She had looked away, of course, but the damage had been done, and the choice had been made. Gina would be moving in today, bringing a moving van with all her belongings and no one to help her unload them. She had told Wren she’d manage on her own, and for someone with thousands of followers, she seemed to be sadly lacking in friends.

  Not Wren’s problem. Gina could take care of herself. And the only reason Wren had spent half the morning cleaning the damned apartment was…well, it just seemed rude not to run a vacuum around the place since it was her fault the room was in such a dirty and disused state. Gina was on her own for the rest, including trying to get a bed or any other furniture up those narrow stairs.

  She heard hoofbeats coming up the hill and propped herself on her elbows as Eric and Callie walked over to them. Callie lowered her head to graze as soon as she reached the grassy part of the hill, and Eric let go of his reins so they fell forward draped around Callie’s ears. She and Linda gasped in unison, and Wren hurried over to grab the reins before Callie stepped on them. She delivered a lengthy lecture on the dangers of loose horses and broken bridles as they led Callie back to the barn and untacked her, but despite his mom’s optimistic assurances, she had serious doubts about how much he was absorbing.

  He was useful for keeping her mind off Gina, though. Every time her thoughts would wander, she’d have to pull herself back to the present and stop him from climbing under Callie’s belly or hanging from the hook where the riders hung dirty bridles while they cleaned them. He wouldn’t always be around to save her from her wandering thoughts, but she doubted she’d need the distraction once Gina was settled here. She’d surely make good on her promise that Wren wouldn’t even know she was there, since the barn where Wren spent most of her time was about as unappealing to a techie like Gina as an electronics store would be for Wren. Wren’s parents worked in the computer industry, and she knew exactly what to expect from someone like them. Gina would spend her days inside, on her phone or on her computer, with virtual friends and virtually no interest in talking to someone like Wren, who didn’t speak her language.

  And that was good, because Wren loved her simple life, with no screens to filter out the world around her. Gina seemed anything but simple, and Wren’s reaction to her was even less so.

  And so she would avoid her. And not care about her or her furniture or anything else.

  With significant help from Wren, Eric managed to get Callie groomed and tucked away in her stall, and his saddle and bridle cleaned and hung properly in the tack room. Wren finished putting away Callie’s brushes and saddle pad while Linda and Eric went out to the large pasture to visit Linda’s horse. She had just shut the locker door when she heard the heavy hay truck pulling into her parking area. She stopped by the office to get her checkbook and went out to meet Nick and his sons.

  They had already started backing the truck into position when she arrived in the hay barn, and she waved at Nick as she walked past the cab of the idling truck. The redheaded twins were checking out the old four-wheeler she had parked there earlier in the day. “Oh, sorry. Let me move that.”

  “I’ll do it for you,” Mike offered quickly, and she smiled her thanks and tossed him the keys. Liam climbed in with him, and they drove out of the barn. As soon as they were out of the way, Nick finished backing up and got out of the cab.

  “Thanks for coming out a few days early,” she said, taking the invoice he gave her and filling out a check. “I wasn’t sure I’d be around next weekend.”

  “Not a problem. And if the boys ever manage to find their way back in here, we’ll get this lot unloaded for you.”

  Wren smiled. She could hear the four-wheeler making its second trip around the hay barn. She leaned against one of the support posts and tucked the invoice in her pocket, chatting with Nick about the quality of this year’s timothy hay and when he predicted the second cutting would be available. Eventually the twins came back inside, and Mike handed her the keys.

  “Thanks,” he said, as if she’d done him a favor instead of the other way around. “That was fun.”

  “Yeah, it’s…” Wren paused. How did one compliment a four-wheeler? She hadn’t used the thing since driving it out to the back storage shed a few years ago when a horse show friend had given it to her in exchange for one of Wren’s saddles. She had insisted that Wren would never go back to lugging feed carts around again after she got used to a motorized alternative. Wren had managed to avoid that outcome by never using the thing, let alone getting used to it.

  “It’s a nice little machine,” she said, for lack of a better phrase. “I’ll probably end up selling it, though, in case you hear of anyone who’s interested.”

  Mike and Liam elbowed each other in a very unsubtle way until Liam finally asked how much she wanted for it.

  Nick gave a snort of laughter. “Wrong question, son,” he said. “You should be asking what she wants for it, not how much.”

  Wren laughed. Nick knew her better than she thought. “I have a friend coming over tonight. She’s going to be staying in the barn apartment until she finds a more permanent place, and we could use some help getting her moved in.” She held up her hand before the boys could agree. “Second floor, rickety staircase. And I have no idea how heavy her furniture is. She might be bringing a grand piano or a marble-topped dining room table.”

  Gina wasn’t exactly a friend, but Wren decided it was the easiest story to tell. Dianna knew why she was coming, but no one else needed to. A friend coming to stay meant no lease was needed. No paper trail would lead anyone to Gina.

  The boys exchanged pleading looks with their dad, and he nodded. “Seems the boys are getting the better end of the deal, though,” he said. “You sure about this?”

  “Absolutely,” Wren said. She’d much rather have people she trusted helping Gina move, rather than bringing in strangers. She and Gina might have been able to carry her stuff upstairs, but that would mean more time with just the two of them together than Wren was ready to handle. She’d have to manage eventually, if they were going to work together, but for now avoidance was more appealing.

  “All right, then. You boys get this hay unloaded. I’ll see what I can do about reinforcing that staircase.”

  The twins high-fived each other and climbed onto the truck while Nick climbed back into the cab to get his tools.

  Wren smiled with relief. Now she could stop caring about Gina and her furniture and everything else, and go back to living her life like before.

  Chapter Six

  By the time Gina pulled the moving van into the parking area in front of Wren’s barn, she was exhausted and tempted to drive the damned thing into the bay. Minimalist blogs were all the rage right now, anyway. She wasn’t sure how many Instagram photos she could post of an empty apartment, but she’d give it a try.

  She put the van in park and rested her forehead on the steering wheel. She hadn’t thought through the moving portion of this awful new adventure she was on. Her main concern had been keeping a low profile, so she had decided to move herself. She wouldn’t have to give anyone this address, and she’d save a ton of money.

  Brilliant. Unfortunately, she had conveniently ignored the parts of the scenario in which she had to transport her stuff from the storage locker—where her old landlord had kindly moved it for her—up the ramp into the van. She had spent all day wrestling with each box and piece of furniture, shoving things along inch by inch at times. Writing blog posts and taking photos of desks apparently wasn’t sufficient exercise to build upper-body strength. Not to mention the unwieldy items that were just too difficult for one pair of arms to move.

  Now she was faced with a steep set of stairs. Plus, her car was still parked at her hotel. She had gone back over the plan she had devised for moving, and nowhere in it had she made arrangements for getting from the rental garage to the hotel. She had been delusional enough to believe she could single-handedly move an entire apartment full of belongings and drive two vehicles at once. She sighed and sat up again. Getting an Uber to take her to her car would be the simplest part of the day. Getting up the energy to come back here and not just live in the hotel until she ran out of money was the hardest—more difficult even than moving her bed up the stairs.

  Well, the best she could do was wrestle the mattress up there. She’d have to give in and hire someone to help her with the rest tomorrow. She jumped out of the van and looked around the farm. The sky to her right was tinged with sunset pink, and about a million birds were chirping from their hiding spots in the trees. Nature again. Charming.

  Gina put her hands on her lower back and arched her spine, trying to undo some of the kinks from her drive. In another fantastic tactical move, she had found herself on the freeway during the afternoon’s heaviest traffic. She hadn’t been brave enough to drive the van onto the ferry, so she had taken the long way south to Tacoma, over the Narrows Bridge, and north again to Poulsbo. Along with what seemed to be the state’s entire population.

  “I hate to interrupt your sunset yoga session, but we should unload this thing before it gets dark.”

  Gina spun around and nearly crashed into Wren, who had suddenly appeared behind her.

  “Where did you come from? Jeez, you could give a person a heart attack sneaking up like that.”

  Wren scuffed her boot on the pebbly ground. “I was walking on gravel. Who sneaks on gravel? It’s loud.”

  “Well, I couldn’t hear you over all this bird noise. Is there something wrong with them?”

  Wren gave a kind of half laugh, half frown, as if she was encountering a perplexing alien life-form and trying to figure it out. Gina had seen the same expression on Wren’s face several times during her interview. She had a feeling she would see it often—probably every time they interacted.

  Gina realized she was still standing overly close to Wren, and she took a step back. Now that she had gotten over her initial surprise, she couldn’t understand how she had missed the signs of Wren’s presence. Even in the midst of this country setting, Wren’s outdoorsy, clean scent somehow overshadowed nature itself. And she had an energy about her that Gina could feel in almost tangible waves. A coiled tension that made Gina feel as if something exciting was about to happen.

  She wrapped her arms around her middle and took another step back, bumping into the side of the van. Wren reached out to steady her, putting a hand on her arm as if by reflex but pulling it away again just as quickly.

  “Hey, I’m sorry if I startled you. I really did think you heard me coming.”

  Gina waved off the apology. She was more upset by her body’s response to being close to Wren than by the initial scare, but she wasn’t about to admit it to Wren.

  “It’s okay. I’m just a little jumpy these days.”

  “Understandable.” She gestured to Gina’s left with her head. “Oh, and Nick is coming up behind you, just to give you a heads-up.”

  Gina turned in the direction Wren had indicated and saw a balding redheaded man walking toward her. Once she was looking at him, she noticed the sound of his heavy footsteps, but she hadn’t registered his approach before Wren’s comment. “What are you people?” she asked. “Cat burglars?”

  Wren laughed. “It’s you, not us. You live in a city. You probably tune out a lot of noise, just out of habit and self-preservation. Give yourself a few weeks here, where there aren’t as many sights and sounds competing for your attention, and you’ll start to notice the little things again.”

  “Ah, yes. The joys of the simple life.” Gina made a gagging noise.

  “I doubt life around you would ever be simple, whether you’re in a city or in the middle of nowhere.”

  Gina tried to read Wren’s expression, but the deepening shade of dusk made it hard to even delineate her elegant features, let alone interpret them. The comment hadn’t sounded like a compliment, given Wren’s obvious distaste for anything that messed up her ordered life, but something in her tone made the words sound almost warm. Gina didn’t have a chance to ask her to explain what she meant because Nick got close enough to introduce himself.

  “I’ll back the van over there, if you want. The boys are waiting for us.”

  “Oh, thank you. I’d appreciate it,” Gina said, handing him the keys. She rarely drove in Seattle, preferring public transportation to the hassles of parking and battling traffic. She figured that would be another skill she’d develop living out here in the boonies. She’d probably be flying around on a tractor like an old pro in a month’s time.

  “Wait,” she said, once she shook the image of herself on a tractor in a flannel shirt and overalls out of her weary mind. “The boys?”

  “My sons. Wren asked—”

  “I asked them to bring my hay delivery today,” Wren interrupted. “And they offered to stick around and carry your furniture up to the apartment. They’re nice people.”

  “Yeah, we’re the nice ones.” Nick chuckled and shook his head at Wren before opening the van door and climbing in.

  “I thought you’d be here sooner,” Wren said. “You missed pizza.”

  She turned away and walked after the van. Gina hesitated a moment before following. Being around one person she barely knew was challenging enough, especially when said person was someone who made her heat up from the inside out whenever she smiled. Spending time in close quarters with three additional strangers was overwhelming. If circumstances were different, she would push through her awkwardness without another thought, like she had done when she met the owners of her old apartment for the first time, but she had wanted to live there. Right now she was putting herself in an uncomfortable position just so she could move into a place where she didn’t want to be. She was tempted to cut her losses and run. She could always get new stuff once she found a place to live, right?

  If she hadn’t left her cell in the van, she might have just vanished into the night, leaving Wren behind sighing in relief because her barn would remain internet-free. Gina smiled to herself at the thought of Wren celebrating the continued vacancy and unwired state of her bug-ridden apartment. She had probably hung the cobwebs in there on purpose, just to keep from tempting any potential tenants.

  Most of her curmudgeon act had to be a sham, though, because here she was, unhooking the clasp on the van’s rear door as if she was planning to help tote Gina’s belongings into the apartment. Gina had expected Wren to stay inside her house, leaving her on her own tonight. Instead, she had even brought reinforcements in the form of two stocky teenage boys and their friendly dad.

  “Oh my God, this thing is full. Just how long are you expecting to stay?” Wren asked, peering into the dark van. She pulled out the ramp and lowered it to the ground, shaking her head the whole time.

  “For years, at least,” Gina said, although she had no such intentions. She spread her arms wide and inhaled deeply, releasing her breath with an exaggerated aaaah sound. “Maybe forever, since the aroma of horse manure is so intoxicating.”

  All she really could smell was the slightly fishy scent of the bay and the sweetness of pine, but she wasn’t going to admit how pleasant they were, even to herself. The boys snickered at her comment as they jumped into the van and hoisted her bookshelf between them. Gina grabbed a heavy box of books and walked behind them as they maneuvered the shelf down the ramp and up the narrow stairs. She had been ready to chop the beloved piece of furniture into kindling after sweating through the process of loading it this morning, and in her relief at having help moving it, she let go of some of her trepidation about being with these small-town strangers.

  The staircase felt more solid to her tonight, but the real surprise came when she entered the apartment for the first time. She had wanted to arrive early enough to do a thorough cleaning before moving any of her things in, but after the effort of loading the van and driving through traffic, she had decided she didn’t care about grime and bits of hay. Or even spiders, for that matter. She had just wanted to get at least a few things moved in, and to worry about cleaning later.

  But the apartment was spotless. The green carpet was no less threadbare and skimpy, and the linoleum no less cracked, but there wasn’t a cobweb or mote of dust in sight. Even the light fixtures had been wiped clean. The cleanliness was almost too much for her to bear, when it was added to the emotional turmoil of being ousted from her life and thrust unwillingly into this rustic setting. She still hated small-town living and still wished fervently to be able to return to her bright city apartment—and she knew Wren would have been thrilled for her to go back as well—but she appreciated the expansive gestures of a clean home and helping hands to move her into it.

  The swirl of emotions, from grief to gratitude, made her want to collapse in the middle of the floor and cry, but she continued to make trips to the van. Her four helpmates were like machines, carting load after load up the stairs, and they probably would have swept around her like a stream around a boulder if she gave in to her exhausted and weepy state. The least she could do was remain upright and do her part.

  The twins—Mike and Liam, she learned when they were introduced in an offhand way while passing each other on the way to and from the van—were mainly interested in discussing a new four-wheeler they had acquired. Once they heard her answer to their dad’s question about what she did for a living, though, they sent a barrage of questions her way about how to build their Instagram followings. She found it surprisingly easy to talk to them, and the casual monotony of carting boxes around seemed to take the pressure off.