Leaving her childhood home and family had crushed the last fragile bits of her already broken heart. Hallie had always been the first person Colleen turned to with everything in their lives. The cruel part about this heartbreak, the shocking part, was that the first person Colleen wanted to talk to about the betrayal was the betrayer.

Finally one Sunday, she’d wandered into Manhattan’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral and taken a seat in the back row. As the priest offered communion to the congregants, she had felt left out of every kind of family there was. It was time, she decided when the tears were spent, to create a life of her own. That was what everyone had to do eventually—make their own life. And so she’d moved forward, making friends, succeeding at her job, finding lovers and becoming involved with her little community, leaving the past behind.

•   •   •

The Savannah Airport was as charming as ever. White rocking chairs in clusters, faux pillars meant to suggest a house of the Old South, and photographs of the marsh, oyster beds and river docks—all images that still evoked the word “home” in Colleen’s mind, despite having worked so damn hard to erase it. What she wanted home to be instead? She had no idea. A first-class seat in an airplane? A studio apartment in an old church? A park in New York City? A hotel room in another country?

Dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt, her hair pulled into a ponytail, she tossed her backpack over her shoulder and dragged her small rolling suitcase across the concourse, the wheels popping and squeaking until she saw Shane sitting in a rocking chair reading the paper as if he were waiting on their back porch for her to finish throwing the shrimp net. “Hello, bro,” she called out as she reached him.

He glanced up and smiled. Her little brother—the most adorable of the three of them, with his black curls and green eyes, an upturned grin that didn’t show his teeth, and the small silver scar on his top lip from when he’d taken Colleen’s dare to kiss a crab.

“Well, hello, big sis.” He stood and hugged her tightly and then stepped back. “No matter how many times you come home I’m a little shocked to see how different you look.”

“Different?” She cocked her head and smiled. “Better, you mean?”

He kissed her cheek. “I mean without the wild hair and the sundresses and sunburned nose.”

“Well, I’m here. So let’s get started on your big idea, whatever it is. And you must tell me every single thing going on with Dad. I can’t bear to think of him failing. I’ve hardly slept.”

Shane took the rolling bag from Colleen and headed for baggage claim. “This is it.” Colleen placed her hand on his arm. “I don’t have another bag.”