Chapter One
Tessa Callahan rotated her head as she drove, trying to work loose the knot that had taken up permanent residence at the base of her skull. The heavy Chicago traffic had fried her nerves for the past two hours, brake lights bleeding into each other until they became one long smear of red. She should have left the city sooner, but she just could not get herself organized enough to do so.
Her meeting with Dr. Leland had run later than she hoped. He said he understood her need for a leave of absence, his voice carrying that careful, measured tone administrators used when they were about to extract something in return. Then he proceeded to push for a return date, his pen hovering over his calendar like a threat.
She had finally broken down in tears, which effectively pushed him back. Seven years of holding it together in the trauma bay, seven years of steady hands and steadier voice, and she had lost it in a leather chair across from a man who had never held a dying patient in his arms. The humiliation still burned in her chest.
In the end, she left with an open return date of sometime in October. Three months. Maybe more. Enough time to remember who she was before the hospital had hollowed her out.
Now, three hours later, the traffic finally dissipated, and the road turned into a two-lane country highway. The change was so sudden it felt like crossing into another world. Quaint roadside stands selling apples, cherries, syrup, apple cider, jams, and jelly appeared like offerings along the roadway. Antique shops dotted the spaces in between, their windows cluttered with the kinds of things people kept because they could not bear to let go.
A hand-painted sign advertising horseback rides greeted her around the next corner, the letters slightly crooked in a way that suggested someone's grandfather had made it.
"I just might try that," she said aloud, surprising herself. She had not talked to herself in years. There had never been enough silence to make it necessary.
Her SUV climbed a hill easily, the engine humming beneath her. The little stands and antique stores fell away as the landscape shifted to rocky hills dotted with resilient trees, their roots gripping stone like they had something to prove. She understood that. The determination to grow where you were not supposed to.
As soon as she crested the hill, her shoulders relaxed for the first time in months.
The sun was just beginning to set on Copper Moon harbor, and it was breathtaking. The water below had turned the color of its namesake, liquid copper catching the sun's final rays until the whole bay seemed to glow from within. White boats dotted the surface, their gentle bobbing creating ripples that sent kaleidoscope reflections dancing across the buildings along the water's edge.
"Wow."
She swallowed to wet her throat and slowed her descent on the other side of the hill, wanting to take in every detail of the little town below. Most of the buildings were painted white with various colors of shutters and front doors, blues and greens, and one bold red that caught the fading light. Little clothing stores lined what appeared to be Main Street, along with several small bars and two hotels. A church steeple rose above the rooftops, its white paint glowing amber in the sunset.
She turned right at the stop sign and slowly navigated between people crossing the road and cars trying to pull away from the curb. The town was bustling, but nothing like Chicago. This bustling took on a slower pace, unhurried, almost lazy. The speed of vacationers heading to the beach was far different than the helter-skelter of city life. No one honked. No one shouted. People actually looked at each other when they passed.
She had forgotten how much that mattered.
The road curved to the left, and she navigated another hill as the little town of Copper Moon faded into her rearview mirror. Her GPS chimed. Turn left in 200 feet.
She watched for the sign to the cabin she had rented. The pictures on the listing had made her feel more peaceful than she had felt in years. The kitchen looked like it had been well-loved, with worn wooden counters and a window that faced the water. She could already imagine making a cup of tea and sitting on the little deck, watching the light change over the bay.
She turned left onto White Gull Lane. The GPS instructed her that her destination was ahead. She grinned despite her exhaustion. "No kidding."
The road narrowed to a single lane, barely wide enough for her SUV. Trees connected overhead, their branches weaving together to create a tunnel of green that blocked out the fading sky. Dappled light played across her windshield. She already felt cozy, wrapped in green shadow and the smell of pine drifting through her cracked window.
As she rounded another corner, the driveway appeared at the end of the road, and she sighed. The little white cabin stood out against the waning sunlight and the deep cover of trees, exactly as it had looked in the photos. Maybe better. The real thing had a presence the pictures could not capture, a sense of having stood in this spot for decades, weathering storms and welcoming strangers.
She pulled to a stop next to a pickup truck and frowned.
The rental company had given her a code to open the door, and said the place would be empty and waiting. But maybe the owners were here to greet her. She understood they were an older couple who lived nearby. Perhaps something needed to be done inside before she arrived, a last-minute fix or a forgotten detail. Either way, it would be nice to meet the people she was renting from.
She stepped from her vehicle and stretched, her spine cracking in three places. It had taken her four and a half hours to get here from Chicago, which was not too bad considering the traffic. Copper Moon, South Carolina, had always been a place she hoped to visit. Colleagues had told her it was beautiful, peaceful, the kind of place where you could hear yourself think.
It was too bad she had arrived a bundle of nerves, her hands still shaking slightly from the drive, the meeting, and the weight of everything she had left behind.
She pulled her suitcase from the back seat and rolled it to the door. The wheels caught on the uneven flagstones, and she had to lift it the last few feet. She tapped in the code and heard the beep of the lock releasing.
Opening the door, she was greeted by the soft sounds of country music drifting from somewhere deeper in the house.
"Hello?" she called out.
Pulling her suitcase inside, she tentatively stepped farther into the cottage. The entryway opened into a small living room with a stone fireplace, exactly as she had imagined. But the music was wrong. The presence of another person was wrong. Everything about this felt off in a way that made her surgeon's instincts prickle.
A door opened to her right.
And a man wearing only a towel stepped out.
