She didn’t expect to hear back from Tammy right away, if ever, so once she managed to calm down, she made herself a cup of tea and picked up her latest book, a memoir by Jeanette Walls. She was just about to dive in when her phone went off.

  Sliding her reading glasses higher on her nose, she leaned over to take a look at the screen and felt her stomach muscles tighten when she saw Tammy’s name.

  This is it. Taking off her glasses and setting her book aside, she drew a deep breath before she answered. “Hello?”

  “Bailey?”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s me. Tammy.”

  Mary let her head fall onto the back of the couch and stared up at the ceiling. “Thank you for returning my call.”

  “Of course. You said you owe me an apology, but I want you to know that you don’t owe me anything. I owe you an apology for the despicable things my parents did to you. I still have nightmares about the night you had your baby—the terror in your voice as you begged for help. That’s something I’ll never forget. Neither will I ever forgive my parents for sending me back to cry myself to sleep when I tried to get them to help you.”

  “You were such a brave little girl,” Mary said with a smile. “You did all you could for me. If it wasn’t for you, for how much I loved you, I would not have survived that dark time.”

  “That’s just it,” she said. “I can’t believe you could love me. I’m connected to them. Not only did they put you through unspeakable horrors, they treated me so much better than they did you.”

  “You were their child, Tammy. I understood that and was never jealous. Just grateful to have you there with me—not to mention, if it wasn’t for you saying what you did to the neighbor, I might never have escaped.”

  “I’m the child of not one but two complete psychopaths,” she grumbled. “It’s a wonder I’m functional at all.”

  “What happened to you after I was rescued?” Mary asked. “Where did you go?”

  “My father’s single aunt took me in.”

  “He had an aunt?” Neither one of them had ever mentioned that, and Mary felt she’d lived with them long enough to know of most of their family. “Where did she live?”

  “In Memphis. I moved back to Nashville from there.”

  Which was, no doubt, why Nora had also returned to Nashville.

  “She wasn’t close to him,” Tammy continued. “But when she heard what happened, she decided to step up and soon became my guardian.”

  “Had you ever met her?”

  “Only once or twice, at my grandma’s house.”

  “Going to live with a complete stranger must’ve been hard.”

  “Not as hard as what you endured,” she said.

  “Were you happy there with her?” Mary asked. “For the most part?”

  A sigh came through the phone. “The transition wasn’t easy, but if not for her, I would’ve been put into foster care. So I’m grateful my life wasn’t worse. She was strict, but fair. Paid for my college. I can’t complain.”

  “Then I’m grateful to her, too. Is she still alive?”

  “Not anymore. She was in her fifties when she took me and had lupus. She had a stroke and passed three years ago.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Despite the sad news about Tammy’s aunt, Mary was starting to relax. This wasn’t turning out to be nearly as difficult as she’d anticipated. Tammy seemed to have turned out as normal as anyone could, and she was warm, understanding. That helped to alleviate Mary’s fears.

  “How’d you get my number?” she asked. “I never dreamed I’d hear from you.”

  “That’s an interesting story,” Mary replied and settled back to tell it.

  She spent the next thirty minutes talking about Nora and Jeff and hearing about Tammy’s marriage, the five children she raised and her divorce. Tammy’s deceased great-aunt had left her with enough money that she was able to open a clothing boutique, which she loved, but she’d never inherited any money from her parents. Mary had been right when she’d assumed they’d spent every dime on their defense, which explained why Nora was living as she was. Tammy told her Nora had expected to pick up right where they’d left off once she was released from prison, but Tammy had told her to stay away.

  They were still on the phone and Mary was explaining why she’d changed her name, and how she’d chosen Sable Beach as the place where she wanted to live, when there was a knock at the door.

  Assuming that it was her family, that they were back from the restaurant already and Caden had beat everyone else to the door, she figured Autumn would let him in as soon as she could get out of the car. But that didn’t happen. Whoever it was knocked again, this time more insistently.

  “Just a sec,” she told Tammy and got up to answer.

  Eager to get back to her phone call, she jerked the door open without looking through the peephole. She knew everyone in Sable Beach, and although she locked her doors out of an abundance of caution, she was currently too preoccupied to be that careful. It was 6:30 p.m. on a Friday night, not too late or even dark outside.

  But as soon as she saw who it was, she gasped and dropped the phone.

  “Nick!”

  33

  Nick looked ten years older. He had much more gray in his hair, and he’d lost at least forty pounds. The man standing before Autumn seemed like a gaunt stranger—and yet, he was her husband and the father of her children.

  “Dad!” Taylor cried as soon as she saw him and threw herself into his chest and burst into tears.

  Caden, who’d come into the house last, stood in stunned surprise, apparently as shocked as Autumn was.

  “I texted you,” Mary said to Autumn. “I tried to tell you, but...”

  But Autumn had been having too much fun at the restaurant. Quinn kept coming out to their table, even though he was supposed to be cooking in back, bringing dish after dish—far more than they could ever eat. She hadn’t even bothered to check her phone.

  “Where have you been?” Caden asked.

  Autumn couldn’t breathe as she awaited Nick’s response. Where had he been? Why hadn’t he contacted her instead of just showing up out of the blue?

  “It’s a long, complicated story.” His eyes remained riveted on her face as he spoke. “Maybe...maybe your mother and I should go out to the apartment and talk for a bit before...before I go into everything with you.”

  Everyone turned to her, but Autumn didn’t know what to say. It would feel odd to have Nick in her apartment again. Quinn’s shoes were now the ones that were kicked into the corner of the room! Had he left any of his other things there? His sunglasses on the nightstand? His toothbrush in the bathroom? His razor in the medicine cabinet?

  What was she going to say? What was she going to do?

  “Mom?” Taylor prompted. She’d let go of her father so that Caden could hug him, and now Caden had stepped back so that she could reach him. But Autumn didn’t rush toward him as they had. She couldn’t move, couldn’t find her voice, either. It felt as though someone had knocked the wind out of her.

  “I think that would be a great idea,” Mary said, speaking up on her behalf. “Why don’t you two put on a movie or a game while your parents take a few minutes. I’m sure they’ll be back in soon.”

  Taylor and Caden looked uncertain. They were probably afraid to let Nick out of their sight. Autumn could understand why. She wanted to reassure them, to soothe their fears, but the words were stuck in her throat.

  Fortunately, Mary had more presence of mind than she did. Her mother grabbed her hand and led her to the French doors—and probably would’ve marched her across the yard, too. But once Mary got her moving, Autumn was able to continue, albeit on wooden legs.

  “Aren’t you even a little excited to see me?” Nick asked, obviously crestfallen. “When I got to Tampa and you weren’t there, I knew you had to be here and wanted my arrival to be a bit more of a...pleasant surprise.”

  Her chest tightened until it was so painful that all she could do was cry. She didn’t even know whether she was happy or sad. She’d prayed for Nick’s return. She’d given everything she had to finding him. And she was relieved and happy for her kids. They had their father back. But what about Quinn? What about their plans?

  “Of course,” she managed to say. How else could she answer that question? But she wasn’t sure how she felt. It was as if someone had taken an electric mixer to her emotions.

  He got the key from behind the ceramic frog, as he had so many times over the years, and opened the door, stepping back to allow her to precede him.

  She went in, but before she could climb the stairs, he caught her hand and pulled her against him for a hug. “God, I’ve missed you,” he whispered, his nose in her hair as he held her tight.

  Autumn had missed him, too. She’d grieved for almost two years. But now? She just felt numb, confused. This was not how things were supposed to go. “Nick, what happened to you?” she asked.

  He leaned back and framed her face with his hands. “It was unreal,” he said. “The stuff of spy novels, only much less glamorous.”

  “Were you...held captive?”

  “Yes. But...give me a second before I go into that. I—I need to look at you.”

  Guilt caused Autumn to squirm inside. At what point was she going to have to tell him about Quinn? She was looking into Nick’s face, but what she saw was Quinn laughing at the restaurant as he brought her the biggest piece of carrot cake she’d ever seen.

  That had only been twenty minutes ago.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I—I can’t wait. I have to know. What happened? I searched for you, night and day, for so long. Where were you?”

  “I was captured by Russians and accused of being a spy.”

  “Were you a spy?”

  “No, not really. The Kremlin pretends to support Ukraine’s sovereignty over the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, but it views their friendliness to Western interests as an attempt by the West to isolate Russia. It’s a long story, but I was basically supposed to find out if a Russian spy had infiltrated the SBU. They were worried there’d been a security breach. Instead, when I was visiting Travneve and checking on some guns a certain member of the SBU had purchased from an unknown source, I was captured and taken to a military base—I don’t even know where. I was blindfolded when they took me in and when they brought me back out.”

  “How’d you get away?”

  “Eventually, they just let me go.”

  “Why?”

  He spread out his hands. “I don’t know. A guard I became somewhat friendly with thinks it’s because people were still asking questions about me. If they killed me, word could possibly get out that they had no real proof I was a spy and yet they killed me, anyway—and no one wanted to take the heat for making such a permanent decision. Or maybe they finally believed I was only trying to find out where those guns had come from to be sure that there wasn’t a Russian spy in the SBU.”

  “I—I hired a private investigator who lives in Ukraine,” she said, wondering if Mr. Olynyk had been one of those who kept asking questions. Or was it someone or something bigger? The FBI?

  “Thank you,” he said. “That could be why I’m alive today.”

  She couldn’t absorb all of this, needed to sit down. “Let’s go upstairs,” she said, but as soon as they climbed to the apartment, instead of sitting on the bed so they could talk, as she’d envisioned, he walked around the room as though he couldn’t believe he was finally safe and in his old surroundings. But then he opened the closet and saw that his side was empty—that the drawers once filled with his clothes were, too. And, eventually, he came across Quinn’s shoes.

  “Please tell me these are Caden’s,” he said softly as he stared down at them.

  Autumn wanted to tell him what he wanted to hear, to escape the accusation inherent in that question—or maybe it was just Nick’s disappointment and her guilt that made her feel so reluctant. Her husband had obviously suffered trying to help Ukraine, and while he’d been doing that, she’d fallen in love with another man.

  But what was the use of lying? She wouldn’t be able to hide the truth for long. “No.”

  * * *

  Taylor nibbled nervously on her bottom lip. Her parents had been talking for a while now. What were they saying? When would they finally come back in? Was her mother telling her father about the baby? That she was in a relationship with another girl? That Caden wouldn’t finish high school in Tampa, because they were moving to Sable Beach?

  Or would her father’s reappearance change all that? Would they be going back to Tampa, after all? And what about Quinn? Her mother must feel terrible! What could Autumn possibly say about the man who’d been planning to move in with them after the house closed?

  “Everything’s going to be okay,” Mimi said, but her words were far from convincing. She looked worried herself.

  “What’s going to happen?” Caden asked.

  “I have no idea,” she replied. “But both of your parents love you very much. They will do what’s best for you.”

  “What if that’s not what’s best for them?” Taylor asked.

  Mimi kept fidgeting and looking out the window. “They’ll figure it all out,” she mumbled.

  “Do you think we’ll go back to Tampa?” Caden asked.

  “That’s where Dad’s job is—if he still has a job,” Taylor replied. “But I don’t want to live there. I don’t want to leave Sierra, and I don’t want to face Oliver and his friends—or my old friends, either.” Fortunately, none of her friends had messaged her, shocked to hear that she was pregnant. Oliver and his family seemed to be able to keep a secret. Thank goodness keeping their mouths shut was in Oliver’s best interest, too.

  Caden didn’t say whether he preferred to stay in Sable Beach or return to Tampa. He just jiggled his leg and stared at the TV, even though she could tell he wasn’t really watching the movie Mimi had put on.

  “This is terrible,” Taylor said and began to rub her stomach. She’d been experiencing some morning sickness lately, and being this nervous was making it worse, especially after eating such a big meal.

  “Are you okay?” Mimi asked.

  “Yeah.” She hoped that was true, but only a few minutes later, she had to bolt into the bathroom, where she lost her dinner.

  Mimi came to hold her hair back as she leaned over the toilet. “You need to calm down,” she said.

  “I’m trying!” Taylor responded. “I don’t know how.”

  She got up and rinsed out her mouth and then stared at herself in the mirror. Her world had once again been turned upside down. “What about Quinn?” she said to Mimi, whom she could see in the mirror, hovering behind her.

  “What’s his number? It’s getting late, so I imagine he’ll be off work soon. I’d better let him know not to swing by on his way home. I think we’ve had enough surprises for one night, don’t you?”

  Taylor wiped her face and hands. “I’ll tell him,” she said and slipped into her bedroom to make the call.

  * * *

  Quinn was wiping down the grill, the last thing he did each night before leaving the restaurant, when his phone went off. He would’ve ignored it in favor of finishing up. But assuming Autumn was wondering what time he’d be over, he decided to answer.

  The caller wasn’t her, though—it was Taylor. He had her number because they’d been texting each other funny memes about pregnancy for a week or more. The last one he’d sent her was a picture of a glass of milk and some Oreo cookies with the words, “I’m pregnant. This morning I told my friend to put the Oreos somewhere I couldn’t reach them... She put them on the floor.” And she’d responded with a picture of a woman in the hospital, about to have a baby, and the words, “The pain of labor is so great a woman can almost imagine what a man feels when he has a fever.”

  “Is that your mom?” his father asked, seeing him pick up his phone.

  “No, it’s Taylor.” Happy that Autumn’s daughter would feel comfortable enough to call him, he clicked the accept button. “Hey, don’t tell me you’re getting a craving for ice cream or something after everything you ate at the restaurant tonight,” he said into the phone.

  She didn’t come back at him with a joke of her own, like usual. He thought he heard her sniff. Was she crying?

  “Taylor? Are you okay?” he asked, immediately concerned.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “I don’t know if any of us will be okay.”

  His heart lurched into his throat. “What do you mean? Have you been in an accident or something? Nothing’s wrong with the baby...”

  “No, it’s nothing like that,” she said. “But you—you’d better not come over tonight.”

  Taken aback, he straightened. “Why not?”

  “My dad’s home.”

  Those three words hit Quinn like a strong right hook. “What?”

  “When we got home from the restaurant, my dad was here waiting for us.”

  “How? I mean...where did he come from? Where’s he been? And why was he gone for so long?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know anything except...he and my mom are out in the apartment, talking.”

  Suddenly weak in the knees, Quinn leaned on the counter for support. He knew Taylor was awaiting his response, but he had nothing. Maybe Nick’s return was good news for her, but it definitely wasn’t good news for him.

  What was he going to do?

  “Uh-oh, I hear them. They’re coming in. I have to go.”

  “Thanks for letting me know,” he said, mechanically, but he was pretty sure she was already gone by then.

  * * *

  Autumn felt like roadkill by the time she settled onto her mother’s couch so that she and Nick could speak to their children. She couldn’t remember ever being quite so emotionally exhausted, and that included all the crying she’d done after Nick went missing.