“Miss, can I get more cream for this coffee?”

I took the customer’s mug and topped it off with another slug of half-and-half, handing it back with a polite smile. Working as a barista in a small café in Austin, Texas wasn’t the best paying job I’d ever had, but it was fun. Mostly.

I’d needed somewhere to go, and my friend Kat had stepped in with a job offer. She’d even hung my photographs on the walls, and in the few months I’d been in Austin I’d sold enough to pay for the repairs I needed on my beat up Jeep.

It wasn’t the life I’d imagined for myself, but it was what I had. I grabbed a rag and started wiping down empty tables.

I’m terrible at sitting still, and the café was quiet in mid-afternoon. Kat was in the back doing paperwork. My only customer was quietly drinking his coffee and reading the newspaper.

I preferred the job I’d had waiting tables in New Mexico—more money and no downtime during work hours—but it was fun seeing Kat again.

We met six years before when I was in Austin for a photography conference. I tried to stay off the radar, and the conference had been big enough I thought I’d disappear into the crowd. I’d stopped in the café for a hit of caffeine, commented to the barista how much I liked the place, and we hit it off.

I wasn’t always great at keeping up long-distance friendships. Part of the point of moving around was so that no one knew where I was. But I’d liked Kat, and the loneliness of five years away from home had been wearing on me. I’d wanted to make a friend.

Now, more than ever, I was glad I had. Kat had stepped in just when I’d needed her. I’d left New Mexico in the middle of the night, panicked. No, not panicked. Terrified. He’d found me again so quickly. The flowers had shown up at my door, sitting at the top of the steps to the garage apartment I rented under an assumed name, the velvet-white petals and glossy green leaves of gardenia striking fear into my heart.

Gardenia. The flower of secret love.

The same arrangement he sent to my brother’s house only a few weeks later. I wished his love were a little less secret so we could find him and end this thing once and for all. Eleven years I’d been running from him, and nothing had changed.

I had tiny snatches of a life. A few months here. Half a year there. Friends who got to know me just a little before I disappeared. I had a laptop full of photographs that had never been shown, people I’d never called back, a life interrupted over and over by fear.

I was starting to wonder what was worse—the constant running or standing still and facing what might come?

It had started in high school. Notes left in places only I would find them, mostly innocent, almost sweet. Then small gifts and flowers. I didn’t understand the flowers at first, didn’t get the language, the way he was speaking to me.

My mother had taught me the language of flowers when I was a child, but I’d mostly forgotten it. People didn’t pay attention to those things these days.

At first, I’d written notes back, leaving them in our secret hiding places. Under a rock in the woods behind the house. In the notch of a tree.

Looking back, it was hard to imagine I’d been so foolish, but fifteen-year-old girls aren’t known for being sensible where love is concerned. I didn’t realize the danger, the threat, until the boy who took me to homecoming that year ended up with a broken arm.

Two days later there was a note.

STAY AWAY FROM HIM. YOU’RE MINE.

Of course, I’d gone to my cousin, Aiden. He’d pulled in the Sinclairs and their company, Sinclair Security. Despite their combined power and influence, no one had been able to find my secret admirer turned stalker.

There were periods of quiet, stretches of weeks and months when I felt safe. Then it would start up again. The notes. The flowers. I thought I could handle it until Riley.

I shut down that train of thought before it could go any further.

I didn’t think of Riley anymore.

I couldn’t.

As far as I knew, he was off somewhere living his life. I’d written him the worst Dear John letter I could come up with, a bunch of bullshit about him being beneath me and reconnecting with my high school boyfriend. Then I’d taken off.

I’d packed my camera, my laptop, and a duffel bag of clothes in my SUV and driven away. My family hadn’t been happy. They wanted me to stay. To fight. I would’ve felt the same in their shoes.

But they didn’t have to watch the man they loved almost die, twice, and know it was their fault. If I had stayed, I would’ve been putting Riley’s life at risk.

I couldn’t do that.

And who was to say the stalker would have confined himself to Riley? We didn’t know who he was, or why I’d caught his eye. If it was about the family, what if he looked to Charlie next?

I couldn’t stand the thought of bringing more danger to the people I loved. If he was going to come after me, I’d make him work for it.

And I had. The first few years I skipped around every couple of months, taking odd jobs for cash and renting rooms in private homes to keep my Social Security number off any easily searched records.

He found me anyway.

Not every time, in every city, but often enough.

Usually, where I was working. That was why the flowers in New Mexico scared me so badly. They hadn’t arrived at my job; they’d been sitting right in front of my door.

He knew where I slept at night.

I’d thrown away the flowers, sent the note to the Sinclairs, and run. It wasn’t right. I’d had a gallery showing set up. People had been depending on me, and I’d let them down, but I’d run anyway.

It was sheer luck that Kat had called the next day, luck that I’d been only a few hours from Austin. I’d needed a safe place to take stock. To reevaluate my strategy.

The running had started as a short-term plan. I’d wanted to put some space between me and Atlanta. Between me and the stalker. But space was an illusion. He followed me wherever I went. And I missed my family. I missed having a life.

I’d gone home for Charlie’s wedding and stayed for Tate's. My little brother was married, and baby Charlotte was all grown up. Holden, Tate’s partner in crime and my younger cousin, was also engaged, as was his older brother, Jacob, and my older brother Gage.

They were all moving on. Living their lives. And I was happy for them. I was, truly, honestly happy for them. And more than a little jealous.

I wanted a life.

I’d wanted to fall in love. To get married. To be a photographer and a mom. My college dreams were an unformed jumble, never realized because I’d run away.

I’d taken off and never stopped. Life had left me behind, and as long as I kept running, I’d never catch up.

I finished wiping down the tables in the café and moved behind the counter to make an Americano for a customer, but my mind wasn’t on coffee, it was on Charlie.

I’d watched my baby cousin get married, and all I could think was—Charlie wouldn’t have run. Charlie was a fighter.

I knew I was right because Charlie had been there. A former business partner of Winters Inc. had taken exception to Charlie turning him in for fraud. He’d threatened her and vandalized her house, but Charlie hadn’t run. Charlie had fought back and managed to win herself a hot guy in the process.

She’d inspired me. For about five minutes. Then, a few days after the wedding, an arrangement of gardenias had been delivered to Winters House.

I ran.

Again.

My family, especially Gage and Aiden, had tried to persuade me to stay. They promised that this time we would catch him. This time it would end.

I sat there, the evidence of two blissful weddings still littering the house, and I’d thought about it. Thought about staying. Fighting back. Thought about how little I had to lose.

How much my family had to risk. Vance had a daughter. My twin brother had a baby girl and a wife. A beautiful little family. What right did I have to put them in danger?

We’d lost too much already. I couldn’t be the reason we lost more. That was what I told myself. Mostly, I believed it.

Sometimes over the years, when I was packing my car and moving on again, I wondered if I was protecting my family, or protecting myself.

I’d been a mess when I’d almost lost Riley. Seeing him in the hospital bed, watching the lines go flat on his monitor, had almost killed me.

I’d run forever to avoid feeling that kind of pain again.

Kat came down the hall from her back office, rubbing her temple with one hand, her messy, pixie-cut, dark hair falling in her eyes.

“Still slow?” she asked, perching on a stool on the other side of the counter.

“So far,” I said. “Skinny cinnamon latte?”

“Please. My head is killing me. I hate doing the books.”

“You should wear your glasses,” I chided.

“I am not wearing reading glasses,” Kat said, not for the first time. “I’m only thirty-six. I refuse to need reading glasses.”

“You can refuse all you want, but the computer screen is still going to be blurry.”

Kat just grunted and took the latte I handed her, sipping gratefully. I made one for myself. I was working a double, and I needed the caffeine.

We drank our coffee in quiet harmony for a few minutes before Kat set hers on the counter and said, “I sold two of your photographs this morning. I really think you should talk to some of the gallery owners. Put together a show.”

“Not after New Mexico,” I said. I still felt awful about leaving them in the lurch. I’d reimbursed their expenses, but that wasn’t the point.

Kat leveled a long look at me. “You’re sure?”

I nodded. She knew my situation, though she didn’t know my real last name. Since I’d left home, I’d been using Marlow, my mother’s maiden name, instead of Winters. “Too much planning goes into a show,” I explained. “Too much publicity.”

“I know,” Kat said, quietly. “It’s just that you could be selling for a lot more, making a name for yourself. This it just—” She glanced around the café, taking in my photographs decorating the walls and gave a helpless shrug. “It feels like giving up.”

I didn’t say what I was thinking. That my whole life felt like giving up.

“You want to split a day-old cookie?” Kat asked, brightly, with a gentle touch to the back of my hand. I hadn’t held onto many friends over the last decade, but I was glad Kat was one of them.

When I got home, after working a double and closing up the cafe, I called Aiden. He was at work, as usual, which was a little late since I was a few hours earlier than he was. My ten o’clock call put him in the office at eleven. When I told him he needed a life, he just laughed.

“With all of you to keep an eye on, work is relaxing. Charlie and Lucas bought a new flip-house. The place is such a mess I’m having nightmares of it falling on her head.”

“I’m sure Lucas wouldn’t let her in an unsafe building,” I said, in the understatement of the century. Lucas was Charlie’s new husband, and he most definitely would not have bought an unsafe building if he thought Charlie would be in danger.

“That’s not the point,” Aiden grumbled.

I knew what he meant. Charlie might have a new husband to look after her, but she was still Aiden’s baby sister. That her husband was former special forces, and currently working with the Sinclairs in their cybersecurity division, didn’t make any difference to Aiden.

We didn’t talk long. I didn’t have much to say. We ended our call the way we always did, with Aiden saying, “We miss you. I wish you’d think about coming home,” and me responding, “Maybe.”

It was the first time in years I actually meant it.

Maybe.

I didn’t know how quickly that maybe would turn to yes.

The next day I was stocking shelves in the back room during the morning lull when I heard Kat’s voice calling my name. I stood too fast, knocking the back of my head against a shelf, but something in the tone of her voice put me on alert.

Rubbing the tender spot on my scalp, I walked down the hall.

Ice ran down my spine the second I saw it. Red and blue spikes of flowers arranged with sprigs of delicate white blossoms. Salvia and lily of the valley, two plants more commonly used in landscaped beds than in flower arrangements.

I didn’t need to search my memory for their meaning. I knew them both by heart.

Blue Salvia—I think of you.

Red Salvia—Forever mine.

Both set off by Lily of the Valley, the flower for those born in May.

I’d been hiding who I was for so long I’d forgotten my own birthday. For the first time in years, I felt more than fear. Hot fury surged in my chest. I’d only been here a few months. I didn’t want to leave.

Trying to control my emotions, I said, “Did you see who delivered it?”

“No, I’m sorry,” Kat said. “I left the front for a minute to get another carton of milk, and it was sitting here when I came back. There’s a note.”

She gestured to the white square envelope nestled among the Red Salvia.

I didn’t touch the flowers. Didn’t touch the note. Going behind the counter, I grabbed a plastic storage bag and pulled it over my hand, inside out. Carefully, I picked up the envelope and pulled the plastic bag over the note. Using the plastic to shield my fingers, I teased the note from the envelope and read the familiar block letters through the protective bag.

I MISS YOU, MY LOVE.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

“That’s twisted,” Kat said, reading over my shoulder. “You really don’t know who it is?”

I stiffened. I’d heard that before, had let those questions steep me in guilt when I’d been a young teenager and felt responsible for the way I’d played along at the start.

Trying to keep the resentment out of my voice, I said, “No, I don’t.”

I pressed the air from the plastic bag and sealed it closed. I’d sent every single note I’d received in the last eleven years to the Sinclairs to examine for evidence. None of them had revealed a single clue.

“If I had any idea who was doing this—” I shook my head. It had been going on so long I couldn’t imagine a life without the threat of my unknown admirer.

“I’m sorry,” Kat said. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know you didn’t,” I said. I wasn’t really paying attention. My mind was racing as I stared at those stalks of red and blue flowers.

Was I going to run?

That was my usual modus operandi.

He finds me, and I run.

For eleven years, he would find me, and I would run.

If this was a game, I wasn’t winning.

He was eating up my life in tiny chunks of fear and threat.

I wasn’t living. I was surviving. Sometimes, survival is enough. And sometimes, you either have to choose life or just give up.

I wasn’t ready to give up.