Chapter One: Moonhollow

Deidre

The backs of my legs stuck to the old vinyl bus seating, and I instantly regretted my decision to wear a dress for moving day.

But it was comfortable right up until I sat down, and I didn’t have to bother pulling a pair of pants out of my already packed wardrobe.

Everything I owned was stuffed into one large suitcase—well, everything that wasn’t left to me by my grandmother, anyway.

A deep ache nestled itself in my chest as I stared out the foggy old window at the scenery that was once so familiar to me. When I was a little girl, I spent every summer here in Moonhollow with my grandmother, but when my father never returned from his annual hunting trip, my mom moved me out to the city, and I never saw my grandma again.

There’d been a hole in my heart ever since I last left Moonhollow. Grandma never had a phone in the old cottage, and though I must have sent her dozens of letters over the years, she never sent even one back.

I thought she’d written me off for good, so I never tried to visit her as an adult. But now that I was almost thirty, and she’d willed me the entirety of her estate, I didn’t know what to think.

And she wasn’t around to ask anymore.

The brakes of the bus let out an awful shriek as it came to a stop, and I awkwardly shuffled down the too-thin aisle with all my worldly possessions crammed into the bulky suitcase.

My ears rang with the melancholic howl of a far away wolf, singing into the night as my boots hit the old gravel that passed for pavement at the bus stop. The sound reverberated in my chest, welcoming me back to the place I spent so much time at growing up, a place where wolf calls and the chirp of peeper frogs were more common sounds than gun shots and police sirens.

Moonhollow Village, as small as it was, seemed enormous when it was so late at night and I was all alone.

Everywhere I looked I could see her—I could see her smiling face in the reflection of the old bakery’s windows, and hear her laughter as I watched a busboy put up the seats at the cafe she liked to take me to on Monday afternoons.

But she wasn’t here anymore. I’d only came home when it was already too late.

Grandma, I miss you.

“No!” A shriek ripped through the night, and I heard two pairs of footsteps crunching against the gravel—one sounding significantly lighter than the other. “I don’t know you!”

That’s when I saw her—a small girl who couldn’t have been more than ten rounded the corner like the devil himself was on her heels.

He may as well have been, when I saw the man chasing her—a greasy looking sleaze ball in a black hoodie and jeans.

Squaring my shoulders, I put myself between him and the girl. Maybe I didn’t know the full story, but I knew that the girl was trembling in terror, clinging to me, a complete stranger, like a lifeline.

If this was some kind of misunderstanding, there’d be time to sort that out later.

“I know what this looks like.” His breathing was labored from the running, and he held his hands up as he tried to approach slowly. “But hear me out.”

“Don’t take another step,” I snarled, not liking the shifty look in his eyes. “If you want to talk, you can do it from over there.”

“Look, the kid’s mine.” He took another step, and the kid and I answered with a step backward of our own, trying to keep distance between us and him. “She’s just . . . throwing a tantrum. You know how kids are.”

“He’s lying,” the girl cried, clinging to the back of my dress for dear life. “My dad died a year ago.”

The scumbag scoffed, not noticing the crunch of gravel as a big man stalked toward us with a deep-set scowl etched into his face. “Are you really going to listen to a kid over—”

“She ought to,” this new guy barked, grabbing a fistful of his hoodie and yanking him backward. “Considering that girl is my niece, and I haven’t seen you around these parts before.”

All the color bled out of his face in an instant. “Look, man, I—” He didn’t finish his sentence, slipping out of his hoodie and taking off into the night like an olympic sprinter.

The girl’s uncle tensed like he was going to run after him, but the little girl bolted out from behind me to damn near tackle him with a teary eyed hug. “Uncle Grant!”

His eyes softened when he looked at her, and he held her tightly, equal parts fear and relief on his stubbled face. “Alex, what happened? You weren’t supposed to leave the yard.”

“I . . . The stray cat was back, and I tried to follow it,” she confessed through a torrent of tears. “I’m sorry, Uncle Grant, I just—”

“Shh, Sweetpea.” He kissed her forehead, and my chest tightened. My grandma always called me that when I was a little girl, and I hadn’t heard it since. “You’re not in trouble. I’m just glad that you’re okay.”

“Grant,” I tested the name on my tongue, and his eyes snapped up to me, suddenly taking on a hostile edge. “Grant Hawthorne?”

“I don’t know you.” He looked me up and down, gently tucking his niece behind him without looking away from me. “And Moonhollow is a small town, so I know everyone here. How the hell do you know my name?”

I couldn’t help but flinch at the accusation in his tone. Of course he wouldn’t remember me—he was one of the older kids in town when I used to spend summers with my grandma, but there was no mistaking those eyes.

No one ever forgets their first crush.

My grandma used to pay him and his brother to pick berries for her in the woods around her cottage, so she and I could make pies. I learned later that she only did it because their family really needed the money.

Embarrassment bloomed in my chest, meeting him now as an adult.

“I-I’m new in town. Deidre Carey,” I stammered, pressing my lips into a thin line and looking away from him. He was cute when we were younger, when he barely knew I existed, but as a man he was something else. “Ethel Carey is—was—my grandmother, and she left me her cottage in the woods when she . . . ”

His lips parted in a quiet, “oh,” as his hard look softened. No doubt he remembered me now—Ethel’s weird grandkid all grown up. Like he’d said, it was a small town. Everyone knew how recently she’d passed away.

“Thank you for saving me,” Alex broke the tense silence, dragging her uncle closer by the sleeve of his flannel. “If you know my uncle, does that mean we can see you again?”

“Well, I . . . ” I looked up at Grant, not wanting to make this any weirder than it had to be.

He was looking down at Alex with a pained expression.

“It’s past your bedtime, Alex,” he changed the subject, ushering her to turn back toward the village. He eyed me over his shoulder. “And, Deidre . . . I’m sorry for your loss.”

I stood like I was rooted to the ground as I watched Grant and his niece walk away. If he was that kid’s uncle, that meant River, his older brother, must’ve died last year.

Was Grant raising that little girl?

A small, “meow,” from across the street pulled my attention, and I looked up just in time to see a black cat padding quickly toward me.

“You must be the stray Alex was looking for.” I crouched, holding my hand out for the animal to sniff. “Would you like to come home with me?”

To my surprise, the cat let me scoop him up into my arms, purring the second I touched his warm fur.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”