Kate didn’t get very far into the forest. The flimsy light on her cell phone couldn’t contend with the creeping darkness and generally left her feeling like the first victim in a direct-to-video horror movie. Of all the ways she conceived of dying, she never dreamed it would happen in the middle of the Woodward family’s back forty while crying over a stupid man.

A stupid, beautiful man whose heart she’d broken.

She paused in the middle of a circle of trees long enough to consider her options. All of her things sat back in Woodward House. Her wet clothes and toothbrush and the now ill-advised present she’d left for Clark under the tree.

Oh, the present. She’d give anything to be able to slip in through a crack in a window and steal that back before he got a chance to open it. Would he even open it at all? Or would he toss it in the nearest fireplace and watch it burn to ash? Her gift joining the embers broke her heart, but her gift would no doubt insult him. She couldn’t decide which outcome she dreaded more.

No, she couldn’t go back for her stuff. If he was any kind of man, he’d send it into town or send her an Amazon shipment of new clothes and toothbrushes. Any further encounter between them would be pointless. But she couldn’t keep randomly walking through the woods in the dark. The mental Rolodex in her mind spun, searching for the least embarrassing person she could call to help her out of these woods—physical and emotional. Michael would be glib and make too many jokes about it. Emily would probably drive straight for Clark’s house and beat the daylights out of him. In a town of less than ten thousand people, Kate knew there was only one woman she could call on for help.

“Hello?”

Miss Carolyn answered on the first ring.

“Miss Carolyn?” Try as she might, Kate couldn’t keep the miserable sob from cracking the words. In the background of the other woman’s side of the call, Kate could make out the general merriment of the town square. Like an ironic fairground soundtrack playing in the background of a melodrama, the carol singing and laughter creeping through the phone mocked her, underscoring her pain. “I think I need you to come pick me up.”

Michael would’ve asked what was wrong. Emily would’ve asked who hurt her and what they were going to do about it. Miss Carolyn?

“Send me your location. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”