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One
November burials were the worst. The day was raw and gray with spritzes of bitterly cold rain. In the distance, low clouds shrouded the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. Felicity Vance huddled into her hooded coat and wished she had worn pants. She was keeping her distance from the other mourners.
Her long-sleeve black crepe dress was suitable for the occasion. But she was frozen to the bone. She should have gone for comfort. Earlier, when she arrived at the funeral home and discovered there was no actual service there—only brief words to be offered at the cemetery—she hadn’t worked up the courage to go through the receiving line. She had peeked into the crowded parlor that smelled of carnations and grief, and then made a beeline for her car in the parking lot.
Now here she was, wishing she had read the notice about arrangements more carefully.
Witnessing the casket, even from a distance, was a kick to the chest.
Harder still was seeing the chief mourner, the deceased’s brother. Wynn Oliver. The man who had once been her whole world.
She watched him now, though all she could see from behind was his broad shoulders elegantly clad in a hand-tailored black wool overcoat. He was bareheaded, the dark, wavy hair seemingly impervious to the heavy mist. The man didn’t even have a scarf tossed around his neck.
Her heart ached for him. Despite a wretched childhood—or perhaps because of it—he and his sister had always been close. Shandy was only twenty-nine years old...far too young to die. An aggressive cancer had taken her, leaving only her grieving brother to take charge of her ten-month-old baby.
Wynn and Felicity were four years older. Once upon a time, Felicity thought Shandy would become her sister-in-law.
Life had intervened.
While the minister’s voice rolled out over the small crowd, reading verses of comfort from the Psalms, Felicity shivered and curled her fingers inside her gloves. Perhaps she shouldn’t have come.
She had seen the funeral announcement in a social media post. Fifteen years ago, Felicity left this small community called Falcon’s Notch. Though she now lived in Knoxville, Tennessee—only fifty minutes away—her current address might as well have been the other side of the moon.
Falcon’s Notch was a tight-knit, insular collection of families tucked away in a holler. Didn’t even have its own post office. Students were bused to schools in the nearest town. The residents here were secluded. Most liked it that way, but not all. Wynn and Felicity had yearned to see the world.
Felicity sometimes felt guilty they had left Shandy behind.
But then again, at eighteen and with her entire world imploding, Felicity had been wrapped up in her own hurt and confusion.
She shoved the past aside and brought her attention back to the sad moment being played out in familiar sequence. The green-awninged tent was meant to provide shelter from the sun or rain for the family of the deceased. Ten white folding chairs, two rows of five, sat drunkenly on the uneven ground.
The chairs were empty.
Only Wynn remained of his birth family. Knowing him as she did, he would have scorned the comfort of the chairs. He stood, strong and resolute, until the diminutive minister spoke the final prayer.
Then in a move that broke Felicity’s heart, Wynn knelt and dropped a single pink rose on top of the casket. Afterward, he stood and stepped back while the funeral home employees lowered Shandy to her final resting place.
Felicity’s eyes burned with tears. Her throat was tight. This beautiful corner of the mountains concealed so much pain. Rampant poverty. Addiction. That last one was why Shandy had never managed to escape. But she had found redemption in getting clean before her child was born.
And now this...
The modest crowd began to disperse. Some of them had come, no doubt, out of sympathy and concern. Others from meddlesome interest. Many would have wanted a peek at the community’s most famous local son.
The self-made millionaire. Or maybe billionaire. The number of zeroes at the end didn’t matter. Wynn Oliver had been one of them once. A hometown boy made good. He was like a mythical creature in these parts.
After all his successes, Wynn had built a house at the apex of this valley, high in the mountains near the border of the park. Few had seen it, but the rumors of what it looked like circulated.
Wynn’s actual home was in New York City. Felicity wondered why he had felt the need to establish a second house at all.
She had been staring at the ground, shifting from one foot to the other, trying to feel her toes when a low, deep voice said her name.
“Fliss?”
In shock, she lifted her head. Stared into eyes that were the green of summer moss on an elm tree. The breath froze in her lungs.
“Wynn,” she croaked.
His brows narrowed. “I saw you at the funeral home.”
