CHAPTER1
Lola Brown had lefther home town over fifty years ago, and she had never once intended to come back. Now she stood at the corner of Virtue’s tremendous town square, wrapped in a green wool stole against the last bites of winter wind, and thought how incredibly true it was that you couldn’t go home again.
She knew every inch of this town by heart, and it hadn’t changed at all—except in all the ways it had changed entirely. The huge town square, partially buried in rotting snow, still held an enormous gazebo at its center, and at one end of the square, an old, familiar church still stood. At the other, the town hall and city offices, with the beautiful old clock tower, matched the church in reaching for the sky.
In between, almost everything was new. The Jones' still had the B&B on the opposite corner, but there was a massage therapy clinic and a bright welcoming cafe in the long row of buildings across from the B&B. To her utter surprise, the old toy shop was still there, but next to it was a doughnut shop, with a sign up that said they’d be closing for the season at the end of March. There were hairdressers and historical societies and a dozen other businesses in spaces that Lola remembered as empty, or as fading storefronts for shops whose names she could no longer remember.
She had thought Virtue was dying, when she left. But she’d come back to a town that someone had breathed new life into.
A little pang shivered through her. The town wasn’t the only thing that had had new life breathed into it.
Sam Todd was alive.
He had died—Lola hadbelievedhe had died—nearly fifty years ago, in a plane wreck that had taken the lives of a number of young military recruits. There had been a funeral, bleak and devastating, and Lola…
Lola couldn’t face Virtue without him. Not the small-minded town, not his petulant parents who had never cared for her, not the pitying, judging future that was the only thing she would find there.
So she had left. God, she’d been so young, just barely out of high school. And it had been so long ago that it had been easy to become someone else. Charlotte Nelson of Virtue, New York had taken the last train out one night, and Lola Johnson had gotten off that train in another town. No one had questioned it, or asked for proof, not back then. And after a while she’d married and become Lola Brown.
Until the day her granddaughter called to say Sam was alive, Lola had almost forgotten she’d ever been anyone else.
She whispered, “Almost,” into the cold March wind, and turned away from the town square to make her way down the street, to another old place that she knew intimately, and didn’t know at all.
TheHold My Bearbar made her laugh, even if it wasn’t at all the seedy joint she remembered. Someone had carved and painted a sign for the bar, a cheerful-looking thing with the bar’s name in curved letters and a big fluffy cartoonish grizzly bear lifting a beer in greeting. Even from outside it smelled fantastic, but of course it did: this was where her granddaughter Charlee worked, and Charlee had been a wonderful cook since childhood.
Lola slipped inside, accepted a seat for one near the front, and watched for a little while as she nibbled at a salad. The bar had a homey feeling, warm wood booths and visible rafters overhead—that, at least, hadn’t changed since she’d been a girl—and a bustling environment that said it was doing well. She’d seen the young man who owned the place on her granddaughter’s video phone app, but hadn’t understood howlargeSteve Torben was: well over six feet, with broad shoulders and an even broader smile. He had thick sandy blond hair and a barkeep’s apron over jeans and a t-shirt, and kept the place running with an enthusiastic efficiency. Lola liked to see that: he seemed like the kind of man who was good for Charlee, and she wanted them to be happy.
She had always wanted everyone to be happy. It was a simple wish, and yet maybe the most complicated one she could ever make. Her own happiest ending had disappeared with Sam, decades earlier, so all she could hope for was a different story for other people.
Her heart lurched again, fingers going cold as she let herself brush past the idea that maybe her story wasn’t over yet, either. It was too much to bear, really: too much hope. That was why Lola had essentially snuck back into Virtue without even telling Charlee she was there yet. She wanted to reacquaint herself with the place, at least a little, before plunging into…
…into whatever happened when a lost love was rediscovered decades later.
She couldnotlet herself hope nothing had changed. Everything had changed. Obviously. And yet the part of her that was still eighteen years oldhoped, and that was so very frightening.
“Nana!” The word was filled with delighted accusation as Charlee barged out of the kitchen, throwing her chef’s jacket straight at Steve. The big man caught it—with his face, admittedly—and laughed, pulling it down to see what his girlfriend, Lola’s granddaughter, was so excited about.
Charlee descended on Lola with a hug, tearfully happy. “Nana, you didn’t say you’d be here today! It’s so good to see you! Don’t you dare think you’re paying for that—salad?” The last word was disbelieving, and Lola laughed quietly as Charlee said, “You’reeatingsalad? Do you feel all right?”
“Nervous,” Lola said more honestly than she meant to, and her granddaughter’s face softened as she slid into the seat across from her.
“Yeah, that’s fair. I didn’t tell him, you know? I mean, I don’t know him at all to tell him, but some of my friends do, but?—”
“It’s better that you didn’t,” Lola said firmly. “Let’s think about Sam later, my darling. Look at you. You look so happy!”
It was true: Charlee looked happier than Lola could ever remember seeing her. She was a pretty young woman, with soft curling brown hair that she almost always wore tied up in a bun at the top of her head. She was round, both in face and body, though Lola knew for a fact those soft-looking arms had a lot of muscle in them: she’d watched Charlee effortlessly haul moving boxes that Lola wouldn’t have been able to lift in her prime, never mind these days. She was also sweaty, face pink from working in the kitchen, and the t-shirt she wore beneath the discarded chef’s jacket said‘Never Trust A Skinny Chef’above the bar’s beer-carrying-bear logo. “I am happy,” Charlee said with a contented sigh. “Steve’s great. Virtue’s a really nice town. I landed on my feet here. And I’m so glad to see you! You’re staying in the apartment upstairs, right?”
“There are at least two hotels and a bed and breakfast I can stay in,” Lola protested gently. “I don’t need to inconvenience you.”
“Don’t be silly. For one thing, I basically live with Steve these days. For another, even if I didn’t, you’re never an inconvenience.” Charlee’s green eyes shone. “You’re my nana, for heaven’s sake. And I?—”
She bit down on whatever she was about to say so hard Lola thought it could be called a chomp, but it didn’t take many decades of experience to figure out what she was trying to be discreet about. “You’re just dying to know the whole story between me and Sam?”
“Weeeellllllll…” Charlee scrunched up her face, then offered a wide, silly smile. “Now that you mention it…?”
“I’m afraid I don’t really know the whole story,” Lola admitted softly. “I know my side, Charlee. I can’t imagine…I can’t imagine what Sam’s must be. I thought I knew. All these years, I thought I knew…”
Charlee’s expression went soft again and she reached out to take Lola’s hand, her fingers feeling strong and warm and certain around Lola’s. She rarely thought of herself as old, but she could feel it in the difference in their hands: she was bonier, her hands cooler, more fragile-feeling. As if Charlee noticed it too, she squeezed, but only gently. “Of course, Nana. You’ve got a lot of figuring out to do. I can wait for all the details. I just want you to be happy, you know?”
