Chapter 25
The plane landed in Montana on September 8th. Rose was alone, her eyes out the window, watching the purple mountains come closer, closer. But the minute the plane dinged and settled, she turned back on her phone to field several messages from Sean.
SEAN: Good luck today.
SEAN: I can’t believe any of this.
SEAN: What a crazy ending!
SEAN: I miss you.
The Salt Sisters had written their “good luck” as well. Rose sent them several heart emoji and got off the plane.
Rose had never been to Montana. It hadn’t been high on Oren’s list of places to go. Perhaps that was why Natalie had picked it.
Rose grabbed her suitcase and rented a car. Natalie had sent her an address, and she followed the directions to a T to get her to the ranch by five that evening. A yolk sun drenched the fields and valleys in orange light. It was so stunningly beautiful that Rose thought she was going to sob.
Rose drove down a long gravel driveway toward a little house at the edge of a massive property. Horses and cows milled in the middle distance. A tractor sat next to a red barn. It was nothing like the life she’d known. It looked like a painting she’d once seen in an art museum.
Rose got out of the car with shaking legs.
“Rose?” A beautiful voice came from the doorway.
Rose turned. And there she was.
Natalie Quinne.
Of course, her name was Caitlin now. Caitlin Rains.
Natalie wore a soft white dress, and her hair cascaded down her shoulders in grays and browns and blonds. She’d likely forgotten to get everything touched up and then decided not to care anymore. Her smile was the same as in the photographs of her, Oren, and Howard from all those years ago. Her teeth were white.
Natalie and Rose stood in awe of each other. Rose curled her hands into fists. She wanted to fall to her knees and apologize to Natalie, but she didn’t know what she wanted to apologize for. For not caring? For not looking for her when she had the chance?
But Natalie had gotten away.
“Come inside,” Natalie said when Rose still couldn’t say anything.
Natalie led Rose through the little house and out the back, where a wooden porch sat before the jagged Montana mountains. Rose sat down as Natalie poured her a glass of iced tea. She then paused and gave Rose a look. “I might need something stronger,” she confessed.
“I’d love anything you’ve got,” Rose admitted.
Natalie returned with red wine from Napa and poured stiff glasses. She sat down and raised her glass. Rose told herself not to sob. She thought maybe she was dreaming.
Natalie’s alive. This isn’t a dream.
“I can’t believe you got that guy behind bars,” Natalie said.
Rose let out a laugh that turned into a sob. “It was his own fault,” she said finally. “He made an error. He messed with my art.” She swallowed. “He thought he could still mess with me , I guess. But I’m not the same as I was.”
“It was only a matter of time before that idiot made a mistake,” Natalie said.
Rose pressed her lips together. “You know, I bought your old house.”
“I heard about that,” Natalie said.
“How?”
“I read about it,” Natalie said. “The news spits out stories about you and Oren and the Waldens every few minutes. Thank goodness I’m still labeled as ‘dead.’” She laughed and shook her head.
“I can’t believe he milked that sorrow about your death for so long,” Rose said. “He knew you didn’t die, obviously.”
“What could he do? He had to pay someone off,” Natalie said. “Otherwise, it looked like his wife just started a fire during an argument and ran out on him.”
Rose swallowed. “That’s what happened?”
Natalie nodded. “He was about to hit me. It’s not like he hadn’t done it before. I was so done. So exhausted. So when he wasn’t looking—I think he was crying about how I could never be the wife he really wanted—I set fire to the kitchen. Poof. It went up in flames.”
“How did it happen so quickly?” Rose asked.
“I might have had some gasoline in the kitchen,” Natalie said. “I might have planned the whole thing for weeks. I was just waiting for the time to strike.”
Rose took a sip of wine. “You’re the bravest woman I’ve ever met.”
Natalie laughed. “I don’t know about that. I had to completely abandon everything. I abandoned my name and my friends. It wasn’t till a few weeks after my ‘death’ that I could contact my family and tell them I was safe. They totally freaked out, obviously. But we’ve been able to remain in contact all these years.”
“When did you get to Montana?”
“It took a while,” Natalie admitted. “I didn’t have much money, and I had to pick up a few odd jobs here and there to get enough cash to come west. I figured Montana was perfect.”
“He would never come out here,” Rose agreed.
“Never.”
They held the silence for a moment. Overhead, an eagle swooped, then perched in a tree that had to be one hundred feet tall.
“I met Graham when I was thirty-one,” Natalie said. Graham was her husband; they owned the ranch together. “I didn’t tell him what my real name was until about two years later. I was terrified. For some reason, I thought he was going to hit me. But he melted with sorrow. He held me in his arms and told me he would never let anything like that happen again.” Natalie's tears came after that. She didn’t bother to mop them up.
“I saw he’d married someone else,” Natalie said. “I hated how young you looked in your photograph in the paper. It broke my heart, knowing what he was going to do to you. But you got out.”
“Eventually,” Rose said.
“And you didn’t even have to burn anything down,” Natalie said.
Rose cast her gaze to the ground. “I don’t know if I’ve ever really gotten over it.”
Natalie took her hand on the table. “I’m always here to talk to you. I get it.”
Rose pressed her lips together. She thought of Sean, waiting back in Nantucket for her. She thought about the tremendous density of the life she’d lived thus far. She raised her eyes to Natalie’s and said, “There’s life after Oren Grayson.”
“So much of it,” Natalie agreed. “I’m so grateful we had a chance to find it.”