CHAPTER 1
GILLIAN
I pulled into the gravel lot by the park, tires crunching as I eased between two pickup trucks that had definitely seen better days.
For a long moment, I sat there with my hands gripping the steering wheel, staring out through the windshield at the controlled chaos that was Huckleberry Creek's annual Fourth of July celebration. Red, white, and blue bunting hung in lazy swoops between the ancient oak trees, some of it already drooping in the humidity. Kids careened through the crowd like pinballs, their faces sticky with melted popsicles and painted with temporary tattoos of American flags. From somewhere near the bandstand came the faint, slightly off-key warble of what had to be the Riverside Boys—the same cover band that had been butchering classic rock at every town event since I was in middle school. They were taking their usual enthusiastic stab at Springsteen, and it was just as painful as I remembered.
The air hung thick and heavy, saturated with the competing scents of barbecue smoke drifting from a dozen different grills, the coconut-sweet smell of sunscreen slathered on overheated skin, and the sharp bite of citronella candles that never quite managed to keep the mosquitoes at bay. It was like beingwrapped in a blanket made of summer memories—some good, some suffocating, all of them painfully familiar.
Two weeks. Just two weeks. You can do this.
As I got out, the heat slammed into me, sticky and unrelenting, the kind that immediately glued the back of my shirt to my spine. The noise was even louder outside the car—kids laughing and shrieking, the clatter of coolers being dragged into the shade, someone calling for another round of lemonade.
Everywhere I looked was a snapshot of my childhood frozen in amber. The weathered bandstand with its crooked red, white, and blue bunting that had clearly seen better decades, the same rickety aluminum folding chairs arranged in haphazard rows on the patchy grass, the faded blue tarps slung between ancient oak trees to create pockets of blessed shade. Even the hand-painted banner stretched between two light poles—"Welcome to Huckleberry Creek's Annual Fourth of July Celebration!"—looked like it had been painted by the same enthusiastic but artistically challenged volunteer who'd done it when I was twelve.
Huckleberry Creek might as well have been sealed in a time capsule. Nothing had changed. Not the paint-chipped gazebo where the mayor would undoubtedly give his rambling speech about patriotism and community values. Not the wobbly card tables where the church ladies would be selling their famous brownies for fifty cents each. Not even the ancient sound system that would crackle and pop through every announcement like it was transmitting from another galaxy.
The familiarity was bittersweet. I'd loved growing up here. Loved the community and the comfort of small-town living. But Huckleberry Creek had never been enough for my parents, and they'd moved away as soon as I'd left for college. Now I only came back rarely to visit my grandfather and my best friend, who'd moved back about a year ago after her divorce.
Right this moment, it was Lucy I needed to see. I scanned the crowd automatically, searching for her face.
I found her son, Liam, instead.
He was a blur of elbows and knees, a little boy tearing through the obstacle course like he’d been drafted into some miniature, sugar-fueled army. A plastic fire helmet—so battered it must’ve been a year old—was jammed onto his head at a crooked angle.
“Watch me, Cord!” he yelled over his shoulder, not even slowing down as he wove through a line of cones.
“I’m watching, rookie!” The call came from a tall guy by the hose-pull station, his tone all mock-serious authority. Ah ha. This would be Lucy's new beau. He looked even better in person than he had in the photos she'd sent me of the two of them.
I couldn’t help it. I smiled.
Then I spotted Lucy standing at the edge of the kid zone, laughing at whatever Liam was doing. Jean shorts. A soft blue top that made her look like summer itself. Sunglasses shoved up into her hair.
My heart did a full-on flip, because she was exactly as I remembered—only now there was something more. Lighter. Happier.
And suddenly I wasn’t thinking about the heat or my inbox or the million ways this trip could be a bad idea. I was thinking about how good it was to see my best friend like that after everything she'd been through.
Lucy’s head turned like she felt me looking, and her whole face lit up. “Gillian!”
She was already moving, ducking around a picnic table like she’d been waiting all day for me to get here. I barely had time to shove my sunglasses up before she launched at me. We collided in a hug so fierce it knocked the breath right out of me.
“Finally.” She laughed into my shoulder. “I was about two seconds from tracking your GPS and dragging you here myself.”
“You would.” I hugged her back just as tight. “It’s good to see you in actual three dimensions again.”
“So much yes!” She pulled back, still grinning, but she didn’t let go as she tugged me toward the tents. “Come on! You have to meet Cord without a screen between you.”
The tall firefighter from the hose station was waiting beyond the line of cones, a pair of lemonades in his hands and a grin that was steady but also a little wary. Good. That meant he understood that our meeting was important.
Lucy was practically glowing as she gestured to me. “Cord, this is Gillian Holliday—my best friend and the reason I didn’t become a full-on feral raccoon in high school.”
“Hey now.” I slid my sunglasses off with a grin. “You were halfway there. I just taught you how to weaponize it.”
His mouth twitched like he was fighting a laugh, and I tilted my head, assessing. “So you’re the famous Cord. I’ve been hearing about you since the firefighter auction last year. Hottest thing on two feet, according to half the texts I’ve gotten in the last six months.”
Lucy groaned. “Please stop talking.”
He offered me one of the lemonades along with a dry, “And you must be the corruptor of youth and keeper of all embarrassing stories.”
