Chapter 1
Harper
"It's not just one interview anymore. You're doing a six-part series on Nate Wilder."
The words hit like ice water. My coffee cup tilts before I can catch it. Hot liquid splashes across my wrist, staining my cream blouse. I barely register the burn. I'm too busy trying to remember how to breathe.
"A series?" My voice comes out steadier than I feel—a minor miracle considering my heart's attempting to escape through my throat. "Bill, you said one interview. One simple profile about his sustainability program."
Bill leans back in his ancient desk chair.
It creaks the same way it has for the past three years I've worked at the Willowbridge Chronicle.
Usually, the sound comforts me. Today, it sounds like nails on a chalkboard.
My editor—the closest thing to a father figure since Dad died—won't quite meet my eyes.
"Plans changed," he says. "The mayor called this morning. Turns out Dr. Wilder's program is more extensive than we thought. There's grant money involved, Harper. Big money. The kind that keeps our doors open."
Tuesday night at the Willow Tap flashes back—my spine going rigid as Nate walked through the door, ending four months of successful avoidance.
How he'd approached our table with that familiar confident stride, addressed me directly while Maya and June sat frozen beside me.
"My editor tells me you'll be interviewing me about the livestock sustainability program.
" So casual, like we were colleagues. Like he hadn't shattered me six years ago.
"Bill—"
"He specifically requested you handle the entire series."
My hand freezes halfway to my blouse, the napkin I grabbed trembling between my fingers. "He what?"
"His exact words were, 'Harper Lane is the only journalist in town capable of telling this story properly.' The mayor's thrilled. Says it'll put Willowbridge on the map as a leader in sustainable farming."
The room tilts slightly, and I grip the edge of his desk to steady myself.
Chad Brewster's nasally voice cuts through my memory, as sharp as it was at that graduation party six years ago: "Guess your boyfriend didn't tell you about California?
He left this morning. Took that fancy internship without a word. "
Everyone had stared. The entire senior class watching Harper Lane—perpetual optimist, chronic smiler, the girl who never met a silver lining she didn't love—crumble into nothing at what should have been a celebration.
"Jennifer would be better for this." I dab at the coffee again, avoiding Bill's eyes. "She covers agriculture, and she's—"
"It's you or nobody, Harper. Wilder made that crystal clear."
Of course he did. Nate Wilder—the man who destroyed me in front of everyone I knew, who left without a word, who I've been avoiding since he returned four months ago—has just upgraded his trap from one interview to six, meaning six weeks of forced proximity.
And he knows I can't walk away from the paper. It's the only thing I have left that's wholly mine, the only dream that didn't shatter when he did.
"Next Thursday's still the first interview?" The words come out small.
"Two o'clock. His clinic. But here's the kicker—you'll need to shadow him on farm visits for the full scope of the series."
I stand on legs that feel like overcooked spaghetti, forcing my trademark smile. The one that says everything's fine, nothing bothers Harper Lane, she's made of sunshine and steel.
"Sounds great, Bill. I'll make it the best series you've ever published."
But as I leave his office, my smile feels like a mask that's about to crack.
I make it exactly three steps into the newsroom before my escape route is blocked by five feet two inches of blonde optimism carrying what smells like heaven in a Tupperware container.
"Harper Lane, don't you dare run away from me." June's voice is sweet as her lemon bars, but there's steel underneath. "I saw you storm out of Bill's office and I know that face."
"What face?" I aim for innocent. "This is my normal face. My happy, totally-not-plotting-murder face."
She steers me toward my desk with the determination of someone who rises at four AM every day to feed the town's sugar addiction.
"It's your 'my world just got complicated' face.
The same one you had Tuesday night at the Willow Tap when—" Her eyes widen.
"Oh no. This is about him, isn't it? The interview? "
I slump into my chair, mental calculations already spinning. Rent: $1,200. Car payment: $350. Student loans that'll outlive me: $500. Savings account: pathetic. Number of other newspapers hiring in a fifty-mile radius: zero.
Fantastic. I'm financially trapped into spending weeks with my emotional kryptonite.
"Bill's expanding the Nate interview into a whole series." I reach for a lemon bar because if I'm going to have a breakdown, at least there should be pastries. "And apparently, his royal grumpiness specifically requested me."
June freezes mid-bite of her own bar. "He asked for you? That's... interesting."
"Interesting like a tax audit is interesting." I take a savage bite. Damn, it's perfect. June's baking should be illegal. "What kind of sadist specifically requests his ex-girlfriend shadow him for weeks on end?"
"The kind who was asking about you at the farmer's market yesterday."
I choke on my lemon bar. "He what?"
June winces. "He was buying apples from Mrs. Morrison's stand. Asked if you still come by every Saturday for honey. When she said yes, he got this look..."
"What look?" I hate that I care. Hate that my traitorous heart's doing little flip-flops.
"Like a puppy who sees his owner after being at the vet." June's eyes go soft. "Harper, it's been six years. Maybe hear him out? Find out why he left?"
"I know why he left." The words taste bitter despite the sugar on my tongue. "He got a better offer in California. End of story."
"Is it though?" June tilts her head, studying me with those doe eyes that see too much. "Because a man who got a better offer doesn't usually come back to a town of eight thousand people and specifically request his ex write about him."
The truth of it sits heavy in my chest. Four months he's been back. Four months of me ducking into stores when I spot him, taking the long way to avoid his clinic, pretending I don't feel the weight of his presence in every corner of this too-small town.
"It doesn't matter why he's back." My voice cracks just enough for June to notice. "He made his choice six years ago."
"Maybe." June stands, brushing crumbs from her apron. "Or maybe he's trying to unmake it."
She leaves me with that thought and half a container of lemon bars, which is either friendship or enablement. Possibly both.
I spend the rest of the day pretending to work on my piece about the library's new reading program, but my traitorous fingers keep typing "Nate Wilder veterinary practice" into Google. Just for research. Professional, totally detached research.
Sweet mother of overachievement.
Three farms completely revolutionized in four months. The Morrison place increased milk production by thirty percent. Johnson's farm cut veterinary costs in half with his preventative care program. Even perpetually grumpy Mr. Hill is quoted saying Nate's "some kind of miracle worker with animals."
Of course he is. Nate Wilder couldn't just come back to town as a regular vet. No, he has to be the livestock whisperer, saving farms and probably rescuing kittens from trees in his spare time.
I click on the "About" section of his clinic's website and immediately regret it.
There he is—professional headshot in a lab coat, looking all competent and annoyingly handsome.
His hair's still that same sandy blonde, with tiny lines around his eyes that weren't there in college, but that crooked smile—
Nope. Absolutely not. I slam the laptop closed so hard the desk shakes.
My phone buzzes. Maya:
How are you holding up? Lucas says Nate's been at the Tap every night this week looking like someone stole his favorite toy.
Me:
I'm fine. Why would I care if he's sulking?
Maya:
Because you're still in love with him?
Me:
I'm in love with chocolate and questionable reality TV. Not veterinarians with abandonment issues.
Maya:
Right. That's why you're cyber-stalking him.
I glare at my laptop like it betrayed me. Which is ridiculous—Maya's at her place, not hiding in my search history. Though she is a tech whiz, so anything's possible.
Me:
Research for the article. ARTICLES plural now. Bill upgraded it to a whole series.
Maya:
OMG. How long?
Me:
Six weeks of shadowing farm visits. Kill me now.
Maya:
Or... hear me out... talk to him? Like adults?
Me:
I'd rather drink decaf.
My desk phone rings before Maya can respond with what would surely be another annoyingly logical suggestion. The mayor's secretary gushes about how "thrilled" everyone is about the agricultural series.
"The mayor wants to ensure you understand how important this is for Willowbridge," she chirps. "Federal grant money, agricultural innovation awards, putting us on the map!"
Great. Political pressure too. As if financial desperation wasn't enough motivation to walk into my own personal emotional apocalypse.
I glance at the website still glowing behind my closed laptop screen. One week to prepare. One week to build walls thick enough that Nate Wilder and his crooked smile can't crack them.
My email pings. The sender makes my stomach drop: Dr. Nate Wilder, DVM.
Subject line: "Next Thursday"
My finger hovers over the delete button. I could claim I never got it. Email's unreliable. Technology is mysterious.
But professional pride wins. I click open.
Looking forward to next Thursday. We have a lot to discuss. - N
Five words that somehow feel like a challenge, an apology, and a promise all at once.
"We." He wrote "we have a lot to discuss." Not "I need to explain" or "you'll be interviewing me." We. Like we're still a unit. Like he has any right to assume there's a "we" after six years of radio silence.
The audacity of this man.
I slam my laptop shut again and grab my purse.
I need to get home, pour a glass of wine, and figure out what armor to wear for this battle.
The black blazer says professional distance.
The navy dress suggests I'm unbothered. But the red dress—the one he used to love, the one that made his eyes go dark in that way that made me forget my own name—that would really mess with his head.
Perfect. Psychological warfare it is.
My phone rings as I'm heading to my car. Maya.
"I'm fine," I answer without preamble.
"I didn't even ask yet."
"You were going to. I can feel your concern through the phone waves. I'm fine, Maya. Totally fine. So fine I'm considering taking up yoga."
"You hate yoga."
"People change." Unlike my ability to lie convincingly, apparently.
"Harper—"
"I have to go. There's a... thing. With my... oven."
I hang up before she can point out I haven't used my oven since the great smoke alarm incident of last year.
The drive home takes me past Nate's clinic because of course it does—everything in Willowbridge is on Main Street. I fully intend to keep my eyes straight ahead like a mature adult, but then I see it.
His truck. That ancient Ford F-150 with the dent in the passenger door from when I tried to parallel park it junior year. Same faded blue paint.
He kept it. After all this time, all the money he must be making now, he kept that rust bucket we drove everywhere in college. The one where we had our first kiss at the drive-in. Where we planned our entire future on late-night drives to nowhere.
My chest tightens. All these memories rushing back—Nate Wilder isn't just returning to town. He's unraveling my carefully constructed world, one nostalgic gut punch at a time.