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“Ryder still doesn’t understand. He keeps asking …” Marilee stops, presses her lips together as she composes herself. “He keeps asking when Mommy’s coming back from her trip. That’s the most devastating part for Jordan. He’s having to navigate parenting alone for the first time. I try to help, but I’ve never been a mom. Was never able to …” She shakes her head. “Anyway, he and Georgia might never have been a real couple, but they were great co-parents. Even friends. And so, this is just all … yeah. Really hard.”
I lean my head on her shoulder and squeeze her arm against my body. “Sounds like you all need today, then.”
“Yeah.”
We stand like that for a time, watching Jordan run around with Ryder, swinging him onto his shoulders after tickling him like crazy. When I peek at Frederick, he’s wearing an expression I’ve never seen. Almost like … longing.
He may act like he’s all right with never having a family, never being a dad, but that look right there tells me differently.
I turn my attention back to Marilee. “Why don’t you go join them?”
“Oh no, it’s father-son time.”
“Please.” I roll my eyes and hip check her. “You’re Jordan’s best friend, his biggest supporter, right? Go out there and have some fun.”
“What about you? Come join us.”
And break up that family moment? No. I drop my hold on her arm and step toward Fredrick. “We’ll keep going on the trail. We have some things to talk about anyway. You guys catch up whenever.”
She nibbles her thumbnail for a moment before nodding. “All right. See you up there.” Then she steps off the boardwalk and sinks into the sand, kicking off her shoes and running toward them. Ryder turns and calls her name from his perch on Jordan’s shoulders, and the dog runs straight for her.
I smile. Someday, I hope Jordan and Marilee figure out they’re meant to be together.
“What do we have to talk about, Princess?” Frederick says in a low, teasing voice.
He has no idea what’s coming. And really, neither do I. “You’ll see,” I tease right back as I hold out my hand for him to take. “Let’s go.”
* * *
I wait until we’re a good distance from Jordan and Marilee to talk again.
Instead, we stroll along the trail, which does just what Jordan said, climbing until the wooden boardwalk gives way to a dirt path that winds through the trees as they gradually grow thicker. Birds call a merry song in the canopies above our heads, and we pass only a few other hikers along the way. The whole world is full of color: a patch of large orange mushrooms, a green-and-red bush that Frederick tells me is poison oak, flowers beginning to bud at the base of the trees.
Thunder rolls in the distance, disturbing our peace.
“Are you positive you don’t want to turn back? I don’t love the idea of hiking in the rain.”
“Oh, come now, Muscles. A little rain never hurt anyone.”
He opens his mouth to speak when thunder cracks again. “Seriously, Chloe.” His eyes look nearly panicked.
I stop walking and turn to him. “Hey.” Taking both his hands in mine, I cock my head to one side. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” He studies the sky, or what little of it we can see through the trees. “Like I said, I just want you to be safe. It’s my job.”
There’s that rote, mechanical answer again. Something lights inside of me, and this time, I’m refusing to accept it. “I think there’s more to it than that.”
He pulls away from my hold and starts trudging up the trail again.
Seriously? I bore my entire soul to him last night and this is how it’s going to be? No way, buddy. He’s going to tell me what’s going on or meet a very different Chloe than the one he’s used to. Earlier this week, he called me determined.
He has no idea how determined I can be. Especially when something means this much.
As I hurry to catch up with him, the landscape opens up again, this time into a vista viewpoint. It’s breathtaking with its wide angle of the valley below, of trees and ocean and other coastal bluffs in the distance. Frederick’s got both hands on the top of his head and he’s breathing hard as if he just ran a marathon. He’s discarded his bag near a tree, so I do the same with mine.
Then I march right up to that ledge in front of Frederick, stand on the rock, and twirl to face him.
His hands immediately drop. “Chloe, come away from that ledge. Please.”
