Page 4 of Her Wicker Guardian

Shannon grins. “Done.”

I pick up my wine again.

Behind us, the wicker arch leans slightly to the left, held together by wire, stubbornness, and several decisions none of us intend to admit making.

Blair raises her cup toward it. “To never doing this again.”

“Absolutely,” Shannon says.

We drink to that.

Chapter One

One Year Later

Rachel

By six-thirty Friday night, the dump cake has made my tiny kitchen smell like butter and canned peaches, five red plastic cups are waiting on the folding table in my side yard, and two bottles of wine are chilling on ice in the cooler beside it. Kindling and wood are stacked beside the firepit, ready for later.

Janet texted at 6:12 to say something was going on with her mother’s blood sugar and she’d be late, so for now I’m expecting three women.

Tires grind slowly up the gravel drive.

My hand stops on the cooler handle. The muscles across my stomach tighten before I can tell myself that Trent has no reason to be here. The car rolls closer, a door slams, and my fingers clamp down until the metal edge bites into my palm.

“Rachel?” Shannon calls.

Her voice reaches me before my body catches up.

Shannon. A normal Friday night. No threat.

“Back here.”

I let go of the cooler and head around the cottage toward the drive. The gravel lane runs in from the road along the far side of the house, and by the time I reach the front corner, Shannon is already walking toward me with a grocery bag and a bottle of wine. My pulse has almost settled.

She takes one look at me. “You okay?”

“Fine.”

Her eyebrows rise, and I can tell she doesn’t believe me for a second.

“I said fine.”

“That word has betrayed you before.”

“My face isn’t helping, is it?”

“Not remotely.”

She hugs me, then follows me back around the cottage to the side yard we’ve been taking over for the last month. Out here in the Ozarks, the woods are thick on every side, screening us from anyone passing on the road.

Private. Or as private as anything feels when I still check the cameras before I go to bed.

Shannon drops her bag beside the table, turns toward the bear, then stops. “Oh my God.”

I follow her attention.

The wicker bear has been standing in my yard for four weeks, and seeing him with fresh eyes does him no favors.