CHAPTER 1
CHRISTINA
Dawn came softly to Blueberry Hill, rolling in over the lake like a secret. The mist clung low to the water, faint and silvery, drifting in ribbons that curled around the old wooden dock where Christina Singleton stepped with careful, barefoot steps. The boards were cool beneath her feet, still damp from the night. Angus trotted beside her, tail wagging, nose twitching as he scented whatever morning news the breeze carried.
It had become their routine over the past months—Christina, Angus, and the lake at sunrise. Ryan stayed up late studying, so she’d take Angus out for his morning walk, letting her half-brother sleep in until the last minute. He might be in college, but he was still a teenage boy, and needed his sleep, especially while he finished exams this week. The lake was quiet, a place where her thoughts could stretch out without bumping into anyone else’s questions.
She rested a hand over her belly. Seven months. Violet shifted under her fingers, a soft roll that made Christina smile despite the tightness in her chest.
“Good morning, little one,” she murmured, her voice barely above the lapping of the water against the shore. “We’re okay. It’s just you and me.”
The sky brightened at the edges, orange melting into pink, then soft gold. It always astonished her how peaceful this place felt—how different it was from the noise and heat of Miami, where the past seemed determined to cling to her.
A memory flickered, sudden and warm. Her going away celebration, music thumping under her feet, humid air thick with salt and perfume, and a man whose smile had made her forget everything else. The soft brush of his hand along her back, his voice low in her ear as they danced, living in the moment. A night that didn’t feel like a mistake until morning came.
Christina inhaled sharply and pushed the memory aside. Not now.
Angus bumped her leg with his head, as if sensing her shift in mood, and she reached down to scratch behind one of his floppy ears. “You’re the best boy,” she told him, grateful for his steady presence. He’d been a skinny, abandoned thing at the time, dirty and trembling as he crouched beneath the table. Ryan had found him and brought him home, and she didn’t have the heart to say no, and now here they were in Blueberry Hill, far, far away from Miami. A fresh start.
Life didn’t always follow plans. Sometimes it followed desperation. And sometimes—it followed hope.
As they walked, the lake stretched out smooth and pale, reflecting the slowly brightening sky. A bird called from somewhere near the cove, its song echoing across the still water. Christina paused at her usual spot along the path—the waterfall. The scene was postcard-perfect. The green of the trees, the sunlight filtering through, casting rainbows across the surface of the water.
It was hard to believe Violet would be here in July. Harder still to believe that Christina might actually be ready for her.
She wrapped both hands around her belly, feeling the tug of muscles stretched farther than she ever thought they could go. Some days she still felt like a child herself—barely twenty-three, still feeling like a stranger in a town she never expected to call home, surrounded by a family she wasn’t sure she deserved. Her mom, with her endless patience. Ally, always checking in with honey and herbal teas from her tiny house by the greenhouse. Evan and Emily, with their steady encouragement from the beautiful old Hamilton Place on Cedar Lane. The old Victorian with gingerbread trim and wraparound porch that they’d moved into with its warm wood and lemon-polished floors, and a sunlit second bedroom waiting to become their nursery. Her mom’s cottage was quiet now with everyone gone.
In Blueberry Hill, people helped without expecting anything. They asked how you were doing and waited for the real answer. They tucked casseroles into coolers on your porch when they thought you weren’t eating enough. They didn’t pry. They demanded nothing, and they didn’t push.
They also didn’t know the biggest thing about her.
Christina exhaled slowly, watching the little puffs of mist rise from the water below. If they knew … She couldn’t finish the thought.
Marco Castellano was a name she hadn’t known the night they met. She hadn’t wanted to. It was part of the magic—two strangers with no expectations, a night that didn’t belong to the past or the future. A night that felt more like a dream than anything she’d ever lived.
But dreams didn’t last.
She hadn’t recognized him until months later, during a grocery run she’d volunteered for while Tara and Will were in Miami for Patty’s funeral. She’d stopped at the Sip & Shop to distract herself, flipping through the magazines near the register. One glossy cover had made her freeze.
Colton, her sister’s ex-boyfriend, stood beside another man. It was him, with his dark hair, green eyes, and the same devastating smile.
Her heart had thudded painfully as she flipped to the article. A story about their modeling partnership. Ex-professional baseball player turned model and him. It named the stranger.
Marco Castellano. Heir to a fashion empire. International playboy. Homes in Miami, New York, Milan.
And the line that sealed everything for her. “Settling down is for people who’ve given up on adventure.”
She’d put the magazine back, walked home in silence, and decided then and there he could never know about Violet. His family was rich and powerful, and might try to take Violet, not that Marco would want a baby, but his family might. And that wasn’t going to happen. Violet was hers.
A gentle breeze picked up, rippling the water. Angus sniffed the air, ears perked, then darted off the path to investigate a patch of wildflowers growing through the boards.
“Find anything interesting?” She asked, smiling when he returned with a damp leaf stuck to his nose.
As she approached the hill, the path curved toward the cottage she now called home—Aunt Frida’s cottage, where Tara had lived until she and Will bought the house across the lake to renovate. Christina had moved from the apartment over the garage into the cottage when her mom moved out, and Ryan now had the place to himself, something he cherished even as he wandered down to visit daily, especially at dinnertime.
The cottage door creaked as she opened it. The house smelled faintly of lavender detergent and the French vanilla candle Ally insisted she burn to help with nausea. Sunlight filtered through the white curtains, landing in soft squares on the floor, where Angus immediately sprawled out. When Ryan was home from school, Angus was with him, but the rest of the time, the dog stayed with her.
Christina set her keys in the little ceramic dish by the door, the one Sam had made in her pottery class, and moved toward the small table where her tablet rested. She’d left it charging this morning—she used it mostly for streaming shows while she folded clothes, or read pregnancy articles she pretended didn’t scare her.
