Chapter 2
Nathan stared at the town, and it stared back at him.
Jack’s Bay. Bay Boulevard and Jacqueline Street, the crossroads where the tiny clock tower and the gazebo intersected. In the distance, peeking through the nineteen-thirties-era row buildings, the brilliant blue of Jack’s Bay beckoned.
The bus dipped over a pothole, and everything shook. But nothing changed what was showing up in the front window as he stared out.
The same old shops. The requisite new ones started by hopeful entrepreneurs sandwiched between them, ones with quirky, cool names, hoping to draw in the tourist trade and the locals with their up-to-date funkiness. Central Park, a joke with the townspeople, CCP for short, looming on the right-hand side.
His gaze panned down the street. The ice cream parlor, still there. Gemma from the bookstore slash coffee shop, tidying up the two sidewalk cafe tables she had in front. Locals walking the street, doing their errands.
And the last time he was back, they barely looked at him. Avoided him.
Didn’t matter who he was now. How he’d changed his life, been part of a team that had done real good for people, where he’d been in constant danger. Risked his life for others. Done it with a proud and stalwart heart. Was definitely not one of the Heroes they knew, anymore. No, their reaction was readable, and sometimes, muttered quite audibly.
Bad seed. You don’t belong here. Go to where you really belong.
And if he hadn’t been utterly broke with nowhere to live, he’d never have been found within a hundred kilometers of the place.
Off the bus, he strode up Jacqueline Street as quickly as he could, his duffel bag slung over one shoulder and the animal carrier heavy in his other hand. Small whines were erupting from the grill in the front, and if he looked down he could see a wet, black nose furtively sniffing and pushing through.
“Shhh. I don’t need these people giving me hell for mistreating an animal.”
The liquor store was on its own lot on the corner, a big parking area surrounding it. He put the carrier down, extracted a light blanket from it and draped it over the plastic box.
“There.” He directed his voice downward. “Now shut up so no one knows you’re in there.” He nodded to a kid standing a couple of meters away, the toe of his sneaker rolling his grimy skateboard back and forth. “Wanna make five bucks?”
The kid looked at him from under his Jays baseball cap.
“Watch this while I go in and grab some stuff. Don’t let anyone peek under the blanket. I’ll be out in a minute. Deal?”
“What’s in there?” Suspicion had the kid’s forehead wrinkling.
“Dog. Just make sure he’s here when I get out, and five’s yours.” He let a toonie fall into the kid’s palm. “The rest in a couple of minutes. Okay?”
The kid nodded. “Okay.”
He gave the kid one more stern look, placed the carrier beside his foot, then turned and walked into the huge, blessedly air-conditioned expanse of the LCBO.
He strode down the aisles, grabbed the beer. Then he was on a gin mission. He found it, scooped it from the artsy display. Added in tequila for good measure.
And when he walked by a display of Blue Curacao with beach balls and yellow sunshine smiling back at him from the end cap, he grabbed a bottle of that.
That blue shit Lisa used to like. He’d drink her health tonight, while he burned everything of hers he had. Ha.
He’d start a bonfire with it. Wouldn’t that piss her off?
“Nathan?”
He turned, and there stood Ms. Ophelia Wainwright, a statuesque actress turned drama teacher at Jack’s Bay High School. Ophy, the kids called her behind her back. She gave him a long look, tinged with the possibility of a smile in the near future—maybe. Her assessing gaze was obvious. “You’re back?”
“Even the mumps come back if you don’t get shots.”
She blinked, the tiny filaments of the smile gone. But she mustered politeness. “How’re things?”
“Fine.” He pulled the case of beer off the casters in the dispensing area, grabbed the alcohol in the brown paper bag and tucked it in the top of his duffel. Ignored her.
She didn’t take the hint. “Sorry to hear about your momma, Nathan. But nice to see you back.”
What a load of bullshit.
“When my momma was hurt and screaming for help, no one came.” He watched as the rosy glow left her face. “I’m not back. I’m here until I can get my feet on the ground again. In the meantime, Ophy, it’s been just great to see you.”
And he left her blinking, as he strode out the doors of the LCBO.
The kid was still watching the dog. He handed him a loonie and another toonie, then lifted the blanket. Dog was fine. “Thanks.”
After his next stop, Mike’s Garage, he had a car. Old, had some rust, but it passed the safety and then some, a grim Mike told him. He tossed the duffel onto the back seat, wrinkled his nose at the smell—intolerable, but he’d pretend otherwise—and buckled the carrier in beside himself. Started the car up, and with a cough and numerous groans, the thing was rattling and running.
And he was on the road. To a place no one liked and that all of Jack’s Bay avoided, like a horrid winter cold you couldn’t shake all damn winter.
But it was a place that was paid for and where he could stay in solitude until he figured himself out. Where he could figure out a way to support himself after Lisa’s father’s—You’re not together anymore, so here’s your stuff. We don’t need your kind here—debacle.
He tossed a surly look at the carrier, saw the animal cowering. “Good grief.” He picked up a treat that had fallen on the cheap vinyl of the seat, tossed it in, but the pup ignored it, turned his back and laid down.
He spun onto the highway en route to his so-called family’s deserted cabin, peeled his eyes as the craggy boulders of the dense northern Ontario forest sped by on both sides. “Alone. Just the way I want.”