“Well, I’m just tickled!” Still gripping her shoulders, Darlene looked over her shoulder and bellowed. “Gil! Get your ass down here.”

“What’s wrong? It’s too cold for spiders,” Gilbert Ford called back from the second floor.

“It’s not a spider,” Darlene shouted.

Darlene Ford had been born fearless…except when it came to spiders. It was the one area in which she allowed her mild-mannered, English-teaching husband to ride to her rescue without complaint.

“Well, come on inside before we heat the whole neighborhood.” She ushered Remi across the threshold into the house she’d spent her teenage years escaping.

Small details were different. The rug under her feet was new. There was a sturdy desk in the cluttered study on the left. The old one, a rickety-ass card table, had finally collapsed last year under the weight of high school essays and half-empty coffee mugs. Across the hall, the living room boasted a bigger, newer TV.

But it still smelled like home. Coffee and furniture polish.

Her landscape of Mackinac’s shoreline, one of her first paintings, still hung in the hallway that led to a sunny kitchen and dining room. And her parents still yelled from room to room.

“Remi Honey!” Gilbert Ford was one inch taller than his wife and a little less athletic. His dark red hair was always slightly mussed, clothes just a little mismatched, but he had a way of really listening to people that made them forget all about his disheveled appearance.

In his excitement, he missed the last step and nearly bowled both women over at the foot of the stairs. He flashed a sheepish grin before wrapping Remi up in a tight hug.

She closed her eyes and let herself be loved. “Hi, Dad.”

“What a wonderful surprise,” he said, swaying them side to side. Gilbert was an expert-level hugger and just the right medicine for what ailed his daughter at the moment.

How was it possible, Remi wondered, to be homesick while standing in her childhood home wrapped in the arms of the first man to ever love her?

“You didn’t know either?” Darlene asked her husband, shooting him a calculating look.

He shook his head, releasing Remi. “I had no idea,” he insisted, giving her hands a squeeze. “Didn’t you?”

Her parents were notoriously busy and often forgot to relay messages of varying importance to each other.

“I didn’t tell anyone I was coming home. I wanted to surprise you both,” she assured them.

Gilbert’s smile faded a bit, and his eyes narrowed behind the tortoiseshell glasses he’d been wearing for twenty years. “What’s this?” He gave Remi’s wrist a gentle squeeze.

“Oh, that. That’s a cast,” Remi said.

“A cast? As in you broke your arm?” Darlene barked.

“I was in a little fender bender. It’s just a baby break. No big deal.”

Her dad’s brow furrowed. “Can you paint with the cast, sweetie?”

“I haven’t really tried yet.”

So many little white lies, and she hadn’t even made it past the foyer. It was a record.