of the frozen lake.
Kir felt his chest tighten, unexpected tears filling his eyes as he bent down to gently lay the hat on a wooden post that was all that remained from the old dock. At the funeral he’d been too numb with shock to accept that his dad was gone. Really and truly gone. Now the grief hit him with a punishing ferocity.
He didn’t know how much time passed, but he sensed it was several minutes before Lynne broke the silence.
“Did you like to fish with your dad?”
He latched onto her soft voice, gratefully allowing it to pull him out of a dark pit where he’d descended. “I never had the patience,” he said. “Ten minutes after we got here, I would be climbing a tree or digging holes in the ground. Or more likely, falling over my own feet and ending up in the water. My dad claimed I was a magnet for disaster, and he wasn’t wrong.”
“You were always . . .” She allowed her words to trail away as she shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat.
“Restless,” he supplied. He could still feel the energy that hummed just beneath his skin. “The world always felt like it was spinning too slow for me. And after my father was injured . . .” He shook his head as he recalled his inexhaustible need for distraction. “I went from restless to reckless.”
“And now?”
He studied her upturned face, abruptly realizing that when this woman was near, the relentless agitation disappeared. As if she managed to soothe the beast inside him. “I finally learned to focus my energies on building a successful career.” He allowed his gaze to drift down to her full lips. “But I’m not sure that’s enough.”
Her cheeks were already reddened by the cold, but he suspected she was blushing.
“You’ll soon be back in Boston and settled in your life again,” she insisted.
“Do you think?”
Their gazes locked, an unspoken heat smoldering between them. Hot enough to make him impervious to the sharp cold. Then Lynne sharply turned away, studying the rolling hills.
“Did your mother ever come out here?”
Kir shook his head. “Not often. She would sometimes bring me here for a picnic, but she didn’t really like being in the country. She was born and raised in L.A.” He waved his hand toward the empty landscape. “This place was foreign terrain to her.”
“How did your parents meet?”
“My father went to college in California,” Kir said. He’d never been able to imagine his father anyplace but Pike. This area was imprinted in his DNA. But Rudolf had obviously felt the same reckless need for adventure as Kir, at least once in his life. “It was one of the top schools for criminal justice in the country, and he wanted to experience the world beyond Wisconsin. My mom was there getting her degree in nursing.” A wistful smile touched his lips. “She said it was love at first sight, but I’m not sure she truly understood how hard it would be for her to leave her family and move to a small town in the middle of nowhere. Still, they seemed happy until my father was injured.”
“Do you stay in contact with her?”
Kir shrugged. “We talk on the phone and usually get together during the holidays for a day or two, but it’s awkward.”
“Because she left?”
Kir paused. He never discussed his mother. Their relationship was complicated. But Lynne was perhaps one of the few people who could understand his convoluted emotions. “Because she feels guilty for walking away and starting a new family. And I resented her for walking away and starting a new family,” he admitted. “Or at least I did when I was younger.”
As he’d hoped, there was no judgment in Lynne’s eyes, just curiosity. “Why did you stay in Pike?”
“I was just fourteen and I thought I could save my dad.” A familiar ache clenched Kir’s heart. There was nothing more depressing than watching someone you love slowly destroy themselves. “I was wrong. By the time I turned eighteen, I figured out that he was never going to put down the bottle, so I walked away. Just like my mother. Ironic, really.”
“You did what you had to do.”
The simple words captured exactly what Kir had known at the center of his soul. He either got out, or he became infected by his father’s sickness.
Kir sucked in a deep breath, savoring the crisp, clean air. It seemed to cleanse away the darkness of the past.