Chapter 1
Olive had three pet peeves: loud chewers, the use of the word moist, and love. She’d given it a try, several times in fact, but it hadn’t worked out, the end.
Too bad she couldn’t do the same with her past.
“You’re breathing funny,” Katie said. “What’s wrong? Did you eat something with nuts in it again?”
Another example of how love hadn’t worked out for her: Olive loved peanuts, so of course she was allergic. “No, and I’m fine,” she said into her Bluetooth. Look at her, the master of the misdirect. Sure, it’d taken years, but she could fool just about anyone, even her lifelong BFF. “In fact, I’m great. Totally great. Like one hundred percent great.”
“That’s sarcasm, right?”
Katie Turner-Brooks had an eidetic memory, could solve complicated mathematical problems in her head, and could recite years-old conversations verbatim, but being neurodivergent meant sarcasm eluded her.
“It’s me manifesting,” Olive said. “Because I really want to be great.” And not halfway to a panic attack...
“Then you will be.”
“Like it’s that easy.” Olive had been a seriously awkward kid who’d been desperate to belong, and driving along the north shore of Lake Tahoe toward Sunrise Cove, she became that kid all over again. “I made a stop and bought salami, espresso, and a chocolate cream pie, if that helps explain my emotional state.”
“Look, hardly anyone remembers that time you ran over the town hero, ruining his chances for a pro baseball career.”
Olive sighed. The “town hero” was Noah Turner, and he was a lot of things, including Katie’s twin brother and also Olive’s onetime pretend boyfriend.
“Dammit,” Katie said when Olive didn’t laugh. “I read a book on how to act normal while living with autism, and I still can’t tell a joke right. Listen to me—who cares what anyone thinks? You saved my life—”
“I didn’t.”
“You did,” Katie insisted. “I used to be weird and antisocial—”
“Used to be?”
Katie paused. “Okay, fine, so that’s how you tell a joke. And you did save my life. No one but my own family liked me. They were always so worried for me, until you moved into your grandma’s house right next door to me and declared yourself my best friend.”
“Well, someone had to do it.”
“Okay, now you’re just showing off. Anyway, all those stupid kids who used to torment us every single day—they peaked by our senior year. They were the best they were ever going to be. But you and I, we’re just peaking.”
Olive sighed. “We both know I don’t have my shit together.”
“Gotta fake it to make it, babe. You told me that once. You also said that no matter how many times you break, you still put yourself back together.”
“Yeah, well, past me was stronger, full of hope. And do you remember everything I ever said?”
“Yes.”
“Well maybe you should forget any of the dumb stuff.”
“How do I differentiate?”
Olive laughed. “You did it! You told a joke!”
“Who said I was joking?”
“Ha-ha.”
“Hey,” Katie said, “thanks for coming to help me with little Joey so I can spend the days in the hospital with Joe.”
“Of course I came.” Katie had rarely asked her for anything, even though she’d given Olive so much: a family, acceptance, unconditional love... “I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”
Noah and Joe were work partners, both ISB special agents—Investigative Services Branch of the National Park Service under the Department of the Interior—working out of Yosemite. They’d been investigating a series of car burglaries and thefts and had ended up in a high-speed chase. One of the suspects in the car had opened fire, blowing out their windshield and then two of their tires, which had caused them to flip.
Joe had been transported to the ICU in their local hospital. Noah had been released, though he was still healing from an injury to his right leg. Actually, that was a reinjury, since thanks to her it’d been badly wounded years ago.
Things she’d put away in the Don’t Think About It Right Now file.
“How is Joe?” she asked. “Any change?”
“Still in a coma,” Katie said, “which is the short story. The long story is that he’s in a state of unarousable unconsciousness due to a dysfunction of the brain’s ascending reticular activating system, or ARAS, which is responsible for the maintenance of wakefulness.”
Katie’s voice never showed much inflection, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel things, because she did, deeply. She just couldn’t show it. “He’s going to be okay,” Olive said softly.
“Yes, because if he’s not, I’ll climb into his coma and drag him out myself.”
“I’ll help.”
“Misfits unite.”
Olive laughed softly. “Misfits unite.” It’d been their mantra since she’d moved in with her grandma at age fourteen. Up until then, she’d been homeschooled on an off-the-grid farm. As a result, she could build a fire in three minutes flat, but didn’t know the first thing about kids her own age. Nor had Katie. This had made them an easy target at school. Poor Noah—not troubled, not different, not “weird”—had been their reluctant protector.
“Where are you exactly?” Katie asked.
“Passing the high school.”
“Then you’ll be here in ten and a half minutes. Don’t get lost.”
Olive laughed. “It hasn’t been that long. And I never get lost.”
“Not true. Remember when you were taking your driver’s license test, and the DMV guy said turn right, but you always mixed up your rights and lefts, and you turned left—”
“I’ve got that down now,” Olive joked, hoping to ward off the whole tale; unlikely, since Katie couldn’t stop in the middle of a story.
“You ended up on a one-way street going the wrong way and totally freaked out, so you rushed to make a right turn, but it wasn’t a street, it was a trail, and since it was posted everywhere that no cars were allowed, you failed your test—”
“I remember—”
“And your instructor got chest pains and had to take an ambulance to the hospital, but it turned out to be just indigestion because he’d eaten four hot dogs at that food shack at the lake, which had been shut down the day before for giving dozens of people food poisoning. Do you remember that part?”
“It’s ringing a bell,” Olive said dryly.
“You made the front page of the local paper. It’s rare to make the front page, but you managed it again a few years later when—”
“Let me save you some time. I remember all the stupid stuff I did.” And she wanted to talk about none of it. “I’ll see you in a few—” She broke off when a limping jogger stepped off the sidewalk without looking. Slamming on the brakes, she nearly had heart failure before her car skidded to a stop a foot from the guy.
When he turned to face her, she sucked in a shocked breath.
“What?” Katie asked.
Olive’s car was half in the crosswalk, slightly crooked, the smell of burnt tires assaulting her senses. The person she’d nearly hit yanked out an earbud and lifted a hand up to shade his eyes, clearly trying, and failing, to see past her windshield into her rental Mini Cooper.
A miracle, because she knew him, which didn’t help her anxiety any.
Noah Turner mouthed sorry! and continued moving across the street in an uneven gait.
“Olive?” came Katie’s worried voice in her ear.
“He can’t be serious,” she muttered. “He’s sorry? I almost had a heart attack, but hey, as long as he’s sorry—”
“Who are you talking to?” Katie asked.
Olive grimaced. “I just almost ran over your brother.”
“Again? He’s not going to like that.”
She resisted the urge to thunk her forehead against the steering wheel. “I’m pretty sure he couldn’t see my face, and I don’t plan on enlightening him. You can’t either.”
“Oh, I don’t talk about you. You’re like the One Who Shall Not Be Named.”
Olive felt her eyes widen. “What?”
“Don’t take it personally. He’s got a whole list of things Mom and I can’t talk to him about. Item number two is women and/or marriage. All women, not just you.”
Olive choked out a laugh. “I’m afraid to ask what number one is.”
“It’s kids. We’re not allowed to ask when he’s going to settle down and have kids. But really, he should’ve made a rule about getting set up, because Mom’s been trying to set him up with every even vaguely single woman she hears about.”
Olive found her first smile for the day. Here she’d been dreading coming back and having to talk to him about what happened all those years ago, but it sounded as if he had his hands full.
“Oh, and you’ll be staying with me,” Katie said.
“I’m not going to put you out at a time like this. My grandma’s got plenty of room—”
“She’s been renting her extra rooms out to supplement her social security checks.”
Olive felt her heart squeeze. “What?”
“You didn’t know?”
Guilt swamped Olive. Had she been so busy keeping her PR firm afloat that she’d neglected to make sure Gram was okay? They were close, really close, even with Olive living in London. They spoke on the phone every week without fail. “No, I didn’t know.”
Katie was quiet a moment, as she always was when trying to think about how to say something without being too harsh or blunt. “Maybe she didn’t want to worry you,” she finally said.
Gram had been a nurse for forty years. She had a pension and her house was paid off. Why was she renting out rooms? “You’ve got enough going on, I’ll get a hotel room.”
“No.” Katie paused, then said softly, “I need you, so promise me.”
Katie had been there for Olive through thick and thin, and there’d been a lot of thin. “I promise.” Gram’s house came into view, and she turned into the driveway she shared with the Turner house.
“You’re here, late as always,” Katie said. “Your ETA was twelve thirty-two, and it’s twelve thirty-eight. But then again, you did almost hit my brother. That added a few minutes to your time.”
Olive turned her head and smiled at Katie’s face pressed up against the window. Next to her stood a shorter mini-Katie—her five-year-old son, and Olive’s godson, Joey.
Olive’s heart warmed at the sight of the house, at seeing Katie and Joey, at everything, including Holmes, the family’s twelve-year-old basset hound snoozing on the porch, snoring loud enough for her to actually hear him from her car.
“Uh-oh,” Katie said.
Olive saw her pull her phone from her face to read the screen. “What’s wrong?”
Katie sent her a grimace through the window. “Noah just texted that he’s almost here too. He wasn’t supposed to get back from his run until one twenty-four, which would’ve given you enough time to see me before going to see your grandma. He must’ve cut through the woods even though he isn’t supposed to jog on uneven turf yet thanks to his reinjured leg. That’s going to set his recovery back.”
Olive didn’t want to think about how he’d gotten injured in the first place, or it’d make her sympathetic toward him, and she really needed to hold on to her self-righteous anger in order to stay sane. Leaping out of the car, that anger turned to anxiety. It was important to be flexible in life whenever necessary. “Let me know when the coast’s clear and I’ll come over.”
They disconnected and Olive turned to Gram’s house just as the front door opened.
“Olive, oh, honey, you’re finally here!” Gram cried, wiping her hands on the same floral apron she’d worn for as long as Olive could remember. In the blink of an eye, she was being hugged in arms that were much frailer than they’d ever been, but no less fierce or short of love. She held on tight, smiling because as always, her grandma smelled like roses and vanilla and childhood dreams.
“I’m so very glad to see you, Olive, but about your room—”
“It’s okay. Katie told me about your renters. I’ll sleep at her place, but are you okay? If you need money, I’ll find a way to help.” Everything she made went back into her company, but for her grandma, she’d figure something out.
“No, I’m good. Really,” she added at Olive’s worried look. “It’s just the bunco girls are planning a trip to Hawaii this winter. Renting out the extra rooms seemed like a great way to get the money to go. I hear they make great mai tais, and you can go to luaus and watch hot men dance while twirling firesticks every night.” She smiled. “I missed you so much.”
“Missed you more. Oh, and hey, have you talked to Mom or Dad? Yesterday was our monthly check-in call, and they didn’t answer or call me back.”
Gram shook her head. “No. They’re probably traveling to some festival or craft fair to sell their wares and forgot the date. Remember last year when they went to Burning Man and forgot to tell us? It was two weeks before they remembered to check in.” Holding on to Olive’s hands, she spread her arms out so she could take in her appearance. “Wow! You didn’t have to dress up for me.”
In her sundress, denim jacket, and wedge sandals, Olive wasn’t all that dressed up. But she supposed, when compared to the hand-me-downs she used to wear, she looked very different. In the past ten years, she’d learned to look like the polished, elegant, self-reliant, successful woman she’d wanted to be. In her line of work, image was everything. Image and confidence. Which, let’s face it, she still had to fake.
“You look fantastic, but you’re not sleeping well.”
Olive smiled. “Is that your way of saying I look like crap?”
“You look like a sight for sore eyes. But you also look worried and stressed.”
“I am. For Katie.”
“Of course. But it’s also more.”
Olive didn’t bother denying this, it wouldn’t work. She was a grade A-plus liar when she needed to be, after all she was a public relations specialist, but she’d never been able to fool her grandma.
Proving it, Olive found herself being pulled through the house and out the side door to the patio, where she took her first deep breath in... she had no idea. She hadn’t realized until this very moment just how much she’d been missing the stability her grandma always provided.
“Sit,” Gram said. “I’ll be right back with the cure.”
“Mew.”
Olive looked down and found herself being stared at by a tiny orange-and-white kitten. “Well, hello.” She reached down, but the little thing hissed at her and backed away. “Hey, I come in peace.”
“Maybe you do, but she most definitely doesn’t,” Gram said. “She’s a stray, just appeared out of nowhere yesterday. I’m calling her Pepper because she’s so spicy.”
“She’s very thin.”
“I know. I put out food and water for her. And I’m about to do the same for you.”
Olive turned to Gram and laughed, because she had a tray of milk and cookies, just like the old days.
Gram grinned. “I do love the strays.”
Olive eyed the cookie she’d dipped into her mug of milk. It was a fine line between not enough soakage and too much soakage, which would cause the cookie to fall apart all over her.
“Is it your job you’re worrying about?” Gram asked. “I thought you loved living in London, running your own company.”
Olive thought about that as she leaned over her mug, and yet still managed to dribble milk down the front of her dress. She didn’t know how many cookies it would take to be happy, but so far it wasn’t six. “I do love it, both the UK and being my own boss.”
With a smile, Gram expertly lifted her perfectly soaked cookie to her mouth without getting a single drop of milk on herself. “I could use your skills at the senior center. We’re trying to expand and need funding.”
“I’d be happy to help.”
“That will be lovely. And the boyfriend? What’s his name again? Ian? The one who gave you a pretty bracelet, right?”
No, Ian had given her emotional whiplash and a headache, with a splash of trust issues, after he’d cheated on her with someone she’d thought had been a friend. She’d bought herself the bracelet when she’d dumped him last year. “I’m... seeing someone new.”
“Oh, that’s nice. What’s his name?”
“Matt.” Matt was funny, sweet, kind, loyal, had a great job, great family, and was... pretend. Which really made him the perfect boyfriend.
“He didn’t want to come with you?” Gram made a show of looking at Olive’s ring finger. Her ringless ring finger... “I’d have loved to meet him.”
“He’s been super busy lately, so—”
“Poppycock. Who’s too busy for love? You deserve it, more than anyone I know.”
Olive didn’t want for love. She wanted for structure, which had always been missing from her life. As a result, she operated in relationships like that young kid she’d once been, always accidentally re-creating the chaos she’d lived with growing up.
A truck drove up the common driveway, parking at the very top, on Katie’s side. The man who got out was everything she remembered: tall, lean muscled, his dark, slightly curly hair peeking out from beneath a ballcap, his eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses. Once upon a time, he’d always had a smile, but not today. Today his mouth was set to grim. He rolled his shoulders like he was in some pain, then stilled at the sight of the Mini Cooper, the one that had nearly hit him. With a frown, he headed to it and peered inside.
Olive sucked in a breath and slouched in her chair. She was still holding her breath when he removed his sunglasses and stared inside the car for another long beat before lifting his head, unerringly finding her gaze with his own.