But Olivia wasn’t Yun. She was a stranger, a stunning, friendly stranger whose curves and sculpted face stood out in his peripheral vision like a bull’s-eye. Only none of that was shutting him down. As easily as the conversation was flowing, he wanted to keep it going.

Before he knew it, he’d driven the twenty miles to New Madrid and was pulling off on the exit ramp, and she was telling him there was no need to navigate. She could lead him where they were headed with her eyes closed. And Gabe found himself wishing they had another hundred miles before the trip ended.

It was a curve ball he hadn’t expected. There was a beautiful girl in his truck and they were talking and he didn’t want it to end. Any of it.

Had someone told him this a few hours ago, he’d never have believed it.

Chapter 4

The big metal shed behind Milton’s Feed Store had been converted from storage to a temporary holding space for misplaced dogs, cats, and a handful of goats. With no electricity, it wasn’t an ideal space, but it was March and above freezing most nights, and the animals were protected from the incessant rain that was tapping on the metal roof like a lullaby.

Years before being legally allowed to drive, Olivia could remember her grandpa asking her to drive his ancient F-150 from the main store along the winding gravel pathway to this shed so that one of the workers could fill the truck bed with shavings as he paid. Maybe time and adrenaline had embellished the memory, but the first time she’d needed to back the truck up into the open sliding doorway, she’d barely had a decent view over the rim of the back seat, and she’d been terrified of backing into one of the sides.

She’d stopped riding along with her grandpa when she was sixteen and went to work at the Dairy Freeze, a little roadside shack fifteen minutes south of here. How she’d possibly thought the nine years that had passed since then had been enough to keep her from being recognized this afternoon, she wasn’t sure, but she’d been wrong. She was about to take one of the crated dogs out into the rain for a potty break when a Milton employee popped in to fill a customer’s truck bed with some of the remaining bags of shavings piled high in one corner. She guessed him to be in his late fifties or early sixties. He was tall and fit for his age, so much so he rocked the overalls he was wearing. He looked familiar but not familiar enough for her to have once known his name.

He singled her out just seconds after rounding the corner. “Olivia Graham, is that you, all growed up?” he asked, tipping his faded John Deere ball cap.