Page 1

Chapter One

Amelia

“How many people have signed up so far?” Mayor Anderson’s usually cheerful drawl has a sharp edge to it that puts me on high alert.

On my computer, I open the newest email in my inbox. But instead of reading, I squish my cell phone between my ear and shoulder and reach for the Dogwood Grove Community Spring Clean-Up Day sign-up sheet, giving it a quick glance.

“I have fifty-four,” I answer with all the optimism I can muster.

She hisses. “That’s not enough.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it. People always show up at the last minute. We ended up with over eighty volunteers last year.”

As I talk, I skim the email and try not to groan out loud. The corporate retreat group from New York are changing their schedule once again. Now they want to go hiking tomorrow instead of Friday. I want to reply that they can’t treat us this way. That it’s not because we’re a small town that we don’t have tight schedules too. That we don’t need their big city money. Except that we do need their money. And my job as their fun director, as they’ve so named me, is to keep them happy and hope that they recommend the Dogwood Tourist Agency to as many people as possible when their trip is over.

“You don’t understand,” Mayor Anderson whines. “The mayor of Clearview was heard bragging that over a hundred people showed up at their community clean-up day last week.”

Well, she sure knows how to speak my language. Clearview, our neighboring town, opened a new high-end resort two years ago that’s been stealing our tourists. They have a restaurant and their own tour guides so the guests never come out of the resort, thus bringing nothing to anyone outside. The opposite of what we’re trying to build here at Dogwood Grove, where our goal is to make our guests experience all the charms of our small mountain town.

Not that the rivalry between Clearview and Dogwood started with the resort. They’ve been enemies for decades. That’s just when I, originally from Oakridge, got roped in.

“Alright,” I say. “I’m on it. We’ll have over a hundred eager volunteers by Saturday morning.”

“That’s what I like to hear.”

She chuckles, and it’s infectious enough to make me smile despite my bad mood.

But when I hang up the phone, I’m faced with that email again.

I need to contact the guide for the hike, Blake Wilson, and hope he won’t be too mad with the change of plans. He runs the Dogwood Den, the pub in the old town, and may already be busy.

My stomach churns. I can’t call Blake. I haven’t seen him or any of my—Ethan’s—friends since Ethan and I separated a little over a month ago.

He got to keep the friends, and I got…

I can’t think of a single thing. Ethan took everything from me.

My eyes water, and I turn my swivel chair so that my back is to the window that separates Ethan’s office from the rest of the room, even though he has the shades down. He doesn’t want to see me any more than I want to see him.

Sure, we share custody of Chase, our eight-year-old son. And we share the house, which Chase lives in full time and Ethan and I take turns living in for a week. And we share our business—this office—the tourist agency that we started together eight years ago. But it feels like half of everything, and all of nothing. And I miss Chase.

Ethan’s office door opens and I rub my eyes, pretending that I’m rubbing away the blurriness after spending too much time on the computer and not wiping away tears.

“I need to talk to you,” he says to my back, sounding annoyed.

He’s been sounding annoyed with me for over a year now, so at least that’s not new. I don’t want to see or talk to him. But at least now, I can tell him to call Blake himself.

I turn and put on a smile that even I know must look fake. Because what can you do when your husband leaves you for a younger woman but keep smiling?

“What’s up?”

He glances at the front door as if someone might walk in at any moment. “Can we talk in my office?”

That’s not good. If he wants privacy, it means he wants to talk about divorce stuff. And from the sour look on his—it’s so unfair, why is he so handsome—face, it’s not something I’m going to like.

I follow him inside the office, noticing the crispness of his pants, and the way his purple—of all colors!—button-down shirt perfectly highlights his broad shoulders. His straight nose is perfectly proportioned with his sharp cheekbones and square jaw. He looks good. Happy. There are no bags under his eyes, and the light wrinkle lines on his face are relaxed, faded. He’s the most handsome man I’ve ever seen. And we used to look good together. But now…

I’m a forty-year-old woman, who's twenty pounds overweight, with stretch marks and sad, tired eyes. I’m wearing the same old dress I wore two days ago because most of my nice clothes are still at the house, and I spent last night in the small studio apartment that we rent in the old town for whoever isn’t staying at the house with Chase that week. I feel frumpy and out of shape and sad.