Chapter 2
The quiet clicks of Maggie’s boots on the cracked pavement sounded loud along the silent street. It wasn’t even seven, but no one else was in sight.
Not a surprise. There was a meeting tonight. That was where the entire town was. And she was late.
Dammit.
She sped up her pace, nervous tension prickling over her skin.
Home. She was finally home.
But was she? Deep River hadn’t felt like home in a long time.
Years. She’d left when she was eighteen.
For a few years, she’d come back to visit Polly, but after that final night, she hadn’t been able to visit again.
Because what if she ran into her aunt? Or what if Ethan came home at the same time she did?
Her breathing hitched.
She was a different person now. Or at least, she liked to think she was. She’d seen the world. Eaten foods she couldn’t pronounce. Touched structures that were thousands of years old.
She should be different.
But being back here, walking the same streets she’d walked as a teenager, threw her back to a time she didn’t want to remember.
She rounded a corner, pulling her jacket tighter around her shoulders.
She hadn’t visited her aunt yet. She probably wouldn’t. Eventually, they’d run into each other, but the longer she put that off, the better.
A car passed, the dull thrum of the engine overpowering the click of her boots.
Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe she should have stayed home tonight.
No. Polly was right. Better to rip off the Band-Aid and let the entire town know she was back in one evening.
But he could be there.
The whispered thought made a shudder course down her spine.
He shouldn’t be there. What had he called these meetings? An angry bingo night for the town crazies with no prize money.
He’d hated every one of these meetings.
But then, that was eleven years ago. He’d likely changed too.
Plus, according to town gossip that Polly had overheard in her café, Ethan was dating Nel. Beautiful nurse Nel.
She shouldn’t be surprised. Of course he was taken. What had she expected, that a man like him would be single for over a decade after she’d broken up with him? No chance of that. Zero.
Her phone vibrated with a text, and she tugged it from her back pocket.
Polly: I saved a seat for you.
She glanced at the time—six fifty-eight. Two minutes. Shit.
At least she knew Lilith wouldn’t be there. Ethan’s hate for town meetings was nothing compared to her aunt’s. But that was because her aunt was a self-centered narcissist.
When a second car passed, this time driving slower than the first, Maggie swallowed hard, fear skittering in her bones.
Two people had gone missing in this town in the last few months. Both women. Maybe they’d just gotten lost in the forest and hadn’t been able to find their way out. They were tourists and that could happen when tourists weren’t familiar with the area.
A crunch sounded behind her, like leaves beneath shoes.
She stopped and turned, her heartbeat speeding up.
No one was there.
Of course there was no one. Because the street was empty. The women had gone missing in the forest, not here in town.
She turned and started walking again, her heart beating a fraction faster.
Her phone lit up with a notification from her travel Instagram account.
And that was the second reason that something as small as a shuffling sound made her jump…because someone had been harassing her.
It had started with comments on every post. Then direct messages commenting on what she was doing. Telling her the weather looked nice, or she was lucky to be where she was.
But then other things had started happening.
She’d returned from work trips to notice strange things in her house, like a pair of her favorite earrings missing, and her bed having a faint, unfamiliar scent.
Then more obvious things. Like her loofah being wet after a week-long trip. And a burnt wick on a brand-new candle.
Stalker. That’s what the police had called it. Her skin chilled at the title.
But she wasn’t in LA anymore. She was in Deep River. She hadn’t posted about coming home. That was all behind her.
Another crunch of leaves.
The back of her neck tingled, and she sped up yet again, moving so fast she was nearly jogging down the street.
She raced around a corner—only to run right into a big broad chest.
She gasped, and would have rebounded off the body, but strong fingers gripped her upper arms, steadying her.
“Maggie?”
Her gaze shot up at the familiar voice. Not just a familiar voice—his face too. It was older, but in a good way. He wasn’t in his early twenties anymore, closer to mid-thirties.
“Connor.” The name was barely a whisper on her lips.
She turned to see his friends, suddenly feeling impossibly small. They were huge, all well over six feet, and so muscled she almost stepped back.
But she knew they wouldn’t hurt her…because she knew all of them too.
Shock seized her, wrapping its fingers around her lungs, making it hard to breathe. They were all here. And if they were here, that meant…
The bar door opened, and Maggie’s world narrowed.
For a moment, air didn’t make its way into her chest. Her vision started to haze as one word—one name—fell from her lips.
A name she hadn’t said in eleven years. A name she’d thought about, dreamed about, more times than she should have.
“Ethan.”