At least she wouldn’t have to give up her job. Although writing technical manuals for a Los Angeles-based electronics firm wasn’t the writing career she had dreamed of, it paid the bills.

One of the movers popped his head into the kitchen. “That’s the last of what’s in the front, miss. Do you have any last-minute items you want to go into the truck?”

“Just this stool and a few boxes there by the pantry. I guess I’ll see you in Indigo Valley in seven days. You have my grandmother’s phone number, right? And the name and address of the storage company where you’ll be delivering my things?” The man nodded and she handed over a check and waited while the driver scribbled his name and logged in the check number and recorded the amount. He ripped off a yellow copy that said Recipient on it and handed it to her. She shoved it into her purse.

She could feel tears burn her eyes when the door closed behind the mover. How empty everything looked. She knew if she shouted, the words would echo around the entire house. Moving was such a sad business. She swiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt before dumping the empty soda can into the pizza box that she would deposit into the trash when she closed the door behind her for the last time.

The house, a 1930s California bungalow, was ready for its new owner, a young professor and his wife. She’d lucked out when she posted a notice on the university bulletin board and was able to sell the house without going through a Realtor. She’d also made a handsome profit in the bargain.

Now it was time to go. Time to get into the car and drive cross-country. She wished she had a dog. She’d always promised herself that she would get a dog when the time was right. A lot of things could happen to a young woman traveling alone across the country. A shudder rippled up and down her body. Fear was a terrible thing. She should know, she’d lived with it almost her entire life.

The fear hadn’t entered her life gradually. It had grabbed hold of her when she’d woken up in the hospital to the agonizing pain, with no memory of what had happened to her. The fear had stayed with her for the next three years as she’d fought and struggled to learn how to walk all over again. She might have had a chance of conquering the fear had she been allowed to stay with her beloved grandmother but that hadn’t happened. The day the doctors told her she could leave, her parents had whisked her away.

And now she was returning to the town where she’d had the accident she couldn’t remember. Just the thought made her jittery and nervous. Or was it her fear returning all over again?

Cady stood in the open doorway staring at the empty rooms. She hadn’t entertained much while she’d lived there. That was her own fault since she didn’t have any real, true friends. She had a friend she jogged with. A friend she played tennis with and a friend she went out to dinner with on occasion. The plain and simple truth was, she preferred her own company to making small talk and pretending to be interested in people’s lives that were just as boring as her own. As for men friends, there had been a few. None of them made her want to walk down the aisle.