1

      Laurel Springs, Texas, had the warm feel of a Southern town long forgotten by progress. A hundred years ago the main street had been built wide enough to turn a wagon around. Today, the only sign of change was marked at every intersection by swinging stoplights. They clanked in the wind like broken clocks beating out time in red and green.

      A trickle of day visitors flowed down the uneven sidewalks in front of quaint little shops with catchy names like A Stitch in Time, Hidden Treasures and Mamma Bee’s Pastries. Occasional sides of buildings and entrances to alleyways were painted with murals of cattle drives and oil fields, as if anyone needed reminding what built this state.

      Jillian James drove through the heart of town, fighting back tears. This wasn’t where she wanted to be. It was impossible to remain invisible in a small town. Strangers would be noticed. People would ask questions. Welcome her with smiles or glare at her like no one ever did in large cities.

      She dropped her chin, letting her dark, straight hair curtain her face as she waited for the light to change.

      Look at the bright side, she almost said out loud. Time slowed in a place like this, and she had to catch her breath. She had to plan her next move. A small town. A slower pace would give her time to think.

      She’d been a traveler, a wanderer for as long as she could remember, and like it or not, this town offered her a place to rest and regroup.

      In a strange way, this dot on the map reminded her of Budapest, Hungary. But a creek ran through the center of this town, not the Danube river. No hauntingly beautiful Chain Bridge joined the split cities as it did in Buda and Pest, but she sensed the beat of two separate towns between the city limit signs.

      Two worlds divided by a ribbon of water.

      One side of town was dark and industrial, with warehouses and grain elevators that blocked the sunset to the west. The other side was postcard cute, with gingerbread trim on brightly painted cottages and the Texas flag hanging from nineteenth-century streetlamps.

      Here she was, stopped at a tolling light in the middle of town. Not belonging to either side. Not belonging anywhere. At first, her traveling had been an adventure she thought she was born for, but lately it felt like drifting. Just wandering with no more direction than the leaves dancing along the gutters.

      Sniffing, she managed a smile, remembering what her father used to tell her every time they packed. If you want to see the world, Jillie, you’ve got to rip off the rearview mirror and never look back.

      Somehow, she doubted he’d been talking about Laurel Springs, Texas, when he’d said the world. She’d grown up moving with him. Alaska in the summers, the oil rigs off the coast of Texas in winters. Norway when she was eight. Australia at ten. Washington State when she reached her teens, and a dozen other places. Never the same. Never staying long enough to grow roots.

      When she was eighteen, he’d left her at a dorm on a small college campus in Oklahoma and disappeared without a trace. She’d made it two semesters before her money ran out. She hadn’t bothered to look for him. Her father had spent her formative years teaching her how to live without leaving a footprint to follow.

      Travel light, he’d once said. Pack nothing from the past, not even memories. And, finally, he’d left without packing her along. Deep down she’d known he would leave someday. Whenever he talked of her as grown, he never mentioned being in the picture.

      Only now, a dozen years later, she longed for an anchor. One relative. One harbor. One place where she felt she might belong for a while.

      The light changed. Jillian scrubbed her face with a napkin from McDonald’s, where she’d had lunch, and followed a sign advertising the town’s only historic bed-and-breakfast.

      Papa’s rule: Never stay at a cheap motel. It marks you as a drifter.

      A small bed-and-breakfast was cheaper if you considered the one meal a day could stretch into two if you picked up fruit on the way out, and the friendly staff usually offered a wealth of information. Innkeepers almost made Jillian feel like she had a friend in town.

      She parked her car in one of the four Special Guest of Inn reserved spots.

      When she climbed the steps of what looked like a miniature Tara mansion from Gone With the Wind, a tiny woman, in her late fifties, rushed out with a welcoming smile. Her chocolate-colored apron was neatly embroidered and read JOIN THE DARK SIDE. We have chocolate chips in our cookies.

      “You must be Jillian James. I’m Mrs.