This isn’t just her home.
It’s where her heart learned to love again.
And suddenly, I finally understand what I was fighting for all those years ago.
Not just her safety.
Not just her freedom.
I was fighting for this—for her to have a place where people light up when she walks into a room. Where she’s not the girl who escaped a cult, but the woman she was meant to be—the town sweetheart.
The woman who stress-cleans and always hugs her neighbors.
I lost my memories so she could make these. And standing here, hearing her laugh at something Moose says, I realize it’s worth every blank space in my mind.
She was worth it.
She is worth it.
“You okay?” Chief appears at my side, holding two cups of coffee.
“Yeah. Just…seeing it. Everything she had to lose by facing Terra the way she did.”
“What she still has,” Chief corrects. “She brought you here, didn’t she? In her own quiet way, Clover has always brought people together. She’s not losing anything, son. She’s gaining a whole lot.”
I hope he’s right.
When we returnto the inn that evening, we’re commandeered by a couple of old ladies before we even make it inside.
“There you boys are,” says the woman I now know is scary Agnes. She’s sitting on the porch swing, and her glass eye appears to move, even when she doesn’t.
Next to her is the woman from the diner—Betty, I think. “Thought you might be hungry,” she says, holding up a plate of questionable leftovers.
Pops, Madi’s grandfather, sits in a rocking chair on the opposite side of the porch, scowling at the two women.
“You don’t fool anyone, Agnes.” Pops harrumphs from his side of the porch. “You’re here to see if these boys are single ’cause your granddaughter just left that jackass Marcus.”
“Hazel isn’t the only single one,” Betty says with a waggle of her hairless brows.
“Is she…flirting with us?” Sterling practically chokes on his words.
“Agnes. Betty,” Madi says in greeting while side-stepping us in her quest to the front door. “Don’t badger my guests.”
“Never,” Betty scoffs while Agnes’s glass eyeball reads us the riot act. “Besides, you’re the one who introduced them as the Fit Five. What did you expect would happen?”
“Not that the over-seventy crowd would be the first cougars on my porch, that’s for sure.” Turning to us, she waves us inside. “Ignore these two. They’re only here to give Pops grief because he intentionally ruined the plot twist in their book club read this month.”
“It was made into a movie ten years ago,” Pops grumbles. “How’s I supposed to know they hadn’t watched the damn thing yet? It’s on Heartmark every other weekend, for crying out loud.”
“Let’s go, boys.” Madi doesn’t have to tell us twice as we push and shove our way inside the inn, leaving Pops to fend for himself.
“Are things always so…wacky around here?” Roman asks while herding us into one of the inn’s parlors for a briefing.
“Always,” Madi confirms. She places a plate of chocolate chip cookies and a pitcher of freaking milk on the table. It’s like I woke up and landed in Santa’s workshop.
And I don’t hate it.
Neither does Chase, considering he’s the first to shove a whole cookie into his mouth.
