Barbara White - The In-Between Hour

“My dad’s had a few rough years since my mom died. She was his life. His world collapsed and he’s...he’s not bouncing out of his grief.” The hitch in his voice was surprising. Unnerving. “We drove by your place earlier and it seemed peaceful. I think it would be good for him—the quiet, the forest. He’s always loved the forest. It would only be temporary, until I figure out what to do long-term.”

Silence. Was she digesting what she knew about his dad and Hawk’s Ridge? How much had Poppy told her? How much should he tell her?

Hannah sighed. “Okay, then.”

“He’s suffering some short-term memory loss. Is that a problem?”

“I don’t know. Should it be?”

Wait, she’d totally agreed. Why was he risking more information than necessary? He held the phone tight against his cheek. “My dad can be difficult.”

“And you can’t be?”

Was she teasing him?

“When he gets confused he gets upset,” Will said. “I think the lack of control scares him.”

“Lack of control scares most people.”

“Did Poppy tell you what happened at Hawk’s Ridge?”

“In some detail, yes.”

“I know how it looks, but he’s not violent.” Although the old man had just been kicked out of a retirement home for brawling. “Dad doesn’t even squish bugs. I had this pathological fear of spiders as a kid. He taught me how to catch and release them.” Did he just reveal personal details to a fan? “But I’ll be with him the whole time.”

“It’s fine.” He could hear her smile. “A senescent grandfather doesn’t bother me in the least.”

How perfect, she had used the word senescent. Will loved to be surprised by people’s word choices. Words held such power and such beauty. And such escape. As a young boy, he chose magical not mad to describe his mother. As an adult, he chose alive, not dead, to describe his son.

“You said this was temporary, but I prefer a six-month lease.” She gave a soft laugh, an easy laugh. No drama. “Is that a problem?”

Yeah, because if he thought he’d still be in Orange County in six days let alone six months, he’d kill himself and his dad. But he could easily pay out the lease. It was just money. The one thing he had plenty of.

“It’s not a problem if we can move in tomorrow.”

They discussed a price—or rather she suggested a figure and he agreed. Then Will hung up and cracked open the bathroom door. The old man snuffled from one of the twin beds with the psychedelic comforters. The giant map, stored away in its thick casing, lay on the floor next to him. Memories-to-go rolled up safe and sound. At some point they would have to return to Hawk’s Ridge—box up the rest of his mother’s knickknacks and arrange for a mover to haul the furniture, even though his dad had said it could stay for all he cared. Wasn’t his goddamn furniture, was it?

The old man had a point. Will had purchased it while his dad was at the rehabilitation center. New furniture for a fresh start, that had been the plan, but Will had given no thought to his dad’s taste. Problem was, he didn’t know if the old man had any taste. Always his mom set the tone; always his dad followed.

Even when his mom was going whacko and smashing crockery, his parents had a bond that excluded everyone. One of the reasons he’d been such a self-reliant kid. That and the fact of being a midlife oops baby, a bear cub—Little Moondi—according to his dad. But bear cubs were meant to follow and learn from their mothers, not run from them. When they were teenagers, Ally had pronounced him to be a coyote, and he’d believed her. Until he’d found out that coyotes often mated for life.

Eight

The pale green Prius from the day before crawled to the end of her driveway, and Will Shepard turned neatly to one side in a considerate act of parking.

His author photo had revealed nothing. Black-and-white, it was taken from a distance as he glanced over his shoulder. Headshots didn’t seem to be to his liking. Hannah had seen a partial of his face years ago in an out-of-date People magazine picked up in the dentist’s waiting room. At the time, she’d just finished the third Agent Dodds adventure, and her radar had been tuned to all things Will Shepard. If she remembered correctly, the photo had shown him escorting a young heiress to a gala.

Hannah fingered the key, and the dogs cowered around her. She could lavish ten more lifetimes of unconditional love on her babies, and still fear would stalk them. Daisy’s abuse had gone beyond neglect. The dog had been forced to fight. So many damaged creatures had passed through Hannah’s life in the past twenty years and most of them had come from Poppy. Now her friend had brought her a bestselling author and his grieving dad. A small happening that felt huge.

Hannah read Will’s bumper stickers: “I’d Rather Be Writing,” and “Love a Climber, They Use Protection.” Climbing—that made sense since Agent Dodds was an extreme sports freak. Was his creator an adrenaline junkie, too? Or a nocturnal reveler who dated beautiful socialites? The two of them hadn’t signed anything. If she had even a twinge of doubt, she would renege.

Will turned to talk with his father, and Hannah drummed her fingers on the porch railing. Impatience didn’t come often, but she had an appointment in... Unbelievable, she was wearing both her watch and her dad’s, and yet she had no memory of putting on either one. Focusing on life’s details was becoming impossible. She sighed.

Would it be inappropriate to ask Will to sign his books? Or would he be offended that she didn’t own anything beyond volume five? Galen was scathing about commercial fiction, especially the kind of thrillers Will had produced in recent years. Her MFA poet preferred incomprehensible allegories written by alcoholics and drug addicts who’d been dead for at least a century. And he would not be happy when he discovered she was renting out the cottage. Privacy was everything to Galen, and since the age of thirteen, he had proved himself worthy of trust, not surveillance. But during the previous night’s phone conversation with Will, she had realized it was time, once again, to adapt.

Coincidence spoke of connection, and renting the cottage to an aging widower was nothing short of symmetry. Her father would approve. No, he would applaud. After all, the cottage had been built as his refuge. And what if it went deeper than that? Her father’s last selfless act had been to protect Galen and Liam, to spare them from the moment of his death, to wander into the woods to die alone. What if some echo of that love reverberated across Saponi Mountain, telling her to contain Galen in his childhood room where she could keep him safe? Her mother had believed that the dead often remained tethered to the living—trapped either in their desire to right wrongs or in their refusal to leave loved ones. Hannah, too, was drawn to the idea that the dead never really moved on, although often it was the living who refused to let them go.

Kookiness aside, renting the cottage was a sound financial move. Galen had become a dropout in need of aid. Her father’s money was gone and she barely made a living, but Will hadn’t quibbled at her inflated price. Overcharging, not undercharging, was oddly liberating.

Will pulled himself from the car. She’d been right: he was small for a guy. His taupe knit shirt, however, revealed a muscular torso, and his thick, straight hair was only slightly less tousled than the day before. Obviously, he didn’t own a comb. He walked toward her, not with the swagger of someone whose name was a long internet search of awards, but as if he were a kid dragging his body to a reprimand. An unexpected blend of curiosity and recognition tightened in her gut. He was so familiar she almost said, “Oh. It’s you.”