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I grew up inside a lightning bolt, in a family of pure momentum. My siblings and I were young, stupid, and fearless in our white gingerbread house, surrounded by dark earth, green shoots, and wild woods—untamed beasts running loose from morning to night. We snarled and bucked, more a pack than a family.

Born less than a year apart, my brother Ethan and I spent most of our lives scrapping after the same few things, pinching each other where we knew it would hurt the most. But we also protected each other. When Trevor Paltree shoved Ethan off the tall metal slide the first day of preschool, I kicked Trevor’s little ass, and I’d do it again.

Only, now, I didn’t know what protecting my brother looked like, though I felt fairly certain that kicking his fiancée’s ass was not it. Besides, I couldn’t even say what exactly Beth was up to, which (admittedly) undermined my argument. Putting my head down and going along with the wedding might feel cowardly, but it also seemed like the least destructive path forward.

So, that’s how I found myself pulling up to Ethan and Beth’s house to pick up my puce monstrosity of a bridesmaid’s dress with Beth’s recent words still replaying in my mind: Riley, you know I’d never do anything to hurt Ethan. The problem was that she also once said with a wink and a smile that what Ethan didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. I parked in the shade of a lowlimbed oak and got out, lifting my hair off my neck to catch the breeze. The autumn sun had built throughout the afternoon into the kind of fleetingly gorgeous day that makes up for Ohio’s multitude of weather sins: one last warm postscript to summer. Rain loomed in the low shelf of clouds to the north. I crossed my fingers that it would hold off until I could get home to walk Bruno. Maybe I could even get a run in if my energy held out.

My phone buzzed, and I knew without looking it would be Audra. She called most days and knew that just the previous night, I’d finally worked up the nerve to have a conversation with Ethan about Beth. She would want the details. I was amazed she had waited this long.

“How’d it go with Ethan?” Her melodious voice skipped along briskly. People usually went with what she said simply because they were so swept up with how she said it. As her sister, I was an exception.

“Hello to you too.” I continued toward the house but slowed my pace. “I’ll give you one guess how it went.”

“Hello, dearest Riley. I guess he got mad.”

“Not just mad. He guilt-tripped me. I asked him if he’d noticed anything wrong with Beth, and he acted all injured about it. He told me, ‘She thinks you’re her friend.’” I mimicked Ethan’s self-righteous tone. The jab still stung. “I told him I think of her as a friend too, which is how I know she’s hiding something.” Granted, I couldn’t untangle what it was. It was something I sensed more than saw—a shift in posture or flicker behind an expression. The past few weeks she’d become more self-contained than ever, which was saying something for her.

“Yeah, but can you really be friends with someone who has no personality? It’s like being friends with a mannequin. I don’t know how you can tell if she’s hiding something when she never shares anything—”

“Look, I can’t talk about it now.” I lowered my voice as I neared the house. “I’m at their place getting my dress. I’ll call you later.”

I climbed the porch steps, the front of their house looking so Instagram-perfect that I wondered whether I’d been seeing problems that weren’t there. The afternoon light slanted across the pumpkins and yellow chrysanthemums that Beth had arranged just so. Dried bundles of corn rattled in the breeze. Beneath the pale-blue porch swing, Beth had set out a matching ceramic bowl full of kibble for Bibbs, the half-feral cat that had adopted her and Ethan.

The only thing amiss was the open door of the old-fashioned cast-iron mailbox nestled amid the pumpkins and flowers. Beth would kill the mail carrier for ruining the ambiance. I grabbed the few pieces of mail in the box and shut the little door obligingly, like a good future sister-in-law.

Careful not to disturb a precarious wreath of orange berries, I knocked on the screen door and tapped my foot, ready to grab my puffy dress and go. I had been a whirl of motion all day, zipping through work and crossing items off my to-do list. I worked for Wicks, an oversized candle company that sold overpriced candles. Today was my last day in the office before a trip to England to set up the IT network at our new British headquarters.

For months, I’d been fighting some kind of long-term bug my doctors couldn’t figure out, but today I felt a glimmer of my former self, twitchy with energy and moving at a clip to get everything done.

***

Excerpt from Hidden Rooms by Kate Michaelson. Copyright 2024 by Kate Michaelson. Reproduced with permission from CamCat Books. All rights reserved.

They passed several offices before they reached an open door.

“Maisy. Stay.” That same deep voice from the intercom floated to the hallway.

“Oooh! A dog!” Eliza dashed into the room.

Her little sprite was fast and already halfway across the office before Landry realized what was happening. “Eliza, wait!” Fortunately, she stopped at Landry’s words.

“I know, Mommy. Never touch a dog without permission. I just want to see.”

Eliza turned her big brown eyes toward the man who had come around his desk and knelt beside a dog now quivering with excitement.

The man—Callum Shaw, she assumed—met her daughter’s eyes and said, “Your mom’s right. You can’t ever rush at a dog, even dogs as gentle as this big baby. But if it’s okay with your mom . . .”

His eyes, which were as blue as the Carolina sky, now met hers. There was humor and gentleness. And shadows. Something dark flitted across his gaze. But then he blinked and it was gone.

Landry nodded her permission, and he turned all his attention back to her daughter. “This is Maisy. She’s a golden retriever. She’s three years old. She loves long walks in the woods, sunbathing, peanut butter, and belly rubs.” He demonstrated the belly rub. Maisy melted under his touch, and Eliza crept closer. “You can pet her. Maisy doesn’t bite my friends.”

Eliza dropped to her knees beside Callum and held out her hand toward Maisy’s nose.

Maisy took a quick sniff and rewarded Eliza’s good behavior with a lick. Callum stayed where he was until it was clear to everyone that Eliza and Maisy were set, then he rose to his feet and extended a hand. “Ms. Hutton.”

“Landry. Please.”

“Landry. A pleasure.”

Landry kept the contact brief. “Sorry, my hands are rough.” She turned them palms up. “Hazards of the job.”

Why had she said that? What did it matter if her hands were a bit on the crispy side? She didn’t have to prove anything to this man. Embarrassment crept across her and burst through her pores, heating her neck and face, and now she had no idea what to do with her hands. Should she put them down? Tuck them behind her back?

Callum glanced at her hands and turned his own up. “Same here.” He heaved a dramatic sigh. “It’s to my eternal despair that I’ll never land that hand modeling contract I’ve always hoped for.”

His easy humor made it automatic to tease him back. “Well, there’s always ditch digging.”

“Good point. If this construction gig doesn’t work out, I’ll have something to fall back on.” Callum turned his attention to Eliza. “And I gather your name is Eliza?”

She giggled with the abandon unique to happy children. “That’s right, but sometimes Mommy calls me Liza or ZaZa, but never Lizzy because that’s too close to Landry, and it gets confusing.”

Landry tried to keep a straight face as Eliza parroted what she’d heard Landry say too many times to count.

“It’s a pleasure, Ms. Eliza.” Callum pressed a hand to his chest. “I’m Cal Shaw. I’ll answer to Callum, but not LumLum because”— he dropped his voice to a stage whisper—“that’s just not dignified.”

Eliza’s laughter filled the room. Bronwyn hadn’t been wrong about Cal Shaw. He was very good with children. Even now, he kept his attention on Eliza. “Are you good here with Maisy while your mom and I talk?”

“Yes, sir.”

Cal grabbed a legal pad and pen from his desk and took the chair opposite the one he directed Landry to sit in. From their seats, they could both see Eliza and Maisy.

She waited for him to start the conversation, but maybe she was supposed to go first?

“She’s a beau—”

“Land—”

They both stopped talking, and his smile seemed genuine as he nodded to her. “Please. Go ahead.”

“I was going to say your dog is beautiful.” She willed her body to stop flushing scarlet, but it refused to cooperate. She didn’t have to see herself to know that her face, neck, chest, and even her feet were on fire. This was why she did best behind the walls of The Haven. She could interact with the patrons there with minimal difficulty. But put her out in public, and she became a tongue-tied, socially inept disaster.

Cal’s grin held mischief, and he leaned toward her. “If all goes as planned, she’ll be pregnant soon. I bet Eliza would love a puppy for Christmas.” His voice was cajoling and teasing, but at least he had the good sense to keep it too low for Eliza to hear.

He winked in a way that was friendly and not flirtatious, and Landry understood why Bronwyn liked him so much. He leaned back and in a normal voice said, “I gathered from your conversation with Carla that you’re going to build nearby.”

“Yes. I have three acres on the edge of Pierce land.” She watched him carefully as she spoke and was unsurprised when his grip tightened on the pen at her words.

“How long have you lived in Gossamer Falls?”

“Long enough to know the Pierce and Quinn families don’t get along.”

***

Excerpt from Never Fall Again by Lynn H Blackburn. Copyright 2024 by Lynn H Blackburn. Reproduced with permission from Lynn H Blackburn. All rights reserved.