Chapter 1
EMBER
The sign was still crooked.
“Welcome to Chestnut Ridge – Where Roots Run Deep.”
The same faded green wood. The same cracked paint. The same dent from where Cade Hudson had slammed into it with his truck senior year and blamed the fog. That lie had held for about fifteen minutes until someone found his flask under the seat.
I pulled over anyway. Maybe because my hands were shaking. Maybe because my pulse had been tap dancing in my throat since I passed the county line. Or maybe because five years of city noise had left me craving the stillness only a small town could offer, no matter how much pain lived here, too.
I rolled down the window and breathed in the cool mountain air. Pine. Rain. And memory.
God help me.
Chestnut Ridge hadn’t changed. Not really. Same winding roads, same rusted mailbox clusters. Same nosy curtains twitching when a car that didn’t belong rolled past. But I did belong. Even if I hadn’t in years. Even if my return would light up the local gossip like the Fourth of July.
They’d say, “Look who came crawling back.”
They always said things like that.
But I wasn’t crawling. I’d walked away. On purpose. And now, I’d driven back with a job burned to ashes, a heart stitched together with duct tape, and a future I hadn’t planned for. Not that they’d care why I left. Or why I was home again.
But he might.
I shut off the engine. My knuckles stayed white on the steering wheel.
Cade.
I hadn’t let myself say his name aloud since I left for New York. I’d tucked it away in the same drawer as prom photos, homemade mixtapes, and half-scribbled love letters. Things that used to matter. Things that once built the version of me that believed in forever.
Until forever ended in a screaming match in the high school parking lot.
I’d broken his heart. No, shattered it. Just like he’d broken mine when he told me he could never leave this town. We were seventeen and full of dreams, and neither of us wanted to be the one to compromise. So we didn’t.
He stayed.
I left.
End of story.
Except… it wasn’t.
Chestnut Ridge still haunted my sleep. His voice still lived in the spaces between my regrets. And now, five years later, I was home. For how long? I didn’t know. Long enough to get my footing. Long enough to clear my mom’s house, figure out the next step, and keep Cade Hudson in the past where he belonged.
Only, nothing in this town ever stayed buried.
The house was exactly how I’d left it, give or take the dust and weeds. The porch sagged in one corner, and the yellow paint had faded into something closer to beige. But the rocking chair was still there. So was the hummingbird feeder. So were the wind chimes my mom insisted were “for balance.”
I should’ve felt comfort. I felt haunted.
It had been Mom’s house. She passed last spring, and I couldn’t bring myself to come back for the funeral. I’d sent flowers. I’d paid for the headstone. But grief? Grief I kept in my chest like a brick, hard, immovable, and getting heavier by the day.
I dropped my bag just inside the door and stared at the quiet living room. I didn’t cry. That part of me had dried up months ago. When the layoffs hit. When the rent rose. When I realized the life I’d built was barely standing, and the people I thought were in my corner… weren’t.
Funny how rock bottom brings you right back to where it all began.
By nightfall, I was curled up in my old bedroom with a whiskey in hand and a playlist of sad country songs I hadn’t touched since I was nineteen. I told myself it was temporary. That this was just a pit stop. That once I found something, anything, I’d be gone again.
That’s when the knock came.
Three soft taps.
I froze. No one knocked like that except—
No. It couldn’t be.
I padded to the front door barefoot, heart pounding like I’d just run five miles in heels.
I opened it. And there he was.
Cade Hudson.
Worn jeans. Calloused hands. That same strong jaw and those familiar storm-colored eyes. The kind that could burn and soothe in a single glance. He hadn’t changed, except he had. He was broader now. More carved. And his smile when it finally came was slower, heavier. Like the years had taught him to measure it carefully.
“Hey, Ember,” he said, voice low and rough like whiskey at midnight. “Didn’t think I’d see you standing on this porch again.”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. His name scraped my throat like a forgotten prayer.
“Word travels fast,” I managed.
“In Chestnut Ridge? It travels faster than wildfire.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Saw your mom’s light was on. Thought it might be you.”
“She’s… gone,” I said, stupidly. “Since April.”
“I know.” His eyes softened. “I’m sorry. I should’ve called, but—”
“We weren’t exactly on talking terms.”
“No,” he said. “We weren’t.”
Silence thickened between us. Familiar. Heavy. Laced with everything we never said.
“You look good,” he added, after a pause. “Different. But good.”
I scoffed, crossing my arms. “Translation: I’m not seventeen anymore.”
“No,” he said, stepping closer. “You’re not. But I’d know you anywhere.”
My breath caught.
Cade…
It wasn’t fair, the way his voice could still turn my bones to water. The way his presence filled the porch was like gravity. He was supposed to be my past. A memory. Not… this.
“I’m just here for a bit,” I said quickly. “Sorting things out.”
“You always were good at sorting,” he replied, gaze locking with mine. “Not so good at staying.”
That one hit.
I looked away, heart stinging.
“I’ll see you around, Ember,” he said, and turned to leave. But before he hit the steps, he paused and looked back.
“One more thing,” he added. “That last night… you thought you knew why I stayed. But you never let me explain. Maybe it’s time you did.”
Then he disappeared into the night.
I closed the door and leaned against it, heart thundering.
That man was still wildfire.
And I was still stupid enough to play with matches.
