Laura stayed back far enough behind the curtain of the living room window that she wouldn’t be in plain sight as the car pulled up the drive. The truck carrying the greenhouse Cade had ordered arrived moments before, and there were two men setting it up at Cade’s direction in one of the fields. After telling Cade she didn’t want a relationship with him, watching him take delivery of the greenhouse and oversee its setup made Laura feel like a complete jerk.

But, she reminded herself, she hadn’t told him to order the greenhouse. In fact, he hadn’t even asked her. He’d just gone ahead doing what he thought was best for her at the time. And hadn’t she had enough of that from the men in her life?

Laura watched the car until she recognized the jet-black hair of the woman she’d met the day before. Ashley something-or-other. The one with all the adopted siblings and no apparent desire to screen anything that came out of her mouth. Laura surprised herself with a genuine smile. She was happy to see the woman who didn’t seem to feel the need to walk on tip-toes around Laura.

She walked through the kitchen and stepped out onto the front porch just as Ashley opened her car door.

“Christmas come a little early this year?” Ashley asked, tilting her head to the monstrosity being assembled in the field.

Laura rolled her eyes. “You could say that, I guess.”

Ashley reached back into her car and pulled out two to-go cups of coffee and passed one to Laura when she walked down the steps of the house to greet Ashley.

“Yours is decaf.”

“Thanks,” Laura said and took the coffee from Ashley, giving her a quizzical look.

Ashley rolled her eyes. “I know. You’re wondering what I’m doing here. My sister said I needed to come out and make sure we didn’t do too much damage yesterday. She’s picturing you shaken and shell-shocked from the encounter with the women of Evers,” she said, exaggerating the emphasis on the women of Evers as if naming a mythical creature or feared monster.

“But she didn’t feel the need to come check on me herself? Maybe she thought you’d handle things with more tact and grace than she could?” Laura asked, getting a laugh from Ashley. It felt really good to chat with another woman as if she were a friend. Laura hadn’t had this kind of friendship in so long, she’d forgotten how powerful it could be.

“Yes, that’s exactly it. That and the fact that she had to work all day.”

“I was just headed to the barn to check on the kittens. Do you want to come? They’re adorable,” Laura said with a grin that said she knew kittens might not be up Ashley’s alley.

“Oh yeah. How can I pass up kittens?” Ashley’s tone said “no,” but she started walking with Laura toward the barn.

“So, any fallout from your day making pies with the women?” Ashley asked as they walked.

Laura clamped down on her lips and didn’t answer. How do you answer that when the fallout had been, well...pretty big.

“Oh, no. That good, huh? What happened?” Ashley asked.

Laura lifted a shoulder. “I just realized I wasn’t really ready to jump into anything right now. Any relationship, I mean—”

Ashley stopped walking and looked at her but didn’t say anything. Laura tried to ignore the look and continue walking, but it was clear her new friend wasn’t going to move on. What was it with the people in this town? It was as if they just expected you to share everything with them right off the bat. And, for some insane reason, Laura seemed powerless to resist them.

“I just realized he was trying to save me, you know? It’s what he does. He saves and rescues, but I don’t want to be rescued. I want to be with him because he wants to be with me, not because he thinks I need him,” she said, and they began walking again.

They reached the barn where Laura pushed open one of the double doors. Red hung back in the shadows, watching Ashley warily.

“It’s all right, girl. She’s rude and obnoxious, but she won’t hurt you,” Laura said to Red, smiling at Ashley as she said that.

“That’s not true at all. I fry dogs and eat them with biscuits and gravy for breakfast,” Ashley said, addressing Red but smiling too. Red’s tail wagged a little.

“Gross!” Laura laughed at Ashley’s breakfast joke and walked to the tack room to look over the half door at Hope and her kittens.

“Oh look. Snacks!” Ashley said, looking over the door.

“You’re terrible.”

“I know.” Ashley looked completely unrepentant. “So, are you sticking around for a while, or are you going to run again?”

Laura turned to look at her new friend, and she felt certain Ashley also knew about running.

“Yeah, yeah,” Ashley said, reading her thoughts. “I’ve been a runner, too. When I got to Evers, my mom—who was my sixth foster mom at the time—told me she thought it might be a good idea to just sit tight for a bit and see what happened. She said it so simply, like that was all there was to it. If I just sat tight, things would be fine. I thought she was bat-guts crazy at the time, but she was right. She and my dad were the first people to love me just for me, to take care of me because they wanted to, not because they had to. It turned out, Evers is a pretty good place to be.”

Laura unlatched the door to the tack room and refilled Hope’s food bowl. The kittens’ eyes weren’t open yet, and their ears were still tucked tightly against their heads, but they knew she was there. They mewed and turned tiny heads toward her. Laura rubbed their soft heads with one finger at a time, taking turns from kitten to kitten as their protective mom, newly named “Hope,” looked on with great suspicion in her gaze.

“Shane is helping me get ready for a court battle with the Kensingtons, so there’s no reason to keep running.” Laura stood and left the room, latching the door behind her. Red fell into step behind the women as they left the barn and walked back toward the house. “And Cade is, well, he’s building great big greenhouses for me.”

“Do you want to know what I think? Wait, of course you do. I’m brilliant and I know what I’m talking about. Of course you want to hear what I have to say.”

Laura smiled at Ashley. “Of course I do. You’re brilliant and you know what you’re talking about.”

“If you’re staying, just wait awhile on Cade. He may really want to be with you, not just save you. And, if that’s the case, he’ll still want that in a month or two when you’re a little more sure about what you’re doing, and you’re feeling less like a woman everyone wants to save and more like a woman who’s in charge of her own destiny, for once.”

“Destiny, huh?” Laura asked. They stopped and watched the progress of the greenhouse as the panels of glass were placed along one wall.

“I might not be sensitive and lovey dovey and all that good stuff, but I’m spiritual. People find Evers just when they need it. And Cade’s not going anywhere. Besides,” Ashley said, looking out where Cade stood, “I have a feeling that man’s worth waiting for. Tell me, did his kisses make you want to drag him off to the nearest bed, or did you just faint right smack where you stood?”

Laura gaped, but that didn’t seem to faze Ashley one bit.

“Oh please, don’t tell me you weren’t tempted to tear the shirt off his back a time or two. That boy can melt panties with a single glance,” Ashley said.

Cade turned and looked at Ashley and Laura as if he’d heard every word, even though he was twenty yards away. Laura felt the heat rush to her cheeks and Ashley only laughed harder at that.

When the laughter stopped though, Laura had one more question for her unlikely friend. “How do you know that this time wouldn’t be like before? Did you know your parents were different when you stopped running?”

Ashley held her gaze with those impossibly blue eyes. “Did I know they wouldn’t hit me this time? That no one would show up in my bedroom? No. I didn’t. But sometimes you just have to take that chance. Sometimes, you just can’t let the past rule you. Sometimes, you just have to let it go.”

* * *

Mark cut back through the field and out to the road where Paul was waiting for him. They’d followed the greenhouse delivery truck to a ranch twenty minutes outside of town, and then driven past it a ways before Mark got out and cut across fields and through sparse trees to see if he could spot Laura or the doctor.

Mark placed the high-powered binoculars he was carrying on the floor of the car as he climbed in the passenger seat.

“We got her.” He described the two women he’d seen walking from the house to the barn. “She cut her hair and it’s darker now, but it’s definitely her.”

Paul headed down the road a bit while Mark called Alec and reported in. The hunt for Laura Kensington was over.