Days stretch before me without end.
Though paths diverge in loping wend,
Through plains of gold and wooded glen
You’ll know just where to find me.

Above the stately oaken branches,
Past the mire of broken chances,
Where whispered prayers still nightly dance,
Is where the road will lead.

But follow not this trail I lay,
For solace sought lays not this way.
Your time will come, but not this day,
And not this easily.

Our parting will but moments seem
When you awaken in the dream.
Though years may pass, Love will redeem
What your heart now fails to see.

Lauren couldn’t have asked for a better friend than Shea. They saw each other through everything. When Shea is killed in a tragic accident, Lauren is forced to do the unthinkable, to betray her best friend’s wishes and take her back to the one place on earth Shea vowed she’d never return—Larkspur Falls, the town where they’d grown up together. A town of secrets and lies.

When Shea’s restless spirit returns to warn Lauren of impending danger, the two embark on a mission, with the help of Shea’s brother, Quinn, to expose the evils of Larkspur Falls and to bring to justice the men responsible for a string of unexplained accidents. Including the one that took the life of Lauren’s own mother.

Can they stop the men before the same fate befalls them all? Or is it already too late?

*I only wish I knew. I’m only done with the first chapter.

I’m not a baby anymore. I don’t know why I have to sit at the babies’ table. I’m almost eight. And the rest of them can’t even use their forks right.

There’s Tyler, the one who always gets gravy on his sleeve. Mom says he’s a reacher and I shouldn’t sit too close to him. He might knock my sparkling apple cider in my lap like he did to Becca last year.

She’s such a crybaby! I hope she doesn’t ask me to play Chutes and Ladders again. She always loses, and then her mom gets mad at me for making her cry. Well, it’s not my fault she stinks at Chutes and Ladders!

I saw Matt and his brother John outside with Uncle Dave. He was showing them how to fry a turkey. I heard Mom tell Aunt Gina she’d be surprised if we didn’t have to call the fire department before the day is over knowing what a terrible klutz Uncle Dave is. He seems to fall down a lot, but Dad says that’s just because he’s drunk. He says drunks fry the best turkeys, and then he clapped his hands and rubbed them together.

Grown ups are weird.

Now Uncle Dan and Grandpa are watching the game on TV and turning it up really loud and yelling at anyone who walks in front of it. Even Becca, and Mom told Grandma that Becca’s mom was “staring daggers” at them for it. Grandma just shrugged her shoulders and said, “Whoever gets that one has their work cut out for them.”

I’m not sure if she was talking about Becca or her mom. I’m supposed to call her Aunt Sheila, even though she and my Uncle Dan aren’t married anymore, and she never sends me birthday cards with five dollar bills in them like Aunt Gina does.

I love my Aunt Gina.

When Amy gets here, we’re going to go up to the attic and look through all the old trunks with Grandma’s old clothes and stuff. We did that this last summer, and the attic smelled like old books. I know what old books smell like because my mom takes me to the bookstore on the corner a lot, and they have all kinds of old books there.

But first we have to say our prayers and give thanks before we eat.

This year, I’m thankful for my family.

“If you tell her, we’re through. No more.”

I stood in stunned silence. The weight of this burden, not even my own, threatened to buckle me. And Matt wanted me to say nothing. To look the poor girl in the eye and say nothing.

“How can you ask that of me?” I demanded. “I’m not the one who did it. I’m not the one who slept around—”

“It wasn’t sleeping around. He did it one time.”

Matt turned his back on me and began pacing the floor, his movements quietly controlled, like those of a caged animal.

“No, he did it with one person. That you know of. He’s been cheating on her for months!”

“It was sex. That’s all.”

“That’s all?! She’s his wife. She has a right to know that her husband is messing around on her.”

“And you think you’re going to be the one to tell her?”

“Well, he’s obviously not going to. Someone has to.”

Matt came up short and turned to me. The man I loved, the man I thought I knew so well, regarded me with feral anger in his eyes. His lip curled in disgust.

“Miss Goody Two-shoes. You’re so young. So fucking immature.”

He knew the words to shut me down inside. He’d said them often enough to know their effect. Being ten years older than me gave him the upper-hand. And he’d strike with abandon, using the same jab over and over again, opening the same wound.

But I was too scarred to feel the cut anymore.

“I’m telling her.”

Matt grabbed my shoulders and forced me into the wall. “I swear to God, if you break them up, I will make you sorry.”

I wasn’t afraid. Maybe I should have been. I’d never seen him so livid. So out of control. I knew there was no point in reasoning with him, so I said nothing.

He held me there for several minutes, perhaps willing me try something. Needing me to. And when I didn’t, he thrust me away angrily and stalked to the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

Thoughts drifted down around me then, fluttering through the veil of awareness.

‘I’m going to tell her.’

‘But who’s going to tell me?’

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Thanks!