a get-out-of-jail-early card less than twenty-four hours ago.
Colin hadn’t seriously expected that the escaped convict would risk the long drive to Gatlinburg with his face plastered all over the news. But Brian wasn’t known for being a deep thinker. He wasn’t known for thinking much about his actions at all, or their impact on others. At nineteen he’d nearly burned two people alive. Now, at twenty-nine, while escaping a prison transport van that was taking him to the courthouse, he’d murdered a police officer. He’d made a wife a widow, a young son fatherless and put a target on his back for the entire Tennessee law-enforcement community.
Without noticing any movement near the tree line, and hearing only the sound of his own boots crunching on dry weeds and gravel, Colin eased back to his pickup. A few minutes later, he concealed his truck behind a stand of basswood trees about thirty feet from the roadway. Hoofing it from there, he selected a heavily canopied oak that would offer a clear view of the house while providing him with shade and concealment. After settling onto a thick branch a third of the way up the tree, he leaned back against the trunk and stretched out his long legs in front of him. Now, all he had to do was wait.
Peyton Sterling coaxed her aging SUV up the long bumpy driveway that was more dirt than gravel. Her home loomed ahead and she immediately averted her gaze.
Focus on the garage. Don’t look at the rest of the house. Don’t look at the house.
But, of course, she did, and winced. Even though it had been over three months since she’d returned to Gatlinburg, the sight of her mom’s weed-choked flower beds and the dilapidated family home still made her heart ache.
The life insurance money and small inheritance that she’d received had gotten her through so far. She’d paid a repairman to do the bare minimum to make it functional, like install a new garage door opener because she could barely lift the door otherwise. And she’d had no choice but to use a chunk of the money to renovate the kitchen. That was a necessity for her fledgling business, an investment in her future. Unfortunately, fixing everything else that was wrong with the house wasn’t an expense that she could justify, or afford. Fixing them herself wasn’t feasible either. She was far from handy in the home improvement department. If she tried to repair a leaky faucet she’d probably end up flooding the entire house.
Of course, even if she’d been handy, by the time she got home every evening, she was too tired to do much more than grab a bite to eat before collapsing into bed. Then she had to be up before dawn to bake fresh delicacies for the café and start the whole cycle all over again. There wasn’t enough time, energy or money to make a dent in her long to-do list at home.
Thankfully, tomorrow was Saturday, the one day of the week when she had two full-time helpers at the shop instead of just one. With Joan and Melissa taking care of things, she could sleep in. But it wasn’t like she could relax and do nothing all day. She had to use her day off to catch up on laundry, clean the house, work on the books for the store, order new supplies. In some ways, she worked harder on her “day off” than during the rest of the week.
Blowing out a deep breath, she parked inside the garage and then forced her tired body out of the SUV. If an aching back and bruised-feeling feet were what it took to make a business profitable, Peyton’s Place should have been a roaring success by now. Unfortunately, success was coming much more slowly than she’d hoped. Sometimes the only thing keeping her from quitting was the worry over where Melissa and Joan would end up if she had to close the shop’s doors.
After slapping her palm on the garage door button on the wall, she headed into the mudroom. As always, when she continued into the kitchen, the creamy yellow walls and white shaker-style cabinets embraced her like a hug, helping to ease the tension that had built up in her shoulders all day. This was her domain. This was where she felt most at home. And it was one of the few things that could always make her smile.
She hung her purse on a peg beside the door. But instead of heading through the cased opening on the left into the family room, she smoothed her hand over the cool marble island. If she was honest with herself, renovating the kitchen and bringing it into the current century wasn’t just to enable her to supply her café with fresh baked goods. It fed her soul as well.
The sinfully luxurious stainless-steel Sub-Zero refrigerator, the double ovens built into the wall, the high-end finishes helped make this room her happy place. The treasured memories within these walls were priceless. Especially now.
I miss you so much, Mom.
Her father had labeled her and her mother obsessed. Maybe they had been. But there was no denying that her happiest memories revolved around cooking. Either they’d been making s’mores in the family room fireplace or she and her mom had been in here baking cakes, cookies and pastries. Somehow, kneading dough or making frosting from scratch could help Peyton forget the arguments, the trouble her brother kept getting into, even her mother’s eccentric tendencies and unpredictable mood swings. When Peyton was working in the kitchen, all her troubles seemed to melt away.
Even now, just smelling a loaf of bread baking in the oven could transport her back to her high school days, when she was young and in love, happier than she’d ever been and probably ever would be again. To a time when her family was relatively whole, when she was still whole. But those days were gone and could never be recaptured. One horrific event had fragmented their lives forever. She’d lost everything that mattered that night. Or, at least, that’s what she’d thought, until a slippery, rainy road just a few months ago proved she’d still had more to lose.
I love you, Mom. Wish you were here.
Her shoulders slumped as she reluctantly turned from her homey, comforting kitchen toward the opening to the family room. She needed to head to her bedroom, shower, change into her pajamas. But just looking at the cave-like gloom beyond the doorway was already making her feel down. Had it always been that dark? Or did it just seem that way now that the family who’d once lived in this place no longer existed? The only warm body around here at the moment was Peyton. Unless she counted the rats and squirrels that had taken up residence after she and her parents moved to Memphis.
She’d lost count of how many critters she’d either chased out or carried out after setting traps. Based on the scratching sounds she sometimes still heard in the walls, there were a few stubborn holdouts she’d yet to evict. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to recapture her earlier contentment. Remember the scent of all those candles her mom used to set around the house on evenings when it was too hot to light a fire in the fireplace. She could almost picture it, see her mom’s sweet smile, hear the rustle of fabric as her mom put on a crisp white apron.
“Hey, Peyton.”
Her eyes flew open. She automatically grabbed the broom that she always kept propped against the wall just in case another rat made an appearance. But she froze when a painfully thin man with strawberry blond hair a shade darker than hers emerged from the shadows to stand in the kitchen opening. Her jaw dropped open in shock as he watched her, his sheepish grin not quite reaching his haunted eyes.
“Long time, no see, huh, sis?”
“B...Brian?” Her voice came out a choked whisper as she struggled to make sense of what she was seeing. Of who she was seeing. “I don’t understand. Is that really you?”
A sound behind her had her whirling around to see another man emerge from the laundry room. She pressed a shaking hand
