Free Nowhere to Hide by Nancy Bush Page A

rockers, each pair holding hands and gazing across the vineyards, so he did a quick turn and angled around the back of the house, opening the side door to the kitchen, which was verboten for guests. Jake didn’t count on that score, and wouldn’t give a rat’s ass if he did.
    But he did startle Bronwyn, the kitchen and all-around B&B helper, who slapped a hand to her chest and gasped as Jake entered unannounced.
    “Sorry,” he said. “Colin or Neela here?”
    “Umm . . . no.”
    “Do you know where they are?” he asked.
    “Uh . . . no.”
    A conversationalist she was not.
    “All right,” he said, then walked through the kitchen and into the hallway that led past Colin and Neela’s apartment on its way to the door to the general rooms at the front of the house. He took a cursory look around their apartment—nobody around—then opened the door to the greeting room, which was a great room of sorts for the guests. In the winter, a fire would be blazing in the stone fireplace and a tray of cookies would be set on the oak side table. Today, though, fans lazily moved the air overhead, more for decoration than effect as there was air conditioning throughout. No cookies, but Neela would put out wine, cheese, crackers, and grapes for snacking as the afternoon wore on. The dining room was a rectangular offshoot with a swinging door to the kitchen that was locked except during breakfast.
    The B&B was entirely Colin and Neela’s operation; Jake wasn’t any part of it. Personally, he thought it was a lot of work and kind of a money-suck, but each to his or her own. He’d spent most of his twenties in the financial arena and had made enough money before everything went to hell to put down a hefty chunk toward buying the vineyard from his father and the house that came with it. Colin had then struck a deal with Jake to turn it into a B&B and everybody was happy.
    Sort of.
    Lately, Jake had felt restless, and he knew it was an existential thing that had no real answer: Why am I here? Where am I going? What is the meaning of life?
    The restlessness had started almost immediately following his final breakup with Loni, his on again/off again girlfriend since high school. He wasn’t sorry that the relationship was finally over. Hell, no. It had been on life support for a long time and for a lot of reasons. But he was sorry for letting it go on so long. Way, way too long.
    He and Loni had dated for thirteen, almost fourteen years—Jesus, was it really that long?—and at times they’d been exclusive and happy; at other times they’d been apart for months, once for nearly two years when Loni was in one of her low periods. Loni was bipolar but at the time neither he, nor she, realized what was wrong. Or maybe she had an idea, but tried to hide it from him. All he really was sure about was that by the time her condition was named, they’d invested a lot of years together, which made leaving her especially difficult.
    And it wasn’t all bad. After college Loni had gone into real estate while Jake was in the hedge fund/real estate game. For a while they’d been a power couple, wheeling and dealing like they knew what the hell they were doing. In the end Jake’s basic conservatism had saved him, but Loni was hit much harder when the economy tanked. That’s when the depth of her problem was impossible to hide. The only time he saw the bright young woman he’d once known was when they were talking marriage, either about some friend’s upcoming nuptials, or better yet, the possibility of their own. Jake tried to steer clear of wedding talk, and finally this past January, Loni got fed up with his wishy-washy ways and laid down the law: either they were getting married this year or it was over.
    So . . . it was over.
    The ultimatum should have been a gift to Jake; it forced their final breakup. But the fight that followed, and Loni’s subsequent spiral downward, had nearly made him change his mind. Guilt gnawed at him though he