Page 109 of Middle Ground

“You.”

I recognize this man. The day Jackson and I got pizza and ate it at the park—he was there. He commented on the weather. Ever since, he’s been around town. At the restaurant, the grocery store, the strawberry patch. I bumped into him inside the market.

I thought he was simply a tourist spending the summer here. How wrong I apparently was.

“Hello, Meyer,” he says.

“Who are you?” I ask. My brain is telling me to run, to get the hell out of here. But I can’t. I won’t leave Jackson and Ilsa behind. “How do you know my name?”

He smiles, and it sends an icicle of fear down my spine. That smile spells danger. “I’m your father.”

My face pales as my breath catches. “What?”

He nods. “Don’t you worry, I’m going to put our family back together. I promise. Soon, everything will be the way it should have always been.”

He’s not looking at me when he says this. He’s looking at Ilsa. When I turn to face her, I see the apology in her eyes. Regret, but…no shock.

“Ilsa,” I whisper, “what’s going on?”

Her eyes glisten with unshed tears. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

“What are you talking about?” I can hear my voice creeping higher—in anger, in panic. “Did youhelphim?” It’s a stupid accusation, but my brain can’t make sense of anything that is happening right now. “Areyoubehind all the?—?”

“Donotspeak to your mother that way,” the man snaps, interrupting me.

Bile threatens to creep up my throat. “My…mother?”

The world swims as the words sink in. Ilsa, the woman I’ve known my whole life. Ilsa, with her comforting smiles and warm laughter. Ilsa, who…looks exactly like me.

I’m not sure how I missed it. Maybe because I wasn’t looking. I have always been somewhat curious, of course I have, but I’ve never had the desire to seek out my birth parents. I didn’t want Mom to feel like she wasn’t enough for me.

“I didn’t know this would happen, I swear. I’m sorry," she says again. Then she turns back to the man. “Felix, please. Let Meyer and Jackson go. I’ll do anything you want.”

He frowns. “What Iwantis my family.”

Ilsa swallows. “I know. And you can have that—you can have me. But you have to let them go.”

Felix shakes his head sharply. “I’m not letting anyone go. I’m going to get rid ofhim,” he promises, pointing toward Jackson, “and then we’re going to live like the family we should’ve been from the start.”

Ice cold fear shoots down my spine, like someone has dumped a bucket of glacial water over me. The reality of thesituation has finally set in. Everything Felix is saying, he means. And I don’t know where to go from here, but I do know that we need to getout.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask. “Why keep Jackson here?”

Whyhurthim?

Felix turns to me, his gaze softening. I feel sick. I don’t want his affection.

“I did it for you, Meyer. Everything I’ve done these past few months has been for you. Did you like my gift? I had a bear just like it when I was a boy.”

Everything I’ve done.

It hits me then, what he means. He’s behind the vandalism, the stalking, the fire, Jackson’s brakes. My cottage. It was him. And the teddy bear on my front porch…

I shake my head. “I didn’t ask you to do any of that.”

His gaze hardens. “He is a threat to the inn, which is a threat to you. I heard you complaining about having to work with him. So I tried to take care of it. For you.”

I am seconds away from throwing up. All of this is because ofme?