ONE

      Jenna Clark untied her bright blue paint-spattered apron, dragged it over her head and tossed it onto the heavy wood counter. The shop was finally quiet after a full day of parents and children and other would-be artists selecting their canvases and colors in order to paint their own take-home art after their visits to the tiny town of Mountain Springs.

      Normally, the hustle and bustle of the day energized her, made her feel like she was infusing a love of art in her customers, but not today.

      Today, she was simply worn-out, keyed up, a little bit on edge. It could be from all of the additional tourists in town for the bluegrass festival. More eyes meant the need for more vigilance. In her life, strangers truly meant danger.

      “Jenna?” Liza Carpenter, the sole employee at The Color Café, leaned against a bright purple wooden chair in front of a teal blue table across the room. “I asked if you were okay. You’ve been spacey all day. Flu season’s kicking in to high gear. You’re not about to fall out on me, are you?”

      “Girl, I hope not.” Maybe the flu was it, though. Her brain could be wonky because she was running a fever, not because she was on high alert, praying no one from El Paso would wander into town and recognize her.

      Because someone recognizing her would mean she had to turn her back on everything. Again.

      She’d worked too hard to make sure being found never happened. After three years under the radar, this tiny North Carolina town was beginning to feel like home. If she had to flee Mountain Springs, it would rip her heart into pieces.

      Jenna ran a hand along the polished wood bar, soaking in the peace born from a sense of belonging. When she’d moved to town, this building had been an abandoned eyesore, an old bar named Ridgerunners that had served as the local watering hole for close to a hundred years before shutting its doors nearly a decade earlier. Jenna had attacked cobwebs and cheap wood paneling with all of the fear and pain she’d brought to town with her. By the time she’d finished painting the walls with bright colors and had furnished the space with funky painted tables and chairs to express the artistic inspiration she couldn’t keep from flourishing inside her, she’d come to terms with the life she’d left behind. Having a new friend tell her about Christ in the process made the remodel even more symbolic of a whole new way of living.

      She hadn’t been able to part with the bar, though. A live-edged slice from one of the huge oak trees that grew in the mountains above the town, it had spoken to her and drawn her in. She used it to separate the main area, where Liza helped customers paint, from the employee area, where they served coffee. The antique wood connected her to the history of the area, even if she was the newest of newcomers to the tiny little up-and-coming craft community.

      “Might want to start planning.” Liza shoved the chair under the table then crushed her apron into a ball and walked over to hand it across the counter to Jenna. “Even if you’re not sick, one of us could fall out anytime. Wouldn’t hurt to have temporary help waiting in the wings.”

      “True.” Jenna took the apron and shoved aside her negative thoughts. Enough time had passed that surely she was safe now. “I’ll call Rena and Caleb, see if they want to be on call for some possible extra hours.” She aimed her index finger at Liza. “But don’t you go wishing ill on us. I’d rather you didn’t talk about the flu at all.”

      Liza