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Chapter One

Zara

I release my hair from its ponytail, gather it up, and re-tie it straight away, letting out a long sigh as I gaze around at the packing cases littering my living room.

I have a lot of books, I’ll admit, but even so, there seem to be too many boxes. The prospect of trying to fit their contents onto the shelves gets more depressing every time I think about it, so instead of thinking about it, I head for the kitchen to fix myself a coffee.

At least I’ve finished the unpacking in here. The cups, glasses, dishes and silverware all have homes, as do my pots and pans. Most of them are new, or were given to me by my mom, but that’s hardly surprising. This is my first home. Or my first home away from home. Although in the ten days I’ve lived here, I would have thought I’d have been able to do more than find places to store my kitchenware and hang up my clothes.

Except I haven’t, and with a shrug of my shoulders, I grab a pod from the jar on the countertop, put it in the machine, place my favorite yellow cup underneath, and switch it on, watching, mesmerized, while the coffee filters through.

Once I’ve had this, I’ll get on with unpacking. I will. Honestly.

I just need a caffeine hit, and then…

My phone rings, interrupting my train of thought, and I pull it from my back pocket. The word ‘Mom’ lights up the screen, and my face, and I answer straight away, switching it to speaker as I lean back against the countertop.

“Hi,” I say, knowing how much my mom loves a good, long talk, and that I can put off trying to figure out where to put all my books for a while longer.

“How are you?” she asks.

“I’m fine.” That’s not strictly true, but I don’t want Mom to worry, and to distract her, I ask, “How’s everything at home?”

The place where I grew up isn’t really ‘home’ anymore. Hart’s Creek is where I’m putting down roots… or trying to. But it’s hard to get out of the habit of calling somewhere ‘home’ when you’ve lived there all your life.

“I went to see Evelyn Hall’s puppies the other day,” she says, and I can imagine the sweet smile on her lips, as well as Mrs. Hall’s adorable Golden Retriever, Sandy.

“How old are they now?”

“Only about three weeks.”

“You’re not gonna get one, are you?”

“I’m thinking about it, when they’re old enough to leave their mom,” she says. “Evelyn’s found homes for three of them already, which leaves four more.”

“I guess it would be company for you.”

I hear her chuckle. “It would. But that’s not why I’m thinking of getting one.”

“Oh? What’s the reason, then?”

“Your aunt absolutely hates dogs.”

I laugh and she joins in. “I knew she loved cats, but I didn’t know she had anything against dogs.”

“Hmm… she can’t stand them.”

“But if you owned one, wouldn’t that mean she’d refuse to come visit?”

“Exactly.”

I laugh again. “Have the two of you had a fight?”

“No. I know better than to fight with Charlotte. It’s just that since the last of her cats died, she’s become incredibly bossy.” Having never married, Aunt Charlotte has always enjoyed bossing her menagerie of cats… not that they ever paid much attention. Cats don’t, do they? “Can you believe, she drove over here on Saturday, completely unannounced, and insisted she simply had to take me away for the weekend?”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“It’s not. It was very kind of her. But I had plans. There’s a lot to do in the garden, I wanted to clean out the kitchen cabinets, and I was gonna call you, but she’d started packing my things before I could even get a word out.”

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