Haven Hill: Chapter 6

By the author of The Widow in the Woods

Kate’s mind raced, searching frantically for a logical reason those particular flowers would be on this particular path at this particular time.

There was only one reason.

The memories came rushing back so quickly that Kate felt dizzy.

They had met Logan at a screening of a movie about soil in their neighborhood. A local gardening group was showing it in the old vintage theater, and then-11-year-old Ariel had been dragged along unwillingly.

They were hovering over a table with free seed packets, trying to choose, when Kate felt like she was being watched. She looked up and saw a handsome man staring at her. She quickly dropped her eyes and peeked through her lashes.

He was tall, dark-haired, and had eyes that were a shocking shade of blue staring out of his tan face. He had a perpetual hint of a smile around his eyes and mouth, as though he could barely restrain a funny thought. His wavy hair looked silky, and he pushed it out of his face in an adorably boyish way.

He introduced himself and asked if he could sit with them during the movie. Afterward, they’d exchanged phone numbers, although Kate was pretty certain it was just out of courtesy. To her shock, the next morning, Logan sent a text asking if she’d like to go out to dinner. He showed up with a big bouquet of sunflowers.

“How did you know they were my favorite?” Kate asked, delighted.

“You look sunny, so I thought you’d like them,” he replied with a charming wink.

That date was the first of many and Kate found herself irrevocably swept off her feet. Logan was kind, he helped around the apartment making repairs, and he helped Ariel with her math homework. He gave them both extravagant, thoughtful gifts “just because.” He was generous, affectionate, and kind, and they both soon adored him. He casually talked about their future together like it was a given. He referred to the trio as “a family.”

He became a fixture in their lives very quickly and it wasn’t long before him coming over was a daily occurrence, as natural as breakfast in the morning or brushing your teeth. Occasionally, he picked Ariel up after school and drove her home. He even had a key to the apartment so he could start dinner if he was off work earlier than Kate.

 There’d been a few flashes of temper, some glimpses of jealousy, but he’d tamped them down quickly, so quickly that Kate thought she had perhaps been mistaken. Maybe she was overreacting. Everyone gets annoyed from time to time, she reasoned. 

Then, Kate volunteered to be a chaperone on Ariel’s class trip. It was a long bus ride, and they’d be spending two nights at a hotel in the city. The days would be filled with museum visits, lunches out, and some general sightseeing. 

Logan offered to go along with them. Kate turned him down because she’d be in a room with four pre-teen girls. He sulked, complained, and pouted. He’d never behaved like this before. It had to be an outlier, right?

Wrong. 

That was when it all began to fall apart. 

The entire time she was gone, he blew up her phone with texts and calls. She told him she had to pay attention to the kids and couldn’t be in constant contact. When, out of desperation, she turned her phone off, he got even more irrational, certain she was seeing someone else. She tried to keep him calm by sending occasional photos of them at the museums, but it was no solace. She’d never before dreaded getting a text from him, but on that 3-day trip, the ping of her phone filled her with anxiety.

Finally, she refused to reply to one more text or call. She knew it would probably escalate Logan’s ire, but she was just finished dealing with it. 

Ariel kept asking her what was wrong, and Kate fake-smiled and told her she was just tired. But she wasn’t looking forward to returning. Over the long bus ride back, she tried to think of a way to break up with him that wouldn’t cause undo rage. She had conversations in her head, telling him off for putting her under that much stress. Her stomach was swirling with nausea by the time the bus turned into the school parking lot. 

They picked up the Jeep and drove home, taking a detour to grab a pizza and delay the homecoming. Finally, she could put it off no more. Kate trudged up the stairs to her apartment while Ariel galloped ahead of her.

She hesitated before she put her key in the door, listening, but the apartment was silent. She breathed a sigh of relief. Logan hated a quiet house. He always had music or a podcast playing.

 The door swung open to an apartment bursting with sunflowers. Every available surface contained a bouquet in various makeshift containers. There was a note that said, “I’m sorry. I just missed you so much.” 

But the damage had been done. 

Now Kate was suspicious of his behavior. She tried to pull back and distance herself, and that made Logan redouble all his efforts. He swung wildly between unprovoked jealousy and loving attention. She and Ariel began to argue, something that had been rare before. Each time, Logan was right there, stoking the fires of dissent. Divide and conquer. 

Soon, she couldn’t even leave her laptop at home or her phone unattended for fear he’d snoop on it and misinterpret something. She was constantly on edge, waiting for him to become unreasonably angry about situations that only existed in his mind. She mentioned to her best friend that she was deleting their texts as they conversed, who asked, “If you need to do that, you realize there’s a huge problem, right?”

 That was when she realized things had gone much too far.

Finally, she officially broke up with him.

To her surprise, he took it well. He told her he understood, and he knew that he was coming on too strong. He asked if he could still spend time with Ariel, and she told him that she felt a clean break would be better. When she declined his request of another chance, he quietly packed up the things he’d left at her place and put his key on the kitchen counter.

Her relief had been short-lived…

…

Kate and Ariel were frozen on the path, staring at the sunflowers in horror like they were a basket of live cobras blocking their way.

Kate was the first to break the silence.

“You stay right with me, do you understand?” she hissed.

Ariel nodded mutely as Kate tried to figure out what to do. There were three options: they could go back to the cabin and try to figure something out, they could continue on the path and ignore the flowers, or they could disappear into the woods, off the trail, and into the trees.

Kate had no idea how Logan could be out of prison, terrorizing them again, but there was no other explanation for the sunflowers.

She decided that going off the trail was in their best interest. Both were experienced hikers, and they knew these forests well.

For a moment, she thought hysterically about that social media thing that had been going around about whether women would rather be trapped in the woods with a bear or a strange man, and she felt a crazy giggle bubbling up when it occurred to her that she and Ariel were living it out in real-time.

She would rather encounter a thousand bears than the man who was currently stalking them.

She put her finger to her mouth in the universal “shhh” sign, and they slipped silently into the rocky terrain of the thick forest.

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