Page 116 of Wilds of the Heart

“Okay, Izzy.” I slowed to the town’s speed limit of twenty-five, and it suddenly felt as if we’d stepped back in time. “Here’s to a summer to remember.”

She removed her earbuds completely and slid them and her phone into her backpack.

“If you say so,” she mumbled.

I reached over and squeezed her knee. “I know so.”

“Isn’t this where you and Dad met?” she asked.

A smile touched my lips, and I nodded, knowing she’d already heard the story countless times. “Yeah. We met the summer I turned eighteen.”

“Dad said you were going with some other guy, but the moment you met Dad, you dropped the other dude like a hot potato.”

I laughed and nodded, remembering the very first night I’d met Tim. “It’s true.”

I was at Buttercup Lake with my summer friends. It was late at night. My boyfriend stood me up, and over walked Tim with a bouquet of roses.

“You know what sold me on your dad?” I asked, looking over at Izzy.

She was the spitting image of Tim.

“What?”

“His dimples.” I grinned, turning down the street to Grandma Millie’s. “The same dimples you have.”

Izzy rolled her eyes, but a glimpse of a smile surfaced.

She sniffled. “I miss him.”

“I miss him too, baby.” I clutched her hand in mine as I drove with my left hand.

This was the most conversation we’d had in months, apart from my telling her we were going to Buttercup Lake for the summer and her tearing through our house in disgust over missing her friends for three months.

Truth be told, I wasn’t certain the people Izzy had started hanging out with were actually her friends… more like she was their target so they could get what they’d wanted, whether it was fast food or a place to crash overnight.

I spotted Grandma Millie’s white, turn-of-the-century house with daisies in the garden beds bowing from the breeze and orange lilies dotting the drive. Her big vegetable garden in the front yard had tall deer fencing, but she also had a little areajust for the deer to graze in the far corner. Her original hope was that if she fed them what she’d wanted to feed them, they’d leave everything else alone. Judging by the deer fence, it still wasn’t working how she’d planned.

“The shutters aren’t yellow anymore,” Izzy said, taking in her home for the next three months.

I smiled. “Nope. The green looks nice, though.”

I glanced at my fifteen-year-old, going-on-thirty, daughter and wondered what could bring us back together. I prayed it was Buttercup Lake and being away from outside influences, but I just didn’t know.

And the worst part was that I felt like I was disappointing Tim. Granted, he’d seen Izzy turn from the happy-go-lucky little girl to the woman with a mission before he died, but it had gotten so much worse since.

“Oh, there’s Grandma Millie.” I waved as I pulled into the gravel driveway.

She waved back and sat on the porch swing, which was now painted green to match her shutters.

Before I’d even turned off the ignition, Izzy had bolted from the car and run toward Grandma Millie, who stood up and opened her arms.

Seeing Izzy with her great-grandma warmed my heart. My grandma was the kindest, most loyal grandmother in existence. She never spoke an ill word about anyone, even when myparents forgot they had children—three of us girls, to be exact. She just stood quietly next to us and helped to raise us each summer.

I turned off the car and took a deep breath as the realization hit me. We were at Buttercup Lake. I’d given notice at my job as an administrative assistant for a frozen food company and moved us here for three months.

The thought suddenly terrified me. What had I been thinking? I crawled out of the car and saw Izzy chatting animatedly with Grandma Millie and remembered it all.

Healing.

---