Page 12 of 15 Summers Later

“I really am sorry about the mess,” Leona was saying. “Once we clear out these boxes, you’ll be able to find the bed.”

“I told you, we don’t have to move anything,” a second voice, now familiar, said. “Especially not tonight. I’m fine working around them. I only need a bed and a desk and maybe a few drawers for my things.”

A hot wave of fury mingled with disbelief washed over Madi.

No.

It couldn’t be.

Not here.

She should have known when she saw the Oregon plates.

Catching her breath, she moved to the doorway of Ava’s old room, where she found her beloved grandmother, usually a source of unending support and love, consorting with the enemy.

Leona was poking through boxes while Ava sat on the bed, blonde and lovely and traitorous.

They both must have sensed her presence. They looked up simultaneously, and if she hadn’t been so stunned, Madi might have been amused at their reaction.

Leona looked apprehensive, her eyes widening and her gaze flitting between the two sisters, as if she expected them to start pulling hair any minute.

For one brief instant, Madi almost thought Ava looked terrified before she blinked away any emotion, returning to the cool, composed stranger she had become over the years, at least to her.

“What is she doing here?” she demanded of her grandmother, her voice harsh. She didn’t trust herself to say a word to Ava yet.

“Good news.” Leona’s voice took on a chipper edge, though her expression remained wary. “Your sister has come back to Emerald Creek for an extended stay. Isn’t that wonderful?”

Wonderful?Madi could think of a dozen words that fit the situation far better than that particular one.

“Why?”

Her voice sounded gruff, ragged, as if she had scooped up a handful of pebbles from the garden walkway and swallowed them all on her way inside.

Leona appeared at a loss for a long time, as if words had escaped her.

Finally, Ava spoke up. “Cullen is working on an excavation in the Sawtooth Mountains about an hour from here. Rather than stay by myself at our apartment in Portland over my summer break, I...thought it would be nice to spend some time with Grandma. Plus this way, I’ll be closer to him.”

She was lying. While in many ways, her sister was a complete stranger these days, Madi still knew her well enough to sense when she was skirting around the whole truth.

Ava’s tells hadn’t changed. When she lied, she shifted her gaze away and blinked about twice as often as usual.

After everything the two of them had survived together, Madi once thought they would always have an unbreakable bond, forged through fear and loss.

She could not have been more wrong.

“You don’t b-belong here anym-more.”

Madi screwed her eyes closed, hating that whenever she was upset, the connection between her brain and her words seemed slippery and undependable.

Communication skills had never been her strong suit. Surviving a bullet to the brain certainly hadn’t helped matters.

Ava ignored her stammer, giving her a cool look in return. “I don’t believe that is your decision to make. This is our grandmother’s house and she welcomed me into her home.”

“Grandma, seriously?” Madi exclaimed, filled with frustration and helplessness, feelings that were only too familiar. “How c-can you even let her in the house after everything she has d-done!?”

“Madison Howell. That’s enough. This is your sister. She will always be your sister, just as she will always be my daughter’s oldest child and welcome in my home.”

Leona didn’t take that firm tone with Madi very often. It made her feel like a child being scolded, not a fully capable adult with eminently reasonable objections.

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