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Prologue
As Rowan Foxe walked the narrow two-lane country road after midnight toward Gage Chambers’ property, she considered what she was about to do and why.
Everything before the age of ten was a blank to her. Found wandering the busy streets of Fort Worth, police picked her up and took her to the closest hospital.
Recovering from severe head trauma, never reported missing, and unable to tell the authorities anything, she was designated a Jane Doe.
A wooden pendant with the nameRowancarved into it and a blood-soaked slip of paper withFoxescribbled in pencil were found in the pocket of her torn and bloody sundress.
By necessity, her life started over.
Rowan had no idea who she’d been, how she was injured, or if there was anyone in the world who wanted to find her.
Gage was one of the first people she met when she was sent to the orphanage in northeast Texas after she was released from the hospital.
The Chambers were good people, kind and generous. They owned Chambers Cattle Company a couple of miles up the road. Gage and his family volunteered time and money to the home. They’d done so for decades.
They fixed things around the property, supplied necessary items like food and medicine, and brought presents at Christmas. They’d made a difference in the lives of many girls who’d cycled through Miss Jeffries’ care.
By the age of twelve, Rowan knew she loved Gage.
From the start, she thought, “If I could everhavea normal life, I’d pickhimto live it with.”
Naturally, her life wouldneverbe normal.
Gage and his family had lived in Daingerfield, Texas for three generations. They could trace their lineage back almost a thousand years and had deep roots in the community.
Rowan didn’t have lineage. No one even knew ifRowan Foxewas her name but it seemed a rational one at the time.
Gage had a hundred blood relatives. She’d met his people lots of times during Chambers’ picnics when the poor souls at the nearby girls’ home were invited to attend.
Rowan was nobody. For all anyone knew, she dropped out of the sky and landed on her head.
From the first time she met Gage, he was in a perpetual good mood. Always joking with his friends and family, gently teasing his mom and elderly grandmother, and grinning or outright laughing non-stop.
Being honest with herself, Rowan didn’t let down her guard long enough to laugh much. She worked hard in school once they estimated where to put her, trained hard in track when she got to high school, and kept her head down.
She didn’t like attracting attention. For eight years, she’d lived with the feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Because shehadn’tfallen from the sky.
Someone had given birth to her. Someone had hurt her badly. It was impossible to know the circumstances of how she ended up bloody and alone on a busy city street, but since no one had ever claimed her, she didn’t imagine the circumstances were good.
Starting over with a name gleaned from scraps in her pocket and growing safely in a rural orphanage to adulthood didn’terasewho she was before that night.
It simply paused her journey down that road.
She had no doubt that someday, somehow, that old life would intersect with her new one. There were too many unanswered questions for her to believe that she could live a life like everyone else.
One day, when her past came calling, it would likely involve more blood. She’d never link anyone else to that fate. That didn’t stop her heart from loving the man down the road.
Gage was four years older than Rowan. As she aged, the way he looked at her changed.
At seventeen, she attended a Fourth of July picnic at the Chambers’ property. All the girls at the orphanage dressed in hand-me-down clothes and donations.
The kind elderly woman who ran the home for girls made sure they were comfortable but discouraged clothing that was too revealing.
Miss Jeffries liked to tell them, “Men aregonnasee your bodies over the years but you make ‘em earn the privilege and don’t give ‘em a free show before they do.”
