Page 37

“Mama. When she brings us here, she likes to look at the puzzles over there.” He points to a shelf of puzzles that I hadn’t even noticed.

Scarlett did mention that she likes puzzles and problem-solving. She’s not a big phone person, but she does her crossword every morning and I’ve seen her tapping away at the odd sudoku. And she loves to sit at the kitchen table and help the kids with their puzzles, but these ones are more grown-up than the “Horses of the World” puzzle they’ve been chipping away at over the past week. It’s exactly the kind of thing she wouldn’t buy for herself—something pretty and just for her.

“You want to help me pick one out for her?” I ask James, and he runs over to the puzzles so fast, he knocks down a whole row of capybara plushies.

Landon eyes the puzzle in the trunk of my rental car warily.

“James picked it,” I tell him, pushing the neon-colored dolphin puzzle box aside to show him the cozy Christmas fireplace puzzle beneath it. “I picked that one.”

“She’ll like that,” he says, and though I don’t need his reassurance, I won’t say no to it.

James asked if we could swing by the farm to give Landon the picture he drew at pre-school of his dogs, Honey and Finn, so I put my big boy pants on and called him to ask if we could. He still scares me, but I figured he wouldn’t say no to James, and he didn’t.

When I pulled up outside the farmhouse that once belonged to Piper’s family, he was waiting with a crate of vegetables.

“A family gave me these as a thank you for dropping their Christmas tree off. Scarlett loves parsnip and carrot soup,” he tells me as I move the puzzles aside for him to put the crate in the trunk. “I’ll text you the recipe. Is she letting you cook for her yet?”

“Kind of? Mostly, I do it while she’s at work and can’t say no.”

“If it works, it works.”

We lean back against the car, watching James run around with Finn. How he has so much energy after a full day of pre-school, I have no idea, but he seems happy, and I can’t stop myself from smiling as I watch him winding around the trees.

“You got time to stick around a while? I could use an extra set of hands.”

I want to give Scarlett as much time with Caitlin as I can. And I would really like to get on Landon’s good side, so I accept.

Landon leads me to an old shed that’s set up like a workshop. There’s hardly any space to move inside, thanks to the giant pile of pre-cut firewood. Landon’s workbench is covered in a stack of mesh sacks. There are a few filled by the door, but he’s barely made a dent. Honey is snoring softly on a squishy plaid dog bed under the bench.

“Stay in sight, buddy,” Landon calls to James, leaving the door open. He gestures to a clearly handcrafted wooden stool that looks like it might be older than me, but it holds under my weight.

I grab a sack from the bench. “Any particular amount, or just until it’s full?”

“As many as you can fit without breaking the sack. I have more firewood in my shed, so I want to get this stack cleared as soon as possible.”

I start piling wood into my bag, grateful for my gloves. The last thing I need is a splinter.

“You mind if I put the game on?” Landon asks, nodding to the small TV mounted on the wall.

I shake my head. “Go for it.” I’m not sure which game he means, but I should’ve guessed it would be hockey, all things considered. He doesn’t have the sound on, and I’ve never seen a game of hockey, so I have no idea what’s happening, but Landon glances between the stack of wood and the TV, glaring at the score.

“Who’s your team?” I ask him. I can’t tell who’s playing from the abbreviations, but I can tell Landon clearly isn’t a fan of one team.

“Calgary, when they’re playing. When they’re not, anyone but Montreal. They’re the ones in white. Atlanta’s in red.”

“Why not Montreal?”

Landon scowls as Montreal scores, and the camera pans to a grinning player in white wearing the number seventy-nine. “Because of him. Cole Bennett—Piper’s brother. We hate him.”

His tone doesn’t leave much room to ask questions. “Noted. Go Atlanta.”

It’s not an uncomfortable silence—if you could call it silence, with Honey’s snoring and James’s happy giggles as he throws a ball for Finn—but I have to fight down the urge to fill the room with chatter in a lame attempt to get Landon to like me. I get the feeling he isn’t someone who talks, unless he has something to say.

So, when he side-eyes me and says, “I’m glad you came by, actually. I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” it feels important.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. About Scar. Obviously.”