Joanna put the tomatoes down. Right now she could smell the sea, and the flowers in the garden. Summer. She could smell summer.

She was forty years old and she had no idea what she wanted to do with her life, but she wanted to stop running. Every decision she’d made in her life—leaving Silver Point, marrying Cliff—had been driven from a desire to escape the situation she was in.

She was about to call Ashley when the girl appeared, out of breath, in the doorway. She was wearing a spotted bikini and a wrap from the selection Joanna had given her. Her feet were bare and dusted with sand from the beach. Her hair was loose over her shoulders and her cheeks were pink from the Californian sun. She looked a thousand times healthier and more relaxed than the girl Joanna had rescued from the hospital.

“I saw someone! How did they find us? How did they get in?”

I let her in, Joanna thought.

She felt the same unease Ashley was feeling, but she didn’t show it.

“It was Mel. She was a friend of mine when I was growing up.” She grabbed plates from the cupboard. “You should eat. You’re not eating enough.”

“I’m not hungry.” Ashley slid her feet into flip-flops and grabbed a towel that she’d left on the side. “If she was a friend, she won’t tell people we’re here, right?”

She saw no reason not to be honest. “I don’t think she’d do it on purpose, but this is a small town. It’s impossible to keep secrets in a small town.”

Ashley rubbed at the edges of her hair with the towel. “So do we have to leave?”

We.

The word tugged them close. They were in this together.

Joanna put a cookie in front of Ashley. Better junk food than no food. “Do you want to leave?”

“No. This place is like paradise. Also, you like it. I can tell. You’re more relaxed, and that’s good.”

“Then we won’t leave.”

“And if the press show up?”

When, Joanna thought. When, not if. “It’s not easy to get access. We’ll be safe here.”

“Maybe they won’t be interested. Maybe they’re bored with the whole story by now.” Ashley looked far more relaxed about it than Joanna felt, but that might have been because she had no idea what was coming.

“Let’s hope so.” She was sure, absolutely sure, that once the true story emerged they were going to be anything but bored.

Ashley draped the towel over the back of the chair. “How good a friend was she?”

The best. “We were close.”

“But you didn’t stay in touch?”

“No.” If Mel hadn’t been Nate’s twin, would it have been different? “Until today, I hadn’t seen her for two decades.”