The sun was a flaming orange ball directly overhead and the sky was cloudless, that particular shade of blue you only found in the mountain west. She’d forgotten how beautiful it was. Or maybe she hadn’t appreciated the splendor of the landscape as a child. Hard to notice beauty when you were too busy surviving.
Laurel Valley was a perfect jewel nestled in the cradle of the mountains. The town itself sat at the base of Twin Peaks, its Bavarian-style architecture looking like something out of a storybook from this distance. And then farther out, the land softened and flattened into miles of white fences and pastureland, dotted with cattle and horses grazing in the autumn sun.
A lake of crystal-clear blue sat on the west side of town, bordered by O’Hara land—private and pristine, the water so clear you could see straight to the bottom. To the east was a larger lake, one side bordering Hamilton land while the other was open to the public. She had a perfect view of everything from where she sat, spread out below her like a painting she’d carried in her heart for fifteen years.
And for the first time since she’d had her art and her name stolen from her, she felt the urge to get her camera out.
The pictures she took now would be for her own enjoyment. She’d never needed fame or glory. She’d only needed an escape. A way to see beauty in a world that had shown her so much ugliness.
She didn’t fight the urge. The camera bag sat strapped into the passenger seat, where it had been since she’d started her trek across the country. The sunlight was too bright to get the kind of shots she wanted—too harsh, washing out the shadows that gave photographs depth—but she got one or two that might be good to frame for her new studio. The way the light hit the peaks. The sweep of the valley below. Home.
It had taken her two solid weeks to travel from Savannah to Idaho between the car problems and her illness. But she’d used the travel time wisely, planning and preparing and gathering her courage for what came next.
Her first phone call had been to Simone O’Hara.
The woman had been a second mother to her, and guilt still ate at her that she’d not been in contact with her or Sloane after she’d left. She’d picked up the phone several times over the years to dial their number, her finger hovering over the last digit before her courage failed her. And then she’d ultimately decided that maybe it was best to leave the past in the past. Clean breaks healed faster. Or so she’d told herself.
Marnie had known the O’Haras had tried to adopt her after social services had taken her away. She’d overheard the social worker mention it while she was in the hospital being treated after that last beating—her body broken but her spirit somehow still intact. But the system had ultimately decided she’d do better in a location outside of Laurel Valley, away from the memories and the trauma and the town that had witnessed her shame. So they’d placed her with a foster family in Boise.
Calling Simone out of the blue had been one of the hardest things she’d ever done. Her hands had been shaking so badly she’d almost dropped the phone. But after Simone’s initial surprise—a sharp intake of breath, a whispered “Marnie?”—she’d talked with her as if no time had passed between them at all. Like it had been fifteen days instead of fifteen years.
By the time she hung up the phone, she had a house to rent and had been guaranteed the vacant shop downtown. Now all she had to do was apply for the permits and business license she needed to open the studio and she’d be all set.
Marnie packed away her camera and got back in the van. And then, after a deep breath that did nothing to calm the butterflies rioting in her stomach, she put it in drive.
No one noticed her as she drove through. Main Street was busier than it had been during her childhood—tourists browsing the boutique shops, families with strollers, couples holding hands as they window-shopped. The Bavarian architecture she remembered had been carefully maintained, maybe even enhanced over the years. Flower boxes overflowed with autumn mums in shades of gold and burgundy. The cobblestone pedestrian walkways were swept clean. It looked like something out of a travel magazine.
She got lucky and found a parking spot behind one of the shops on the west side of the X-shaped downtown. There was no time like the present, so she straightened her spine and put on the bored look she’d learned to adopt during her gallery showings. She was an adult now, not a helpless child, and it didn’t matter that people might stare or that there’d be whispers behind her back. This was Laurel Valley. There would always be whispers about something.
But she was where she was supposed to be. She’d known it from the first vision she’d had after leaving—the one where she’d watched Sloane lying on her bed, crying because her best friend was never coming back. Marnie might not have been in Laurel Valley in person, but she’d still seen. She’d still known. And when the visions changed from showing her the present to placing her in them somewhere in the future, she knew she’d made the right decision to leave her life behind and start anew.
The air was brisk and bitter with cold despite the sun shining overhead, so she wrapped her blue quilted jacket around her and set off for the sheriff’s office. She’d been in the south too long and her blood was thin. Moving back to a place that had real winters was going to take some adjusting.
The thought made her smile, just a little. Her first southern summer had been an adjustment too—all that humidity pressing down on her like a wet blanket, making her feel like she was breathing through a sponge.
She followed the cobblestone walkway around to the main drag, passing the bookstore with its display of autumn reads in the window. A young mother and her toddler came out of the ice cream shop next door, the little boy’s face smeared with what looked like rocky road. The woman looked at Marnie curiously—the assessing glance of someone who didn’t recognize a face in a small town—but she smiled and said hello as she dodged her son’s chocolate-covered hands.
White rocking chairs sat in front of the mercantile, two on each side of the carved wooden door. Two old men occupied two of them, rocking slowly and gossiping as she passed by. They both nodded politely and went about their conversation. She recognized them vaguely but couldn’t put a name to either face.
One of the men had once given her a pack of bubble gum when her mama couldn’t afford to add anything extra to the groceries in her cart. Mr. Murdock—she thought that was his name. A small kindness she’d never forgotten, even after all these years.
They wouldn’t recognize her. She’d spent her entire childhood trying to be invisible, to blend in and not cause attention to herself. If she’d had a choice, she would’ve skipped her own gallery showings, but Clive had insisted she be there—parading her around like a prize he’d won. But in her own clothes, without the designer dresses and professional styling, she was something unremarkable.
The people who passed her would see a young woman with dark hair pulled back in a tail at the nape of her neck. Thick brows winged over dark eyes that were somber and too serious for her age. She’d lost weight over the last months she’d spent with Clive—stress and unhappiness stealing her appetite—and her cheekbones were a little too sharp, her eyes a little too big for her face. Her clothes were simple: a thick cable-knit sweater in hunter green and a pair of dark brown corduroy pants. Her boots were well used and scuffed at the toes.
She was invisible again. And for the first time in years, that felt like freedom.
The little shop she was looking for sat between the mercantile and the new sheriff’s station. She stopped to stand in front of it and look through the windows, her breath fogging the glass. She knew this was the place her studio would be—had seen it in her visions, had imagined herself standing exactly here.
There were two square display windows flanking a thick wooden door with a glass insert. The floors inside were the original hardwood, worn smooth by a hundred years of footsteps. And though the space was narrow, it was deep enough that she could divide it into two areas—one for a reception area and a place to hang samples of her work, and in the back, she could set up backdrops and screens for in-house photo shoots. There was an apartment above the space that was currently occupied, but Simone had assured her the tenant was quiet and wouldn’t be a bother.
She felt some of the tension go out of her shoulders. She could make this work. She could build something here, something that was hers alone. Now she just had to find the courage to actually speak to the people she’d known all her life.
But she could do it. Those same people would be lining up for family portraits, graduation pictures, newborn sessions, and weddings. It was a business, and she was providing a service for the community. Nothing more complicated than that.
It was only a few more steps to the front door of the sheriff’s office. The building was newer than she remembered—Bavarian in style like everything else in Laurel Valley, with planter boxes and wooden beams and that distinctive alpine charm the town was known for. Simone had told her that Blaze O’Hara had taken over as sheriff several years back, convincing the town to pass a bond for a new station. His cousin Hank had gotten the contract to build it.
She’d grown up with Blaze, just like she had all the O’Haras, though he’d been several years older and didn’t often hang out with her and Sloane. But putting him in a position of authority as sheriff was hard to wrap her brain around, especially knowing some of the things he’d gotten up to as a teenager. Time changed people, she supposed. It had certainly changed her.
