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that held pounds and pounds of unspoken hurt.
    Silence filled the truck cab. A silence tense with all that was asked and all that went unsaid. They couldn’t fix the past. They couldn’t reclaim the lost years or even pretend what had happened between them—what had happened between their families—was a memory with no scars, no pain, no baggage, that they each still carried.
    Tulsa stared out the passenger window, unable to say anything more and truly not knowing what to say. Instead, her eyes ate up the outskirts of Powder Springs—all that changed and all that remained the same—until Cade took a tight turn on Mayweather Street and a sharp pain jabbed Tulsa’s gut. Longing rushed into her heart, a longing for home she hadn’t even known lived within her. Just beyond the giant pine tree on the corner sat the McGrath family home. Tears burned the backs of her eyes. She hadn’t seen the house since her grandmother died. Inside the grand yellow Victorian with its wraparound porch lived the two people she loved most in the world.
    Cade pulled the truck onto the gravel drive. He leaned forward over the steering wheel and peered out the windshield. “I see Wayne gave Savannah back her shotgun.”
    Fear bubbled up from Tulsa’s belly. Her eyes widened at the sight of Savannah on the front wraparound porch of the daffodil-yellow house. In her arms rested Grandma Margaret’s shotgun.
    “Has she lost her mind?” Tulsa mumbled.
    Cade rolled down his window. “Savannah,” Cade yelled, “I got Tulsa in here.”
    “I don’t give a good goddamn who you’ve got, Cade Montgomery; you get your sorry Bobby-Hopkins-loving ass off my property.” She took a menacing step forward on the porch.
    “I think you’re on your own with your bags.” Cade’s eyes never left Savannah and her shotgun.
    Tulsa nodded. The faster she got out of Cade’s truck, the less likely Savannah picked up a second illegal discharge case.
    “You hear me, Cade?” Savannah stepped down the first porch step. “You back that damn Montgomery truck off my drive!”
    Cade put the truck in reverse but kept his foot on the brake. “You got everything?” he asked Tulsa. Her laptop, her purse, her—
    A shotgun blasted into the air.
    Tulsa hopped out of the truck, “Go!” She didn’t have to tell him twice. Cade hit Mayweather Street and was gone without even a wave.

Chapter Four
     
    Tulsa followed Savannah into their childhood home. The memories of her grandmother and her mother—both gone—collided in Tulsa’s mind. Shadowy imprints of both women traced the house’s interior. The giant maple-wood staircase rose from the entryway to the darkened upstairs and a worn blue braided rug lay on the floor just inside the front door. Even the red and brown hall runner that led to the kitchen and family room in the back of the house was a relic from Grandma Margaret’s mother. A stillness wove through the house like a memorial to two long-gone McGrath women. The quiet remained deep and heavy until Savannah wheeled around and glared at Tulsa.
    “You want to explain why you’re pulling up into the drive with Cade Montgomery?” The wild-eyed look was familiar—a staple of the McGrath temper.
    “Give me the gun,” Tulsa said.
    “There’s a whole lot of history between you two,” Savannah continued, unwilling to release the firearm.
    “Yeah, and not much of it good.” Tulsa wouldn’t revisit her past with Cade. The past was long gone and while yes, she still had desire for Cade, that wasn’t a reason to rip open a scarred wound. Tulsa set her laptop case and purse next to a vase on the table beside the front door. “Cade found me on Yampa Valley Road. Stranded.”
    “That’s convenient.” Savannah jutted out her bottom lip and blew air upward, forcing her wild curls from her eyes. “Guess I’ll have to believe you.”
    “Have to believe me?” Tulsa shook her head. Her jaw twitched. As if Tulsa would have asked the man who was trying to