Shadowlands (Shadowlands 1)

“I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” I backtracked.

“Nah, it’s just…for the last few years I wasn’t exactly the best daughter. And then one day I up and left,” Olive said, lifting her shoulders. “I’m better now…I mean, I got myself better, but I know I really hurt my mom. I did things…” She sighed ruefully and shook her head. “Well, anyway, I have to apologize to her, to find a way to make it up to her, I just…don’t know how.”

“I’m so sorry,” I told her, not knowing what else to say.

I was no good at this kind of thing. I’d never really had any close friendships, unless Darcy counted, and even that felt like a million years ago. Olive looked around and up at the sky, and I saw that there were tears in her eyes. I swallowed hard, hating how stupid and useless I felt.

“What about you?” she asked. “Do you want to talk about what’s going on with your family?”

I felt breathless and hot, wishing I could tell her, wishing I could just blurt out the whole insane story. I had a feeling it would make us both feel better, her knowing she wasn’t the only one with a depressing past, me because venting it all would be so freeing. But I couldn’t. I had to keep it all bottled up inside. Maybe that was why I was having nightmares. Because I had no one to talk to about things. No release.

That was just one more thing Steven Nell had taken from me.

“I can’t,” I said finally. “It’s too…complicated.”

“I get it,” Olive said. “No one knows all the gory details of my life, either. Well, except Tristan.” She blushed and looked down at her feet. So Olive liked Tristan. Of course she did. I thought back to that first night on the beach when they’d been so wrapped up in conversation. The familiar way they’d talked with each other at the bar and how she’d kept glancing up at him when he wasn’t looking. I felt a flash of jealousy before I remembered that I didn’t want Tristan. I wanted Christopher. I just wished he wasn’t hundreds of miles away. And my sister’s ex.

“But if you ever do want to talk, I’m a fantastic listener,” Olive added, nudging me with her shoulder.

I nudged her back. “I believe that.” I stood up. “Want to head back to town?”

“Sure. But we’re walking, FYI, because I think my legs might revolt if I try for anything faster.”

“No problem,” I replied with a laugh.

Before we headed toward the street, I turned around to look at the blue house once more. There was something almost foreboding about it, even in its cheerful beauty. It sat up there like some kind of fortress or castle, lording its immense presence over the rest of the quaint town.

“Gorgeous, isn’t it?” Olive said, glancing over her shoulder as we strolled downhill. “You should see the inside.”

“You’ve been inside?” I said. “Who lives there?”

Her eyebrows came together, and she looked at me as if I’d just asked her how to spell the. “That’s Tristan and Krista’s house. Their mom’s the mayor.”

I stopped in my tracks and stared at her, feeling like someone had just yanked the asphalt out from under me.

“Wait. Tristan lives there? I thought he lived in the house across the street from me,” I said.

“Um, no,” she said. “The prince of Juniper Landing lives up here in the castle with the princess and the queen, just as it should be,” she said, lifting her nose in the air comically. “Not that they act like a prince and princess. They’re just sort of treated that way.”

“I would have thought that Joaquin was the prince of this place,” I said vaguely.

“Really? I see him as more of a rogue knight,” Olive replied.

I supposed everything was perception, and if she liked Tristan, maybe she perceived him as the leader of the pack. But I had yet to see him order anyone around like Joaquin had with Fisher. Tristan seemed more refined. More modest. More comfortable in the shadows.

More like me.

“Interesting,” I said, mostly to say something.

I turned and narrowed my eyes

at the house, and my heart caught in my throat. Someone was standing on the porch, shaded by the wide overhang, staring down at me.

“Oh my god,” I said, angling myself away from the lurker and talking through clenched teeth. I grabbed Olive’s arm. “Someone up there is watching us.”

Olive followed my gaze. “Where?” she said, her brows furrowing in confusion.

“Right there.” Emboldened by her blatant move, I turned back around as well, but then froze. The porch was deserted. Whoever had been there, watching us, had vanished.