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Autumn closed the drawer. “I think it’s timefor you to go, and if you ever come back, I hope it’s with a very differentoutlook. I’m not such an awful person to get to know.”

“I do know you.”

Autumn shook her head. “You haven’t a cluewho I am.”

Vicky opened her mouth to argue.

“I’ll walk you to your car,” Hadley said,interceding, and looped her arm through Vicky’s.

“Right behind you,” Larry said, and shadowedthe two of them.

Hadley glanced back over her shoulder with awink to Autumn, who felt victorious for the first time in a long while.

She wasn’t yet in control of her life andemotions, but she would get there.

One thing at a time.

Chapter Fifteen

Kate didn’t know how long she’d been driving, butthat wasn’t the point. She followed the ocean for a while, watching the wavescrest and greet the shoreline, stopping on the way for walks alongside it. Thetime on her own helped settle her restless head and wounded heart. But thenshe’d done it to herself, hadn’t she? She was the one who’d blown into townwithout the wisp of an idea of what to do once she got there. If she was beinghonest, she still didn’t know which way was up. She grabbed a rock and skippedit into the waves, knowing that she needed guidance, a sounding board. She knewexactly where she could find one.

“So, this woman, Autumn, kicked you to thecurb?” her brother asked, as he stirred their coffee. Upon arriving back inSlumberton, her first stop had been The Plot Thickens. She needed an outsideopinion, and Randy was generally a levelheaded guy. She’d looked up to him allthese years for a reason.

Kate nodded. “She thinks she’s my getawaycard. That I use her to escape my problems.”

Randy thought for a moment. “Well, don’tyou?”

“No, I have true and honest feelings for her,like nothing I’ve ever experienced, you know? And being away from her has onlymade them all the more clear.” She’d never heard herself sound this emphatic.It felt jarring and satisfying in combination.

“Great.” He licked the plastic spoon anddropped it in the trash. “So, you told her all that and she said what?”

“Well,” she accepted the coffee, bracingherself for mediocre in the face of Autumn’s brilliance, “I didn’t say thoseexact words.”

He sat down across the counter from her.“Katie.”

She shook her head. From the moment she’dcome on at the station as a probie, she’d looked forward to her job. Each callshe went out on made her feel like she had a sense of purpose, and she knewright where she was supposed to be. The Higgins family and their tragedychanged all of that. Her whole world had been shaken up and she no longer feltlike herself. Except when she was with Autumn. So why hadn’t she said as much?She turned to her brother. “Maybe because I don’t want to make promises I can’tkeep?”

He set down his cup. “And you think you’llget tired of her?”

“No. Never.”

“Okay, so maybe you’re not ready to move toCalifornia? Or convince her to move here?”

“I’m not against the idea of moving.”

Randy squinted. “Do you see where I’m comingup short?” He ran his fingers through the curls on top of his head.

She nodded as a tight ball of emotiongathered in the center of her chest. She felt it rise and stared up at theceiling to keep the stupid tears from falling. “Maybe because I don’t deservesomething as wonderful as she is in my life. People say I was a hero, but I letthat man die because I wasn’t fast enough.” She shook her head. “And now I justget this gift handed to me? A whole new life?”

“So this is how you punish yourself.” Hestared at her hard. “Do you know how stupid that sounds?”

The word choice and his exasperated tonestopped Kate short.

Randy never spoke to her that way. “What isit that you always say? Everything happens for a reason.”

“I used to believe that.” Her voice grewlouder to match his. Somehow the tension helped open her up, made her reflecthonestly. There was nothing to lose. “I believed that the fire led me to thosekids, that we were supposed to find each other. It wasn’t the case.”

“Yeah, well, it also led you to Autumn. Didyou ever stop to consider that?”