every December.
Annie inhaled the evergreen scent and turned to Jake, surprising herself with a laugh.
“If you could bottle that, you’d make millions.”
“Right?” He nodded. “I can’t really smell it much anymore, but whenever I leave and come back, it’s strong as perfume for a day or two. Best smell in the world, isn’t it?”
He was looking at her with that smile again, the one Annie was already starting to think of as his signature grin, and she smiled back. Despite her best efforts not to, she could feel herself thawing toward him. It might be nice to have a friend in town.
“Right here, this is the place.” He nodded toward a driveway on the left marked by a mailbox that was indeed shaped like a trout, wide-eyed and gaping.
Annie pulled the Jeep in next to a blue sedan parked beside thedetached garage and killed the engine. The garage door was open, and inside, a man with silver at his temples stood bent over a humming table saw.
“My dad, Walt.” Jake reached over to tap the horn and lifted a hand when his father looked up. Walt offered a quick wave, then turned back to the board he was sawing.
Annie stepped out of the car, gazing open-mouthed at the fir trees towering around the white house. They were gigantic. Monstrous. Each one surely hundreds of years old, their great boughs moving in the wind with a sound like rushing water, and Annie was struck by the sudden, unpleasant thought that just one of these trees toppling in the wrong direction could smash the entire house and everyone in it to bits.
The front door opened, and a woman wearing an apron patterned with sunflowers came out onto the stoop.
“Come on in!” she called. “Pie just came out of the oven.”
Annie followed Jake toward the house, where he introduced his mother, Laura Proudy, who wiped her hands on her apron and took both of Annie’s with a squeeze.
“It’s real nice to meet you, Annie,” she said, vowels curling with the hint of a leftover Southern accent. The fine lines on her face spoke of mirth and patience, and Annie warmed to her immediately, thinking that she looked something like her own mother might have, if she’d lived into her early fifties.
Laura led them into a messy, inviting kitchen and pulled out a chair for Annie at the table, while Jake claimed the one beside it.
“I bet you’re hungry after all your travel.”
Annie nodded, though it wasn’t true.
She hadn’t been hungry in weeks. There were moments when she felt empty, or when the growling of her stomach propelled her in search of food, but nothing had truly tempted her appetite since the moment that her life fell out from under her like a trapdoor.
This morning at the bed-and-breakfast, she’d woken to a knock and discovered a wicker basket sitting in the hall outside. Her name waswritten in Sally’s looping cursive on a pink place card, and beneath the linen napkin were two Swedish pancakes, rolled and stuffed to bursting with lingonberry jam and vanilla-scented whipped cream on a silver-lined plate. They were beautiful, but Annie sat alone at the little table in her room, cutting precise bites with her fork and forcing them down without tasting them.
She ate as a means to keep moving—as fuel, as a necessity to push forward. She had seen what sadness could do to a person’s body, and she would not lose one ounce of her hard-earned strength over Brendan. She would cling to it like a bulldog, sinking her teeth in.
“Go ahead and have a seat, honey, I’ll serve the two of you up,” Laura said, pressing Annie into her chair with a hand on each shoulder.
Annie sat, the corners of her mouth lifting. It was blatantly obvious where Jake had gotten his bubbly personality and complete disregard for personal boundaries.
Laura plated two heaping slices of pie and topped them with generous clouds of canned whipped cream before setting them on the table.
“Thank you,” Annie said, blowing on the steam before taking a bite.
She turned to Jake, whose brows were raised in expectation, and nodded. He hadn’t lied. It was easily the best pie she’d ever tasted, tart and sweet and bursting with summery flavor.
“This is delicious,” she said.
“It really is, thanks, Mom,” Jake managed around an enormous mouthful.
Laura smiled and stepped back to the counter to gather the dishes.
Annie glanced down at her plate. Something in this pie elevated the strawberry and rhubarb. Orange zest, maybe, or lemon. Something that set it apart from the only other strawberry-rhubarb pie she’d ever tasted, the one Brendan’s sister had made on the beach trip the whole family had taken down to Brookings.
No. She wouldn’t think about that right now. Even the happy memories were unsafe. Maybe especially those.
Annie turned to Jake. “You mentioned the cougar was heading south from Warner Lake. How far is that from here?”
