“I should probably get going,” I say, looking everywhere but at him. Not waiting for his answer, I get up to pay my tab. Once I’m done and the bartender has wished me a good night, I put my wallet back in my purse and look over my shoulder at the guy I most likely will never see again in my life. His eyes are a little less glossy than before, and he sits straighter. Smiling softly, he lifts a hand and gives me a quick wave.

“It was nice meeting you, stranger,” he says. No awkwardness.

Yeah, I definitely imagined things.

With a nod, I wave back, then walk toward the door.

I know nothing about this guy. He knows nothing about me. In the past half hour, we haven’t even exchanged names. But somehow, as I walk out of the bar into the warm summer night, I feel lighter than I did coming in.

A miracle.

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

Five months later

Wren

Memory is a strange thing.

In fact, even scientists haven’t completely mastered it. A network of neurons in your hippocampus conserving moments and experiences, down to the tastes and smells associated with them, is a wild thing to wrap your head around. And no one has been able to explain without a doubt why we remember certain things but not others. We do know that vivid emotions associated with a moment will help us remember it better, but really, there’s no saying what we will remember in five minutes, or five years, or five decades. Some things, like the day you got your first dog or the last time you hugged your mother, you would like to remember but can’t. And other things, you remember for no specific reason. For example, the face of the man who you thought was going to kiss you in a bar months ago.

Which is a bad thing, considering it’s the first thing I see as I climb out of my car at the Evermore Christmas Tree Farm.

What in the world?

I stand frozen as I try but fail to catch my breath. Today has already become one of the weirdest days I’ve ever lived, and it’s only ten in the morning. First, I’ve been forced to throw my usual schedule out the window to get here. Selina, my boss, told me a few days ago that a new client had requested to work with me specifically on a medical malpractice case and that I’d meet them on Monday. But last night, she called to say they couldn’t come to Boston after all and would need me to drive to their place in Vermont to meet with them.