My jaw drops. “Are you kidding me? Is that seriously what you think is going on here?”
His gaze flickers to me before shifting off, as if meeting my eyes is uncomfortable. “I don’t know what I think. Been tryin’ to figure you out. Maybe … yeah. Nothin’ else makes sense.”
“God, you are such a—” Just helping him doesn’t make sense? My hands grip the steering wheel, shaking with rage. “Well, funny, I’ve been trying to figure you out, too, and all I see is a miserable, sad old man waiting to die in the woods, alone.”
“Never claimed I was anything else, did I?” With a grimace of pain, he slides out of the passenger side, slamming the door behind him. He hobbles down his laneway.
“You know what, Roy? Screw you!” I holler out the window.
“Maybe you’ll listen to me when I tell you to stay away!” he fires back.
“You win! I am done helping you!” My voice is husky with emotion. I add after a beat, “And I don’t care if that bear eats you on your way home!”
“Don’t worry, it won’t. I’m too bitter.”
I throw the truck in reverse and jam my foot on the gas, then slam on the brake to keep myself from hitting the tree on the other side. I race home, my tires kicking stones and dust along the way.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Hey,” I croak.
“Happy birthday to you … happy birthday to you …”
Mom’s and Simon’s singing—Simon’s tuneless, my mother’s high and rhythmic—fill my ear. I smile despite the pounding headache behind my temple.
“Are you not up already?” my mom asks when they’ve finished serenading me.
I glance at the clock on the nightstand. It’s almost nine. “Jonah let me sleep in.” I roll onto my back, squinting at the bright daylight that casts a glow around the edges of the blackout curtains. The other side of the bed is empty. Jonah was supposed to wake me by seven so we could be in the air early, but that plan was made before I opened a bottle of wine last night, waiting for him to get home from work. “Did you know that consuming alcohol while sitting in a hot tub can be lethal? Like, they should put it in the manual.” Maybe they did. I only skimmed over the warnings.
“Good time ringing in your twenty-seventh?” Simon asks, amusement in his British lilt.
I groan again, throwing my arm over my eyes. “I think so?” Memories of the night come rushing to me. Jonah, rolling up to the house at ten after finishing his day water-bombing flames. Me, three glasses into a bottle of California Cabernet—my anger with Roy stymied, and my inhibitions dulled—stumbling out of the hot tub to meet him on the driveway, naked and attempting seduction, oblivious to the mosquitos. Things progressed quickly from there.
Or regressed, depending on how you look at it.
Jonah certainly must have had a good night.
I wince at the enormous welt on my arm. I can only imagine how many more I have on my body. I’ll be spending my birthday itchy and doped up on Benadryl.
“So, our birthday gift to you is on its way,” my mom says, her voice humming with excitement. “We’re so sorry, we tried to get it to you yesterday. But the courier confirmed it should be there within the hour, so try not to leave before it arrives.”
They’ve piqued my interest. “Is it something I need to sign for?”
“No, but you definitely don’t want to leave it on your front porch for the weekend,” Simon quips, earning my mother’s tittering laughter.
“You two are weird. It’s a lemon cake, isn’t it?”
“You’ll have to wait and see!”
“Whatever it is, I’m sure I’ll love it.” It has to be lemon cake. They’ve been “surprising” me with one every year since the local baker mastered a dairy-free buttercream icing for me. But can they even ship that all the way from Toronto?
Of course, my mother would find a way. I applaud her determination.
“We so wish we were there, darling, but you know how June is with all the weddings and graduations and proms. It’s like a month of Valentine’s Days.”
“No worries. I remember.” When my mother is home—which isn’t often during that month—Simon hides in his office and I tiptoe around her.
“Do you have any guesses for where Jonah’s taking you?” Simon asks.
“No, but he promised it doesn’t involve an outhouse.” Though, at this point, I’d be fine with going somewhere remote, somewhere our phones don’t work and there are no TVs to broadcast news of the fires raging on. Somewhere where I have Jonah entirely to myself, where he says the right things and makes romantic gestures and reminds me why I’d chase him to the ends of the earth.
Which, some days lately, it feels like I already have.
I am desperate for this weekend away with him, which is absurd given we live together.
“Well, I’m sure he’s going to spoil you.” Again, with my mother’s tittering laugh, as if she knows something I don’t.
I can’t imagine what his gift to me will be this time. Should I be preparing myself for another joke? Matching camo pants to go with the jacket from Christmas?
He’ll have a hard time topping the airplane pendant.
Unless he proposes.
My stomach leaps with anticipation. It’s been more than a month since we visited the safety cabin, since the pregnancy scare and the potentially disastrous engine failure. I haven’t asked and he hasn’t hinted.
But that would certainly make this day memorable.
I say my goodbyes to Mom and Simon, and then holler into our quiet house, “Jonah! You promised me coffee in bed today!” He even made me demonstrate how to use the barista machine and write out the steps for making my latte.
A few moments go by with no answer. “Jonah?”
Still nothing.
A vague recollection of his phone ringing early this morning stirs in my memory. I remember the low, gravelly sound of his sleepy voice as he answered, but I remember little else.
I haul myself out of bed and stagger to the bathroom, angling for a long, hot shower to wash the chlorine from my skin and steam the alcohol from my pores.
The Post-it stuck to the middle of the mirror stalls me in my tracks.
Sorry, Sam called. Really needed me. I’ll be back in a few hours. Promise. Happy birthday!
I read the note several times over to make sure I haven’t somehow misconstrued it, to make sure I’m not still drunk, all while a sinking feeling settles into my stomach. That phone call I heard was Sam. He was calling to ask Jonah to come in to work on his weekend off.
And, instead of saying he can’t, instead of saying that it’s my birthday and he promised me a weekend away, Jonah said yes to Sam and stuck a Post-it Note to the bathroom mirror.
A few hours, my ass. When has he ever been back after a few hours? He could easily be gone all day.
But it’s a horrendous fire, I tell myself, trying to settle the gnawing ache in my chest and the lump forming in my throat. A fire that is running rampant, destroying forest, killing animals, chasing people from their homes.
What Jonah’s doing is important, I tell myself, even as hot tears trickle down my cheeks, the wave of hurt and disappointment overwhelming.