The house behind her sat on a low hill outside Pine Hollow, Montana, broad and warm-looking from the road, with cedar siding and lights glowing gold through the windows. It was the kind of house that promised comfort to strangers and judgment to family. Savannah stood by the car for a long moment with the driver’s door open, one hand frozen around her keys, the other pressed flat against the edge of the roof, as if she needed to steady herself against something larger than grief.
Her mother-in-law, Judith Mercer, stood on the porch in a burgundy coat, arms folded so tightly that she looked carved from wood. Beside her was Charles Mercer, her father-in-law, his face set in the grim, silent expression he used whenever he wanted to let Judith do the cruelty for him. And behind the lace curtain in the front window, Savannah caught one last glimpse of her husband, Trevor.
He didn’t step outside.
He didn’t call after her.
He didn’t even meet her eyes.
That was the worst part.
Not the shouting. Not the accusations. Not the way Judith had told her, in a calm voice sharpened by contempt, that she had “contributed nothing but chaos” to their family. Not even the humiliating fact that Savannah, twenty-nine years old and married for four years, had spent the last six months living under her in-laws’ roof after Trevor’s construction business failed and the bank repossessed their home.
