Free Wildflowers from Winter by Katie Ganshert Page A

“Somehow, you just do.”
    He looked at her hand, at the spot she touched, his eyelashes dark and wet.
    Bryan reemerged from Micah’s room, Amy at his side, dabbing a tissue beneath her eyes. Bethany jerked her arm away.
    Evan stood and disappeared inside the room. It was the strange desire to follow him, to grab his hand the way Amy held on to her husband’s, that brought her back to her senses. With Evan gone, and Bryan and Amy wrapped in a hug, she swung the strap of her purse over her shoulder and strode to the elevator, urging it open before anybody could catch her escaping.
    The elevator ding ed, and the doors slid apart. She stepped inside and jabbed the button for the ground floor several times. She didn’t exhale until she reached the parking lot. The tension in her shoulders leaked away with every step toward her car. The farther away she got from Peaks, the better.

EIGHT
    B ethany inhaled the scent of Pine-Sol and freshly cleaned carpets and ran her fingertips over the mahogany surface of her desk. After her three-day leave, she returned to work to find a pile of memos, e-mails, and voice mails waiting for her. She plucked a file from her desk and scanned the printouts inside, tapping her pen against the manila folder.
    The memory of Robin’s face poked Bethany’s conscience. She exhaled a deep breath, as if she could expel the memories of the last few days. Grief had wrapped Robin in such a hazy cocoon that she probably hadn’t noticed Bethany’s absence.
    But what about Evan? He accused her of going to Peaks for selfish reasons, and she had done nothing but prove him right. The printouts rattled in her trembling hand. She straightened the corners of the papers crinkled in her grip and slipped them inside a folder. So what if he thought the worst of her? What did she care? They were nothing more than strangers—forced together by coincidence and location and mutual acquaintances. What he thought about her didn’t matter.
    She swiveled toward her computer and clicked on an unopened message from the architectural design department. When the e-mail popped up on her computer screen, she noticed Jeff McKinley’s address cc’d below her own. She squinted at the screen. Why would design include Jeff in an e-mail concerning the River Oaks account? Sure, they sometimes workedtogether since they were the only two architects in the renovation department, but Martin had specifically given this account to her, not Jeff. She skimmed the body of the e-mail, feeling out of the loop. She didn’t like it.
    She stood and rolled her shoulders. She would head down to design right now and crank out a 3-D rendering that would make Martin’s head spin. She exited her work station, strode down the hallway, and turned into the lobby, her heels clicking against the granite tile. Parker Crane’s receptionist sat behind a desk, bathed in a stream of sunlight pouring in from the high-paneled windows. She looked up at the echo of Bethany’s footsteps as she marched toward the double doors leading to design and marketing. The elevator opened and Martin stepped out, carrying his black leather briefcase in one hand and a Starbucks Grande in the other.
    “Bethany,” he said, raising his eyebrows.
    Her chest swelled with pride. Not many employees came back early from vacation. If that’s what she wanted to call her trip to Peaks.
    “You’re back.”
    She pulled herself straighter. “I was eager to get going on the River Oaks project.”
    “This certainly is a surprise.” Martin turned to the receptionist. “Could you page Rhonda for me and tell her Bethany is here?” He gave the top of the desk two firm taps with the bottom of his coffee cup and looked at Bethany. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to speak with you in my office.”
    The 3-D rendering dropped from her radar. She fell in behind him and followed, the clicking of her heels no longer keeping the upbeat tempo they’d found upon entering the lobby.
    Martin held