It was obvious that no woman had slept a single night here since her parents had divorced.
Jock’s string of girlfriends—and his most recent wife, Brenda—had shown no interest in accompanying their man on the annual trip to New York.
And as for Murphy? He’d lived alone, since high school graduation, in a sharecropper’s cabin on the farm that he’d painstakingly restored. Kerry knew, from the gossip around Tarburton, that her resolutely reclusive brother dated—and was what she might call a serial monogamist—but he’d never introduced any of his lady friends to her or Birdie.
Murphy was thirty-nine, she was thirty-four, and although they were brother and sister, the two hadn’t lived under the same roof in decades. He was a stranger to her.
But then, Kerry mused, as she peered into a tiny mirror tacked outside the unused bathroom cubicle, that cut both ways. What did Murphy, or anyone else in the family, really, know about her?
When she’d moved back home to Tarburton three months earlier, she’d been deliberately vague about what she called a “temporary” relocation. She hadn’t mentioned the fact that the advertising agency in Charlotte where she worked as an art director had merged with another, larger agency in Atlanta, thus rendering her what the firm’s human resources department liked to call “redundant.”
Kerry had been working nonstop since graduation from art school in Savannah, until she was suddenly … not. She’d managed to live on her separation pay for the first three months, but the rent on the Charlotte loft was ridiculously expensive, and every day, as she stared at the online account of her dwindling savings, she’d asked herself why.
She’d built a life around her work. Her boyfriend, Blake, was an account executive at the ad agency. Most of her friends either worked there or were people she’d met through networking. Once she was out of work, she realized, with more than a trace of bitterness, she was also out of mind.
Blake hadn’t actually ghosted her. He’d just … gradually shifted his interest, until the only souvenirs she had of their two-year relationship were a tennis racket he’d left in her hall closet, along with a windbreaker and a tube of the expensive toothpaste he bought online.
There was nothing keeping her in Charlotte. It was time to face facts. It was time to go home—to her childhood bedroom at Birdie’s cottage a few blocks from the square in Tarburton.
She took on some freelance graphic design assignments, mostly website work that she could probably do in her sleep. Aside from taking an occasional walk around the square, Kerry rarely strayed far from the house.
“You’re getting to be a hermit, just like Murphy,” Birdie observed one sunny autumn Saturday morning, as she headed out with a basket over her arm to meet up with old friends at the weekly farmers’ market on the square.
Kerry looked up from the novel she was rereading. “I’m fine. Okay?”
Birdie shrugged. “I just think it’s a shame to stay inside on a gorgeous day like this. Winter will be here before you know it.”
“I happen to like winter,” Kerry told Birdie.
“I’ll remind you of that in January, when the roads up here are iced over and we haven’t seen sunshine in days and everything is gray and gloomy,” her mother retorted.
The truth was, Kerry rarely ventured into her hometown because she felt so out of place there—like an alien, beamed down to the wrong planet. During the last few months she’d lived in Charlotte, she’d felt aimless and adrift there, too. Maybe, she thought, experiencing a fleeting moment of optimism, a month away from both places, in New York, was what she needed, to reset her equilibrium.
* * *
Birdie hefted a cooler onto the front seat of the pickup truck. “There’s sandwiches here so you don’t have to stop to eat.” She placed a plaid thermos in the truck’s cup holder. “Here’s your coffee. Your daddy said to tell you there’s a good rest stop outside Winchester, Virginia, where he and Murphy always pull over. Clean bathrooms and plenty of room to park. Make sure you lock the doors and get a couple hours of sleep before you get back on the road.”
“Okay,” Kerry said. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. The sun was rising, peeking through the fog-shrouded mountains. Nervous energy fizzled in her veins. She hadn’t slept much the night before, worrying about the trip, towing the trailer while braving New York City traffic, and yes, the prospect of living in a mouse-infested claustrophobic canned ham for the next three weeks.
“I better get going,” she said, gunning the engine. “I don’t wanna piss Murphy off by being late.”
“Have you got your phone? And your charger? Plenty of wool socks? Extra underwear? God knows when you’ll get to do laundry.”
“Yes, yes, yes, and yes,” Kerry said. “I’m a grown-ass woman, Mom. Not an eight-year-old going to summer camp.”
“I know,” Birdie said, leaning in and kissing Kerry on the cheek. “And I know you’ll be working, selling trees. But don’t forget what I said about the magic of New York at Christmas. Don’t forget to stop and have fun.”
“You mean, don’t forget to stop and sniff the subway platform?”
“Don’t be like that,” Birdie chastised.
“Fun. Right.” Kerry rolled her eyes.
She took a deep breath, looked both ways, and slowly pulled out onto the county road.
“As if.”
chapter 3
Google Maps told her she should reach New York in nearly ten hours, which would have put her in the city by around five o’clock Saturday.
But those maps didn’t account for an aging truck with a top speed of fifty miles per hour, towing a fifteen-foot trailer. It didn’t account for the construction delays on the interstate, snarled traffic around multiple wrecks, and it definitely didn’t take into consideration the frequent stops necessitated by a white-knuckle driver amped up by too much caffeine.
It was already past three when Kerry pulled into the rest stop outside Winchester. She found a parking spot at the back of the lot, locked the door, and, despite all the coffee, instantly dozed off.
It was nearing dark when her phone buzzed her back to consciousness. She yawned and reached for the phone, gasping when she saw the time—5:30—and the caller—Murphy Tolliver.
“Are you getting close?” Her brother never wasted time on niceties.
“Not exactly. This damn truck won’t go over fifty, and with all the construction on the interstate…”
“Okay, where are you? Jersey?”
“More like Virginia.”
“Jesus, Kerry! You’re still hours away. At the rate you’re going it’ll be close to midnight. I haven’t slept in two days and I’m freezing my ass off in this truck waiting around on you.”
“Then get a hotel room,” she snapped. “I’m doing the best I can.”
“We can’t afford a hotel in the city. Just call me when you’re an hour out. And hurry up. We need to be ready to start selling trees first thing in the morning.”
He disconnected and Kerry scowled down at the phone. “Gonna be a fun few weeks, for sure.”