There were some postcards and letters from older relatives, junk mail, an herbal catalogue for Fern, and some tool catalogues for Baz. Arden watched them with a smile, but she was caught by surprise when Tara turned to her. “You’re Arden, right? That would explain this.” And she pressed an envelope into Arden’s hand.
“What?” Arden asked blankly. But the words on the envelope were clear:Arden, Windrock City.
“We wondered if it might have been a mistake, but this was shoved under the door at Charmian’s midwife practice this morning,” Tara said. “We picked it up and brought it with the rest of the mail, just in case there was someone else here.”
Lexie nudged her. “Pretty cool, huh? Someone knows you’re here.”
“Yes,” Arden breathed. “Someone does.” She shoved the envelope in her pocket without opening it.
“Aww! Don’t you want to know what’s in there?”
“I’ll find out later,” Arden said, forcing a smile. “I think I need another of those breakfast sandwiches.”
In truth, she wasn’t even slightly hungry. Because she recognized the handwriting on the envelope.
It belonged to her ex-husband’s bodyguard, Sloan.
ARDEN
Arden openedthe note as soon as she could get a few minutes alone while everyone else was fussing over getting the satellite internet dish hooked up.
Arden,
We know where you are. We just want to talk. Meet me on the highway at the end of the Windrock road at noon. I’ll be there today and tomorrow. If you don’t meet with us, then we’ll come talk to you there.
The note was unsigned,but Arden knew Sloan’s handwriting very well. Apparently Grant even had to hire someone to write his threats for him.
She thought about not going. “Today and tomorrow” could mean yesterday and today. If she didn’t show up, what were they going to do, come get her?
Well ... yes, if she took the note at face value. By meeting them, she could at least find out what they wanted. She didn’t think they were simply going to kidnap her. If they intended that, Sloan would have done it already.
Arden wasn’t sure what she was going to do if the visitors weren’t gone by the time she had to leave to meet Sloan and Grant, but an hour or so before noon, the party broke up. Baz’s parents got on their motorcycles, teenage Seth drove the van this time, and Tara took the SUV.
The parade wound out of Windrock’s main street, under the wooden sign, while those left behind all waved goodbye.
“I regret this already,” Maida said with a sigh, looking around at the dilapidated houses.
Fern hooked an arm through Maida’s. “Come on, you can pick any house you want. Nobody’s taken the saloon yet.”
“Oh wow, a saloon. Can you see me running a saloon?” But she allowed herself to be led down the street. It was impossible to remain gloomy in the face of Fern’s high spirits.
Baz noticed Arden standing against the wall, the note crumpled in her hand. He came over to put an arm around her. “You okay?” he asked quietly. “What is that, anyway? You looked like you’d seen a ghost. Did you get some bad news?”
“It’s no big deal. It was just a big surprise that anyone knows I’m here.”
“Who’s it from?”
“An old friend. I’ll tell you about it when things settle down.” She shoved the note into her pocket. “Can I help move anything?”
Among the cheerful bustle of getting supplies rearranged and Maida settled in, Arden found that it was no difficulty to step back into the shadows, and then slip away.
It felt like years ago when she had walked up the abandoned road through the woods into the ghost town. Now, as she walked the other way through the sun-dappled forest, she noticed how much more well-used the road already looked. She had to skirt around wide puddles left over from the rain, still muddy from the passage of the vehicles that had left not too long ago. Whenshe reached the place where the creek crossed the road, she discovered that it had spread out wide on either side of the culvert, a shallow lake through the woods. There were rivulets flowing across the road, but she could still pick her way across.
Arden had come here because she had nowhere else to go, but now she found each step dragging. The idea of leaving tore her heart—not just leaving Baz, although that was first and foremost, but also the town itself and the people here. She was even getting used to Declan’s gloomy moods, and she would desperately miss Fern’s sunny cheer and Lexie’s down-to-earth warmth. She wouldn’t mind being neighbors with Elvy the goat lady. Even the wild shifter clans in the woods no longer seemed quite so alien and frightening, now that she had met River.
This place was becoming home. And Arden felt her hands ball into fists as she thought about Grant threatening it.
She hadn’t realized before that she was willing to fight for it.
