LITMIR.BIZ

       2

      Two months ago, Gavin Turner had given up his studio apartment over the thrift store in Silver Springs, California, an artsy town of five thousand not far from Santa Barbara, and purchased a home—a converted bunkhouse from the 1920s that sat on a whole acre about ten minutes outside of town. After living in such a small space, surrounded by buildings, he almost didn’t know what to do with all the extra room. His friends jokingly referred to his remote location as the “boondocks,” but he enjoyed being out in the open and even closer to the Topatopa Mountains, where he often went hiking or mountain biking. He’d always been drawn to the outdoors. The beauty and solitude brought him peace. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t have been able to navigate his unusual and difficult childhood if not for his love of nature. And music, of course. He strummed on his guitar almost every night, had started singing at various bars in the area and along Highway 101, which ran along California’s coast. He hadn’t landed any notable gigs yet, just performed in various coastal or farming communities, mostly up north. He wanted to break into the music scene, but the competition was so fierce he felt he’d have to move to Nashville, where there was so much happening in the music industry these days, to get where he was hoping to go, and he couldn’t commit to that quite yet. Not while his mother—or, rather, the woman he called his mother—needed him. For now, he enjoyed singing at a different hole-in-the-wall each week. The money he earned augmented what he made working at New Horizons Boys Ranch, the boarding school for troubled boys his adoptive mother had started over twenty years ago and where he’d gone to high school himself.

      Tonight the weather was warm and the cicadas were loud as he sat out on the porch in a simple T-shirt and worn jeans, writing a new song. He’d just sat back to take a break and was wondering whether he should get a puppy—he was leaning toward yes, since he hadn’t been able to have a pet in town—when a large moving van came rumbling down his road.

      He rarely had visitors, but no one else lived on this road, so he set his guitar to the side and stood.

      The truck didn’t stop, however. The woman driving—he was fairly certain it was a woman, but he was judging on size alone, since it was difficult to see in the dark—barely glanced his way. Focused on what was right in front of her, she barreled forward as if she’d had a hard journey and would finish it, this uneven surface be damned.

      Who was that? And where was she going? The only other house nearby was the ranch house to which his own converted bunkhouse had once belonged. And it had sat empty for the past three years or longer. According to what Gavin had been told, it wasn’t even for sale—not that he could’ve afforded the bigger property, anyway.

      He shoved his hands in his pockets as he watched the truck bounce and sway past him. Although the road was supposed to be privately maintained, it hadn’t been maintained at all, not in a number of years, which made the potholes deep and difficult to miss—and she seemed to be hitting most of them.

      Did this mean he had a new neighbor? If so, how would she get through to her house? The bridge over the creek that ran between the two properties had washed out in the last heavy rain.

      She didn’t seem to be aware of that, though. At least, she wasn’t slowing down...

      He took off running to warn her before she could wind up in the water. Banging on the truck as he came alongside, he attempted to get her attention before she could crush him against one of the trees that gave him so little room as it was. “Whoa! Hey! Stop!”

      She seemed reluctant to let him waylay her. Either that, or she was afraid of what encountering a strange man out here in the middle of nowhere could mean. Because even after she hit the brakes, she barely cracked the window so that they could hear each other speak. “Something wrong?”

      He edged around a thorny bush in order to get close enough to see her. About his age, with a riot of thick, copper-colored hair and light-colored eyes, she studied him with more caution than he’d ever seen before. Two children—a boy and a younger girl—leaned forward to peer around what he could only assume was their mother.

      “You can’t go down that way,” he explained, gesturing at the road ahead. “The bridge is washed out.”

      “What bridge?” she asked.

      He blinked in surprise. “The bridge that goes over the creek.”

      She scowled. “You mean before you reach the house?”

      He swatted a mosquito. It’d been a wet year, and now that spring had arrived, the vicious little monsters were coming out in force. That was the one downside to living in the country. “Haven’t you ever been here before?”

      “No.”

      He wiped some blood from a scratch on his forearm. That darn bush had gouged him before he could avoid it. “You’ve got all your belongings with you, right? You are moving in.”

      She finished rolling down the window. “Yes, but I’ve only ever seen the pictures my father sent.”

      “So he’s the one who owns the house.”

      “Not anymore. He passed away in a boating accident a little over a year ago. The property belongs to me and my younger brother now.”

      “I see. I’m sorry for your loss.”

      She frowned. “Not as sorry as I am.”

      Gavin’s gaze shifted to the children. “Where you all from?”

      “I was born and raised in LA—Long Beach. But I’ve been living in Utah since I left for college. That’s where both my children were born.”

      “In Nephi,” the boy piped up, seemingly proud that he could add this bit of information.

      “Nephi, huh?” Gavin said. “Never heard of it.”

      “It’s small but not too far from the Salt Lake Valley, if you’re familiar with that,” the woman said. “About two hours south.”

      Gavin whistled. “Sounds like a long drive from there to here, especially in a moving van.”

      She

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