April had a love-hate relationship with the conservative woman she’d created to keep her identity anonymous. She imagined Susan O’Hara as a widow who was now on her own. Poor, but valiant, Susan had no marketable skills beyond the ones she’d gained raising a family, which included handling household accounts, teaching Sunday school, and helping her beloved, deceased husband rehab houses.

Susan’s conservative taste in clothes, however, had to go. On April’s first day in Garrison, she’d declared the widow a new woman and reverted to her own wardrobe. April loved mixing vintage with cutting-edge fashion, matching designer pieces with thrift shop finds. Last week she’d gone into town wearing a Gaultier bustier with Banana Republic chinos. Today, she’d dressed down in a reconstructed dark brown Janis Joplin T-shirt, ginger-colored cropped pants, and her bijou jeweled sandals.

She took the path that led into the woods. White violets were beginning to bloom, along with Queen Anne’s lace. Before long, she could see the sun-dappled surface of the pond through a ring of mountain laurel and flame azalea. She found her favorite place on the bank and kicked off her sandals. On the other side of the pond, just out of sight, was the ramshackle tenant’s cottage where she’d taken up residence.

She pulled her knees to her chest. Sooner or later, Dean was going to uncover her deception, and that would be the end of it. He wouldn’t scream at her. Screaming wasn’t his way. But his unspoken contempt was more cutting than angry shouts or vicious words. If only she could finish his house before he saw through her charade. Maybe once he moved in he’d feel at least a little of what she wanted to leave behind—her love and regret.

Unfortunately, Dean wasn’t a big believer in redemption. She’d cleaned up her act over ten years ago, but his scars ran too deep to forgive. Scars she’d put there. April Robillard, the queen of the groupies…The girl who knew all about having fun, but nothing about being a mother.

“Stop talking about yourself like that,” her friend Charli said whenever they discussed the bad old days. “You were never, ever a groupie, April. You were their freakin’ muse.”