He thought he was stopping for a stray dog in the snow-until he saw what she was hiding beneath her body

Mercer.

He stared at it longer than necessary.

Claire noticed. “You okay?”

Cal capped the pen. “Yeah.”

For once, he meant it.

Spring did not arrive in Pine Hollow so much as negotiate its way in.

Snow stayed in the shadows of the pines long after the roads had cleared. The ditches ran with meltwater by noon and froze again by dusk. The mornings smelled like continue reading …