Chapter 4
The thought was dangerous. Hope was dangerous. Because once you started believing something was possible, you started making space for it in your life. And Dylan had learned long ago that the more space you made for dreams, the more it hurt when they didn’t come true.
But sitting in Aidan’s truck, watching him navigate roads his family had been traveling for almost two centuries, Dylan felt something shift inside her chest. Maybe it was the morning spent walking through history.
Maybe it was Patrick’s riddles working their own kind of magic.
Or maybe it was just Aidan himself, solid and real beside her, making her believe that some things were worth the risk of wanting them.
“Same time next week?” he asked when they reached the turnout where her car waited.
“I’ll be here,” she promised, and meant it.
As she drove back toward town, following the curves of a road that had been carved through wilderness by men who believed in permanence, Dylan thought about roots and wings, about staying and leaving, about the courage it took to do either.
The O’Haras had come to this valley with nothing but determination and hope. They’d built something that lasted, something worth protecting, something worth passing on.
Maybe it was time for Dylan Flanagan to stop running long enough to see if she could build something too.