“Sorry I disappeared on you, Mollydolly.” Louise puttered in carrying a brown paper sack. Saved by the bell! Or the little old lady who worked for her. “The used bookstore next door was having a sale, and I scurried in to pick up some of their old recipe books. I knew you wouldn’t miss me.”

“What, had to beat the crazy crowd?” Eden deadpanned because there wouldn’t have been one.

“I had to beat old Mrs. Bleakerson is what I had to do. She’s getting on in years, but she’s aggressive when it comes to her marinades. I’m stronger though.” Molly smiled because Mrs. Bleakerson was sixty-one and still nine years younger than Louise herself.

Switching gears, Molly turned to Eden. “Do you think you can close for me? It’s Wednesday, so I need to stop by the cemetery and still have time to freshen up before my dinner at Gibson’s tonight. You know, try to look presentable. Lose the flour glaze.”

“I suppose you could twist my arm if you threw in a few of those truffles on the house.”

Molly followed her gaze to the latest batch. “Help yourself. You always do anyway.”

“This is a fact. So Gibson’s, huh? What’s the occasion?”

“Cassie’s little sister, Jordan, is coming home for a bit. It’s kind of a major deal. She hasn’t been back since, well…the funeral.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. It’ll be nice for Amalia and Joseph to get to spend some time with her.” In actuality, Molly knew it was that and more. Her mother- and father-in-law would pull out all the stops to celebrate Jordan’s homecoming. They’d already closed down the clinic for the day, rented out Gibson’s restaurant that night, and were hosting the immediate family—which still included her—for a celebratory dinner in Jordan’s honor.

Jordan Tuscana.

While part of Molly wanted to smack Jordan on the back of the head for staying away for so long, the other part of her was genuinely excited to see her again.

“So what do we know about the mysterious younger Tuscana?” Eden nibbled on a truffle. “These are amazing, Mol.”

“Thanks.” She considered the question, reminding herself that Eden hadn’t grown up in Applewood. “Jordan? Oh, she’s—”

“As wild as they come. Or at least she used to be,” Louise supplied dryly. “Gave her parents fits when she was in high school, dropped out of college with only one year left, and ran off to make movies, skittering about the country. It about broke both doctors’ hearts. They wanted her to go into medicine like the rest of them. Friendly kid though. You couldn’t help but forgive whatever trouble she got into because she was so darn sweet and charming. Could grin her way out of anything.”

Molly tilted her head and tried to explain things another way. “She went through a rebellious patch in high school, that’s all. But the Jordan I remember was good at heart, a rascally little kid that would follow Cassie and me around incessantly. I used to babysit her back when I was fifteen, sixteen. That would have made her ten, I guess. We’d read books together for hours until she fell asleep.” Molly felt that wistful lump of nostalgia in her throat for a time when everything felt simpler, lighter. Like nothing bad could ever happen to any of them.

But Jordan’s growing up years hadn’t been so easy. It had been hard for her with Cassie as an older sister. Cassie got straight A’s, broke school records on the soccer field, and followed all of her parents’ rules to a tee. And with the bar set so high, Jordan simply didn’t measure up. After a while, she purposefully stopped trying. She lived life on her own terms, and that often made waves in the Tuscana household.

“So she and Cassie were close?” Eden popped her fourth truffle.

“Um, mostly, yeah, especially in their younger years. But once Jordan went off to college, they drifted a bit. She took Cassie’s death incredibly hard though and pretty much shut everyone out. We haven’t seen her much since.”

“I hope I get to meet this person. She sounds intriguing.”

Molly picked up her messenger bag as she prepared to leave. “I’m sure you will, Eden.” She paused for a moment. “You know what? I’m just glad she’s coming home. It’s time.”

*

Molly’s house was pretty. That was a good word for it. But old and in desperate need of some repair. It was on her to-do list in addition, of course, to learning how to fix up a house. Maybe that would happen after she figured out a way to manufacture more time in the day and you know, learn to fly.

She fumbled in her bag for her keys and subsequently struggled with the front door that always managed to stick. A daily battle. At least her arms got a workout. She suppressed a cheer when the door finally gave in after she rammed it like a goat. In unfortunate news, the force of the impact caused one of the decorative shutters on the outside of the house to fall decidedly on one side. It clung to life, but seemed sad now, hanging there so crookedly. She felt sorry for it and herself, as it was yet another repair to deal with.

Molly had purchased the home three years prior, having gotten it for a steal when the elderly owner moved in with her son’s family. It was the first major purchase she’d made on her own since Cassie, and it had been just what she was looking for. Tall, mature trees, friendly neighbors, and the perfect amount of space to cozy up in. She’d taken the modest two-story with the cute blue shutters and made it her own over time. It was comfortable, simple, home. She was rather proud of her little place, even if it was falling apart.

Once inside, she fed her beta fish, appropriately named Rover, and watched him celebrate with three laps around the tank. “Nice form, Rover. Seriously. Those Olympic scouts aren’t gonna know what hit ’em.” That’s when her phone vibrated in voice mail notification. She studied the screen curiously. How had she missed the call? Because you were busy masquerading as one of the Billy Goats Gruff, she reminded herself.

The singular voice mail was from her father, who now lived at Applewood Manor, a retirement home a couple of miles up the road. She listened to his voice as she perused the contents of her closet for a passable outfit for the evening’s festivities.

“Hey there, Mollydolly, I got your message about the dinner tonight. Don’t worry about stopping by. I’ve had a great but very tiring day and will probably just turn in early anyway.”

She paused and looked down at the phone. It wasn’t often she went a whole twenty-four hours without stopping by to visit her dad. He’d been in better health lately, but the congestive heart failure he suffered from seemed to affect him more in spurts. She expected a rough few days ahead in exchange for the good ones he’d experienced so far this week.

While she wanted to call him back to make sure he’d eaten well and received his daily medication on time, the clock on the wall reminded her she was dangerously close to arriving late for dinner, a crime her time-conscious in-laws, the dueling Dr. Tuscanas, would frown upon despite their adoration for her. To make it up to her dad, she’d stop off and see him for lunch the next day, maybe bring him a snack or two from the bakeshop. That always seemed to perk him up.

Molly tackled her closet, spending the next ten minutes trying on upward of seven different outfits, all with the same devastating result. Too tight. Okay, how had this happened? She’d weighed an even hundred and twenty-two pounds since the age of fifteen when she’d first hit puberty. Blinking back a frustrated tear or two, she stepped onto the scale in her bathroom, her mouth falling open at the news.

Six pounds.

She’d gained six pounds in addition to the two gray hairs.

Wonderful.

Now on a fact-finding mission of horror, Molly turned next to the mirror. She studied the lines on her face up close, and what she found there made her want to just curl up into a little ball and abandon the evening altogether. Just as she suspected, the early signs of crow’s feet. At least when she smiled just wide enough. She blew out a defeated breath. She was getting old and fat and there was nothing she could do about it. Okay, so maybe she was indulging her dramatic side a little. She was allowed in such a moment.

Gathering her courage, she swallowed solemnly and shook herself out of the downward spiral. No more time for this. Downward spiraling would have to take five.

Instead, plan B.

She shimmied into her loosest pair of dark blue jeans and capped it off with a white dress shirt, and simple heels. Less is more when the going’s rough. Plus, she was going to see family, who loved you no matter what, right? There was no one there she needed to impress.

Chapter Two

Jordan Tuscana felt strange as she drove through the streets of Applewood. Perhaps she should have prepared herself more. It was home, but it wasn’t. So familiar, yet so much had changed at the same time. Her old high school had an electronic marquee now. The hardware store looked to have been remodeled, and then there were the sidewalks through the center of town. They’d been repaved and had kind of a winding quality to them now. A nice touch. She studied the faces of the people she passed, recognizing many and some not at all.

It looked great, she thought, the town. She’d known Applewood practically her entire life and though it felt different, it was still close to her heart. Still hers.

But this wasn’t going to be easy, the whole being back thing. There had been a reason she’d stayed away for so long, and the weight of that sadness now sat heavily upon her heart. She’d avoided it for as long as she possibly could. Declining invitations, evading family gatherings, and ignoring phone messages. She’d exhausted every tactic in her arsenal, and it was time to face what lay ahead.

But this time when she pulled into the driveway, there would be no Cassie to hug her until they both fell to the ground outside of their parents’ home. She wouldn’t be there to tease her mercilessly or call her “kiddo.” They wouldn’t spend hours together on the old soccer field knocking the ball back and forth while they talked about every aspect of each other’s life. Shooting the breeze, they’d called it, when those talks were actually so much more than that to Jordan.

Of course, there’d been no Cassie for years now, but Jordan had done everything she could to avoid the places she’d recognize her sister’s absence the most.

And that meant Applewood.

Her phone buzzed and she clicked it to speakerphone just as she stopped at one of the town’s two traffic lights. A line of elementary school kids was led across the crosswalk in front of her car by, wouldn’t you know it, Mrs. Altschull, her teacher from back in the day. This was seriously the twilight zone.

“You still alive?” Her best friend George’s voice filled the car. He was in LA for another week or so at the premiere of a film they’d worked on together.

Jordan sighed. “Thus far. But the day is young.”

“Don’t be dramatic. That’s my job. Just wanted to check in on you, stroke your head from afar if that’s what you need.”

“I’ll be fine. I’ll call you when I’m settled and you can tell me about all the fashion catastrophes at the premiere.”

“Will do. Wish you were here.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think the studio shares that sentiment. Plus, I need some time away.”

“I know, sweets. I love you more than Prada. We’ll talk soon.”

“We better. Bye, Georgie.”

It was five minutes later when she took a deep breath and eased her car into the driveway of the Tuscana home. As she looked up at the house she’d spent most of her childhood nestled inside, her heart thrummed nervously in her chest.

Yeah, this was gonna be rough.

Rallying, she reminded herself of all the reasons she’d come. The biggest of which was easy. She missed her family. It was her father’s sixtieth birthday in a few weeks, and her mother had begged her to not let it go by without a visit. Then there was the fact that her own life was radically off-kilter. She’d spent much of the year on location shoots from LA to Austin and hadn’t seen her apartment in Chicago in months. Her love life was a joke. And then there was the fact that the studio had her banned from her own movie set when she’d shown her highly inappropriate lead actor she wasn’t his personal blow up doll.

So here she was, needing to take a few steps back, assess her life, and find a way to put it all back together again. And that meant going back to basics. She had to remind herself of who she was before she could figure out where she was going. Deep down, she knew her family, her old friends, and this town would do that for her…if she could just let them.