1
Eight Years Ago
Four suitcases. That was all she needed. Four suitcases to pack up everything she wanted to take with her when she left. At a few months past twenty, that meant she needed one suitcase for every five years she lived in the big family home.
She could’ve taken more. With her parents gone, technically everything they left behind belonged to her and her older brother. Half to Maria, half to Lucas. But that was technically. By right of a will she’d been too young, too carefree to realize they would ever need.
So, yes, she could pack up Mama’s silverware or drag Papa’s well-worn tools behind her as she made her escape, sneaking out like a thief in the night. She could, but she wouldn't. She liked the idea of her parents’ things staying at the house, almost like they would return one day for them.
It wouldn't be right, bringing them with her when she left. They belonged to the house and, now, the house belonged to Lucas.
Leaning over, her long dark hair a curtain, Maria patted the lid of the last suitcase, grabbed the zipper and tugged. The zipper resisted. She yanked. It caught on the hem of the last shirt she had folded and placed on top. A rush of heated Italian, a few very careful wiggles of the zipper, one more really forceful tug.
There. All done.
Maria straightened, backing away from her bed as she cast a careful eye around her room. As she moved, she noticed that the cross she habitually wore around her neck had fallen loose as she struggled with her suitcase. She rubbed the smooth silver, a silent prayer, a soothing gesture, then tucked it back under her blouse.
The furniture would be staying, too. When she finally found a place of her own, she would take the time, the energy to furnish it by herself. Until then, Caroline had offered her a room in her mother’s inn until she could either buy one of the few vacant properties in Hamlet or have one built.
Bonnie Mitchell’s inn was the only available boarding in their small town. Anyone who wanted to get away without actually leaving Hamlet had stayed over in her inn at least once. Maria still had her key card from the last time she had—a party with some of the other kids in her high school class—and she made sure to tuck that in her pocket as she packed. No point in Caro wasting another one on her.
Maria’s quick scan revealed she’d packed everything she would be taking with her. There was nothing left for her to do after that. Lingering would be pointless. It wasn’t like she would never come back to her former home. It’s just that, when she did, it would belong to Lucas and Caitlin.
Her radio was waiting for her on her old nightstand. Maria didn’t have a car because there was no need for one. She never left Hamlet by herself and, on the rare occasions she went out of town, Lucas brought her in his car. But since it would be a pain to lug four suitcases behind her all the way towards the gulleyside where the Hamlet Inn was, Caro promised that she’d have her boyfriend, Roy, pick Maria up when she was ready.
Reaching for the radio, she—
A door slammed.
Maria muttered a curse under her breath. If that was Lucas—and who else would it be?—he was early. What sort of man came home from his honeymoon early?
Then again, what sort of man chose to marry a woman that he wasn’t in love with?
She could never understand what made him do it. Four years older than Maria, Lucas was only twenty-four. He was still doing his residency, traveling more than an hour each way to the closest county hospital. Sure, he'd been with Caitlin since they were teens but, as she often marveled to herself, she wasn't even sure her brother actually liked her.
No matter her suspicions, they were married now and Lucas was the first born, the son. The heir. The house was his, for him and the family he would make with Caitlin. She understood it, even if she didn’t like it.
Casting one final look around her room, Maria patted her cross through her thin blouse and sighed mournfully before turning to meet Lucas in the foyer. She wasn’t fast enough, though. He must have known where to find here because, two steps away from her door, he appeared in the hallway, right in front of her.
She moved so that she was blocking the entrance to her room with her body. Lucas was tall and lean, but she’d caught up in height to him when she was in her teens. There was a barely an inch separating them when she wore shoes. In her bare feet, he just managed to top her. If she didn’t want him to see past her, he wouldn’t.
And she didn’t want him to see the suitcases yet. She’d hoped to be gone before he got back. Knowing her brother as she did, Maria knew he wasn’t going to make this easy on either of them.
Oh, well. Fingers crossed.
“Lucas, sta—”
“Ah.” He shook his head, a stern gleam turning his icy blue eyes dark. “Try again?”
Maria nodded. English. “Right.”
Papa often spoke in Italian when he was frustrated. Mama’s soft lilt was home for Maria. But Lucas… he worked hard on erasing his accent. It disappeared year after year while Maria clung tightly to hers. In the time since their parents’ deaths, she could count the number of times he lapsed into the language on one hand.
She also lost track of how often he scolded her, reminding her to switch back to English.