The first time Katie Williams ran away from home, she was eight years old.
She packed her Barbie backpack with a clean T-shirt, a handful of granola bars and three stuffed animals (because she couldn’t possibly choose between Rabbit, Harvey and Willard), then set out into the world. Well, not the world, really, just the end of Seventh Street, where the alley met the back of the park. She’d settled into the dark, tight space under the stairs for the slide, and told herself she wasn’t scared.
Her brother, Colton, found her an hour later, hungry and weepy and cold. “I was gonna make pancakes for breakfast tomorrow, Piglet,” he’d said, as if it were just another ordinary Tuesday. “And nobody wants to miss out on pancakes.” He wrapped her in the thick fleeced comfort of his sweatshirt, then carried her home piggyback. While he walked, his back hunched under her weight, he told her a story about a brave princess who lived in a castle high on a hill, with an ogre for a friend. Colton had carried her straight to her room, deposited Katie in her squeaky twin bed and bundled her under the thin blankets. He paused, then let out a sigh.
She did it again, Colton had said.
It wasn’t even a question. Katie nodded, afraid to say the words out loud. To tell her brother how their mother had lashed out at Katie again, for a sin no more egregious than asking if there was anything for supper. In those days, their mother drank more than she ate, and for whatever reason, had taken her anger out on Katie more than Colton.
Colton had given her a nod of understanding, a hug and a whisper in her ear, You’re a good kid. Don’t ever forget that. He’d talked to her until her tears dried up and then he’d tucked her into her bed, and left her with a sandwich he’d sneaked out of the kitchen.
She supposed it was kind of ironic that almost twenty years later, she was running away from home again, but this time toward her brother. And once again, he didn’t ask a single question when she showed up on his doorstep late in the afternoon in a tiny quaint town in North Carolina.
“Hey,” she said, when she walked into the Stone Gap Fire Department and found Colton standing by Engine No. 1, polishing the chrome. “I’m here.”
He stopped working, tossed the rag onto the counter and grinned at her. “Hey yourself, Piglet.” She’d never escaped his childhood nickname for her, but that was okay. “’Bout time you showed up.”
She propped a fist on her hip and gave her six-foot-two brother a well-practiced look of annoyance. He was seven inches taller than her and looked ten times stronger in his dark blue uniform. But that didn’t stop her from teasing him. “Just because you call and invite me to come visit you doesn’t mean I’m going to rush on down here.”
“I don’t know why not. Seeing as how I’m your favorite person and all.” His grin widened and he stepped forward, opening his arms and dragging her into a hug before she could protest. “Even if you are my annoying little sister.”
Katie drew back and squared her shoulders. She could have leaned into Colton’s hug forever, but if she did that, she was afraid the fragile hold she had on her emotions would crumble, and then she’d be a sobbing mess. If there was one thing Katie didn’t do, it was cave to emotions. She hadn’t gotten to be a partner at one of the largest accounting firms in Atlanta by acting weak. And she wasn’t going to get through the next couple weeks without staying strong.
After that, she should be fine. Or at least that was what she had told herself the whole way here. Two weeks, she’d decided, was long enough to find a new job, a new life, a new everything. And maybe, just maybe, stop hurting.
“All right, so now I’m here,” she said, brushing her bangs off her forehead, as if that action could brush the worry away from her mind, too. “You want to show me around this town you’ve raved so much about?”
Truth be told, Colton had done far more raving about Rachel Morris, the girl he was engaged to. He was clearly head over heels for the wedding planner he’d met a few months ago. He’d taken a job at the local fire department, and from what Katie could tell from his texts and phone calls, settled right into Stone Gap like he was born here. She shouldn’t have been surprised—Colton was the kind of guy who fit in anywhere, even with the half brothers he’d recently met. Katie, on the other hand, had never had the same kind of ease around people. Maybe it was from doing such a left-brained job, or maybe it was just that Colton had enough charm for the two of them combined.
“I can’t leave now, sis, sorry. I just started my shift and I’m on the clock for a full twenty-four,” he said. “But why don’t you head over to the Stone Gap Inn, and I’ll meet you there tomorrow night at suppertime? Tell Della I sent you. I stayed there until I rented a house in town. It’s awesome. If anyone knows how to be a hostess, it’s Della. She’s my dad’s wife, and I guarantee she’s going to make you feel like a long lost member of the family.”
Katie wasn’t so sure about that. Right now, all she wanted was a room to herself and some time to think. “Sounds like a plan. Say...six o’clock?”
“On the dot.” Then he winked. “More or less. You know you have to give me a ten-minute window, in either direction.”
She rolled your eyes at him. “I swear, you do that on purpose.”
Colton draped an arm over her shoulders and started walking her back to her car. “You are just a tiny bit too uptight, Piglet. Learn to loosen up. Run late once in a while. Get messy. Your life will be ten times more fun that way.”
“And your life would be ten times easier if you just got a little more organized and on time.”
Colton chuckled. “See you tomorrow, sis.”
Katie climbed into her car and started the engine. She waved goodbye to her brother, then drove two miles away from downtown Stone Gap before turning on a pretty side street lined with trees. She’d been in town only for an hour and already knew her way around—such a difference from the crazy congestion of Atlanta. Okay, so she’d also studied a Google map of the town before making the drive from Atlanta, and written down the directions to the B and B after Colton had referred her to it when she’d broached the idea of visiting. But overall, Stone Gap was easy—easy to drive through, easy to enjoy.
This was what she wanted and needed, she told herself. A quiet, picturesque seaside town where she could...forget. Move on. Take some time to process this, the doctor had told her. Don’t expect to bounce right back into your normal life. You’ve had a loss, and you need time to deal with it.
But how did one “process” a miscarriage? Katie’s hand strayed to her belly, as if touching the place where the baby had been would change anything. Everything about her life was different now, had been for two months. Two months where she had buried her feelings and told herself she was okay. Then had a major meltdown at work, and lost the firm’s two biggest clients. All in one day. The next day, her boss had sat her down and told her maybe it would be best for all involved if she moved on, a pretty little euphemism for being fired. Except Katie wasn’t sure what to do next. How to move forward or move on.
For
