Page 2 of 15 Summers Later

Even so, it had taken an additional incredibly generous gift from an anonymous donor to truly allow them to be able to take care of the start-up operating expenses for the sanctuary without having to heavily mortgage the property.

As hard as she had worked to make her dream a reality, there were still plenty of people in town who would never see her as anything other than that poor Howell girl with the leg brace and the permanent half smile.

“Thank you for your help, Mr. Warner,” she said, after the two of them managed to load up the platform cart.

He appeared slightly out of breath and his hand trembled as he reached for his cane. She shouldn’t have let him help her. The strong, confident woman she wanted to be would have politely told him to move on. Thanks but no thanks. She could handle it, as she had been handling all the challenges that had come her way since her mother’s death when she was twelve.

She had a fair distance to go before she truly was that strong, confident woman.

“Glad I could be here.” Calvin gripped his cane. “You know, they have staff here that can give you a hand next time. They can probably help you take this out to your car. That’s why they’re here.”

She forced a smile. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks. And if you decide you need an Aussie, let me know. They’re smart as can be and are all caught up on their shots. Dr. Gentry takes very good care of all of our animals at the sanctuary.”

“He’s a good man. Not quite the vet his father was, but he’s getting there.”

Before she could object on Luke’s behalf and express that he was an excellent veterinarian in his own right, the rancher’s eyes went wide and he suddenly looked horrified at his own words.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Shouldn’t have brought up old Doc Gentry with you.”

Madi could feel each muscle along her spine tighten. “Why not?” she managed.

Calvin gave her a significant look. “You know. Because of...because of the book.”

The book. That blasted book.

“The wife bought a copy the day it came out, after she saw all the buzz about it online. She’s a good reader. Me, not so much. I like audiobooks, but we’ve been reading it together of an evening. It’s awful, everything that happened to you.”

Madi tightened her hands on the handle of the platform cart, fighting the urge to push it quickly toward the checkout stand.

The last thing she wanted to talk about was her sister’s memoir, which had hit bookstores two weeks earlier and had become the runaway success of the summer, already going back for a third printing.

Madi didn’t want to talk aboutGhost Lake, to hearother peopletalk about it or to eventhinkabout it.

“Right. Well, thank you again for your help, Mr. Warner. I should get on with my sh-shopping.”

Now she did tighten her hands on the cart, jaw tight.

She hated her stammer that sometimes came out of nowhere. She hated the way her mouth was frozen into a half smile all the time, how she only had partial use of her left hand and the way her leg sometimes completely gave out if she didn’t wear the brace.

And she especially hated the way her sister had exposed their history, their past, their pain to the entire world.

“Take care,” Calvin said, a gentleness in his gruff tone that made her somehow want to scream and weep at the same time.

“Thank you,” she said, as graciously as she could manage, and then pushed the unwieldy cart toward the checkout stand.

She reached it as the woman seated on a high stool at the cash register slid a book with a familiar white-and-bloodred cover beneath the counter.

That blasted book was everywhere. She couldn’t escape it.

“Hi there, Madi.” Jewel Littlebear, whose family owned the feed store, gave her a nervous-looking smile, her gaze shifting in the direction of the book.

Jewel had been in Ava’s grade at school. The two of them had been friends once, before Madi’s sister walked away from everything she once cared about here in Emerald Creek.

“Hi, Jewel. How are things? How are the boys?”

Jewell had three hellion sons. She and her family lived on the same street as Madi’s grandmother, in a small ranch-style home where the front yard was covered in toys and bikes and basketballs.

“They’re good. All three of them are playing baseball this summer. I swear, I spend more time over at the park watching their games than I do in my own house.”

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