Chapter 1
The black SUV did not frighten me because of what it was.
It frightened me because it stopped.
For three months, I had trained myself not to react whenever I saw a dark vehicle. Mountain towns attracted wealthy tourists. Half the vacation homes outside Asheville seemed to come with polished SUVs and drivers wearing sunglasses even when the sky was gray.
Usually, they passed.
This one rolled to the curb directly outside Whitaker’s Grocery and went still.
I was standing in aisle four with a carton of milk in one hand and the other resting automatically over the small curve of my stomach.
My baby moved.
At seventeen weeks, the sensation still surprised me. It was faint, almost like the brush of a fingertip from somewhere deep inside me.
Normally, it made me smile.
That afternoon, it made my throat close.
“Claire?”
Mrs. Whitaker’s niece, Hannah, was stocking canned peaches at the end of the aisle.
I had been Claire Mason to everyone in town since arriving.
She looked at me with concern.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
The lie came too quickly.
Hannah followed my gaze through the front window.
A man stepped out of the passenger side of the SUV.
Not Declan.
I knew that immediately.
This man was broad-shouldered, perhaps forty, wearing a dark jacket over an open-collared shirt. He did not move like someone preparing for trouble. He looked around the quiet street, spoke briefly to the driver, then walked toward the store alone.
Gavin Roarke.
I had seen him only a handful of times in Chicago.
Declan’s security chief was one of those people who never needed to raise his voice to make a room pay attention. He had once carried three boxes of restoration materials up four flights of stairs for me because the elevator in my studio building had broken.
Afterward, he had refused the coffee I offered and said, completely straight-faced, “Declan would be unbearable if you injured your back.”
I had liked him.
That somehow made seeing him worse.
The bell above the grocery store door rang.
My heart began beating so quickly I could feel it in my ears.
Gavin entered.
He did not scan the room theatrically. He simply removed his gloves, nodded politely at Mrs. Whitaker behind the register, and looked down aisle four.
His eyes found mine.
Then they dropped to my stomach.
For one second, the careful professionalism disappeared from his face.
He knew.
I backed away.
“Amelia.”
Hearing my real name nearly undid me.
Hannah looked between us.
“Do you know him?”
“No.”
Gavin stopped.
Something changed in his expression.
Not anger.
Understanding.
“Then I’m mistaken,” he said calmly. “I apologize.”
He turned toward the door.
I stared after him.
That was not what I had expected.
I had expected questions. Pressure. Perhaps a demand that I speak to Declan.
Instead, Gavin bought a package of peppermint gum, thanked Mrs. Whitaker, and walked outside.
I remained beside the canned beans for nearly five minutes.
Finally, Hannah touched my elbow.
“You sure you’re all right?”
“Yes.”
“Because you look like you’ve seen somebody you hoped never to see again.”
I forced a smile.
“Something like that.”
I abandoned my groceries.
Outside, the wind had sharpened. The Blue Ridge Mountains rose in blue-gray layers beyond the rooftops, and a thin veil of clouds pressed over the town.
The SUV was still there.
Gavin stood beside it.
He did not approach me.
That mattered.
I crossed the sidewalk slowly.
“What do you want?”
“To know that you’re safe.”
“I’m safe.”
He glanced toward my stomach again before immediately looking away.
“And the baby?”
My entire body became rigid.
“You don’t get to ask me that.”
“You’re right.”
His answer was so immediate that it left me without the argument I had prepared.
Gavin put both hands into his coat pockets.
“Declan is at the inn.”
My mouth went dry.
“He came?”
“Yes.”
“Why isn’t he here?”
“Because I told him showing up without warning would be the worst possible thing he could do.”
Despite everything, a tiny part of me almost laughed.
That sounded like Gavin.
I folded my arms.
“How did you find me?”
“A pharmacy record.”
My stomach dropped.
“You accessed my medical information?”
“No. Nothing medical. A security camera outside a pharmacy picked up a rental car connected to the name Claire Mason. We tracked the rental company. The employee remembered a pregnant woman asking for directions here.”
He saw my reaction.
“I know that explanation doesn’t make it better.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
“I’m not asking you to like it.”
“What is Declan asking?”
“Ten minutes.”
“No.”
Gavin nodded.
“All right.”
Again, no pressure.
That unsettled me more than persistence might have.
“You’re just going to leave?”
“If that’s what you want.”
“What happens when you tell him no?”
“He’ll hate it.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Gavin watched me quietly.
Then he said, “He’ll stay at the inn tonight. Tomorrow morning, unless you change your mind, we go back to Chicago.”
I searched his face for deception.
“And then?”
“Then he knows you’re alive.”
“That’s enough?”
“For him?”
Gavin looked toward the mountains.
“No. But it has to be.”
I should have walked away.
Instead, I asked the question that had been waiting inside me for fourteen weeks.
“Did he marry her?”
Gavin looked back.
“Savannah?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
My chest tightened.
“The engagement?”
“Ended.”
“When?”
“Thirty-eight hours after you disappeared.”
I stared at him.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Very little about that week made sense.”
I thought of the television. The cameras. Savannah’s hand on Declan’s arm.
“You expect me to believe an alliance between the Voss and Calloway families disappeared in two days?”
“No.”
“Then why tell me?”
“Because it’s true.”
He reached into his coat slowly.
I stepped backward.
He stopped immediately.
“It’s just an envelope.”
“I don’t want anything from Declan.”
“It isn’t from Declan.”
That caught me.
“Who is it from?”
“Savannah Calloway.”
I almost laughed.
“You cannot be serious.”
“She asked me to give it to you if we found you.”
“Why?”
“She said that part was hers to explain.”
I did not take it.
Gavin placed the envelope on the hood of the SUV.
Then he walked around the vehicle and opened the passenger door.
Before climbing inside, he looked at me once more.
“Declan doesn’t know about the baby.”
The world seemed to tilt.
“What?”
“He suspected after seeing you just now. I confirmed nothing.”
“You expect me to believe nobody found my hospital records?”
“Declan specifically prohibited it.”
I stared at him.
“He was searching for me.”
“For you. Not your records.”
“Why?”
Gavin’s expression became unexpectedly tired.
“Because sometime around the second week, he realized finding you wasn’t the same thing as being entitled to every private piece of your life.”
He got inside.
The SUV drove away.
Savannah’s envelope remained on the hood only until the vehicle moved, then slid gently onto the pavement.
May you like
I stood staring at it.
Eventually, I picked it up.
