Page 15 of Flare
Home.
She slowed as she passed the Wildcat Springs Texas BBQ restaurant.
She’d worked there throughout high school. She remembered the way Justin would say“Emily, darlin’” in his soft Texas drawl whenever he wanted her to do something. And how she and Maggie would sneak desserts from the cooler on their breaks, and eat them out on the restaurant’s back patio, where Justin couldn’t see them.
Okay, that’s new, she thought as she spotted a bright neon sign of a cartoon sabertooth tiger holding a barbecue fork and a platter of ribs above the doorway.
Two blocks later, Emily spotted the Cinnamon + Sugar Bakery & Café, its windows dark now.
At the far end of Main Street, the Bearpaw Ridge Police Station, still housed in the same old dry goods store building, was lit up even at this hour.
Emily slowed to a crawl as she passed it, letting the security camera catch her plate… just in case.
Part of her wanted to pull over, walk inside and spill everything about Andrew and his crooked family, about the files she’d uploaded to her cloud storage, about what she’d seen him do.
Later, she told herself. It was financial fraud, not murder. It could wait until she’d settled in and figured out her next move.
She wondered what Mom would say if she were still alive to hear about Emily running away from her fiancé.
But Mom was gone. And the pain of realizing she’d never again be able to share anything that happened—good or bad—was still as raw as the day Mom died.
Emily followed Main Street out of town, where it turned south and merged onto the highway. The Swanson’s Grizzly Creek Ranch was twenty minutes further down the road.
She gave Maggie a quick call. Her friend answered right away.
“Glad to hear you made it. I’ll be waiting for you on the porch. Did I tell you I’m living in Great-Aunt Margaret’s old house these days?”
Emily remembered Margaret. She’d married a famous chef and moved away to live near Bearpaw Springs National Park.
Maggie gave her directions for how to find the house once Emily got to the ranch, and signed off with,“See you soon! Can’t wait to catch up!”
As Emily continued driving, a half-moon rose over the mountains on the east side of the valley and cast just enough light to pick out the river-bottom pastures and the pine-blanketed slopes rising to jagged snow-tipped peaks. Her car was the only one on the road at this hour.
After spending nearly a decade in Spokane’s urban sprawl of condos and constant traffic, returning here felt like freedom.
Nineteen minutes later, she spotted a large wooden sign carved in the shape of a grizzly bear standing next to the highway.
A shiver crawled down Emily’s spine as the memory of Andrew’s horrifying transformation flashed through her head.
The words“Grizzly Creek Ranch, est. 1871” were written in big white letters on the bear-shaped part of the sign. Underneath, in smaller letters,“Bed and Breakfast.” Next to it, a smaller square sign that announced,“We proudly raise organic grass-fed beef.”
She turned off the highway just past the sign and drove through a pair of tall wrought-iron gates. From there, her car bumped along a narrow dirt-and-gravel road that wound through grass-and-sagebrush-covered hills for another mile or so until it reached a cluster of houses set on either side of the road.
She recognized the biggest house. It was Elle Swanson’s grand Victorian, still painted a cheery yellow. She’d always loved that house, with its wide wraparound porch, white gingerbread eaves, and beautiful bay windows fronted by lush flowerbeds and a big crabapple tree in full bloom.
The other houses were smaller and ranged in building style from a Craftsman cottage to a modern log cabin with huge floor-to-ceiling picture windows and a wide deck.
Following Maggie’s directions, Emily kept driving, following the road until she found another cluster of houses tucked away behind a hill. The biggest house here was a Queen Anne Victorian, with a wide, white-columned porch and a small tower with a sharply pointed slate roof like a steeple attached to one corner of the house.
Finally made it!
Emily parked next to a big white pickup with a Grizzly Creek Ranch logo on the driver’s side door.
The front door opened immediately. A figure stepped onto the porch, silhouetted by the porch light. Even from a distance, she recognized Maggie, as tall and athletic as ever, with that unmistakable Swanson confidence. She was wearing a pale terrycloth robe over long pajamas.
Emily opened her car door and scrambled out.
“Hey,” she said, the single word catching in her throat.
