“I stayed in a bad situation for longer than I should have.” She kept her eyes on her tea. “I told myself I was being careful. That I was waiting for the right moment, the right circumstances, the right plan.” She paused. “But mostly I was just afraid.”
Silence stretched through the kitchen.
“Eventually I realized the fear wasn’t protecting me,” Dana continued. “It was just keeping me stuck.” She looked up, and her eyes met Rowan’s. “I don’t know what you’re dealing with. But you don’t strike me as someone who’s used to letting fear run things.”
Rowan held her gaze. “I’m not usually.”
“Then don’t start now.”
Someone knocked at the back door.
That had to be Wes. It was time.
She pushed back her chair and reached for her jacket. Then she stopped and looked at Dana. “I have to run. But thank you. I hope we can talk more later.”
Dana lifted her mug in a small salute and turned back toward the window. “Anytime.”
CHAPTER 19
The road wound awayfrom Refuge Cove through a corridor of dark trees, the truck’s headlights cutting a pale path ahead. Rowan watched the shapes of the ridgeline against the sky as the sun disappeared on the horizon.
She tried to organize everything she’d been carrying into something she could actually say out loud.
Remington solved the problem of the silence by pushing his nose between the front seats and resting it on her shoulder.
“Well, hello, there.” She reached up and scratched behind his ear without thinking. “I’m glad you came, handsome.”
The dog leaned closer, his warm weight steady against her.
“He loves the attention,” Wes said.
“Who doesn’t? He’s such a smart dog.”
“Don’t tell him that. His ego doesn’t need the help.”
She smiled despite herself, her fingers still moving through Remington’s coat. The dog made a low sound of contentment that she felt more than heard.
For a few minutes neither she nor Wes spoke. The road climbed steadily as they left the valley. Rowan felt the elevation in the pops in her ears.
The weight of everything she hadn’t said yet sat between her and Wes. It had been there since he’d picked her up . . . maybe since before that.
She kept her hand on Remington and watched the dark shapes of the mountains.
“How much farther?” she asked.
“About five minutes.”
She nodded.
The asphalt gave way in places to packed gravel as the road narrowed. Finally, Wes pulled off at an overlook and cut the engine.
The quiet that followed was enormous.
Below them, the valley spread out in darkness—scattered lights from farmhouses, the faint glow of Blue Ridge Hollow to the north, the black shapes of the mountains layered beyond.
Above them, the sky stretched endless and crowded with stars in a way Los Angeles had made her forget was possible.
Rowan stepped out of the truck, her gaze lifting upward. The mountains fell away beneath them in dark layers, but the sky felt even bigger somehow. Closer.
