THE LOVE WE LEFT BEHIND

Daniel Carter

The engine of Daniel’s Ford F-150 roared as he slammed his heavy work boot onto the gas pedal, the tires violently spitting gravel as he took the curve of the Rosewood driveway entirely too fast.

He didn't check the rearview mirror. He didn't want to see the house, and he sure as hell didn't want to see if she had followed him out to the porch.

*Lena.*

He gripped the worn leather of the steering wheel until his knuckles popped, white and strained under the dashboard lights. For fifteen years, he had imagined this exact scenario. A thousand different versions of Lena Morgan returning to Willow Creek had played out in his head, usually late at night when the whiskey hit the bottom of the glass. In every single fantasy, he had been indifferent. Cold. Untouchable.

But seeing her standing in the foyer of that decaying house—looking so terrifyingly the same, yet wrapped in an expensive, defensive armor of city clothes—hadn't felt like indifference. It had felt like taking a ten-pound sledgehammer directly to the ribs.

Her eyes had still been that striking, impossible shade of hazel, though the warmth in them had been replaced by a guarded, skittish panic. She had looked at him like he was a stranger. Like *he* was the one who had done something wrong.

"Damn it," Daniel muttered, aggressively downshifting as he hit the two-lane highway leading back into town.

Evelyn Morgan was a brilliant, manipulative old ghost, and God rest her soul, she knew exactly what she was doing. Three months ago, when the old woman’s health had begun to rapidly decline, she had called Daniel to her hospital bedside. She had offered Carter Contracting a massive, iron-clad, year-long contract to restore Rosewood House to its former glory. The money was enough to keep Daniel's crew paid and his business thriving for the next two years. He had signed the papers without a second thought, assuming the property would eventually be sold off by a faceless trust.

Evelyn hadn't mentioned that her estranged granddaughter would be returning to claim it. She hadn't mentioned the catch.

Daniel turned off the highway and pulled into the gravel lot of his workshop, a corrugated steel building on the outskirts of town. The bay doors were rolled down for the night, but a warm yellow light spilled from the frosted window of the front office.

He killed the engine, sitting in the dark cab for a long moment, waiting for his heart rate to drop back to a normal rhythm. The faint scent of her—something crisp, like rain and lavender—somehow still lingered in his sinuses, cutting through the smell of sawdust and motor oil on his own clothes.

Pushing the truck door open, he stepped out into the biting cold and walked into the office.

Noah was sitting behind the battered metal desk, his boots propped up next to a stack of unpaid invoices. At thirty-four, Noah still had the laid-back, unshaven look of a guy who spent too much time fishing, but he was the best foreman Daniel could ask for. They’d been best friends since middle school, which meant Noah knew every skeleton in Daniel’s closet.

Noah looked up from his clipboard, taking one look at Daniel’s rigid jaw and the white-hot tension radiating off his shoulders.

Slowly, Noah lowered the clipboard to the desk. "You look like you just watched a ghost walk out of a grave."

"Worse," Daniel grunted. He walked over to the mini-fridge in the corner, yanked the door open, and pulled out a bottled water. He cracked the plastic cap with far too much force. "She’s back."

Noah didn't have to ask who. The silence in the small office instantly thickened. He took his boots off the desk and leaned forward, his casual demeanor evaporating. "Lena? She’s actually at the house?"

"Walked in about twenty minutes ago. Looked like she was ready to sign a deed and catch a red-eye back to the West Coast by midnight." Daniel took a long drink of the water, the cold liquid doing nothing to extinguish the fire in his chest.

"Did you talk to her?"

"Barely." Daniel crushed the empty plastic bottle in his hand and tossed it toward the trash can. It hit the rim and bounced onto the floor. He didn't pick it up. "Told her the place was a hazard and to meet Harrison tomorrow morning."

Noah blew out a long breath, rubbing the back of his neck. "Man. Fifteen years. And Evelyn... Evelyn knew she was coming."

"Evelyn orchestrated the whole damn thing," Daniel said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, gravelly register. He leaned his hands on the edge of the drafting table, staring blindly at the blueprints of Rosewood's first floor. "She locked me into that contract, Noah. I'm legally bound to oversee the structural restoration of that property for the next twelve months. If I break the contract, the penalties will bankrupt the company."

"And the will?" Noah asked quietly. "Does Lena know about the stipulation yet?"

"No." A dark, bitter satisfaction flared in Daniel’s chest, sharp and ugly. "She thinks she can just sell it and run. Just like she did last time."

Noah watched his friend carefully. "Dan... you're gonna have to work in that house. With her living there. For a year. Are you going to be able to handle that without burning the place down?"

Daniel pushed off the table, grabbing his jacket from the back of a chair. The boy who had loved Lena Morgan had died a long time ago, killed on a rainy night when he had waited by an old willow tree for a girl who never showed up. The man standing here now was just a contractor doing a job.

"I'll handle it," Daniel said coldly, heading for the door. "Tomorrow at nine o'clock, she's going to find out she's trapped in Willow Creek. I just want to see the look on her face when she realizes she can't run away this time."