JULIET
Present Day
After making sure the deadbolt on my apartment is engaged, I turn to walk down the steps but then spin back around to check that the door is locked again.
I do that three more times before I finally feel confident enough to descend the stairs to the alley behind my restaurant, Sage & Citrus, to start my morning walk.
I never have anything in my ears during my walks. I don’t own earbuds or headphones. I never listen to podcasts or audiobooks or music when I take walks. I know that Bitterroot Valley is safe, and that the odds of being mugged during the early morning hours here in town are very low, but that habit has been ingrained in me for years.
I don’t like surprises.
I don’t do well with being startled.
Besides, this way I can hear the birds waking up, thetick-tick-tickof the lawn sprinklers, and the occasional car drive by. I like the way my town sounds so early in the day.
I know this town like the back of my hand, yet it’s still so foreign to me. I had been away for almost two decades before I finally made my way home. And that’s what this tiny town in Montana is.
Home.
But I don’t really belong here anymore. I definitely don’t fit in. I’m an outsider, a move-in, despite being born here and coming from three generations of Bitterroot Valley citizens. The friendships I had as a child are all gone. I don’t have family since Mom passed away about ten years ago, and Dad … well, Dad’s been gone for a long time.
So it doesn’t necessarily make sense that when I finally found my freedom and could go anywhere to start over, I chose to come back to the place where I was born, where there seems to be nothing but ghosts of the past that haunt me.
Taunt me.
Remind me that I was stupid and made choices that destroyed me.
However, I knew, deep in my soul, that Bitterroot Valley was the one place on this godforsaken rock hurling through space that could heal me. I need the mountains, the fresh air, and even if they don’t want to have anything to do with me, the people who live here, whether they’re familiar to me or not. Just knowing that they’re nearby soothes me.
Making my way down the block and into the oldest residential neighborhood in town, I take a deep breath. Fall is fast approaching, but summer is holding on by its fingernails. There’s a slight nip in the air this morning, but flowers still bloom, and none of the trees have started to turn quite yet.
I slow my stride just a bit when I get to the corner where my favorite house in town sits. It’s funny how when you’re a kid, things look bigger. Or, maybe, it’s just the memory that’sskewed. If you’d have asked me when I was sixteen about this house, I would have told you it’s a mansion.
But I’ve lived in a mansion three times this size, and this house is so much better in every way. So much more of a home than the cold fortress I spent my entire marriage in.
In reality, the house before me is a large older home, white with a red roof and black trim, and it sits on a huge corner lot. Whoever owns it now doesn’t seem to like flowers, as there’s no landscaping to speak of, but the lawn is cut religiously every Sunday.
This house needs rose bushes and hydrangeas. Maybe lilacs on that one side. A pretty mixed garden in that corner. And in the back, I’d plant a garden with herbs and veggies.
Brooks and I used to talk about this place all the time. We took a lot of walks or went for rides through town, and we often came this way.
“How many bedrooms do you think it has?” I ask as I lean on the open passenger window, letting the cool wind blow through my hair.
“I dunno,” Brooks says. “Maybe four? Five?”
“That’s a lot of bedrooms. We’d have to have a lot of kids to fill it up.”
“Not really. There are five of us kids at my house, so four bedrooms wouldn’t be enough. Why, how many kids do you want, Wildfire?”
I grin back at him, see him watching me with those gorgeous hazel eyes. “The right amount to fill up that house.”
I shake my head and keep walking. It seems like every corner of this town has memories. But that’s the price I have to pay to be here.
To feel safe.
So I’ll gladly pay it.
Pulling myself out ofthatfunk, I start making a mental list of all of the food I need to order for the restaurant today. It’s ordering day, and because my place has become so popular this summer, it will be a big one.
