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do.”
    â€œBut no school,” she reminded, making sure.
    â€œNot tomorrow,” Sarah agreed. “However, if you want to talk to your dad before he goes to work, we have to call early.”
    â€œIt’s three hours later in Savannah,” Gracie intoned before Sarah could say the same.
    Sarah nodded. “Right.”
    â€œOkay.” Gracie plumped her pillow, then settled back and closed her eyes. Sarah edged her own sleeping bag closer to the old couch and propped her back against the cushions to stare at the fire. The house seemed to close in on her, good memories and bad. Goose bumps rose on the back of her arms, and the shadows in the corners of the room, those spots that weren’t illuminated by the fire, reminded her of her own fears as a child. There was that “incident” on the widow’s walk, one that was still locked in a forbidden part of her memory and one she wouldn’t dwell on, at least not this night.
    Shifting to view both her daughters as they slept, she chided herself for not being honest with Grace. She should have admitted that she too had seen what could only be described as a ghost on those very stairs, that for years she’d thought she’d been going out of her mind, taunted by the rest of her family for what they’d decided were nothing more than “bad dreams” or “silly fantasies.” The worst remark had been a stage whisper made by her own mother. Arlene had confided to Dee Linn that she believed Sarah was only making up stories to draw attention to herself. “That’s what she does, you know. And the sad part is that it works on your father.” The stage whisper had been uttered just loud enough for Sarah to hear it. Unfortunately, the accusation had hit its mark, and Sarah had learned to never again speak of what she’d seen. Just as Arlene had intended.
    Sarah only prayed she didn’t make the same mistakes with her own children. Every once in a while she’d hear Arlene’s words spewing forth from her own lips, and it made her cringe inside.
    You are not like her. You know it, And you’ll find a way to come clean with your daughters, You will, But only when the time is right . . .
    She grimaced.
    She was more like Arlene than she wanted to believe.

C HAPTER 3
    F ortunately, Gracie slept through the rest of the night, and even Sarah finally dozed off around two. She’d awoken to the sound of her cell phone vibrating its way across the floor and, seeing that the caller was Evan Tolliver, hadn’t answered.
    Evan was one of the reasons she’d left Vancouver.
    A big reason.
    He’d been her boss and had been pressuring her to go out with him. She had. And regretted it. Almost from the get-go he’d wanted to, as he’d put it, “take our relationship to the next level.” Sarah had pointed out they didn’t have a relationship and there were no more levels, but he’d never really taken the hint, and her hours in the offices of Tolliver Construction had become uncomfortable, to say the least. As the son and groomed heir of the company, Evan had thought she’d find him irresistible. He’d been wrong. But so had she. Going out with him the first time had been a mistake, and she’d stupidly compounded the error by accepting another dinner invitation.
    On the third date, when he’d brought up marriage, he’d winked suggestively and said he wanted to “tie her down.” There had been something half serious in the twinkle in his eyes, and she’d told him right then and there that it wasn’t going to work. She’d said flat out that she didn’t want to see him again, which he’d taken as a challenge, trying to woo her, disbelieving that she would actually say no. So, after a month of weighing her options, she’d worked out a deal with her siblings and moved back to a town she’d sworn she’d hated and would never reside