“I know, honey. Maybe that man just wants to help, but I don’t know him.” Trust is earned, not given freely. Even when it’s earned, it’s sometimes blown to tiny bits.

Five minutes ticked by in silence when Hope ran out of questions about strangers and matters of trusting them.

The stranger turned off his engine and sat in his cab.

Melanie watched his shadow like a hawk.

Less than twenty minutes later, the road flashed with red and blue lights as a sheriff’s squad car pulled around the corner and tucked in behind Melanie’s hunk of junk. “Stay here,” she said for the second time that night.

The rain had let up to a steady fall instead of sheets, not that her body felt the difference.

The officer pushed out of the car, placing a plastic-covered hat on their head.

“Looks like you’re having some trouble.” Melanie heard the voice of a woman and felt her shoulders slump in relief.

“Stupid car.” Melanie kicked the tire as she walked by.

The officer shone her light on the car, then up into Melanie’s face.

“Mel?”

Melanie sucked in a breath. “JoAnne?”

Jo shoved the light in her own face, giving Melanie the best relief of the night. “Oh, my God. I knew you were the sheriff, but . . . wow! Just look at you!”

Her gun toting, flashlight shining BFF squealed like any friend should, and moved in for a hug.

“Looks like you have it from here, Sheriff,” the voice of the stranger sounded in the drizzling rain.

“Melanie’s an old friend. Thanks for the call, Wyatt.”

So his name is Wyatt.

“Might wanna teach your friend that not everyone wants to cut her up.”

“I’ll do that,” Jo yelled as Wyatt slid back into his truck and left.

“What’s he all about?” Melanie found herself asking.

Before Jo could answer, Hope was ducking her head out of the backseat again. “Can I come out now?”

Melanie waved her daughter from the car and she came running.

CHAPTER TWO

Jo insisted Melanie and Hope stay with her until morning. It wasn’t hard saying yes when Hope all but begged for a hot meal and a warm house.

With Jo back at work, Melanie settled into Jo’s childhood home. The bungalow’s footprint was the same, but the furniture had changed and the walls were free of floral patterned paper.

Once Hope was tucked into the guest room, fed, showered, and exhausted, Melanie pulled the cork on a bottle of wine and lit a fire.

The house felt smaller than she remembered . . . quiet. She’d never spent any time in the Ward home without her friend. She found herself looking around, waiting for Sheriff Ward to walk in the door and read her the riot act for drinking. Didn’t matter that she was twenty-eight now, well past the legal age to drink . . . your parents, or even your friend’s parents who knew you before you could wear a bra, intimidated you into believing you were still ten.

Melanie wiggled sock-covered toes and let the flames warm the last part of her that still felt chilled.

She couldn’t remember the last time she sat in front of a fireplace. Probably right after Hope was born when her mother sent her tickets to fly to the East Coast to visit. What a mess that was. Whatever maternal instinct her mother had when she was growing up had disappeared the day her divorce was final. The free trip to Connecticut was to ease her mother’s guilty conscience. Melanie went to try and give Hope a grandmother.

By the time she boarded the plane back to California all hopes of a normal grandparent for her daughter had vanished.

Felicia Bartlett sent her a hundred bucks and a generic birthday card every year . . . sent another check for Christmas. If Melanie could afford to deny the money, she would. But pride didn’t put food on the table. If it were just her, she’d probably send it back. Instead, she put every dollar in a savings account for Hope. It wouldn’t add up to much, but maybe by the time her daughter was driving, she could afford a running car for her.

She didn’t even want to think about college.

The jiggling of the lock in the door told her Jo was home.

Melanie lifted both hands in the air, one held her wineglass. “I didn’t do it,” she said as Jo closed the door behind her.

Jo offered a laugh as she pulled her overcoat from her shoulders. “The guilty always say that.”

As Jo removed what looked to be a twenty-pound belt from her waist and draped it on a side table, she slowly started to look more like Melanie’s old screw-the-establishment friend and less like a cop.

“Thanks for letting us stay here. Hope was exhausted.”

“You looked like something the cat drug home yourself.”

Melanie pulled herself off the couch and grabbed a glass from the kitchen. She splashed some of the wine for her friend. “I’ve had better days.”

“I’m glad you’re here. It’s been way too long.”

Melanie sat back down, tucked her feet under her. “I know . . . I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry about?”

“I didn’t even come back for your dad’s funeral.” Her eyes traveled to the mantel above the fireplace. There, in a triangle frame, was what had to be the flag that had draped over Sheriff Ward’s casket.

Jo fell into a chair across from her.

“I didn’t come when Hope was born. We’re even. Besides . . . funerals suck, and screaming women in labor aren’t pleasant either.”

They both laughed at that.

“She’s beautiful. Looks a lot like you did when we were kids.”