Chapter One
Exactly one minute ago, Kate Robinson had been speeding merrily toward town; one curve in the rutted road later, she was stuck in the mud with her wheels spinning uselessly.
And if that wasn’t a perfect metaphor for her entire life, she didn’t know what was.
She was supposed to be in Los Angeles right now, winning over juries and having brunch with friends—not fetching fertilizer for her grandmother’s peony farm in tiny Lost Harbor, Alaska.
Movement at the side of the road caught her attention. A porcupine trundled toward the trees, half its quills raised in defense mode. She must have startled it with her muddy disaster.
With a sigh, she pressed the accelerator again, just in case something had changed in the past ten seconds. Whir. Spin.
Nope. If anything, the car had s
