Love Grows Wild

Prologue

Wren

“You sure you want to do this?” My best friend, Reese, frowns from my doorway. She comes bearing cardboard boxes, moving tape, Sharpies, and a wistful expression on her face.

“It’s not optional.” I sip my iced chai and scan the lofty downtown Des Moines condo my son and I have called home for the last four years.

Twenty years ago, I left my hometown of Colton Valley—a blink-and-you-miss-it Iowa farming town, got a generic college degree, and somehow along the way stumbled into a career as a romance novelist.

Everything was going well . . . until life happened.

Turns out it’s impossible to write—or at least write well—when your personal life goes up in flames. One of the worst feelings in the world is having a story to tell that refuses to come out. The flashing cursor on a blank white page is a visual that haunts my dreams on a nightly basis.

“You’re sure you’re not doing this because of he-who-shall-not-be-named?

” Reese sighs. “It’s just that everything is so fresh, and this decision seems so .

. . sudden. I just hope you’re doing it for the right reasons and it’s not some knee-jerk impulse reaction.

Don’t let that asshole run you out of the city you love. ”

“I’m not running from anything—or anyone.” I tuck the flaps on a cardboard box. “And you can say Nick’s name. It’s not forbidden. He doesn’t get to leave me at the altar and still wield that much power over me.”

Reese sits straighter, satisfied with my answer. While it’s been six months since Nick left me the morning of our wedding day, and the aftershocks of that rug-pull are still shaky, the love is gone.

I don’t miss him.

I don’t wish things had been different.

I just wish I could write again.

I have overdue contracts, and I feel like I’m letting everyone down. My die-hard readers. My agent. My editor. Myself. My son and the life I was building for us . . .

Two months ago, Atticus found me sobbing over my laptop in the middle of the night. He brought me a blanket, his beloved teddy bear, and a glass of water, and then he scampered off to grab his favorite book, telling me I needed some inspiration.

Inspiration was exactly what I needed, just not from between the pages of Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site.

“I can’t live here without you.” She sets the boxes on the dining room table and sinks into a chair, half pouting.

“Then come with me. It’s only forty minutes away,” I say. “It’s a cute little postcard town. You’d love it.”

“I’d hate it,” she counters.

“True. But you hated sushi until I made you try it,” I remind her. “Now it’s your favorite.”

The day I left for college, I vowed to myself I’d never move back home.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that quaint little Hallmark town.

But for me, it wasn’t about that. Leaving home meant pushing myself out of my comfort zone and into the unknown.

I was convinced that would be where my life would truly begin.

And it did . . . until it started to feel like it was ending too.

Reese uncaps a black Sharpie and takes a whiff, grimacing. “Why do I both hate and love this smell? Make it make sense.”

I tape a box of paperback books and label it office.

“I just can’t picture you living on an acreage.

In a farmhouse. You’ve been a city girl ever since I’ve known you.

You have this modern industrial loft with these huge ceilings.

You eat at the best restaurants. You travel all the time, and you’re ten minutes from the airport.

And Atticus goes to that cool preschool over on Walnut.

I bet they don’t have schools like that in Colton Valley.

And how many restaurants do they have? One? Two?”

I chuckle. “Four, actually. Five, if you count the bar that serves frozen pizza by the slice. I’ve been wanting to learn how to cook more anyway.

And their elementary school is one of the best in the state, believe it or not.

Atticus is really excited for kindergarten this fall.

Plus, my mom works there, so he’ll get to see his grandma every day. ”

“Good for Atticus. But you’re going to hate it, and you’re going to be calling me up asking me to pack you up again, and I’m just going to say I told you so.”

“Just wait until you see the property. Cute little white farmhouse. Wraparound porch. Tree-lined driveway. Room for a food garden. The yard backs up to the river, and there’s even a little gazebo.

Oh, and there’s a red barn with a little corral.

I was thinking of getting one of those adorable mini cows—or maybe a pony for Atticus? And a dog. I should get a big dog.”

She pinches the bridge of her nose. “I love your enthusiasm, but as your oldest and longest friend, I’d like to remind you that you’ve never kept a single houseplant or goldfish alive, so it worries me to hear you talk so casually about growing your own food and raising large animals.”

I snort. She’s not wrong, but I think this could be good for me.

I need to refocus.

I need to get out of my funk.

I need a change of scenery.

I need nature and purpose and to be closer to family—to my roots.

I need inspiration . . .

My god, do I need inspiration.

“I’m excited for this new chapter,” I tell her.

I don’t want to devote more energy to Nick than necessary, and while I’m not angry at him anymore—he personally did me a favor—I’m still struggling to forgive him for the giant hole he left in my son’s heart.

That’s what hurts the most. He promised to raise and love Atticus like his own—same as what my stepdad, Will, did with me.

Nick and Atti were inseparable—until Nick’s ex-girlfriend reached out to him the morning of our wedding, and that was all it took.

“Atticus has had a hard year, and so have I. I miss seeing him smile. I miss writing. And I need to see my family more often. This place is beautiful, Reese. Once you see it, you’ll understand why I couldn’t pass it up. Here. I have pictures.”

I pull out my phone and open one of the first images my mom sent me—the little white two-story house nestled among thick green trees under a blanket of clear blue sky.

It’s the perfect size for the two of us, and with all that space, Atti can actually touch grass instead of growing up in a concrete jungle.

Reese studies the image before letting out a long breath, her head cocked and her eyes softening as she hands my phone back.

“It’s cute,” she says. “But I worry you’re romanticizing it.”

“I’m a romance author. I romanticize everything. It’s kind of what I do . . .”

“Okay, fair.” She uncurls her shoulders. “But I also have another concern that you probably haven’t even thought about.”

I sniff a laugh. “What’s that?”

“Pretty sure they don’t have food delivery in Colton Valley.”

She’s not wrong. And it’s a valid concern, given my robust DoorDash reliance. But it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make if it means being able to write again.

“All razzing aside, I’m happy for you,” she adds, leaning close to wrap her arms around me.

She squeezes me longer and tighter than she ever has, and I breathe her in: a mix of her musky vanilla perfume and the comfort of best friendship.

“If anyone can jump without looking and land on their feet, it’s you. ”

Last month, when I was crying on the phone to my mother about my writer’s block and feeling stuck in life, she proposed the idea of me moving back to my hometown, mentioning there was some man they knew who was thinking about selling his forty-acre farmhouse plot by the river.

After she told me the price—which was a fraction of what I paid for my downtown loft—and rattled off all the other reasons I should make this move, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, couldn’t stop envisioning spending endless days enveloped by the gorgeous landscape of this farmhouse retreat, slow mornings sipping coffee while watching deer graze in the meadow, writing next to open windows with gauzy curtains, curling up with a good book on the front porch swing, midday walks along the riverbanks under a warm sun, Atticus skipping happily by my side as birds chirp around us.

In the strangest way—one I still can’t explain—the moment I saw that photo, it instantly felt like home.