Chapter 19
The road wound away from 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.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this many stars,” she murmured.
Wes got out and leaned one shoulder against the truck beside her. “You used to make me drive out here when we were in high school.”
She looked at him, surprised into a small laugh. “No, I didn’t.”
“You absolutely did.”
“I did not.”
“You said shooting stars didn’t appear over town because of light pollution.”
“That sounds scientifically valid, honestly.”
A quiet smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Rowan looked back toward the sky, warmth brushing unexpectedly through the tightness in her chest. “I’d forgotten about that.”
“You made everybody sit in silence for twenty minutes because you said talking scared them away.” Wes’s words curled with humor.
Rowan smiled. “That part I remember.”
“I’m pretty sure Naomi threatened to leave.”
“She always had the attention span of a fruit fly.” She shrugged.
Wes huffed a quiet laugh.
Then, as if the memory itself had pulled it into existence, a streak of white crossed the sky above them. The sight was fast and bright and gone almost instantly.
Rowan caught her breath. “No way.”
Wes looked up just as the trail faded.
For one suspended second, neither of them spoke.
Then Wes glanced at her. “You still make wishes on those?”
Rowan smiled, but something deeper moved underneath it now. Sadness maybe. Or longing.
“I think somewhere along the way I stopped believing wishes brought about change,” she murmured.
Wes studied her before saying, “Maybe you just started wishing for the wrong things.”
The words landed harder than she expected.
The mountains went quiet around them again.
For the first time since she’d come back to Virginia, Rowan felt something dangerous stir beneath all the fear and exhaustion.
Not safety.
Something she trusted even less.
Hope.
Then she glanced back at Wes again.
He was watching her, patient and unhurried, the way he’d always had. Waiting for her to be ready to talk to him without making her feel the wait.
And she knew she couldn’t put off this conversation any longer.
Rowan couldn’t bring herself to start.
Wes nodded toward the back of the truck. “Come on.”
They settled on the tailgate, the metal cool through her clothes. Remington sniffed around along the stone railing separating them from the steep slope on the other side.
Rowan pulled her jacket tighter.
“Whenever you’re ready . . .” Wes said. “I’m listening.”
She looked out at the valley for a moment.
Dana’s words echoed in her mind. Eventually I realized the fear wasn’t protecting me. It was just keeping me stuck.
She drew in a shaky breath.
She had to tell someone what had happened. And Wes was the one person who could always hear the worst version of her and still look at her the same way afterward.
She hoped that was still true.
“I saw Vince kill Thayer, but he has evidence to frame me for the murder,” she blurted.
“What?” His eyes widened. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”
She drew in another shaky breath, knowing she was talking faster than she should.
But then she started from the beginning, just as Wes suggested.
She told him about the argument she’d overheard. Told him about watching through the gap in the door. About the shove when Thayer hit the table.
She told him what happened. All of it.
When she finished, the valley lights blurred below her for a second before she blinked away her tears.
She hadn’t let herself cry since any of this began. She wasn’t a crier. But the reality of what she’d gone through hit her, and she couldn’t hold the moisture back.
“I’m sorry, Rowan.” Wes slipped his arm around her.
Without hesitation, she leaned into him. At once, she felt at home.
She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed this. How much she’d missed Wes.
How much she regretted ever letting him go.
She felt like she could get through anything as long as Wes was with her.
Wes was quiet a moment before saying, “Rowan, you need to go to the authorities with this.”
She swung her head back and forth. “I can’t.”
“Rowan—”
“I mean it.” She turned to face him. “Think about what I just told you. I was there. I ran. I left a piece of my jewelry at the scene.”
“That doesn’t automatically make you guilty.”
She held his gaze. “The official ruling is accidental death. There’s already a public narrative running that describes me as unstable. And Vince has everything he needs to make me look guilty. At this point, if I tell the authorities what really happened, I’m not a witness. I’m a suspect.”
Wes’s gaze remained unwavering. “You’re a witness who panicked. That’s different.”
“Tell that to a jury.”
“This wouldn’t get to a jury. Not if you come forward now, voluntarily, before—”
“Before what?” Her voice stayed even but the edge in it was real.
“Before Vince uses that photograph? He already used it. He sent it to me at my family’s address to make it clear that he knows exactly where I am and what leverage he has.
That’s not a man who’s going to fold because I walked into a police station. ”
“But—”
She didn’t let him finish. “He has lawyers, Wes. He has connections. He has a story that’s already been accepted as fact. And I have—” She stopped.
“What?” he murmured, his concerned gaze nearly breaking her.
She looked back out at the valley. “And I have a history of making impulsive decisions. A contract I may have breached. An agent who’s trying to spin my disappearance as a personal crisis.” She blew out a breath. “I have nothing that doesn’t make me look exactly the way he wants me to look.”
Wes looked out at the valley, his jaw set.
Rowan could see him working through the situation. He was testing his theories the same way he’d test a fence or a building he’d been hired to secure. He was looking for the weak point, the place where her reasoning didn’t hold.
And he wasn’t finding it as easily as he’d expected to.
“You’re not wrong,” he said at last.
She hadn’t expected that. “I know.”
“I still think going to the authorities is the right move. But you’re right about the timing and what he’s positioned you for. That means before you do anything, we need to change the equation.”
“How?”
He opened his mouth to answer.
Before he could, a branch snapped in the distance.
She sucked in a breath. Was someone out there?