Chapter 1
Gabby
Gabby Greene looked back out the window of the twenty-year-old Chevy pickup truck as the small town of Rosewood Falls began to fade in the background, growing smaller and smaller, until she could hardly even make it out anymore. A small ball of odd emotions welled up within her stomach sending little palpitations of fear pumping into her chest. There was no reason for her to feel any regret about leaving the small town she’d called her home for her entire twenty years. But she did. She turned around and stared straight ahead resisting the tug at the back of her neck to turn back, to go back, to keep everything in her life the same. It would be so comforting if everything just stayed familiar and safe… and boring.
That was the main reason she was leaving, wasn’t it? The small town was stifling to her. How could anyone just live their entire lives in such a small, old fashioned town seeing the same exact people all the time, talking about the same exact things, and knowing that everyone else was doing basically the same thing you were? Ever since she was eight years old Gabby had dreamt of something better. She watched the world unfolding before her eyes in movies and magazines, and most importantly books. It was out there and she wanted to get a piece of it.
This of course did not sit well with her mother.
“I don’t see why you are doing this,” her mother Bethany asked. She had asked that question at least a hundred times so far today. The question wasn’t even being directed at anyone anymore; it had become almost like a soothing mantra that her mother was using to cope with the fact that her only child, her baby girl, was moving away to the big city where she would surely be swallowed up whole and become part of an evil entity that would tear her apart. Her mother had not said this, but Gabby was certain her mother felt that her daughter would end up a drug addict or a porn star if she went away. It was almost funny to watch how hysterical she got but Gabby tried to keep it respectful and at least pretend to acknowledge her concerns.
“Dad is sick; he needs help,” Gabby said. “What else is there to explain?” Gabby’s parents had split up when she was 10 years old. She stayed in Rosewood Falls with her mother, while her father had moved back to New York City where he was originally from.
“I know that,” her mother replied. “But you’ve been itching to leave home for a long time now. This just seems like the excuse you needed to do it, that’s all.”
“I don’t need an excuse. I’m a grown woman who can make my own decisions. The timing just happened that way,” Gabby said.
Her father had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s two years ago and it had progressed rather rapidly the past six months. Her aunt Shelly, her father’s sister, had been taking care of him faithfully but she had developed some health issues of her own and it was getting to the point that her father just needed more care than her aunt was able to give. Their family did not have the money to hire full time help for him or put him in a nursing facility either, not that her father would ever go to a facility. Gabby knew in her heart that if they ever did that to her father he would basically give up and be gone within a few months.
It felt weird being a twenty-year-old woman whose father had Alzheimer’s. But her father was fifteen years older than her mother and her mother hadn’t met Henry until she was thirty-five years old. Growing up it had been very strange for Gabby when all of her friends asked her why her dad was the same age as their grandfathers. She never really had a response.
In a small town that sort of thing was the type of gossip that people got excited about. It was so silly to her; it always had been. But she’d learn to just ignore it all and go on. As far as she was concerned in her mind she was already miles away from Rosewood and running towards an amazing adventure of a life that was just waiting for her.
And now she was running to meet that adventure head on.
Of course, she had no idea what else she was going to do there. She had a two-year Associate Arts degree with no emphasis, which basically qualified her to do… what? She had no idea. Her original intention was to earn a bachelor's in psychology and then go on to graduate school.
But life had a mean sense of humor sometimes. Her family did not have the money for her to go to a big state school as she’d always dreamt of so, she had to settle for driving an hour away to attend Farmington Community College. The new plan was that she would take care of all her prerequisite classes, which turned out to be a lot like retaking all the same classes from high school again, and after two years of working and saving every penny she made she would be able to transfer to a state school to continue. But with her dad getting sick and being out of work she’d had to help him financially.
Life was certainly grand.
“How was your father the last time you talked with him?” Her mother asked her.
Gabby hesitated for a moment. She hated talking to her mother about her father. It felt to her that her father might not want that. Her dad had always been a very macho guy and he never complained or discussed his problems with anyone. He would hate to know his daughter was telling anyone about how sick he was getting.
“He has his good days and his bad days,” Gabby said. “I haven’t noticed much change, when I talked to him on the phone. I often have to remind him of who I am.”
“I don’t see why one of your cousins can’t help out. I mean Shelly’s kids should be helping. Why is it all up to you?”
“Because he is my father. And Shelly’s kids both have families of their own. They can’t just drop everything.”
“Oh, but you can? What about me? I need help running the diner.”
“Mom, you can hire someone. I looked over the books; it’s in the budget. Just give my salary to them,” Gabby said.
“Honey, you and I both know that your salary only paid you for a fraction of the time that you actually spent there the past year. I can’t afford to pay someone for that, especially someone who knows what they are doing.”
Gabby sighed. Her mother was right. She was leaving her in a bit of a lurch. Her mother had obtained a small business loan to reopen Murphy’s Diner last summer. Gabby thought it was a mistake but her mother had never been good at following other people’s orders, which explained why she had been fired from over twenty jobs in her life. She had a wise attitude and did not possess the ability to hide what she was thinking and feeling from other people.
In addition to her full-time job at Bate’s Grocery Store, Gabby had put in a good five hours a day helping at the restaurant to make sure everything flowed well and so far, the diner had been a fair success. But it was not her responsibility to do everything for everyone else. She had decided it was time for her to live her own life and other people would just have to learn to get along without her.
“I can’t help that, mom. I’ve got to do this,” Gabby said.
Her mother sighed heavily and there was sweet silence for several minutes. Finally, her mother ruined it by bringing up something else that Gabby did not want to talk about.
“So, are you ever going to tell me what happened with you and Adam?”
“Mom, please. I don’t want to.”
“You kids had a great thing going there. He is a good boy from a good family. I don’t see the problem.”
“Mom, Adam is the only guy I’ve ever really dated. We dated all through high school and college.”
“What is wrong with that?”
“I don’t know. I just didn’t see a future there so I broke it off.”
“I see, you want to meet some wild and crazy guys in the big city? Is that it?”
“Mom, you are really starting to aggravate me. None of this is your business. Your thinking is just too old fashioned.”
“I don’t see it that way. I am just trying to find out what in the world is going on inside your head. Adam is handsome, he is smart, and he is a good Christian boy. We’ve known him all your life. He grew up next door.”
“Exactly! That is the issue. I haven’t seen the world yet. I haven’t experienced anything. How can I be expected to share a life with someone and commit myself to them when I don’t even really know who I am yet?”
Her mother shook her head. “You need to get your head on straight.”
Gabby did not respond. She was really starting to wish she’d just coughed up the money for a cab into the city, but she did want to say goodbye to her mother and she’d offered to drive her. It was turning out to be a bad idea.
Adam and Gabby had been best friends since they were little and when their hormones finally fired up as teenagers they made a likely couple. There were only fifty other people in her graduating class. There were not a whole lot of other compatible options in the town of Rosewood Falls.
The two were an exclusive item and they’d dated all through high school. Gabby thought she loved Adam and that they might end up together but all of that changed when they started college together. She had the feeling Adam only went because she did. He was going to end up managing his father’s electronics store one day anyway; his future seemed to be pretty well set up.
Even though she attended a small community college Gabby was for the first-time meeting people outside their normal realm, getting a small glimpse of the world outside the little bubble of Rosewood Falls. It was around this time that her fantasies about really leaving and never turning back were becoming an actual reality. She really felt for the first time that she could make this happen.
And she was not about to let anyone tie her down. It wouldn’t have been fair to Adam to string him along while she was away trying to find herself.
Gabby still wretched at the image of the night that she had ended it. Adam showed up at her house and asked her if she would take a drive with him. She agreed, thinking it might be a good segue to end things. She did not want the breakup to be public at all.
They drove to a secluded spot by the lake outside of town. Before she could tell Adam that she wanted to end things he pulled out a beautiful ring and proposed to her. He got down on one knee and everything. It was the most romantic thing she’d ever seen and instantly all of the romantic notions she’d held in her heart were there begging her to let this happen.
Gabby was so shocked by this all that she was barely able to speak. Somehow, despite herself, the word yes tumbled out of her mouth.
The ring Adam said had belonged to his grandmother and he was saving it for all these years for the right girl to come along.
“I knew it was always going to be you, Gabby,” Adam said. He put the ring on her finger and kissed her softly before embracing her in his warmth.
Gabby spent the next few weeks embarrassed, confused, and anxious. Of course, everyone was excited to hear about the big day and they bombarded her with questions about dates and wedding invitations. All of this just continued to bury Gabby under a mountain of stress; meanwhile Adam was walking around on cloud nine, oblivious to how she was feeling.
When Gabby received the call that her aunt needed help with her dad she decided to take the plunge and end it.
Gabby broke it off with Adam two weeks ago. He was stunned, and it was one of the most difficult things she ever had to do. At first, he was just shocked, then heartbroken, and then angry. He’d pretty much stayed angry at her since then even through desperate pleas for her to reconsider. He kept telling her they were meant to be and that this would work itself out.
Gabby tried to get Adam to realize that it was over and that he needed to just get over it and try to move on, but her words continued to fall on deaf ears. And now it appeared that her mother was deaf to her on the topic as well.
But fine. Gabby would just let everyone else figure things out in their own way while she worked on establishing a life for herself.
“You know how heartbroken that poor boy is?” Her mother continued.
Gabby tuned her out and let her continue her insipid rant. She was almost to the train station.
And beyond that—freedom!