Chapter 4
Dylan looked at the sun, now high overhead. They’d been walking for hours, piecing together not just clues but the entire story of a family that had endured against all odds. Her legs were tired, her mind was spinning, but something in her wanted to keep going, to see how this story played out.
“We should come back next week,” she said instead, the practical part of her asserting itself. “Plan better, bring supplies.”
Aidan looked like he wanted to protest, then nodded. “You’re right. Besides, Grandda waited three years to give me this puzzle. He’d probably approve of making me wait a little longer.”
As they walked back toward the truck, taking a different path that Aidan promised was shorter, Dylan found herself thinking about permanence, about roots, about what it meant to stay.
The O’Haras had been here since before Laurel Valley existed.
They’d shaped the land and been shaped by it in return.
They’d built something that lasted not through stubbornness alone but through adaptation, through choosing the right partners, through knowing when to hold tight and when to let go.
“Can I ask you something?” Aidan said as they emerged from the forest onto the road where they’d left his truck.
“Depends on the question.”
“Why didn’t you come to book club Thursday?”
The question caught her off guard, too direct for the cautious dance they’d been doing all morning. “I forgot,” she admitted. “I’ve been distracted.”
“By the job offer?”
“By everything.” She stopped walking, needing to say this while she wasn’t looking at him, while the words could float free without the weight of his green eyes. “The job isn’t really the issue. Marcus could offer me twice as much and it wouldn’t solve the real problem.”
“Which is?”
“I want my own shop. My own place where I can do restorations the way they should be done. Where I can choose projects that matter, that bring something beautiful back to life.” The words came out in a rush, a dream she’d never voiced aloud before.
“But that takes money I don’t have, credit I can’t get, and faith that I could actually build something lasting. ”