In the morning, Lynn calls to confirm our coffee date. Though it’s difficult for a determinedly independent woman like me to admit, it’s nice having someone who makes good on a rain-check. When I explain the situation with my car, she offers to pick me up so we can go anyway.

Lynn arrives at my door with her characteristic red bandana around her head, and on the way to the coffee shop, she gives me an animated tour of the town I have a feeling only she can pull off.

“Kitty’s has the best breakfast, but it’s the ‘place to be in town.’ People with nothing better to do than gossip. If you want to be left alone but still have decent food, I would recommend the diner off the highway up north. It’s mostly truck drivers and roadtrippers that go there, but at least they leave you alone for the most part. Worst you’ll get is ‘the look.’ ” Lynn keeps up this stream of commentary, warning me against certain places and telling me what to order at all the restaurants. When we pass someone she knows on the road, she tells me all about them. It’s usually someone she went to high school with, or the baby daddy of someone she went to high school with.

“So were you and Adam high school sweethearts?” I ask after a few particularly humorous stories about some of the townsfolk’s dating disasters.

“God, no. I had to find him at community college.” She tilts her head and looks in my direction. “I know, real promising, right? But college attracts folks from all around. Everyone I know here I’ve either already dated or promised I would never date. Too much swapping fluids for me, personally. I do not want to be Eskimo sisters with any girl in this town. No offense.”

“None taken,” I say with a giggle. I can’t help it, her humor is contagious. And my own dating life is nonexistent, bleak—all I can do is laugh about it. I chant to myself that I did not come here to find a man, and if that was my goal, I would’ve gone somewhere more populated and less related.

Brewser’s turns out to be a quaint coffee shop no bigger than a shoebox, and we claim one of the iron bistro tables out front, settling in after placing our orders with the kid at the counter. It’s February, but a propane heater keeps the paved area beneath the awning pleasant. After a bearded waiter delivers our coffees, Lynn immediately grabs the sugar canister and dumps some in. Literally dumps, there’s no better word for it. I keep thinking she’s going to stop, but she keeps pouring. It hurts my teeth just looking at it. She takes a sip, nods appreciatively, then settles back in her chair.

“So, Raven, what’s your story?”

I inwardly wince. It shouldn’t be unexpected that Lynn is curious, but the question hits me like a splash of cold water. I suppose it was naïve to expect that I’d be able to lock myself away like some hermit to wallow in my failures alone.

“What makes you think there’s a story?” I ask.

Her look is searching. “Everyone’s got one, even me, and nobody ends up in Heronwood without there being a story. I get the impression you’re seeking shelter or something, and I can’t help but wonder why.”

My gulp of coffee goes down like a handful of pebbles and it’s a struggle not to cough. I didn’t expect her to be so perceptive, and I didn’t think I was so transparent. Seeking shelter . . . possibly. But not for the reasons she might’ve guessed.

I flit between two options in my mind. One: give her the CliffsNotes version of my past, skating over the details, and maybe become surface friends—people who don’t have any real conversations and show no true concern for one another. But that’s no better than Caroline, or any of the others I left behind. Two: tell her everything and run the risk of the whole population of this town finding out who I am and treating me differently because of it, but possibly gain a friend from my honesty.

“I guess I should start from the beginning.” I take a more careful sip and prepare to do something I vowed not to. “I had a few rough relationships when I was younger. Came out of them determined not to trust anyone. Then I met Jenson. We talked for hours and hours the first time we met, without ever running out of things to say. He seemed so intrigued by me, and I think that’s rare and little bit intoxicating for a young girl—being told you are captivating, that you are worth every word he said. I was flattered. I fell completely in love in a matter of weeks, it seemed, and we got married after a year of dating.” I stare into my coffee cup, making out the swirls of cream, trying to collect the thoughts and emotions that span over half a decade. It seems impossible now, capturing those feelings and injecting them into words.

In moments, it feels like I’ve been transported back in time to the early days, before things got so complicated by love and resentment. We met at one of his shows, back in the early days when he performed at little hole-in-the-wall bars. A friend had to convince me to go, and I only gave in because she promised me alcohol. I’d wanted to drown everything my asshole ex-boyfriend made me feel. It took me a while to catch on through the haze incited by cheap liquor, but I’d felt Jenson’s eyes on me from the stage. Though I denied it was me he was really looking at. He sought me out after his set, introducing himself as Jenson, not Jenson King. He wasn’t Jenson King back then. I’d gotten thoroughly drunk while he was singing, and he fetched me a water without asking and sat with me on the back steps in the alley while he smoked a cigarette and I spilled all my bitter words.

We talked until the dark hours of the morning, when even the moon seemed to be asleep. I would’ve admitted without coercion that he was attractive, with tattoos peeking from beneath his sleeves and his down-turned eyes. But it was the things coming out of his mouth that had me transfixed. He said beautiful things; words that painted pictures of better places in my mind, real masterpieces. But how meaningful are words, really? He left me wanting something I could feel deep in the muscle of my heart. Something that gripped my soul instead of just playing my heartstrings.

I take a deep breath to pull myself from the depths of my memories. They’ll drown me if I let them. “He was like alcohol—one sip and you want another, too much and you’re screwed. So I guess it’s natural that he turned out to be an alcoholic. He’s a musician, and he began relying on it to turn him into this performer, to stomach the crowds. But the problem got bigger than he did, and it haunted him.” When she gives me a look of pity that I’ve become too familiar with, I say, “He never tried to hurt me, or anyone else. He just retreated into himself. He would shut himself up for hours to write, and he would emerge so depressed and listless each time that I couldn’t understand what the allure could be. He would lose confidence, doubt his abilities, when everyone else could see what I saw: a natural-born talent. He was an army of one against an enemy of one—himself—and nobody could convince him otherwise.”

Lynn nods gently, the usual fire in her amber eyes softening, coaxing me to go on. I take a moment to compose myself. It’s difficult to revisit those emotions, the guilt. There was a vacant place in his soul that he used alcohol to fill, and I’d blamed myself for years for not being enough to occupy it. You can only stay in a toxic relationship for so long before the rest of the world begins to tarnish before your eyes. I noticed myself seeing things as he saw them, shouldering his insecurities, and I couldn’t handle it anymore.

“I stuck by him as long as I could, and we tried everything. Rehab programs, counseling. It would get better for a week or two, and then he would revert to his old ways. I was driving home one night, and I vividly remember seeing the strange, orange glow in the sky. I somehow had this feeling it was our house, and I raced there, convinced I would find out everything was gone and my husband was dead.” The fear resurges in my mind, raw and intense.

“He was sitting in the back of an ambulance when I got there, but our home . . . it was just consumed. I knew there would be nothing left. It turns out he had tried to cook something and caught some grease on fire. He wasn’t in his right mind, and when he attempted to put it out, it only got worse. When he went outside to get away from the smoke and call nine-one-one, he stumbled and hit his head somewhere along the way, or blacked out and hit his head. The story isn’t clear. Needless to say, he didn’t put the fire out, and we lost everything.”

“Holy shit, you were married to Jenson King,” Lynn breathes, holding her coffee but ignoring it. It’s not a difficult conclusion to make after a story like that. News of a country star’s home burning down and his wife leaving him travels fast around the music scene.

“Yes. I tried for years to understand him—it’s all I ever wanted—but that was the last straw for me. Call me a shitty person if you want, but all I could imagine was our future in those flames. Our family. What if we had kids in that house and something happened? Not just a fire, but any kind of emergency when he was incapable of getting help? What if he drank himself to death and our kids had to bury him before he even reached fifty?”

Lynn shakes her head in disbelief, her features taut. “I don’t blame you one bit, sister, no matter who he is.” We stare into our mugs for a few moments before she speaks again. “I just hope you find what you’re looking for here.”

I just chew on the inside of my cheek. I feel like an old rag, wrung out and drained of emotion. One thing our relationship was never short on was feeling. I felt so much in those years that sometimes it seems there’s nothing left to spare.

The moment passes, but still I don’t tell her about the baby. About a time that should have brought a husband and wife together instead of shoving them miles apart. That’s a whole other bag of issues, and I don’t want to risk overloading Lynn with my sob stories. Besides, that one still needs time to heal. I’m afraid if I voice those memories aloud, they’ll just aggravate my invisible wounds further.

The recovery period from my soul-baring is shortened prematurely when a maroon truck parks across the street, right in my line of sight, and Dane steps out of the driver seat. For a reason I can’t yet explain, my eyes stay glued to that tall figure as he pauses, exchanging words with someone inside before he shuts the door. Trey gets out of the back, and an older man with graying hair emerges from the passenger side.

Following my gaze, Lynn says, “Dane, Trey, and Ben Cross. Father and sons.”

Ah, so that explains the third man. Seeing the Cross brothers together reminds me how formidable they are, especially when I’m too far away to be affected by their charm. And their father is just an older, grayer carbon-copy. Lynn smirks back at me.

“What?” I ask, though I’m sure my thoughts are written all over my face.

“Nothing,” she answers innocently, though a corner of her mouth stays raised.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I just recognize that look.”

“There’s not a look,” I say in a no-nonsense tone, but her expression is unchanging. I’m positive my cheeks are stained crimson.

“Lying is not your strong suit, and I know I can’t be the first to tell you that. I take it this isn’t your first time seeing the Crosses?”

“I met Dane at Henderson’s yesterday, when I was there with my car,” I admit, sinking down in my chair and out of sight. The last thing I need is for him to recognize me and come over to talk. Thankfully, he disappears into the hardware store while the other two stop at a block of offices further up the street.

“Swiping customers again? Dirty. Give me the details.” She gestures for more coffee when a waiter passes by to check on another table.

“There are no details. That’s literally all that happened.” It’s truthful enough.

“You can admit you find him attractive,” Lynn presses.

“I don’t. I actually think his beard is disgusting.”

Our waiter chooses that moment to stop at our table, coffee pot in hand. Our bearded waiter. “Not your beard,” I amend. When he raises an eyebrow, I nod my head toward where the Crosses disappeared. “Dane Cross’s beard.”

His suspicious expression remains even as he pours our coffee, then slowly turns and walks away.

“Well, Mike is always coming up with these conspiracy theories that the Crosses are Heronwood’s crime family or something,” Lynn snorts, pouring more sugar from the canister. If she keeps that up, there will be none left for the rest of the world. “Like this is New York and they’re the mafia. It’s ridiculous.”

“Wait, who’s Mike and why would he say that?” I ask, my bleak thoughts thoroughly shoved out of the way by this news. There’s another guy coming up the street—shorter but more broad than all of them, with a buzzed haircut. Even from here I can see the tattoos on his neck and down his arms.

“Mike’s the sheriff. Adam and him are sort of buddies, in that they meet up sometimes to watch football together at The Pit. The Cross boys both have a bit of a record. Fights, running with the wrong crowd, supposed involvement in the drug trade . . . you know the drill.”

My head withdraws back into my neck. “No, I do not know the drill. Is there any truth to that?” In a town like this, I can’t imagine those things being accepted so casually by the rest of the citizens as they are by Lynn. But she couldn’t be any more impassive.

“I don’t know. Trey, sure, but Dane? Doesn’t seem to add up to me. He got into some trouble in high school—assault—and nobody will forget it. The fucking rumor mill in this town is unmatched. My theory is that it’s just Mike holding a grudge. Dane was seriously talented before he got sent to jail for punching one of the dads of the other players on the baseball team, and Mike could never quite get out from under his shadow. But I know Dane, and he has a good heart. People like that just don’t stoop to the reputations some people collar them with. Unfortunately, being on a guy like Mike’s bad side—with all his influence—Dane never stood a chance.”

I nod along with Lynn’s story, still skeptical, but undeniably drawn in. Just across the street, the tattooed stranger stops alongside Trey and the older man, and they exchange a few words before walking into the office building. I don’t know much about them, and I try not to judge anyone based on hearsay, but I guess I wouldn’t blame people for keeping their distance from the Crosses after hearing that rap sheet. Drugs? Assault? It’s only now I remember they have my car. I say a quick prayer that it survives Cross Automotive.

“Anyways, I know all that, and I know about every single one of his sexual partners, and I’ll still admit he’s good-looking. Seriously, I can tell you intimate details about the night he lost his virginity. It’s no big deal.” She waves her hand flippantly, but her words divert my attention.

“Fine. Okay? He’s attractive. And why do you know details about the night he lost his virginity?”

Lynn sits back, a devilish grin on her face. “Who do you think he lost it to?”