Around us, the others begin shuffling to their seats, buckles clinking. Jackie fiddles with hers, then leans back, looking out the small, round window again, shutting me out.
This isn’t the place for this conversation. So I say nothing. The silence swells between us, dense and murky, while the plane dips lower through the clouds.
The driver and the guard in the passenger seat are focused on the road as the large SUV zooms through the thick forest. A hundred questions burn the roof of my mouth, but I bite themback. I can’t risk opening Pandora’s box in the car. The more I flip her words on every side, the more her tone reeked of a lot more hidden beneath the surface.
“This is beautiful,” Jackie says, craning her neck to get a better look at the dark green wall of trees bordering the winding road.
I silently lean over her legs to lower the tinted window. She tilts her head into the rush of incoming air, playing through her blonde strands, her chest rising with a deep inhale.
“Is that…an eagle?” She points toward the river flowing in and out of view, her mouth parting in awe.
“Don’t get any ideas. You’ve had enough playtime with wild animals.”
She smirks and stage-whispers. “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you from the big bad bird.”
The driver hides a laugh behind a cough. In the rearview mirror, the security detail smothers his amusement, but he doesn’t say anything.
“We’re here.” I point to the crooked, weathered, hand-painted green town sign ahead.
Maple Hollow. Population 650.
The patched road narrows, tar seams thumping under the wheels, the forest closing in, and suddenly there’s the Pump N’ Munch gas station on our left.
“Adam.” My name wobbles with the barely contained laughter. Her head is still whipped toward the passing neon logo, shoulders shaking.
I bite back my own smile. “Please don’t. I’ve heard all the jokes.”
“I bet they’re all so eager to tell you,” she goes on, eyes shining, “that the punchline comes…prematurely.”
A distressed groan leaves my chest, and this time, both men laugh as we roll into Main Street, with its low buildings on each side. None taller than two stories around here.
“That’s the general store.” I point her to a wood-sided building, where two middle-aged men in cutoff shorts and fishing T-shirts laugh. “It doubles as a post office. And the town hall and fire station are in the same building.” I nod to another weathered brick building.
In the middle of town, the only stoplight is permanently set to blinking yellow.
“The mayor and fire chief are the same person, in the name of efficiency?” Jackie asks jokingly.
“At some point, it happened.”
She smiles to herself. “You weren’t kidding about the small in small-town.”
I’ve never talked too much about Maple Hollow. Not that I’m embarrassed by the past. I had a great childhood. Loving family. Friends who’d ask what car we were taking if I ever needed to bury a body.
But in rooms filled with people whose families built half of New York, I learned early on not to lead with this. Not to give them a reason to disqualify me from the start.
Not even Jackie could look past that.
“Did you think I was making it up for pity points?”
“I’m sure it garnered some sympathy with the ladies.”
This again. “It worked with you.”
“It had nothing to do with it.” She peels her attention off the view outside, her hair still swirling. When she stares into my soul like this, I get the urge to bring her closer and kiss her, but then she squashes any fantasy. “But I was obviously wrong.”
Tearing my skin on barbed wire would hurt less.
We pass modest homes with gravel driveways and mailboxes with names written by hand.
