Chapter 2
Two
Alaric
The scenery flashes by as I drive, but I barely see it.
I can’t get her out of my head. The woman in the grocery store this morning, the one who tipped the cereal display before bolting, looked exactly like Liz.
Same blonde hair, same confident posture that dared people to underestimate her.
The kind of woman who could silence a room just by walking through it.
It’s ridiculous, of course. Liz lives in Vancouver, and she’s made that perfectly clear.
She wants nothing to do with anything outside the city.
It’s been almost four years since I packed up my apartment in North Van and came home to Paradise, British Columbia.
Three years since I ran into her at a christening, her arms crossed and her eyes full of disappointment I’d earned.
She was the one person in my life who made me feel, and I never was very good at that.
I shake my head, but the image won’t let go. It could’ve been the light, or the way she tilted her chin. I might’ve imagined it entirely. Maybe it was a stranger wearing her perfume—a trace of jasmine threading through citrus and floor polish.
The store was crowded, and my brain filled in what it wanted to see.
I was distracted, catching up with my cousin Kaitlyn about family gossip and our grandmother’s increasing volatility.
But Liz? No. It was recognition bias. Projection.
I teach this stuff to my interns, but knowing the psychology doesn’t stop the sting of memory.
I should be thinking about my patients, not ghosts from another life. I’ve got three reports due tomorrow, two intake summaries to finish, and a patient at the clinic. No time for distractions.
Still, as I pull into the narrow parking lot behind my office and the hospital, the thought follows me.
If it was her, what would she be doing here?
Liz’s best friend, Trinity Paradise, lives in town…
Maybe she’s visiting, but those two are usually attached at the hip, and that woman was alone.
I cut the engine, pocket my keys, and stare up at the snow-heavy sky pressing low over the valley.
The air is crisp with the bite of winter, but for a moment, I swear I can still smell jasmine on the wind.
Inside, the office is quiet in that Sunday kind of way—still air, muted light, and the faint smell of peppermint tea from the mug I forgot to wash yesterday.
The waiting-room lamps glow against the frost-laced windows, and my only patient of the day sits hunched in a corner chair, scrolling her phone until I open the door.
“Come on in, Kara,” I tell her.
She’s a nurse from the emergency department at Paradise General—exhausted, overworked, and barely holding it together. I’ve seen that look a hundred times this winter.
She tucks her phone away and forces a smile. “Sorry. I was just checking messages.”
“No apology needed.” I nod toward the couch as she enters. “Rough weekend?”
Her laugh is brittle. “They’re all rough these days. People don’t stop needing care just because we’re short-staffed or it’s the holidays.”
She talks for a long time—about double shifts, the lack of sleep, the guilt of leaving her kids with her ex so she can work nights. I listen, scribbling notes I’ll probably never read again, because it’s not the paper that matters. It’s the way her voice cracks on the words she doesn’t mean to say.
When she stops talking, I give her a moment before speaking. “You’re carrying too much alone,” I tell her. “You know that, right?”
She looks at her hands. “If I let go, people get hurt.”
I wish I had better answers. The truth is, I’m right there with her—different field, same exhaustion. I guide her through breathing work, offer a few grounding techniques, and schedule another session for next week. As she leaves, she hesitates in the doorway.
“Thanks, Dr. Dempsey.” Her voice softens. “You always make it feel like I’m not losing my mind.”
I smile, but her words linger after the door clicks shut. The quiet that follows isn’t peace. It’s emptiness.
I sink back into my chair, rubbing my face.
My eyes ache. My brain buzzes with the constant noise of other people’s pain.
On the desk, my computer screen glows with unanswered emails.
I click through them—messages from colleagues asking if I can take new referrals, continuing medical education reminders flagged red because the hours are required for my license renewal, research articles I’d love to read if I ever had the time.
My jaw tightens. I don’t have the time. I don’t even have the energy. But I’ll say yes to much of this. I always do.
I scroll back up to a renewal notice from the College of Health and Care Professionals of British Columbia—sixteen hours of continuing education due by next month’s end or my license lapses.
They’ve even copied hospital administration for good measure.
Who has time for professional development when you’re one of three psychologists covering half the valley?
I close my laptop without reading the rest. It just feels impossible. And anyway, it’ll still be there tomorrow, along with the growing pile of things I’m pretending I’ll get to.
Out the window, daylight is fading fast. Snow drifts down in thin white ribbons, catching on the ledge.
The heater clicks on with a soft groan. Maybe I should go home, but home doesn’t feel like rest anymore.
Not with all the added drama circling my family’s winery and the mess we might be in, thanks to my grandmother and her particular way of being the matriarch.
For a long moment, I just sit. My mind loops back to the woman in the grocery store—the curve of her jaw, the familiar spark in her eyes.
The memory shouldn’t feel this raw. But Liz was never easy to forget.
Leaving her was the right decision, but that doesn’t mean it’s stopped hurting.
She wanted to stay close to her family, and I knew mine needed me here.
The office feels too big, too quiet. I built this space to help people heal, but some days it feels like I’m patching holes in everyone else’s lives while mine quietly frays at the edges. Everyone in this valley depends on someone too tired to say no.
I pull out the reports I’ve fallen behind on. Patient charts stay current—I don’t let those slide—but the rest stacks up faster than I can manage until the weight of it all feels crushing.
I’m about to give up and power down for the evening when my phone lights up—a name that guarantees my day isn’t over.
“Hi, Evie,” I say, bracing for the tempest that is my grandmother.
“Alaric, thank God you answered,” she says, voice sharp. “Do you have any idea what’s going on in this valley?”
I close my eyes and lean back. The storm has arrived.
Breathe in. Count to four. Breathe out. Count to four.
“I’m not sure,” I say, rubbing the bridge of my nose. “What’s happened now?”
Evelyn Dempsey sighs so loudly I have to pull the phone from my ear.
“What’s happened is incompetence, that’s what.
The investigators are useless. They still haven’t questioned anyone at Paradise Hill.
Not one. You’d think after everything that happened with the vineyard, they’d have enough sense to look closer. ”
I spin the chair toward the window, watching the parking lot lights blink through the falling snow. “They’re still reviewing the reports. These things take time.”
“Time is what they want us to waste,” she snaps. “Mark my words, Alaric, someone over there is covering it up. Those Paradise people have friends in every office from here to Victoria. They’re aiming at me to take our land.”
I’ve heard all this before. Still, there’s something new in her voice tonight, an edge of desperation that cuts through her usual fire. “You don’t need to get involved,” I tell her gently. “If you think it’s serious, talk to your lawyer. Let him handle it.”
She scoffs. “Lawyers only care when there’s a bill to send. No, I’ll handle it. I always do.”
I want to press harder, ask what kind of sabotage she’s talking about this time, but experience tells me that will only feed her anger.
I’ve spent years, probably decades, fielding calls from her filled with gossip, complaints, and theories about the Paradises.
I love her, but her approach drains me in a way no patient ever could.
“Evie,” I say softly, “please just be careful.”
Her tone softens. “I’m fine. Serafina’s running the day-to-day and Dylan and Scott are helping out.”
Sera is my sister, and Dylan and Scott are our cousins.
Them helping out is news to me. I’ll have to check in with my sisters, though probably only three of them because Evie wouldn’t tell Ginny anything since she’s married to a Paradise.
We saw each other for breakfast at Evie’s on Christmas morning, but that’s not the place to talk.
I fight a sigh. “That’s great.”
She harrumphs. “If Trace and Max Paradise think they can intimidate me, they’re sadly mistaken.”
“They know better,” I lie, hoping to steer us clear of another argument. She’s in her mid-eighties and has been angry with the Paradise family as long as I can remember. She likely knows I’m lying, but this time she lets it go.
When I hang up, silence floods back in—heavy, bone-deep. I lean forward, elbows on my knees, staring at the faint reflection of my face in the window.
I used to love this work—the problem-solving, the connection, helping people find their way back to themselves. Now, it feels like I’m pouring from an empty cup. I’ve taken on too many clients, filled too many gaps at the hospital, and there’s never enough time or energy left for me.
Outside, the snow has thickened, now lit by the glow of the streetlight. I tell myself I’ll take a day off next weekend. Maybe even two. But I already know I won’t.
Before I can set the phone down, it buzzes again. Same name on the screen. I sigh and answer, leaning back. “Hello?”
“You hung up on me,” she accuses.
“I thought we were done.”
“Done? Hardly. You didn’t let me finish.” Her voice sharpens. “You never let me finish.”
I swivel the chair toward the window again. “All right, Evie. Finish.”
“Do you know who I saw at the market this morning?” she asks.
I freeze for half a beat. She didn’t see Liz. Couldn’t have. But the coincidence tightens something in my chest. “Who?” I ask carefully.
“Vicky Paradise,” she says, disgust dripping. “Parading around like she owns the valley. I swear, those people never quit showing off. And after all the damage they’ve done…” She trails off with a sigh that’s half grief, half venom.
I press my thumb into the bridge of my nose. “Evie, Paradise Hill’s been hit hard over the last year. Good for her for not hiding at home. And maybe she just needed groceries.”
“You think it’s a coincidence our irrigation lines were cut the same week their cottage burned? That we’re losing bottling contracts we’ve held for twenty years? Someone’s playing games, and it isn’t us.”
This again. The feud, the sabotage, the endless comparisons between our Black Bear Winery and Paradise Hill. I grew up on it—two families locked in competition so old no one remembers how it started. Most people in town stopped caring years ago. Everyone except Evelyn Dempsey.
“I really think you should call your lawyer,” I tell her. “If there’s something wrong with the irrigation, he can handle it before it gets worse.”
She makes a dismissive noise. “I’m not wasting money on some man who barely remembers which side he’s on. You think lawyers in this town don’t drink Paradise wine?”
I almost laugh. “You make it sound like a conspiracy.”
“Because it is,” she says flatly. “And I will not sit by while they take what’s ours. This winery has been in business for eight generations. I won’t see it destroyed by people who think they can buy their way out of every mess they make.”
Her voice trembles at the end, and that’s what undoes me. The fire’s still there, but so is fatigue. She’s not the same woman who used to walk the rows at sunrise, coat unbuttoned, boots muddy, commanding foremen like a general. She sounds smaller now.
“Evie,” I say gently, “you’re not alone in this, okay? You’ve got Sera and Josie helping, and Addie’s art exhibit at the diner is bringing good press.”
“They’re girls,” she says, dismissing her granddaughters. “They don’t understand what this land means. Ginny married a Paradise. You’re the only one who’s been true to this family. If you won’t do it, I’m beginning to wonder if Dylan and Scott aren’t better suited to take over when I’m gone.”
“I think Sera and Josie are doing a great job—”
“They’re too close to the Paradise family.”
My sisters would be crushed if she handed the vineyard to my cousins, but arguing usually digs her heels in deeper.
So I say nothing, but the guilt lands like a weight I can’t shrug off.
I moved home to help people, to build something that didn’t depend on barrels, harvests, and grudges.
But every time I hear the spite in her voice, I wonder…
If I had agreed to take over the family vineyard, would it be different?
“I’ll come by this week,” I say softly. “Check on things. Maybe walk the rows with you.”
That seems to placate her. “Good boy. Bring coffee. That fancy kind I like.”
“I’ll pick some up.”
We talk a little longer about the weather and the neighbor’s dog digging in her flower beds. By the time we say goodbye, her mood seems to have evened out, but the call leaves a heaviness behind.
I set my phone down and stare at it, my chest tightening with the familiar pull between duty and distance. I don’t want any of this. I’ve tried not to be involved, but I haven’t mastered that. Anyway, she’s not wrong about one thing. Everyone in the valley is trying to protect what’s theirs.
I look around the office, realize I’m not getting any more work done, and decide to head home.
Outside, the world feels muted, as if the valley itself is holding its breath.
I lock the office door and pocket my keys, my boots crunching as I walk to the car.
I picture my grandmother alone in that big house, stewing in her suspicions.
She’s stubborn, but she’s also afraid, and that’s the part that worries me.
Inside the car, I sit for a moment before starting the engine. The heater wheezes to life, fogging the windshield. My phone buzzes with another reminder about my CME credits being overdue. I swipe it away.
The phantom from this morning flickers again in my mind—the turn of her head, the way she brushed her hair behind her ear. But it had to be someone else.
Still, as I pull onto the road, the doubt lingers. Paradise isn’t a town you end up in by mistake. And if Liz is here, crashing two store displays might be better than having to see me.